In my FrontPage article "Random House and the Islamic War against Free Speech" on August 22, I said this:
Although when Random House canceled publication of Sherry Jones’ trashy novel about Muhammad’s nine-year-old wife, Aisha, it was succumbing not to actual threats but to the sheer prospect of threats, no one has accused the venerable publisher of “Islamophobia.”
I didn't know at that time that in "The Real Islamophobes," on August 20, Chuck Hustmyre elaborated on exactly that point:
So where is CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which cries "ISLAMOPHOBIA" at every turn? Isn't Random House's decision to bow to perceived threats and not publish the book true Islamophobia? Doesn't its decision further the stereotype that Islam is a religion of violence?
Well played, Chuck!
"Doesn't its decision further the stereotype that Islam is a religion of violence?"
What stereotype? That's the reality.
Chuck's entire article is right-on. I esp. like this paragraph:
"So Random House, publisher of the paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code, which millions, perhaps tens of millions, of Christians found very offensive, caved in to pressure from a handful of Islamic scholars who read advance copies of the novel."
Christians won't kill you, Muslims will. And therein lies the reason Random House caved.
Islamophobia is exactly that: Irrational fear installed by Islam (and its adherents), designed to make you refrain from standing up for your country and your culture.
Random House deserves the 'Islamophobe' label.
So, like, now do we need a word for the phobia of being called an Islamophobe?
A phobia is supposed to be an irrational fear of something, I do not think that Random Houses reasonings are entirely irrational.
Freedom of speech and the confidence to speak freely is a wonderful thing, it was hard earned and should not be thrown away easily by comfortable men who may not understand its preciousness.
For as others have written, once we get to the point where threats of violence seem to work for Mahometans, others will notice and violence will replace reason or balloting, or negotiation, or an independant judiciary.
Is this the same Random House that not so long ago published the 50th Anniversary Edition in the USA and Canada of Ray Bradbury's classic on censorship, "Fahrenheit 451" ?
THAT Random House?
Nah, couldn't be.