We all know claustrophobia is a fear of closed spaces. Agoraphobia, its opposite, is a fear of open, bustling spaces. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, was even the title of a 1990 horror film. Actress Nicole Kidman suffers from lepidopterophobia – no, not a fear of Yair Lapid – a fear of butterflies. People suffering from omphalophobia fear the sight of their own belly buttons; and perhaps the nuttiest, anatidaephobia, is the feeling that you are being watched by a duck or a goose. Apparently, this is a real thing.
The common thread here is one of irrational fear, existing only in the heads of those afflicted with no bearing on reality. We all know, even those who have these phobias, that belly buttons aren't dangerous, closed spaces aren't forever, and evil ducks aren't tracking your every move.
On the other hand – Islamophobia is not a mental disorder; it's an invented political-social term, armchair psychology, which appropriates the term "phobia" from real psychology to avoid coping with differing views while painting them in a ridiculous light. It is a word whose purpose is to silence the voice of anyone who opposes imperious, violent and dangerous Muslim immigration, the kind taking place in Europe. And, it must be said, it has been quite successful at achieving this purpose. The dissenters don't have a rational, reasoned viewpoint; heavens no. They have a crippling, uncontrollable, irrational phobia.
It's possible, for example, to write a comedy sketch about a person afflicted with "leftistitis" or to use this word in an opinion piece mocking the Left. But it would be very strange if the word was added to the dictionary or received a Wikipedia page, not to mention appear in serious political discourse. "What you're saying stems from leftistitis." How convenient; precisely like "Islamophobia."
Why not call a soldier who fears an approaching enemy army an "armophobe" – and paint him as some sort of nutcase afflicted with a fear of armies? He doesn't have a rational reason to shoot; he suffers from a phobia. And the more he shouts "But look, they're getting closer!" the more anti-anxiety pills will be shoved down his throat.
These terms are part of a trend of political correctness diluting our vocabulary to toddler level. It's all racism; everything is rooted in Islamophobia; it's pure fascism. You're disgusting, you're deplorable. There's no hierarchy to degrees of evil. A slave trader in the 1800s is on the same level as someone who tells a spontaneous joke about Arabs – both are racists. The person who gave Netta Barzilai a measly three points in the Eurovision song contest is the same as Hitler; both are anti-Semitic Nazis. It's just that in the context of the Eurovision contest, the term "anti-Semitic" is usually said in jest; but if someone doesn't cheer Oprah Winfrey with the appropriate amount of vigor they are seriously accused of racism.
Honestly, it seems liberals are the ones who actually view anyone with a healthy tan as inferior and in need of reparations from lighter-skinned people. But this is a different issue.
Different words are used to describe different phenomena for good reason. It isn't intellectually serious to put everyone in one box and throw it off a cliff. Racism is a worldview that regards people in terms of their race or ethnicity, and for the most part as inherently inferior. Hostility or prejudices are something else.
Objection to Muslim infiltration of Europe doesn't stem from a worldview that Muslims are a slave race. It is derived from recurring phenomena that comprise a daily reality. We read about them and encounter them in the street. Call it a generalization if you want, but not racism and not a phobia. It's safe to assume that even in the hallways of London's World War II-era absorption centers, the words "bloody Germans" were muttered in typically reserved British fashion. Racists! Germanophobes the lot of them!
Butterflies or belly buttons aren't blowing themselves up in trains. No duck is threatening to turn everyone else into ducks, impose "Quackriah" law or subjugate the Temple Mount to a hostile "Qwakf." Muslims, however, are doing all these things and worse. Not all Muslims, of course. This is true. Not even most of them. But there are enough who do these things and many more who tacitly support them to reasonably link the aforementioned phenomena to mass Muslim immigration. This is not "Islamaphobia."
