Is Racism Towards Muslims Possible?

Racism is always evolving with the times. The racists learn what views and expressions are no longer tolerated. Denouncing somebody for their skin color or nationality is no longer tolerated.

When I grew up in the 80 in Norway racial slurs was typically related to skin color or country of origin such as Pakistan. There was a Norwegian equivalent to “Paki”. Yet such language has largely gone out of fashion with the racists. Today the label muslim is used.

When racists are told they are being racist they can simply counter that “Oh I am just critical of the religion Islam.” However is that a valid excuse?

What the far-right has learned to do is to piggy-back on a longer leftist tradition of criticizing the religion of Islam. It is not as visible today but for those of us who where around in the late 80s we remember very well the publication of The Satanic Verses by British-Indian author Salman Rushdie. He received death threats all over the world.

Salman Rushdie himself is no muslim hater. He is a leftist who has been fighting against racism and “The Satanic Verses” isn’t even particularly critical of islam.

The outcome of this however upset and affected the whole west. In my native Norway, which is a quite peaceful place we experienced that a well known publisher William Nygaard, which was attempted assassinated, because he had published the book in Norway. Fortunately he survived.