Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

Muslims and Islamophobia

09 Aug 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

Is Global Islamophobia to Blame for the Oslo Massacres?

By George Morgan 8 August 2011 Anders Behring Breivik is in solitary confinement having admitted to the Oslo massacres of July 22 in which at least 77 people died. Most of the victims were members of the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party, a Party with a history of support for multiculturalism and religious tolerance. Breivik allegedly believed he was part of a violent crusade against Islam; a shock troop in what Samuel Huntington has called the ‘clash of civilisations’. His lawyer has stated that he is probably insane a conjecture supported by some columnists and accredited experts on the psychology of mass murder. Such a characterisation is glib and strangely reassuring. How can anyone capable of such atrocities be anything but insane? Whether or not this diagnosis is confirmed through legal process, it is important to recognise that it allows us to evade some complicated questions. If Breivik is a deranged monster, one who has lost all sense of moral proportion or attachment to reality, then there is less need to understand his acts in the context of the rise of new racial politics in the contemporary West. http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamMuslimsAndIslamophobia_1.aspx?ArticleID=5213