page_title: Islamophobia in the media
section_title: Pushback
hierarchical_section_title: Islamophobia in the media / Pushback
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Incendie des locaux de Charlie Hebdo (62 boulevard Davout, Paris) le mercredi 2 novembre 2011. Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) répond aux journalistes. English: Firebombing of Charlie Hebdo offices, 2 November 2011. Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) answers the journalists' questions.
context_page_description: Islamophobia in the media refers to the occurrence or perception that media outlets tend to cover Muslims or Islam-related topics in a negative light. Islamophobia is defined as "Intense dislike or fear of Islam, esp. as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims".
context_section_description: Two days after completing his short book: Lettre aux escrocs de l'islamophobie qui font le jeu des racistes (Letter to the Islamophobia Frauds Who Play into the Hands of Racists), Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, editor of Charlie Hebdo, was dead. Charb and 11 others were murdered on January 7, 2015 by Chérif and Said Kouachi in their attack on the Parisian office of the satirical magazine.
  During his time as editor, Charlie Hebdo aimed its satire at Catholicism, Judaism and radical Islam in equal measure. In his final, posthumous missive, Charb rejects all accusations that he ran a "racist" or "Islamophobic" magazine. "He argues—from a left-wing, anti-racist, militantly secular viewpoint—that the word "Islamophobia" is a trap, set by an unholy alliance of Muslim radicals and the unthinking, liberal Western media. The real issue, he says, is racism and Charlie Hebdo was never racist..."
  Really, the word "Islamophobia" is badly chosen if it's supposed to described the hatred which some lame-brains have for Muslims. And it is not only badly chosen, it is dangerous. From a purely etymological viewpoint, Islamophobia ought to mean "fear of Islam"—yet the inventors, promoters and users of this word deploy it to denounce hatred of Muslims. But isn't it odd that "Muslimophobia," or just "racism," isn't used instead of "Islamophobia."
  ...
  Racist language—which pressure groups, politicians and intellectuals had managed to corral in the space between the mouth of the xenophobe and his kitchen door—has escaped into the street. It flows through the media and sullies the networks of social media.
  So, yes, we are in the middle of an explosion of racist behavior—yet the word "racism" is used only timidly, and is on the way to being supplanted by "Islamophobia." And the campaigners for multiculturalism, who try to foist the notion of "Islamophobia" on the judicial and political authorities, have only one aim in mind: to force the victims of racism into identifying themselves as Muslims.
  The fact that racists are also Islamophobic is, I'm afraid, irrelevant. They are, first and foremost, racists. By attacking Islam, they are targeting foreigners or people of foreign origin. But by focusing only on their Islamophobia, we are minimizing the danger of racism. The anti-racist campaigners of old are in danger of becoming overspecialized niche retailers in a minority form of discrimination.
  ...
  However, why do the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, who know that their drawings will be exploited by the media, by the retailers of anti-Islamophobia, by far-right Muslims and nationalists, insist on drawing Mohamed and other "sacred" symbols of Islam? Simply because the Charlie Hebdo drawings do not have the vast majority of Muslims as their target. We believe that Muslims are capable of recognising a tongue-in-cheek.
caption: Charb on November 2, 2011
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