Phobia

A sad aspect of history is when there are no longer any innocent people. If it is true that an imam in Queens, New York, was shot in the head at close range merely because he was a Muslim or in Middle Eastern dress, then he was seen as someone implicated in crime, even cruelty, in another place, in another time, carried out in the name of Islam. Maulana Akonjee was an imam, a gentle man, but the man who shot him decided he was part of a political force of evil people. The label was fixed. Revenge could be wreaked upon him.

These days, people talk about the spread of 'Islamophobia' in Europe and America. The word 'phobia'as in 'communist phobia', 'xenophobia' and various other negative rejectionsis not entirely right. What is going on is not just symptomatic of social psychology. It is perhaps more like the echo of a long history of political conflict, involving people at large, when the flag of religion is furled in conviction and hate.