Infantilizing Islam
8th March 2023
Islam has been reduced to one of the identities that constitute a ‘hierarchy of victimhood.’ Joined with race, sexuality, and gender, it has been forced into a ‘woke’ framework wherein any community or group that stands outside the West’s traditional boundaries is structurally disadvantaged. The Leftist activists who preach this narrative have been joined in an uneasy alliance by Islamic fundamentalists, bonded with one another by a deep hatred for the Western world. Both regularly decry any critique of Islam as pure acts of bigoted ‘Islamophobia,’ proof positive of the West’s supremacist posture. This is characterized as an attempt to protect a beleaguered religion from malicious discrimination. However, the push to classify Islam as pure ‘victim’ essentially strips it of its civilizational tradition—one which has allowed for challenge, disagreement, and dialogue—infantilizing it to indulge in a resentful rejection of the West.