RNW: Is the current criticism of Islam comparable to anti-Semitism in the 1930s?

RNW: Is the current criticism of Islam comparable to anti-Semitism in the 1930s?
Is the current criticism of Islam comparable to anti-Semitism in the 1930s?
Transmission date: Sunday 14 May 2006

Andy Clark

05-05-2006

Can the present anti-Islam rhetoric really be compared to European and especially German anti-Semitism in the 1930s?Muslim human rights activist Abdullahi An-Na’im thinks the current anti-Islam rhetoric in the Netherlands – repeated worldwide by its leading proponents – is indeed similar to the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the 1930s.

Professor an-Na’im made his comments in a speech at Utrecht University during a commemoration day ceremony for the Second World War.

He says anti-Semitism in those days had its unique characteristics, which can never be repeated.

But, he argues, that does not deny the existence of a basic similarity, the similarity being the definition of the one community as essentially different from – and superior to – others.

“The principle is to first reduce a people to a stereotype and then say that therefore they are bad people. In that way, defining superior Dutchness as opposed to Islam is in fact comparable to anti-Semitism,” he said.

Professor an-Na’im says he fled the tyranny of Sudanese Islamists, but now he sees the same type of thinking in the anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric in Europe. Ironically, he says, the critics in Europe of Islam and the fundamentalists themselves both advocate the same claim – that human rights are incompatible with Islam.

What do you think? Is there a witch-hunt against Islam comparable to 1930s anti-Semitism?

The panellists:

Professor Abdullahi an-Na’im is an internationally known Muslim reformer and human rights activist. Originally a law professor at Khartoum University, he fled Sudan after his mentor and friend, the Sudanese Muslim reformer Mahmoud Taha, was executed as a heretic in 1985. At present, professor an-Na’im is a guest lecturer at Utrecht University.

“The Dutch people have to be on their guard not to turn the Netherlands into a Dutch fortress,” he said.