Whos Afraid of Islam?
The Runnymede Trust, a British think-tank on race relations, recently published a report that called for a special law that would make “Islamophobia” a criminal offense. Islamophobia is defined as “dread or hatred of Islam and Muslims.” Runnymede’s Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia includes among its members the Bishop of London and Philip Lewis, the Bishop of Bradford’s adviser on inter-faith relations. The Runnymede Report denounces several British intellectuals and journalists as ‘Islamophobes’. Among these was Fay Weldon, a leading British author and feminist, who wrote a passionate and very courageous defense of Rushdie after the infamous fatwa descended on her friend. Weldon described the Koran as “food for no thought.” The Koran is, she wrote, “not a poem on which society can be safely or sensibly based. It gives weapons and strength to the thought police.” Weldon made it clear to the Runnymede Trust that she was “tired of being described as an Islamophobe, and guil
