Learning the Leftist Art of Emotional blackmail

If there is any obvious “social construct” which appears so obvious and visible, it is the construction and inflation of a handful of events into a myth which is politically useful to the left. Essayist and Guardian contributer Kenan Malik doesn’t even buy it.

From Malik’s essay The Islamophobia Myth:

«Exaggerating anti-Muslim prejudice is also useful for mainstream politicians, and especially for a government that has faced such a political battering over the war on Iraq and its anti-terror laws. Being sensitive to Islamophobia allows them to reclaim some of the moral high ground. It also allows Labour politicians to pitch for the Muslim vote. Muslims may feel 'betrayed' by the war on Iraq, trade minister Mike O'Brien wrote recently in The Muslim Weekly. But 'the Labour government are trying to deliver an agenda that has shown consideration and respect for Muslims.' According to O'Brien 'Iqbal Sacranie, the General Secretary of the Muslim Council, asked Tony Blair to declare that the Government would introduce a new law banning religious discrimination. Two weeks later, in the middle of his speech to the Labour Party Conference, Tony Blair promised that the next Labour Government would ban religious discrimination.»

«Pretending that Muslims have never had it so bad might bolster community leaders and gain votes for politicians, but it does the rest of us, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, no favours at all. The more that the threat of Islamophobia is exaggerated, the more that ordinary Muslims come to accept that theirs is a community under constant attack. It helps create a siege mentality, stoking up anger and resentment, and making Muslim communities more inward looking and more open to religious extremism.»

Can you picture then in Number 10 saying "hm, okay. Yeah whatever." What if, after all, it really WAS something bad, and they simply dealt with it with the same enthusiasm...

There are several risks. The greatest of which is society fooling itself. The second greatest is that we are all lulled into a state of mental mush where any uninvestigated complain becomes an elaborate and expensive exercise in forced contrition. Lower on that scale is knowing that it’s all a play of symbolism and ritual but going along with it anyway.
The entire exercise makes a mockery of real social and racial problems, and can only end up inuring the public into finding ANY social measure suspicious. I hope they’re proud – they’re ruining the reputation of hundreds of millions worldwide by giving them an “accredited victim” status.

Sacrani, by the way means “drunkard” in Arabic. Is it bigotted to snicker every time I hear his name?