Nov. 15, 2017
After two months of hearings into Motion M-103, every single witness who commented on the subject agreed that it is wrong to discriminate against Muslims, to engage in violence against Muslims, and to engage in speech that is intended to produce discrimination or violence against Muslims.
But there was anything other than a consensus on the utility of the word ‘Islamophobia’—or even whether the term means what I’ve just described above. Going through the testimony, I located twenty-six different definitions. Some witnesses proposed a single definition, and others proposed two or three. None of the terms defines the concept of “discrimination or violence against Muslims, or advocacy of discrimination and violence” better than just spelling it out.