to call my husband a racist?

[RosieandJim89]

We are looking at holidays at the moment and despite DH saying just a month ago that Spain was predictable and a dirty, he now won't consider anywhere else as its "safe". I suggested a few other places such as Turkey and he said no as he will get arrested for touching me . He will not listen to reason and then came out with "I won't go to a muslim country". I asked what he meant by this and he said they are all like Egypt - dirty and dangerous (his experience) and he doesn't agree with their way of life. He also brought up the shooting on the beach in Turkey to which I pointed out the incident in Paris, London Bombings, 9-11 etc. He said they were different. I could get passed it if it was a one off but when I suggested Morocco earlier in the week he came out with "I am not comfortable with taking DD to a muslim country" and another time he said he was "Wary of muslims".
I have always known that he didn't like the muslim culture which I understand as it is very different to our own but this is something else.
I got frustrated after a while and told him that I do not intend to holiday in Spain alone the rest of my life and that I did not want to discuss the matter further as realising my husband was racist was something that was not easy to take. He says he isn't but I think this conversation suggests otherwise. Happy to be told IABU or overreacting on this but I don't think I am :(

He is a racist.

If he had said he was 'wary of Jews', he would have rightly been called an anti-Semite.

purit You do know that Islam is a religion, not a race, don't you?confused You can't be racist about religion.

You do know Muslims are identifiable by certain symbols, don't you? Such as women wearing hijab, men with longer beards? Often they also have brown skin. All of this makes them targets for racism.

Billsykes But would you also say that Chinese culture and human rights abuse are linked in the same way that Islamic culture and abuse apparently are?

Similarly would you link Hinduism to human rights abuses given that 80% of the population of India is Hindu?

Yes I would. China has never been a democracy, it has a long history of totalitarian regimes and despotic rulers and a total lack of freedom of thought and expression and a lack of respect for individual freedom and rights.

In India is a secular state. So no, I wouldn't link it to Hinduism in the same way. More to corruption and power struggles.

China has never been a democracy, it has a long history of totalitarian regimes and despotic rulers and a total lack of freedom of thought and expression and a lack of respect for individual freedom and rights.

But if that's your criterion then until about the first part of the twentieth century you could have said English culture is inextricably linked with human rights abuse (what with there being no universal suffrage til that point, and plenty of egregious hr abuses being committed by English imperial rule around the world). It doesn't make sense to me to look at any random aspect of English culture from history and say, yep, that culture is inextricably linked to HR abuse. That's not to minimise abuses committed by the English. It's to say that the fact that hr abuses are committed by a particular nation doesn't taint every aspect of their culture or mean that some core component of the culture is linked with abuse.

Haha, I'm not sure Narendra Modi has got the memo about India being a secular state.

Actually, yes, I think that during the British Empire British culture was very, very infused with a culture which justified and perpetuated human rights abuses both around the world and at home. Fortunately that has very much changed and we now have and extremely strong human rights record.

But I can't go on holiday to 17th-20th century Britain or boycott their goods so it's a bit irrelevant to the discussion really isn't it?

you could have said English culture is inextricably linked with human rights abuse

You certainly could.

And somebody saying "but there are lots of other countries that have colluded in extra judicial murders of their citizens, so it can have nothing to do with English culture" would not be very persuasive.

It is bizarre to claim that neither culture nor religion can have any causal connection to how a country treats its citizens.

That's not to minimise abuses committed by the English. It's to say that the fact that hr abuses are committed by a particular nation doesn't taint every aspect of their culture or mean that some core component of the culture is linked with abuse.

Well yes it does actually. Be it a belief that someone of a particular colour doesn't have full human rights and can be used as a slave, or be it that people are not free to believe anything other than the religion proscribes, or be it that women don't enjoy full rights; yes, that bloody does taint every aspect of their culture. The fact that some dominant groups benefit from this: whites, Muslims, men doesn't mean that they are not 'tainted' by it. They are, they're tainted by their benefit. Abuses don't just taint victims, they taint the oppressor too.

They are, they're tainted by their benefit

Yes. Nicely put.

But you must see that there are aspects of English culture which continue from earlier times and so if (let's say for the sake of argument) hr abuse does not persist then it can't be that English culture, per se, led to abuse. It was some aspect of the English culture of the time, which was clearly not intrinsic to English culture as a whole.

Billsykes really? Jane Austen is tainted by the actions of contemporary English people in the Caribbean. Something in Jane Austen's books is fundamentally connected to why English people in the early nineteenth century felt they could swan off around the world conquering places, and if you enjoy the former you're endorsing the latter? It must be hard to find anything you don't consider "tainted"...

I wouldn't visit any majority Muslim country as I wouldn't feel safe/ equal as a woman.

That doesn't mean non Muslim countries are perfect of course. I wouldn't visit lots of places, for lots of reasons.

well played, nobility.

I wonder how a Malaysian doctor female reading this would feel.
Or how a Pakistani male businessman would feel.
I wonder how a Turkish lawyer would feel.
Anyway. Bigots will be bigots.

nobility, it's incredibly naive to think that human rights abuses in Islamic countries are nothing to do with the Islamic regime. When they're literally spelt out in the laws of that regime.

Acknowledging this, and avoiding travel to those countries because of it, is not the same as saying "All Muslims are dangerous/abusive/misogynistic". In my experience, most ordinary people who subscribe to a particular religion tend to ignore the bits that don't chime with their own values. Because most people are fundamentally decent at heart. Zealots of any religion can be dangerous, because most (all?) religions do contain really questionable elements. I wouldn't choose to holiday in a Christian theocracy either.

Well, yes nobility, now that you mention it Jane Austen does very much touch on slavery and one of her characters (Henry Crawford) has built a huge new estate from the proceeds of slavery. Plus all those mentions of Mr Darcy's £20,000 a year probably didn't come from ethical investment in communal yurt knitting businesses now did it?

But more importantly that is fiction. None of it actually happened. In reality, if these people had existed, then yes, their existence would have been very much tainted by slavery. They would have been buying cheap consumer goods, drinking tea and eating sugar produced by slaves. Living on big estates with bulging wallets financed by slavery and violence.

So if I did happen to live in 18th century England I wouldn't be rushing out to buy any tea or sugar any time soon knowing the dreadful circumstances that lay behind their production. I wouldn't be dashing to willingly do anything which supported the British Empire explicitly or tacitly by buying their products and therefore paying the taxes which perpetuated those abuses.

But I don't. I live in the 21st century globalised world and what I can do is not go on holiday to places with terrible human rights records. And that basically means all Muslim countries along with some others like Uganda, China etc.

I think he has just worded it badly. I'm pretty sure, as like so many other people, myself included, he is perhaps just being wary about going to countries that have been recently seen as less safe to travel to because of the Isis situation.

I'm not sure I would want to travel to countries where the country in general, has little respect for human rights and that treats women unequally to men. That is perhaps more what your DH is meaning.....although he could have explained it better.

Sorry. I've just realised that someone has just used Jane Austen as a reason to negate the crime of slavery and the responsibility of the British for that crime.

Oh so that's okay then! Millions of people died but a lady wrote a few rather good satirical novels so we can all ignore the rest!

I'm on the fence here.

I am about to take my 16 yo DD on holiday this summer, just the two of us, and I have ruled out Muslim countries.
I have visited Turkey, Morocco and some other Muslim countries further afield several times.

The unwanted male attention makes me very uncomfortable, in Turkey I have been propositioned many times, offered a " Quick fuck in the gents" or "how about later?" and this is even by hotel staff, almost within earshot of my OH.
I find many men are on the prowl as western women are seen as easy with low morals.

No way would I take my DD to a place like Turkey.

I am sticking to Spain or Greece so I can have a relaxing holiday.

I am aware that slavery was part of the context of Jane Austen, that's why I mentioned it. JA is an important figure in 19th c English culture, and your argument is that every aspect of English culture was tainted by the terrible abuses at the time. The fact is that although it is important to acknowledge the empire's role in Britain's wealth, criticising British abuses, etc, this is not the same thing as denouncing "Britishness". The same thing goes for any culture. It's just too big a label to say oh well Islam causes abuse. There's always going to be some devout Muslim hr campaigner who considers their untiring devotion to the cause of equality to stem from Islam to falsify a statement like that. And btw I am obviously not taking issue with your decision not to go on holiday to any Muslim countries, as I said upthread, I wouldn't go to any either at the moment. I am taking issue with your blanket statements about Islam.

*Today 12:28 OrangeSplot

I wonder how a Malaysian doctor female reading this would feel.
Or how a Pakistani male businessman would feel.
I wonder how a Turkish lawyer would feel.
Anyway. Bigots will be bigots.*

I'm totally miffed at this post orange. Who cares what they would think? How is it relevant to anything?

Sorry. I've just realised that someone has just used Jane Austen as a reason to negate the crime of slavery and the responsibility of the British for that crime.

No - I'm saying that it's possible to denounce English slavery and enjoy English literature that is contemporary with that slavery without your head exploding. I'm saying that in order to believe that the British did terrible things in the empire you don't have to consider that there is something rotten in the concept of Britishness. And that the fact that human rights abuses are committed in the name of Islam does not mean that Islam is intrinsically linked with abuse.