On Islamophobia (Or ‘Tears of Wrath, part 2’)
This might be an appropriate time to talk about Islamophobia.
As I’ve written before, I have longtime been oblivious to any kind of potential discrimination or ‘othering’. In fact, few years ago, I was praising Switzerland for the complete absence of any kind of racism to the point where listeners would imagine this country to be the ultimate paradise. ‘It is not paradise, but almost’, someone recently told me. That made me smile. In relation to many other places in this world, I agree. Yet, even though Switzerland is frequently held up as a beacon of peace, justice, equality and democracy, there are forms of discrimination that need to be addressed. Islamophobia is one of them.[1]
My obliviousness has much to do with my upbringing, which was built on a ‘burden-accepting’ approach. As foreigners and guests, it was on us to prove ourselves, against existing stereotypes. Energy should be dedicated to improving oneself in all aspects of life and not wasted on thinking about how mean others may be treating one. That approach is very constructive and forward-looking, inspired by neoliberalism. It is meant to avoid self-victimisation and externalising the blame for one’s failures. I am infinitely indebted to my parents who chose this approach, for it made me go through life more easily and got me to where I am today. The unintended byproduct, however, which I am sure they didn’t foresee, is obliviousness to various forms of discrimination. Obliviousness, arguably, to injustice.
I have become more critical and more aware in recent years. One reason for that is an episode of my life which led me to cherish my various identities and embrace my ‘otherness’. While this episode took place abroad, Switzerland was experiencing the apex of the migration flows. When I came back in 2015, things had changed. Part of it was me. I started to see something else in people’s looks, reactions, in the way they spoke, to me specifically. I started to accept that my identity mattered and that it was okay, in fact relieving, to accept that. The other part were the people. The city in which I had grown up didn’t recognise me anymore. By the looks, I was one of these refugees. People’s interaction with me was suddenly based on the default hypothesis that I was not ‘from here’. One way this manifested itself was in them talking to me in Hochdeutsch, which you only do when you assume the person does not speak any Swiss German. ‘His German is really good’, the grandmother of a friend once told her, after I had a brief conversation with them at a bus stop. I took most of these developments lightly. Over the coming years, however, I would come to accommodate the sobering conclusion that, no matter what I did, I would never be ‘from here’.
The aim of this short introduction is merely to contextualise the following discussion of Islamophobia as I have experienced it growing up in Switzerland. Much of what I will be writing consists of post-hoc realisations, that came about as I contemplated many episodes of my life through a more informed and critical lens. Recently, I was asked ‘Do you really experience racism here?’ by a German living in Switzerland, who was struggling to hide her indignation about the accusatory character of the mere enunciation of such a possibility. She had heard a woman talk about experiencing racism and was visibly skeptical of the veracity of her claims. My answer was supposed to confirm her skepticism, which it did not. A few years ago, it would have.
This discussion is also inherently personal, as I am using myself as a case study, with my specific background and upbringing, in the specific context of my upbringing and my discovering the world (mostly in Switzerland, but with longer periods spent in Spain, the UK, Jordan and Canada). It will also include aspects that do not illustrate ‘Islamophobia’ specifically, but a combination of xenophobic, racist, alienating and othering experiences. Islamophobia tends to affect individuals who are assigned a series of other stereotypes. This is what Crenshaw (1990) calls ‘intersectionality’. This is also not to blame anyone personally (apart from individuals and institutions in positions of power). To me, islamophobia is to be understood as xenophobia more than racism, for the former puts emphasis on the aspect of *phobia, *fear, often irrational and rather naive than malicious.
Also, I am not talking as a representative of Islam nor people of Islamic faith but as an individual who will, willingly or not, be associated with Islam and ‘Muslimness’. If my origins don’t betray me, my name probably will and a look at my birth certificate definitely so. However, for most of the following discussion, I am convinced that my personal religious practice is completely irrelevant. That is also something I have come to understand and accommodate: It barely matters what I do, to most people, ‘Muslimness’ seems to be knit into my bones. To be clear, religious practice does not interfere with my public interactions, nor do I carry any visible signs that associate me with Islam. But if I, a person representing the most secular form of ‘Muslimness’, experience the tangible impacts of Islamophobia, one is invited to think about what a woman with a headscarf might face on a daily basis.
If you bear with me, I will walk you through a few instances of my life that I associate with xenophobia and Islamophobia and attempt to describe how that has impacted me personally. I will designate some culprits who I believe have led to the increase of these fears in recent years and try to suggest a few avenues to move beyond the climate of mutual skepticism and hatred.
Islamophobia as I have experienced it
As a child, I was barely aware of anything that could lead to my being perceived as different from others. But kids are honest – and mean. So, they will let you know sooner or later. At first, I was different because I didn’t speak the language and couldn’t really defend myself verbally. Some kids would find it funny to clearly make me feel excluded and shout things at me they knew I wouldn’t understand. When I did start to understand, most insults directed at me had to do with my ‘brownness’ and later with my ‘Arabness’. ‘Muslimness’, back then, was not really an issue yet. There weren’t enough stereotypes around to enrich the insults repertoire of kids (and their parents) at that time.
It wouldn’t take too long, until insults started referring to characteristics associated with ‘Muslimness’. One theatre of showdown was the football club. After football training, it was mandatory for everyone to take a shower. ‘Unless you’re Muslim, you have to shower!’, the trainer would tell the team. This created first instances of ‘otherness’ and of clumsily constructed privilege that would inevitably, and understandably, be upsetting to other kids. The way our trainers handled these situations – which consisted of ‘imported’ customs and lifestyles clashing with local ‘standards’ can be extrapolated to the way European and North-American publics and governments have dealt with a growing community of ‘others’ in their midst. First we were obliged to shower, then it was okay not to shower, then again it was more reasonable that everyone had to shower, but we could keep our boxershorts on…and so on. Various compromises were agreed on – most of them had the inevitable impact of constructing ‘otherness’.
Soon, kids would find out about circumcision, which entered the repertoire of funny jokes and mean insults. And then, there was our exemption from eating pork, of course. Up to this day, I profoundly dislike situations where I have to (almost ashamedly) confess that I don’t eat pork. ‘Is it because you’re Muslim?’, is the common – quite clumsy and rude – reaction. And few of you will imagine how hard it actually is to answer this question. I think my answer has mutated in a thousand ways throughout my lifetime. Because my relationship with my religious background is rather complex, I refuse to answer a yes/no question whose sole purpose is to enable the person asking to label me. While the custom of not eating pork was, during my childhood, faced with skepticism and exasperation, it soon became largely accepted. Respecting the custom, however, did not suffice to diminish Islamophobia. In some ways, it had the adverse effect. ‘Is it because you’re Muslim?’ was still asked, but not in an offensive way, rather, often, out of a genuinely benign interest to serve you in the best possible way. The effect is rather paradoxical, but I’ll try to illustrate it using two examples.
In situations where food is provided for an entire group, someone with a different custom will usually want to avoid standing out and disturbing the harmony and flow of the group dynamic. The last thing you want in that situation is for your ‘special treatment’ to be highlighted in front of everyone, by your getting the food earlier than others, for example. Or worse: by you getting better food than others! Because let’s face it: it’s an open secret that pork is usually not the best meat available out there. And when you get some deliciously looking chicken breast (apologies to the vegans out there, and to the chickens), and everyone is looking at it, thinking ‘I want that, too!’, all you want to do is vanish into thin air. I soon started saying I am vegetarian to avoid unnecessary discussions or preferential treatments. Respect of ‘difference’ should never come at the price of clumsily constructed privileged treatment, nor to the detriment of others who will feel inevitably feel disadvantaged. This can also be extrapolated to the macro level: ‘Affirmative action’ should not result in disproportionately privileging and supporting one segment of the population at the expense of another, which would deserve similar attention.
The second example is a less amusing one, but, I am convinced, also the result of a benign intent to respect different customs. In a prison where I was working recently, those not eating pork would get a red magnet on their door (yes, red) and their name on the list of detainees would be accompanied by an ‘M’ for Muslim. Of course, the intention was to keep track of those who did not eat pork, in order to let the kitchen know what kind of food to prepare. But the effect was, of course, terribly stigmatising. Other prisons have found a way of circumventing this issue by simply attributing the label ‘not eating pork’. That, I think, is a legitimate alternative. Because, in fact, many people had a red magnet on their door and an ‘M’ next to their name who were not ‘Muslim’, simply because they preferred not eating pork, for a host of reasons. There are always ways of respecting difference without highlighting. It just takes some tact.
An important turning point in the lifecourse of that ghost named Islamophobia was, to no one’s suprise, the attack on the twin towers on September 11, 2001. If the figure of the Arab-Muslim-Terrorist had been in construction for a while, that was definitely the ultimate moment of its genesis. And many, I later realised, did not actually fathom the impact that would have on children and youth growing up in Europe and North-America. Overnight, we had become the terrorists. I heard jokes like ‘where’s your bomb?’ so often, they started to become an integral part of a normal conversation about my origins. I don’t know who remembers Jeff Dunham’s act featuring the puppet ‘Ahmed, the Terrorist’, but trust me when I say that there is no other reference I have gotten as often in my entire life. Later, there was an event that was specific to the Swiss context. In 2009, the Swiss people voted, with a majority of 57.5%, to change the constitution to integrate a clause banning the construction of minarets on Swiss soil [2]. I don’t care about minarets. But that vote was not about minarets. I remember looking at an Albanian friend of mine at high school, in mutual agreement about the message that was being conveyed to us during that period. The run-up to that vote had been extremely painful for anyone who knew he was associated with ‘Muslimness’ living in Switzerland. The campaign posters, the public discourse and the discussions with classmates revealed very clearly that a host of stereotypes was associated with ‘Islam’ – something that Switzerland did not want. The unequivocal statement was: ‘Muslims are taking up too much space. They’re invading our country. We have to stop them.’. There was an array of devastatingly ignorant amalgams constructed from notions such as ‘Islam’, ‘Islamisation’, ‘Muslims’, ‘violence’, ‘burqas’, ‘oppression of women’, etc. There was little nuance in the debate, little tact and litte consideration for those human beings who were supposed to be part of this society. The message was that we were different, and that our difference was unwelcome. I remember writing a piece in my French class expressing my frustration with this vote and the discussions that accompanied it. The reaction of my teacher made things worse. He called me out for ‘my lack of critical thinking’.
On November 15, 2015, I wrote Tears of Wrath. That was two days after the tragedy that took place in Paris. I was feeling deep inside what would soon become a reality. ‘Two tears are running down those cheeks. One for the victims. One for ourselves.’. By ‘ourselves’ I was, of course, meaning humanity, but also the community associated with ‘Muslimness’. Because they would be held responsible soon. It was just another act in this protracted drama of demonisation and scapegoating. I’ve taken the perhaps unwise decision to engage with this phenomenon – large-scale violence perpetrated in the name of politics, history, or ‘God’ – more closely on an academic and professional level. If the experience has been very enriching, it has also increased my feeling of ‘otherness’, my frustration with Islamophobia, for I believed it to be confined to the general public discourse and more nuanced among the so-called intelligentsia. I have come to realise it’s not. Members of the intelligentsia just have the titles to pretend to nuance, but the ideas and stereotypes are basically the same. Research designs are built to identify links between ‘religiosity’ and violence, between ‘integration’ and violence, between ‘cultural values’ and violence, and so on. Scholars argue that the problem lies in ‘Islam’, the scriptures, the culture, the deeply ingrained violent habits of ‘these people’. Policies to ‘prevent radicalisation’ and programs to ‘deradicalise’ focus heavily on intervention by religious scholars. Historic and political legacies and grievances are downplayed. As Mohamedou (2018) argues: ‘The understanding of that violence of the savage has become boxed into a discussion on terrorism that strips it of its political nature and moves to discuss anthropologically the Muslim, Arab, Brown, Black, or Southern perpetrator and the scriptures of their nominal religion.’ (p.20). When academia, the beacon of ‘scientific objectivity’, is riddled with perennial orientialist, essentialising and deterministic prejudices, how can we expect the general public to think and act with tact and consideration, when it comes to dealing with political violence?
These are a few episodes I deem important in my trajectory of dealing with the ghost of Islamophobia. There are, of course others. The lady who gave us a class on ‘cultural frames’, during my preparation for the civil service (to serve my country). She looked into the classroom and asked ‘Were you three born here?’. I didn’t immediately get what she was talking about and did not feel concerned. After a few seconds of silence, I noticed she was looking at me, turned around and realised who the ‘three’ were she was talking about. Besides me, there was that guy of Indian descent in the other corner of the classroom and the guy next to me, visibly of African descent. Whether we were born here? Why did she not ask the guy next to me, who I knew was Dominican. Just because his name was Martin and his skin colour white? And then that incisive moment when I was, as a substitute teacher, teaching a class on history to a room of 14-15 year-olds and asked them what they thought a refugee looked like: ‘black’, ‘dangerous’, ‘rapist’, ‘oppressor of women’, ‘Muslim’ were the shocking answers of kids who are hardly the ones to be blamed for having such ideas. Or episodes like my ex-girlfriend bursting out at me and telling me that she ‘won’t wear a headscarf’ (which was what her friend had told her she would eventually have to do) or a friend innocently admitting to me that her father had advised her to be wary of ‘Muslims’. The list could go on, but I believe that my message is clear: Islamophobia exists. It is real, it is tangible and hurtful.
As I have already alluded to, Islamophobia does not need to manifest itself in a particularly negative way. Positive discrimination can clearly be constructed upon Islamophobia. One can even benefit from Islamophobia (and xenophobia, really). Statements such as ‘but you are a good example’ make that quite clear. You are ‘good’ because you are better than the stereotype we associate with people ‘like you’. The admiration you earn is built on discriminating prejudices. My choice has become to say, symbolically, ‘thank you, but I refuse your mercy’. For I know this mercy is conditioned upon my continuously reaffirming my ‘fitting in’, my ‘being good’. This privileged state of acceptance is fragile, and that is a crucial point. Imagine my being involved in a fight? Imagine me getting angry at a woman? Imagine me posting a coranic verse on facebook? To someone with a partial knowledge of my person, would certain attributes or forms of behaviour not serve to – finally! – put me back into the category of the ‘savage Muslim’? This might sound extreme, but the fear is tangible and nurtured by actual experiences. I also know that this fear is shared by many who are aware of their privileged position, which can, however, quickly be forgotten when you trip. The fundamental right to err is not equally distributed.
Internalising Islamophobia
Now, much of this may give the impression that the object of Islamophobic discourse and actions remains an idle bystander. To the contrary: islamophobia can be internalised. In Fanon’s and Malcom X’s terms, ‘self-hate’ is a common feature of the (even if symbolically) colonised and oppressed. Growing up and wanting to fit in entails internalising, at least partly, Islamophobic stereotypes. I became critical of Islam and ‘Muslims’ and tried to distance myself, trying to assimilate to a degree that makes me indistinguishable from the dominant majority, the symbolic coloniser. That phenomenon is what Dabashi (2011) has dubbed ‘the house Muslim’, inspired by Malcolm X’s ‘house negro’ (Breitman, 1989). The ‘house Muslim’ tries to live up to the expectations of the dominant power as much as possible, rebelling and affirming their original identity as little as possible. In a place where ‘otherness’ is a profoundly uncomfortable state of being, aspiring to the comfort of the ‘House Muslim’ is a choice that can hardly be condemned.
Another impact of Islamophobia is that, paradoxically, one stops speaking out on Islamophobia. Because speaking out about it equates to siding with the ‘Islamo-leftists’, to borrow an expression from Burgat (2016): hypersensitive and overconcerned with political correctness when it comes to issues related to Islam, indulging in ‘self-victimising’ discourse, and guilty of defending incapacitating euphemisms and of refusing to recognise inherent issues related to ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslimness’. When all you want is to avoid being put into a box that is labelled with ‘one of those’, you try to speak out as little as possible. The lack of political engagement by young people of ‘Islamic’ origins in the European context is, at least partly, testimony to that reluctance.
Finally, when something unpleasant happens that is put in relation to ‘Muslimness’, you will inevitably feel shame and embarrassment. After large-scale attacks, you are expected to condemn such actions, otherwise you are assumed to be a sympathiser. ‘So, what is your stance on that?’ is one of those questions that infuriate many. And rightly so. It implies, namely, two quite disturbing assumptions: First, as a ‘Muslim’ you are ‘one of those’ (‘those’ being the perpetrators of large-scale massacres, by the way), so tell uswhat you(as a collective of ‘Muslims’) think about this. And second, as a ‘Muslim’, your default attitude must be somehow ‘pro-violence’, so please convince us of the opposite. When talking about other issues associated with Islam, whether it is the way women are treated, integration of Muslims into society, even ‘burqas’, you are expected to take a stance, and you know which one gets you into or out of the box. The pressure is real. The right to neutrality and objectivity is not equally distributed.
Where does it come from?
On this point, I’ll join in the chorus of voices condemning the media and public discourse. Whether it is biased journalistic accounts on political violence linked to Islamist ideologies, statements of the president of the supposedly greatest country in the world constructing ‘Muslims’ as the ‘greatest threat of our times’, dishonest affirmations of secularism that focus on specific aspects of ‘Muslimness’ (vestimentary customs) or other aspects that have little to do with ‘Muslimness’ (‘burqas’, ‘violence’), or even more dishonest condemnations of purportedly ‘anti-semitic’ statements of individuals clearly associated with ‘Muslimness’: Islamophobic discourse has gained a solid and legitimate stand and an official outlet in mainstream politics. Yesterday’s attack did not emerge from nowhere. When public discourse – where ‘political correctness’ should reign for a reason! – allows for fear-mongering, discrimination, racism and extremely negative exemplarity, who can blame the most extreme fringes for feeling that their actions would have a backing among a large segment of society?
Where do we go from here?
Tarrant’s ‘manifesto’ (yet to be verified) ends with the following words:
All I know is the certainty of my will and the necessity of my cause. Live or die, know I did it all for you; my friends, my family, my people, my culture, my RACE. Goodbye, god bless you all and I will see you in Valhalla. EUROPA RISES
Now, most of you would agree that it would be ludicrous to call upon all Europeans to speak out and apologise for the actions of a handful of large-scale murderers. Or to be suspicious of those who choose not to fly the New Zealand, let alone Jordanian, Bengali, Pakistani, Saudi, Emirati, Syrian, Afghan, Palestinian, Indian or Egyptian flag on their Facebook profile pictures. Although it has been very touching to see so many people come forward and express their sympathy for the tragic attack that cost over 50 lives and after which many more are fighting for their survival, few will expect Europeans to stand up and declare ‘that is not who we are’. Imagine, however, that these were the final words written by an assailant of the Paris, Brussels, London, Nice or Berlin attacks:
All I know is the certainty of my will and the necessity of my cause. Live or die, know I did it all for you; my friends, my family, my people, my culture, my RELIGION. Goodbye, Allah bless you all and I will see you in Jannah (paradise). ISLAM RISES
Over the past two decades, we have been asked to do exactly that: dissociate ourselves from statements such as these. Affirm (and prove) that we don’t agree with such views, that we are not like them, that we do not condone violence. If the more than 50 martyrs died for anything then it might be precisely to demonstrate the absurdity of that burden put on communities and individuals associated with ‘Muslimness’.
You will have noticed my cynicism. My intention is not to put blame anyone but to look for a way forward. To do so, I would like to suggest a few avenues:
Avoid the manichean and pathologising ‘evil vs. good’ rhetoric. Talking about yesterday’s attack as pure evil and the act of a lunatic is barely helpful to move the discussion forward. All it does is contribute to the fear-mongering. Reading through the manifesto, I found the narrative to be rather coherent. It is built on an extremely biased and pseudo-scientific focus on events and facts to support a dramatising and apocalyptic ideology and worldview, but there are many statements that the general public could perfectly agree with (and does; it suffices to scroll through facebook comments on posts related to the incident to realise that). It is therefore unhelpful to swiftly dismiss yesterday’s attack – despite the horrific dimension of the massacre, its meticulous planning and the disturbing views justifying it – as an exceptional and absurd act of brutality. To many people out there, Tarrant is now a hero. To others, a good guy who went astray, but who is certainly better than those ‘Muslim terrorists’. The manifesto calls for people to take up arms to emulate his actions and it is only a matter of time until some will choose to do so.
Avoid euphemisms and obliviousness. By laying out arguments, using my personal experience, supporting the claim that Islamophobia is widespread in Western societies, I have intended to show that in the most peaceful and seemingly perfect places, Islamophobic discourse is deeply embedded. Pretending, as many are doing now, that New Zealand does not have any problem with racism or Islamophobia, is simply hypocritical and only meant to support the claim that this was an extraordinary event that happened out of nowhere. Similarly to my first point, it is unhelpful to move the discussion forward. Analysing and properly engaging with the subtle forms in which Islamophobia and ethnic, racial and religious hatred are present in ‘peaceful Western countries’ is definitely a more constructive approach.
**Recognise the reactivity inherent to these forms of violence. **I have been very disappointed by the failure of the public, politicians and academia to recognise the reactive and defensive nature of political violence. To perpetrators committing such large-scale violence, there is always a threat against which they see themselves as fighting and a *suffering *and *injustice *they seek to avenge. It was only a matter of time until people would attack mosques (one should not forget what happened in Québec and London), when ‘Muslims’ are seen as responsible for the attacks in New York, London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Nice, etc. The same applies to the perpetrators of these attacks: their grievances relate to the suffering and injustice inflicted on ‘Muslim’ communities by colonialist, imperialist and neo-imperialist projects in Algeria, Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc. Whether these historic and political grievances are entirely legitimate or not, may be open to debate. What matters is that they drive attackers to the point of sacrificing their lives to defend their cause or take revenge. Which grievances can be soothed because they represent actual situations of injustice? And which misperceived and/or misconstructed grievances must be challenged through education, public discourse, critical thinking and the deconstruction of conspiracy theories? These are the questions that we should be asking.
Final comments: the subtility of Islamophobia
I have intended to discuss Islamophobia as it applies to my very personal trajectory. My aim is to give voice to those who may feel, but can’t speak, may suffer but can’t rebel. I hope that I have been clear enough that Islamophobia, as well as xenophobia and racism, in Western societies nowadays are subtle in nature. To paraphrase a statement made by Prof. Mohamedou during a conference in 2018: ‘It’s not the sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus racism anymore’. Today’s racism and forms of discrimination perdure in subtle forms that escape many people’s attention. They are often the result of naivety and clumsiness, or even benevolence, rather than malice. That does not, however, erase their tangible repercussions on communities.
Footnotes
[1] On this, see a recent publication by Swiss Commission against Racism (EKR). Available at: https://www.ekr.admin.ch/dokumentation/d108/1322.html
[2] Article 72(3) of the Swiss constitution now states: ‘The construction of minarets is prohibited’. (https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/index.html#a72)
References
Breitman, G. (Ed.). (1989). Malcolm X speaks: Selected speeches and statements. Pathfinder Press.
Burgat, F. (2016). Comprendre l’islam politique: une trajectoire de recherche sur l’altérité islamiste, 1973-2016. Paris : La Découverte.
Crenshaw, K. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stan. L. Rev., 43, 1241.
Mohamedou, M.-M. O. (2018). A Theory of ISIS: Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order. Pluto Press.
Dabashi, H. (2011). Brown Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto.