Islamophobia
- Ashley Gerasch
- Apr 30, 2021
- 5 min read
Collins dictionary characterises Islamophobia as “a hatred or fear of Muslims or of their politics or culture.” We live in a multicultural world in which 24.1% of the population is Muslim. Since 9/11 and the many terror attacks that have happened across the world, the words Muslim and terrorism have become synonymous with one another. Naturally, this prejudice is unfair and discriminatory, labelling over 1.8 billion people as a terrorist merely based on their religion and perhaps even ethnic features.
For some people in the western world, the religion of Islam is incredibly foreign, contributing to the discrimination of Muslims. The stories of extreme fundamentalism, restrictive laws and political conflicts in the Middle East have contributed to the subjective outlook people have on the Muslim community. This outlook has been further perpetuated by travel bans in the USA that target people with Arabic backgrounds/Muslim names in the hopes of keeping “terrorists” out of the country. It is a system of bigotry and xenophobia, one which reimplants the ideology that people should be feared based simply on their religions.
Europe is not without fault. France, a country with a fair share of its population (8.8%) being Muslim has recently been in multiple news headlines concerning statements Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, made about recent terror attacks. On the 16th of October, 2020, a teacher was killed after he showed a Charlie Hebdo drawing depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammed to his students. In Islam, depictions of Prophet Muhammed are frowned upon.
This sparked a lot of conflict with the parents of some of the students that were shown the cartoon. In 2015, 12 people in the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in France were killed after an Islamic extremist group targeted them for their cartoons of Prophet Muhammed. Many European politicians including Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte have said that the cartoons were simply part of the Secularist ideologies in Europe and were another form of freedom of speech. Muslim communities were outraged by this blatant disrespect toward their beliefs. Protests have been ongoing in many Muslim majority countries about the recent controversies and boycotts of French products have been demanded by some Muslim communities. The Turkish government under Erdogan also vowed to take legal action against a depiction of himself lifting up the skirt of a veiled woman.
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The grouping together of Islam and terrorism gives the false connotation that the religion of Islam is directly related to terrorism, something that should be debunked to prevent further miseducation.
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The rising tensions in France were heightened when 3 French citizens were killed in a church in Nice on October 29, which the authorities have labelled as a terrorist attack. Macron later said in a speech that “the problem is an ideology which claims its own laws should be superior to those of the Republic,” mentioning that Islam was “in crisis everywhere in the world.” This statement angered many Muslims and those outside of the faith.
The grouping together of Islam and terrorism gives the false connotation that the religion of Islam is directly related to terrorism, something that should be debunked to prevent further miseducation. Macron was adamant in his separation of “radical Islam” and Muslims in general, making sure not to further contribute to the false understanding that people have. It should be recognised that Islamic terrorists are separate from Muslim people and on many occasions, religious officials and ordinary Muslims have tried to debunk this narrative. After the attack in Nice, french Muslim leaders quickly sought to condemn the action of the attack and even called for the Mawlid celebrations for the Prophet’s birthday to be canceled.
The idea of Islam as a religion of violence and war is wrong. In Islamic theology, the Jihad (a Holy War), is discussed to express that the greater battle, is a fight within to be a better Muslim and the lesser battle, a militaristic one, traditionally only meant to happen on Muslim territory. Many extremist terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS have taken this militaristic Jihad narrative and use it as a reason for the attacks they orchestrate. Many Muslims have tried to disassemble this narrative and educate the Western world and non-muslims on what the religion of Islam stands for: it is a religion of love and peace just like Christianity and many other religions in the world.
In 2010, France banned niqabs and burqas with their motive to promote “open and equal interaction within society.” With the coronavirus pandemic ongoing and the wearing of masks being mandated, the previous face-covering ban is further highlighted for its controversy and perhaps, a contradiction. Imagine someone wearing a mask and having the hood of their jackets up, the area of their faces that are exposed are essentially the same as that of a woman wearing a niqab. This ban on niqabs and burqas still exists despite the clear double standards present.
In 2008, the High Authority for the Fight against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE) said that “The burqa carries the meaning of the submission of women which goes beyond its religious scope and could be considered as undermining republican values presiding over the process of integration and organisation of these lessons.” The idea that Muslim women must wear headscarves is similar to that of the rhetoric that women should cover-up. In reality, the Qur’an initially addresses men, saying that they shouldn’t look at people with promiscuity and that they can’t force women to wear a headscarf. In the same way, France’s republican values that call for freedom of speech and having free lifestyles shouldn’t be contradictory and ban Muslim women from covering up because is their choice stemming from their own free will.
Lallab, a french feminist organisation that supports giving women choice in deciding whether or not to cover up have held protests and talks to educate others on why Muslim women choose to cover up. They also highlight the discrimination that exists within France and the patriarchal oppression that some women face. Fatima Bent, President of the organisation, has said that Lallab doesn’t deny the existence of radical terrorist ideologies that preach about violence and war and those who hold patriarchal views who inflict oppression on people but this mustn’t be used to place all Muslims in the same box.
How to help:
Educate yourself on what is part of Islamic beliefs to destroy the rhetoric that Muslims are terrorists when in fact it just happens to be that some terrorists are Muslims the same way some are atheist or Christian or a part of any other belief system.
Work on being actively anti-racist and not xenophobic or islamophobic and recognize that people share beliefs different from your own that should still be respected and valued nonetheless.
Listen to other peoples experiences of discrimination to further educate yourself through stories from real modern-day people.
Read the articles linked below in the sources for a wider understanding of the topic.
Works cited:
Islam, Namira “An anti-Muslim narrative has shaped policy for decades. The travel ban will make it worse.”, 27 July 2018
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Sveinung Sandberg, Sarah Colvin, ‘ISIS is not Islam’: Epistemic Injustice, Everyday Religion, and Young Muslims’ Narrative Resistance, The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 60, Issue 6, November 2020, Pages 1585–1605, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaa035
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Dodman, Benjamin “Islam is being hyper-politicised in France, but Muslims are not part of the debate”, 30 October 2020
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McGee, Luke “Terror in France reignites a national debate on the right to offend”, 30 October 2020
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Haddad, Benjamin “France’s War on Islamism Isn’t Populism. It’s Reality.”, 3 November 2020
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Nanwani, Shaira “The Burqa Ban: An Unreasonable Limitation on Religious Freedom or a Justifiable Restriction?”
Edited by: Trinh Nguyen.
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