Counter-Narrative to Islamophobia 7 (UK) looks at A refocus on equalities, or ideas of injustice as the normative focus of the state. Find the full list of ten and their details here. This work was undertaken in 2017 – 18, and remains pertinent. The ten counter-narratives will be indexed on this site too here.
Respondents fell within two broad categories of views regarding the equalities culture in the UK. They can be summed up by Elahi (2017) who saw the best counter-narratives to Islamophobia in existing equalities measures but also the refocusing of the conversation around ‘Muslims’ and ‘social problems’ (much as François, 2017 does) onto issues of socioeconomic deprivation and class.
Johnson (2017) and Kapoor (2017) conversely were very cautious about this approach. Kapoor cited above, preferred to use the word ‘injustice’ as conveying the power of the experiences being faced, and also a point of awareness raising amongst wider society. SACC (2017) uses this term in concluding its practical recommendations to the EHRiC: “there needs to be respect for the demands of justice (and recognition of the wider issues of racial justice that are engaged) in responding to Islamophobic incidents.”
Johnson (2017) elaborates on the problematics of equalities’ vocabulary and nostalgia: “I think there were moments of hope maybe… I think that we forget that there was so much violence that led to colonised people gaining their freedom – there was just so much violence. So even to describe that period of time as a potential period of hope is something I’m a little bit hesitant to do.”
Tackling the institutionalisation of inequality under a security discourse has been touched on in section three. A broader expansion of this follows.
The UK’s culture of equalities was hitherto much celebrated in civil society within and outside the UK as one of the most progressive. However, the rise of an anti-multiculturalist narrative and the rise of a nativist discourse have increasingly rendered this history as inimical to British values and a threat to the internal democracy of the UK (Merali, 2017a). In this scenario, Muslims are posited as the vanguards of multiculturalism, who are simultaneously seen to be promoting a segregationist agenda (and therefore are in need of assimilation/integration) but also as entryists whose civic participation is construed as seeking to advance an ‘Islamist’, ‘privileging’, ‘extremist’, ‘segregationist’ cause. The rise of the obsession regarding entryism highlights the extent to which the Muslim ability to project themselves into the future has taken hold, whereby Muslim aspirations based on pre-existing praxis amongst the majority is seen, not as (deferential) emulation and evidence of integration but as something other, by virtue of its ‘Muslimness’ (Merali, 2017b).
Many laws and policies still in existence need bolstering in the legal culture but also the popular imagination. This includes rules regarding employment discrimination (Ahmed, 2017), existing equalities cultures established in education (Choudhury, 2017), the setting up of parliamentary and ministerial oversight committees for controversial or contested regulations or pressing social issues. These needed to be brought to light for a new generation as the normative culture of the UK, as well as brought to bear on issues of accountability for government institutions, in particular but not solely inspectorates (Choudhury, 2017, Ferguson, 2017, #HandsOffMuslimKids (Amalia, 2017), El-Enany et. al. 2017).
Where new rules might be useful they could be incorporated into workplace practice in a manner similar to health and safety rules for smaller companies (Ahmed, 2017) as well as the adoption of Diversity Charters for larger organisations, unions and employment agencies that address discrimination and provide appropriate remedies. (ENAR, 2017)
François (2017 describes this refocus on equalities as a way to cut through demonised narrative even where there are contentious issues between the community and the state over the state’s expectations of Muslims:
“…whenever there are issues of inequality, those should be tackled head-on and I see a lot of blame on communities being located in cultural arguments like I referred to earlier, so when we talk about Muslims in any way, whether its politicians or journalists, its often a very easy way of locating the source of the problem in their identity as Muslims, so the reason we have certain schools which might be teaching things that the government doesn’t think is acceptable would be down to the religious identity of the individuals and not perhaps the deregulation of education, for example which actually allows any community to set up schools on the basis of curriculum they would devise themselves, this becomes a problem only for particular communities, home-schooling, only a problem for particular communities.”
Dealing with the discriminatory practice of the state also found succour with the equalities narratives from within institutions. Kundnani (2017) highlights: ‘managers at the universities did, for albeit a brief moment, want to push back against Prevent and did so to some extent. They did so in the name of understanding the equalities impact of these policies…’
Participants from within equalities bodies at the IHRC and SACC workshop (2017) highlighted the impact that Prevent had had on schools, with one equalities officer relating that head teachers had approached her office asking for directions and guidelines on how politics could be discussed at school. The report of Dean (2017) also highlighted that Muslim school children suffered inequality and were victims of hate crime, and this became a useful tool for teachers, parents and equalities advocates in Edinburgh to get a discussion about school culture opened up, and to challenge institutional denials regarding racism.
A locus for a revived equalities culture was also raised by some interviewees with some deeply criticising the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that was constituted to replace discrete equalities bodies that existed previously. Some interviewees mentioned the EHRC simply to say they were not aware of anything they were doing on issues of racism and religious discrimination. Afzal (2017) cites incidents at university when she was involved with the students’ union where EHRC reports would be:
“regularly used against any kind of event that I would try and hold the way that the outcomes of the decisions that the university made on trying to fulfil their obligation under Prevent was to stop any kind of discussions on Islamophobia or Palestine or any kind of campaigning issues.”
The need to recognize the concept of hate crime within equalities training was highlighted as imperative (and already implemented in some places in Scotland). This is something that a body like the EHRC should provide leadership on but was felt to be failing on (Jasper, 2017). Sayyid highlights the problems caused by the constituting of the EHRC:
“The danger then is that this simplification of equality laws and the joining up of the distinct equality strands enables Britain to construct itself as a progressive, ‘post- racial’ liberal society, thus racism becomes invisible and is instead understood as a human rights issue. That is the bringing together of all groups and dispensing with single issue bodies such as the CRE, sustains and strengthens the notion that ‘we are all the same’ and as such reinforces the discourse of colour blindness, universalism and unification which masks the persistence of structural inequalities that remain embedded within contemporary Britain.” [Sayyid et al 2013]
Jasper (2017) called for the bringing back of the Commission for Racial Equality: “Racial inequalities in the UK are widening according to the EHRC. Austerity has amplified racism and the EHRC whilst recording these increases is spineless in challenging Government policy that has seen incidences of race discrimination and race hate spiral. It’s time to bring back the CRE 
who at least had a track record of reducing racial inequalities and who in their later years, led by Sir Herman Ousley were never shy of challenging Government policy or irresponsible political rhetoric. I want equality in my lifetime and that requires urgent action. Under the EHRC we will still be having these discussion in 50 years time.”
Arzu Merali worked on this project while head of research at Islamic Human Rights Commission. The project spanned 8 European countries and involved IHRC and five universities. IHRC was responsible for the UK, Germany and France sections of the project. Find out more about the project here[EXTERNAL LINK].
