Counter-Narrative to Islamophobia 5 (UK) looks at Acknowledging Islamophobia as a form of violence that is relational to both recent and colonial history and current events in various Westernised settings that refer to each other in order to perpetuate each other. 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.
As Sadiq (in Baig, 2016 above) highlights the problematization of Islam and Muslims in the UK context though deeply entwined in the long durée of colonial history, largely represents itself as ahistorical and transnational. There is no overt conversation about the presence of Muslims or other racialized communities in the UK.
François (2017) ties the need for the reinventing of the story of the nation with an understanding of this history:
“nations need what you might call national myths as part of social cohesion, that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are inclusive and help to feel that we are united by a common thread. In the absence of that, a dark form of exclusivist nationalism which we’ve seen take over in Brexit can take over. We need alternative national conversations, alternative national myths which look back at the history of the UK, not in an exclusivist, I would say in many cases racist way, but in one which acknowledges the history of the multiple peoples who now inhabit this island and acknowledges the multiple ways in which the UK historically was intertwined with other cultures and civilisations and how our history is now an emerged one…”
The award-winning website, Our Migration Story: The Making of Britain (2017), is one of the ways this has been conceptualized as a learning tool, looking at migration to the UK over almost 2000 years of history:
“Drawing on the words and research of over 60 historians based in universities and historical institutions – including the National Archives, the Imperial War Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Royal Historical Society – this website presents the often-untold stories of the generations of migrants who came to and shaped the British Isles.”
Haley (2017) contextualises the impact further:
“What we’re seeing everywhere is that Islamophobia is the driver for the growth of the far right… it’s Islamophobia that propelled Trump to the US presidency. If you look a bit around the EU it’s the same. We’ve seen systematically for a decade or more, UKIP have tried to pick up on Islamophobia and racism and channel that and transfer those attitudes into something that’s Islamophobia directed at EU migrants. There remains a really close relationship between the way that Islamophobia is exploited and the targeting of EU citizens.”
“Everywhere you look Islamophobia is driving some of the biggest and most alarming political movements we’ve seen anywhere, but we’re not seeing a response to that that’s anywhere near to commensurate with the importance of the issue.”
Goldberg’s (2009) conceptualisation of the globalization of the racial pertains here:
“The support racial thinking and racism ‘here’ gets from ‘there’, both as a symbolic matter and materially, sustains and extends the impacts…”
“The globalisation of the racial is predicated on the understanding that racial thinking and its resonances circulated by boat in the European voyages of discovery, imported into the impact zones of colonisation and imperial expansion. Racial ordering, racist institutional arrangement and racial control were key instruments of colonial governmentality and control.”
Sivanandan (2008) reflects on the dichotomy between ‘colonialism and immigration’ and racist narratives of the place of the other and of ‘here’ and ‘there’ in the UK:
“Myths and stereotypes reinforce each other. The myth sets out the story, the stereotype fits in the characters. It was said, for instance, that the post-war “influx” of West Indian and Asian immigrants to this country was due to “push-and-pull” factors. Poverty pushed us out of our countries, and prosperity pulled us into Britain. Hence the stereotype that we were lazy, feckless people who were on the make. But what wasn’t said was that it was colonialism that both impoverished us and enriched Britain. So that when, after the war, Britain needed all the labour it could lay its hands on for the reconstruction of a wardamaged economy, it turned to the reserves of labour that it had piled up in the colonies. That’s why it passed the Nationality Act of 1948 making us colonials British nationals. (Equally, when, after 1962, it did not need that labour, it brought in a series of restrictive and racist immigration acts.) Quite simply we came to Britain (and not to Germany for instance) because we were occupied by Britain. Colonialism and immigration are part of the same continuum – we are here because you were there.”
“The same syndrome obtains today. Europe wants immigrant labour but not the immigrant, the profit from the one, not the cost of the other – except that the immigrants now are mostly from eastern Europe and what used to be the numbers theory – the fewer the immigrants, the more easily can they be “digested” – the phrase belongs to the original director of the Institute of Race Relations – is today the managed migration thesis of the government. Except, too, that the refugees and asylum seekers, thrown up on Europe’s shores, stem from the uprooting and displacement of whole populations caused by globalisation, and the imperial wars and regime change that follow in its wake. Globalisation and immigration are part of the same continuum. We are here because you are there.”
In this scenario there is even precarity of what legally defines a ‘British national’ as being essentially at the whim of a state governed in its own continuing colonial interests. This bucks the expectation of many that the British state is essentially the ‘just state’ (Hamid, 2017) that Muslim civil society leadership in particular aspire to and seek to persuade of Muslim humanity and thus deserving of inclusion within the story of the nation (Narkowicz, 2017).
Whilst Contractor (2017 above) has highlighted how the types of conversation between Muslims and the institutions of state need to be reset, others look to establishing a clear and honest narrative within political, academic and media discourse about the causality of the ‘problems’ ascribed to issues of Islam and ‘Muslimness’ that is fair, unbiased and reflects a wider understanding of structural and geopolitical factors rather than relying on
Islamophobic narratives to support contentious but ultimately devastating ideas and policies. Others seek to expound a clearer understanding of how racism, in particular anti-Muslim racism is a form of organisation that underpins various hierarchies of inequality in the current national and world order (Grosfoguel, 2013).
All three approaches rely on the need for ‘acknowledgement’ of certain realities. Existing and potential counter-narratives to Islamophobia in terms of conversation setting particularly in the media will be dealt with in counter-narrative eight, and the need to acknowledge hierarchies and how to move beyond them in counter-narrative six. This section will deal with the need for academia and government and its institutions to acknowledge ongoing histories and reframe not just current ‘problems’ but question the framing of the problems themselves if Islamophobia as a form of racialised governmentality (Sayyid, 2014) is to be unravelled in pursuit of a truly post-racial state.
Experiencing Islamophobia through the medium of the state, media, academy and other institutions Afzal (2017) highlights a shift in narrative whereby Islamophobia is acknowledged in some circles, yet the operation of this discourse lacks direction and efficacy:
“I feel like people are more open to talking about it now because everyone is talking about it or seeing it in Trump or this caricature. People are probably more comfortable now but it’s still deeply uncomfortable in challenging it in everyday life. So, social media and I guess challenging Trump is fine and talking in a very abstract way about how islamophobia is really bad, that seems to be okay, but on the other side I still find it very difficult to have conversations with people who think that they know everything, who think that they understand the way that Islamophobia operates in society but still get it through to them that actually it’s multi-layered and it’s still very prevalent even though people are so aware of it.”
Gendered forms of Islamophobia have highlighted street level experience and harassment of women (Islamic Human Rights Commission, 2000, Zempi & Chakroborti (2014), Ameli and Merali, 2005b, Ameli and Merali, 2015, Seta, 2016) but also the rise of Islamophobia as it impacts men through primarily the counter-terrorism laws (Rajina, 2017, Ameli et. al, 2004b). Whilst these gendered differences are now not as wide[xiv] as in previous years, they provide a way of understanding how policies and laws like the counter-terrorist regime extend in their impact not simply as an unintended consequence of otherwise robust laws responding to imminent threats or concerns, but as a form of governance based on maintaining separation and difference between groups of citizens / (non) citizens much as past forms of colonial governance operated. The street level experience of Islamophobia cannot be untied from the responsibility of the state and its legal extend over society both as perpetrator of violence and failed protector of its violated citizens.
Acknowledging the following have been highlighted as prerequisites to the reformulation of policy and the developing of good practice in countering Islamophobia:
- the epistemologies of current security praxis and studies are at best poorly constructed and at worst deliberately disingenuous (Qureshi, 2017, Begg, 2017, Ansari, 2006, Jackson et. al., 2007, Breen-Smyth, undated)
- the UK is only nominally Christian[xv] and that in terms of values it has an aversion to all religion thus marginalizing believers of all faiths calling into question its pretentions to liberalism (Williams, 2017, Farron, 2017, François, 2016)
- the operation of institutional racism throughout the praxis of government, its institutions and within academia resulting in flawed knowledge production;
- that the long durée of colonial history must be considered in understanding current praxes of government and the ‘problems’ and ‘frames of reference’ that result (Kundnani, 2016);
- Discussing political violence but not in a vacuum. Aked (2017): ‘…if you are going to talk about that you need to talk about foreign policy, state violence as well you need to talk about policy, state violence you need to also talk about political violence in the far right as well.”
Existing counter-narratives that have been deployed in this regard have included the following which are now themselves under critique as reproducing cycles of powerlessness:
- responding to government consultations on laws and policies (IHRC, 2015);
- increasing Muslim participation in the academy, and other institutions, services and professions;
- individual and community projects that try to show Muslims in their ’true’ light;
- inter-faith and outreach work;
- awareness raising events, third party reporting projects and projects around street level Islamophobia and discrimination.
The limits to these can be summarised as them being all short-term strategies, which when operating without more long term strategic vision, can serve to simply reinforce the cycle of exclusion. All the above respond directly to narratives of Islamophobia and thus risk what Malik (2014) identified as reinforcing their connection with and thus validating narratives of Islamophobia. Counter-narrative work cited as examples of good practice and work which address the long-term aims of countering Islamophobia begin with the need for they type of barrier breaking interventions in the public space evidenced in counter-narrative 3 above by Max Hill QC, as well as civil society groups led by those working with and giving voice to those directly affected. There was some criticism (reflecting long standing concerns) of the ‘saris and samosas’ approach to education about diversity (see Ameli et. al. 2015). Participants at the IHRC & SACC workshop on Education (2017) felt that such education needed to embed things in the curriculum rather than one off lessons on multiculturalism, and that what was required was critical literacy.
Williams (2017) cites the need for both government and the state education system to be the primary recipients of counter-narratives: “I think the two target audiences are government and I am repeatedly taken aback about how little information is in the minds of ministers and staff. How do we address this through the state education system? It seems to me to be an overwhelming case for a really balanced religious and cultural studies syllabus to look at how religious ‘others’ are constituted and set up and essentialized.”
The adoption by parts of the academy of the need for decolonised curricula has been highlighted as major step forward, with projects such as Dismantling the Master’s House at University College London initiating causes such as the Why is My Curriculum White? – and Why isn’t my Professor Black? movement – which in themselves and in concert with other movements like #RhodesMustFall and the NUS Black Students Campaign led to the establishing of degrees focussing on Black Studies and critical re-evaluations of existing curricula. At the time of writing a letter from student activists at the University of Cambridge to the English Faculty is credited as having started a process of ‘decolonization’ of the English syllabus (Morgan, 2017). The need to acknowledge begins in the realm of learning and various interviewees and general critique point to the direction of travel going in the opposite way at the level of schools with the introduction of ideas around the benign nature of British colonialism and the benefits brought to those colonised. The latter was seen as undergirding structural racism and in need of radical transformation.
Revisiting history textbooks at school to reflect: “rethink[ing] the stories we tell our children about who we ‘are’ and we need to acknowledge the historical wrongs that have been done in order to recognise the historical inequalities that have fed into some of the current inequalities…” (François, 2017)
The usefulness of terms such as ‘institutional racism’ (McPherson, 1999) and ‘institutional Islamophobia’ (Mubarek Inquiry, 2004) (Ahmed, 2017, Elahi, 2017) have been oft cited, and the backlash against the terms from certain think tanks (see Mirza et. al., 2007 cited in Ameli and Merali, 2015) has only served to highlight to those concerned with tackling Islamophobia the importance of the terms. The revolving door between certain think tanks and government and the continuous exchange of personnel between political, media and think tank positions is part of the meta-narrative of accountability and lack thereof that has run throughout this part of the research. There appears to be no accountability for the stranglehold on power but also narratives of power and the terms of governmentality exercised by increasingly smaller groups of people holding increasingly narrower views in particular with regard to Islam, Muslims and other racialized groups. Exposing these connections has been part of counter-narrative work of Spinwatch and others, but accountability for this situation or ways to loosen this stranglehold are yet to manifest in particularly consistent ways.
Existing and possible counter-narratives revolve largely but not solely outside the realm of direct consultations with national government as currently a futile and counter-productive exercise (Kundnani, 2017, Islamic Human Rights Commission, 2015), but does not exclude working with local authorities. A case in point is the work undertaken in Burnley to counter an EDL demonstration in particular and the rise of the far-right in general between the council, the Lancashire Council of Mosques, and Blackburn Cathedral (Contractor, 2017). This incident highlights how a shared sense of community against a nativist discourse was built over successive years in a manner unrelated to platitudes about ‘one nation’ (Cameron cited in François, 2016), the need for social cohesion (Cameron, 2007) and muscular liberalism (Cameron, 2011) as opposed to multiculturalism (Cameron, 2011 ibid). Other counter-narrative work includes working with the established church and other faith groups outside existing narratives of extremism and British values. Contractor highlights the appointment of a dialog officer at Blackburn Cathedral: “When the Blackburn Cathedral realized that, the demographics of Blackburn have changed forever… They decided to appoint a dialog officer… and her job was very much about trying to make the cathedral an open space because Blackburn is a small town and the cathedral is the towering landmark of that particular town and her job was to make Blackburn as a city more cohesive and the cathedral more inclusive.’”
Although there is a huge emphasis on inter-faith work pushed by the Prevent agenda, there were many examples of inter-faith work cited that challenged the stereotypes that are perpetuated by Prevent related work e.g. Muslims in need of socialisation to the ideas of tolerance. Such alliances include those between various Jewish groups and activists (from orthodox, liberal and secular backgrounds) and Muslim groups and activists on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns, as well as protesting for Palestinian rights, and also on social issues e.g. rights of students to express their religious beliefs.
The need for this work to be from the grassroots, and maybe supported by larger bodies who take a hands-off approach is one that Contractor (2017) recommends based on her research:
“…we asked people what they thought needed to be done to reduce discrimination on the basis of peoples’ beliefs and they said we don’t need any more laws, we’ve enough laws and policy in place. What we also discovered in that particular project where discrimination occurs, it’s not because of policy, policy is robust, it’s because of attitudes of individuals. What people suggest we do and that became a recommendation, they said we needed more dialog and faith intercultural dialog and we needed more education but in both cases the feeling was we need to move away from institutional stuff, where top down doesn’t always work… you need some sort of middle path where you have organisations leading on things but where local groups, Islamic societies, universities, community groups, mothers’ groups in our inner cities, where they are empowered and given resources through some sort of centred body to roll these things out, make them happen, make them relevant to their local needs as well because there’s no point talking about national agendas when communities are worried about roads and garbage pickups or roads that are not properly surfaced so it has to be pertinent to local needs as well.”
Acknowledging the structural nature of racism is a repeated refrain from interviewees and an emerging and urgent critique in the literature. Whilst all respondents welcomed awareness raising around the issue of Islamophobia, a frequent concern raised was the failure to conceptualise it as ‘more than’ ‘street hostility’ and discrimination. Further concerns were raised that the issue of discrimination was treated differently and almost as a form of ‘Islamophobia lite’ whether in awareness raising or (insofar as any institutional conversations exist) at a policy level. Recognizing discrimination as a form of structural violence (Johnson, 2017) was key recommendation that supports the idea of understanding and tackling Islamophobia as a series of overlapping and interlocking discourses.
There is also a need to tackle the immediate threat to Muslim women at the street level and in public spaces. The need for Muslim women to feel safe when in public, and not have to modify their behaviour is one shared by all women, however the threat of Islamophobic hatred being levelled at them gives an added dimension and urgency to the issues they face. There have been repeated calls from civil society for better training of police services on such issues, and also in recording and understanding the dimensions of religious hatred in attacks. A failure to understand the latter has resulted in many cases not being properly recorded and thus any prosecution that comes about does not have the religious element factored into this, once more suppressing a reality faced by Muslims from the public and legal imagination.
This ‘safety’ needs to extend to their interaction in everyday life at school, at work or going about their everyday business, where many report feeling they have to modify their behaviour and simultaneously not attract adverse attention by lowering their profile (Ameli and Merali, 2017). Bearing the burden of conviviality (Rajina, 2017) requires Muslim women to be always on alert to represent all Muslims because of the pervasive political, media and legal gaze on Muslims. Not having to answer questions or proactively portray ‘Muslimness’ as non-threatening, pleasant etc. is a form of safety (and equality with other women) currently lacking for Muslim women. Rajina (2017) compares this situation ironically with one of the much-criticised facet of the counter-terrorism regime i.e. Schedule 7, where a person held for questioning ‘does not have the right to remain silent.’ The right to be silent whether before the law or as a day to day participant on the life of the nation is a key facet of citizenship currently denied Muslims.
This need for safety and retreat from hostile environments has in part been addressed by the creation of physical and conceptual safe spaces (Bouattia, 2017). Whilst there has been backlash against this concept, interviewees highlighted that this space is a crosscutting issue between counter-narratives of Islamophobia.
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was caught up in a media storm in 2008 when he gave a public lecture in which he claimed that at some point Muslim civil law (shariah) would be part of the legal landscape in the UK (much as Beth Din courts are for the Jewish community. Williams (2017) states that the status of the word ‘shariah’ at that time (and even currently) is a dogwhistle term evoking media backlash and a variety of tropes and stereotypes, and that his aim by raising it was to say: “‘shariah’ needed to be understood in its diversity… don’t assume that you from the outside can pick out the essential core meanings, we have to listen to the practitioners”. Further whilst the:
“media reaction was overwhelmingly negative in a sort of know nothing way i.e. never mind what they say we know what it means and that has gone on keeps coming up on women’s rights, and issues in Islamic world. I had hoped that by addressing an audience of lawyers… that something of debate might start up, and in spite the media reports the lawyers who were there on the whole took this seriously and argued about it and of course the Lord Chief Justice a few months later took this forward.”
Recognising the perversity and refocusing the gaze of the state is a key demand of many interviewees. The obsession with what Muslim women wear rather than e.g. Home Office circumventing human rights rules to deport people (Ahmed, 2017) epitomises a situation that is frequently being exposed outside of government and institutional circles but which has not had much purchase within institutions and government structures yet. Whilst civil society now feels forced to externalise its complaints regarding human rights issues, it is clear the state simply regroups and recalibrates when external criticisms or directions are received. If the UK is serious in tackling social issues it needs to take on board critique like that of the United Nations which has denounced the securitized culture that prevails (Human Rights Council, 2017).
This has further purchase when discussing the anti-terrorism regime which spread across sectors and is found to work within and through family proceedings (Fero, 2017, Deport, Deprive, Extradite, 2017, Anonymous 5). Anonymous 5 stated: “cases get referred by the anti-terrorism branch to social services, and are driven not by social workers but anti-terrorism officers, with the possibility of care proceedings levelled against parents… siblings have even been split up. There are cases where bizarre stuff is happening when you go before a social worker…it’s a system that has been developed now, that is difficult to deal with… all of these cases are driven behind the scenes by police officers.”
This problem is compounded by the fact that (as with other barriers to accessing justice), family lawyers in the UK are not always or often specialised in criminal (including antiterrorism) law and are thus not able to represent clients adequately.
Previous critique from the UN Rapporteur on Religious Freedom, Asma Jahangir raises the question, (mirrored in questions about the divining of ‘true Islam’ by government and media): “The Special Rapporteur would like to emphasize that it is not the Government’s role to look for the “true voices of Islam” or of any other religion or belief. Since religions or communities of belief are not homogenous entities it seems advisable to acknowledge and take into account the diversity of voices. The Special Rapporteur reiterates that the contents of a religion or belief should be defined by the worshippers themselves.”
Whether this relates to Prevent and other government sanctioned inter-faith work, or the operation of policies working to socially engineer the Muslim community (Ansari, 2006, IHRC et. al. 2005) Jahangir’s comment pertains in exposing how hierarchies of racism are not only undergirded by government policy but exploited by them too.
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].
[xiv] See Ameli and Merali, 2015 on the parity in experiences of violence, and Deport, Deprive and Extradite (2017) on the increased targeting of women by the anti-terrorism laws and its adjuncts e.g. family proceedings etc.
[xv] The 2011 England Wales census found that 59.3% of the population identified themselves as Christian (ONS, 2012). However when it comes to practice, in 2016, a Church of England report found that the number of people regularly attending church stood at 18 people per 1,000 regularly attending church and were predicted to fall to 10 per 1,000 over the next three decades (Sherwood, 2016).
