Counter-Narrative to Islamophobia 2 (UK) looks at diversifying the understanding of what, who and how is a Muslim, and the acceptance of this plurality within a plural understanding of the nation. 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.
The rise of the idea of ‘Britishness’ (Merali, 2017a, and Ameli and Merali, 2015) and the narrative of Islam as a counter to ‘Britishness’ and ‘Fundamental British Values’ (FBV) has narrowed the conversation around what is the nation. Both ‘identities’ are homogenized in a false manner, creating a fictitious dichotomy between British and Muslim, both imaginings of which are projected AT Muslims. Muslim ‘identity’ in this instance is created in the absence of Muslim participation but is a projection of ‘Muslimness’ created through the discursive practice of policy, media and law (Ameli and Merali, 2015). Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (2017) sees that the national conversation is one very much geared towards marginalizing faith per se, with Muslims bearing the brunt of both this increasing anti-religious culture as well as experiencing the effects of racialisation as Muslims.
The emphasis regardless on ‘Britishness’ and British values in opposition to Islam and Muslim practice even permeates civil-society where the idea that Muslims are subhuman and unable to socialise to ‘human’ norms has gained currency within civil society and caused a schism in programs to combat Islamophobia by accepting the premise that (if) some Muslim practices are beyond the pale, there must be a form of rejection of such practices and beliefs on the part of Muslims before a recognition of and redress for Islamophobia can come about. Thus, the expectations of Muslims from the government is beset with a conditionality in a way no other citizen, be they from a minoritised community or the majority community, is required to hold (Rajina, 2017, Shadjareh, 2004).
Sociologist of religion Sariya Contractor (2017) finds the direction of travel of the national conversation problematic:
“…there is too much of an emphasis on Muslims, it has to be both ways, Muslims may have questions about Prevent, or questions about other things so I wouldn’t say that the emphasis has to be on Islam or Muslims. Perhaps again, that’s difficult, why should it be the Muslims always answering the questions… the emphasis on asking questions should be about diversity, we live in plural Britain. Paul Weller, me and my colleagues argue in our book that Britain is no longer what it was, the religion belief… [is] increasingly less Christian, increasingly more plural… so the questions that have to be asked need to incorporate all the different stakeholders in society not just Muslims.”
Myriam François (2017) describes the need for this process as a discussion about the story of the country and who is part of that story. Contractor identifies three examples of good practice in this from local authorities and the Church of England. Contractor (2017) refers to far-right marches by the English Defence League (EDL) in Blackburn and Leicester. The strong network of community organisations in Blackburn and the umbrella body of the Lancashire Council of Mosques worked with the council and the police, resulting in extra vigilance and care being taken of Muslim sites. The day passed without incident. This contrasts with reports to civil society organisations where, despite direct threats of violence, Muslim sites including mosques and schools have not received a risk assessment or support from the police or acknowledgement of the precarity of their situation from local authorities (Islamic Human Rights Commission, 2017 unpublished). At the time of writing it has been reported that Muslim sites have seen an upsurge of hate motivated attacks including arson in the period (Roberts, 2017). This would suggest a community security focused approach (notwithstanding the problems caused by austerity and funding cuts) to those in legitimate fear of street violence is required as a starting point for community relations.
Contractor further identifies Leicester City Council’s response to an EDL march as exemplary:
“The very next day Leicester decided it was going to celebrate its One Leicester identity, they had a big celebration in the square, different faith leaders, young people came together, they had singing and music, they also had a mic for people passing by who would come and say why they were One Leicester and they were very careful or sensitive to the fact that Muslims have different sensibilities but also includes Muslims. They were very aware of the fact that this EDL narrative is often anti-Muslim rather than anti-immigrant and they conflate these identities… it really seemed to work. Over and over again when I interviewed people they spoke about ‘our’ celebration to counter the EDL’s message of hate. Now what was key about this was it did not focus on Muslims, what it did was focus on Leicester as a diverse community that was inclusive, included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, people that were not religious and who were Muslim. I think the focus on inclusivity is key.”
Choudhury (2017) emphasizes the need for grassroots organisations that can legitimately claim to be representatives of the people in that area be consulted by and be in communication with local authorities. Rajina (2017), El-Shayyaal (2017), Hamid (2017) are among several who refer to the need to understand the broader Muslim experience in particular regional and class differences, which make Muslims invisible as they do others who are non-London/south of England based and/or are working class. This ties in with concerns about equalities outside of a purely ‘Muslim’ focus on national problems to be discussed further in section seven below. As well as regional difference there is also the importance of analysing how Islamophobic narratives in one context bleed through when unchallenged not just regions but generations. Afzal (2017), herself a young woman recently graduated from university found in reviewing oral histories of Bradford recurring mentions of the Honeyford Affair and the devastating impact it had on the lives of those identified as Muslim in the city. This finding and reminder is counter-intuitive to the idea that politicised Muslim subject was created in discourse and praxis in the post-9/11 moment or in the UK after the Salman Rushdie affair of the 1990s. It is a reminder that the long-running tropes of racialisation need to be factored into any policy relevant work. Whilst a full analysis of the Honeyford affair is beyond the remit of this paper it is worth highlighting that the incident revolved around comments by a headteacher in the city that there was in effect a conspiracy by Asians to ‘produce Asian ghettoes’ and their ‘value system’ (as opposed to a perceived British system) and that there was a “an influential group of black intellectuals of aggressive disposition, who know little of the British traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason” (Parkinson, 2017). The ghosts of Honeyford can be found in the Trojan Horse Affair which arose in relation to a hoax alleging a conspiracy to export an already existing Islamist takeover of schools in Birmingham to Bradford in 2014 (Ameli and Merali, 2015). Whilst contemporary politics eventually saw Honeyford discredited, his death in 2012 provided an opportunity for a public reappraisal of his views in what is now a culture that has discarded much of its equalities and human rights discourse on the basis that this simply fosters a now much demonized multiculturalism. Parkinson’s (2012) article for the BBC was entitled “Ray Honeyford: Racist or Right?”. This framing as a question, signified a shift in British culture from an understanding of racist discourse to one where such discourse could be celebrated, and the stigma associated with the term racism devalued as a political tactic by ‘extremists’ old and new. This polarisation of ideas reflects a resurgent notion of monoculture which is normative and under threat by extremists. It erases even the plurality of the ‘white’ nation, made up of regions, regional and national languages (themselves replete with histories of suppression of Celtic languages and cultures), and masks the exclusionary cycles of the state when unchecked. In the French context, Milicent (2006) sees a similar cycle enacted against Muslims as was enacted against different nations that ended up being comprised in the France of today. James (1963) references this as a French colonial practice in the Caribbean which crushes the quest for national identity and differs from the British system, who seek instead to stifle such a quest.
In this scenario, the state and its and other major institutions’ discursive praxis (Merali, 2017a and Ameli and Merali, 2014 and 2015) at best stifles and now more often crushes the idea of a plural national identity or one in which marginalised groups, particularly Muslims can have a say in developing. Repeated surveys have shown, that Muslims show deep loyalty to the state (Ameli and Merali, 2004a) (even above the rate of members of the majority community) (Comres, 2015, put the figure at 93%) yet their expectations as citizens of reciprocity is dashed at almost every turn (Ameli et. al. 2004a, 2004b and 2006) by a denial of their agency as citizens, their delegitimisation as agents for change whether for Muslims or society as a whole and their expulsion from the normal practice and equality before the law. The cultural shift around this situation is characterised by a state that does not deny this situation but justifies it based on a ‘need’ for securitisation of that community that has been thoroughly debunked over almost two decades. Many interviewees whether of Muslim and/or various backgrounds often felt that the ability to change this lay outside of direct interaction with state organs that had not only failed to address these issues but promoted policies that created and/or exacerbated the situation. Thus, movement building (Ameli and Merali, 2015) that is built on alliances between social activists, causes and marginalised groups including Muslims in their diversity was needed (including Kundnani, 2017, Rajina, 2017, Aked, 2017, Bouattia, 2017, Kapoor, 2017, Narkowicz, 2017) remains a preferred option for many whose critical voices and work on counter-narratives has been key. This begs the question as to what the state’s response will be, but also demands that there the state’s response can no longer be one of a mythical monoculturalism.
François (2015) highlights that even where there is an attempt to ‘include’ Muslims into the narrative of the ‘one nation’ mantra adopted by former Prime Minister David Cameron, it is focused only when addressing Muslims (see Cameron’s Ramadan 2015 speech in François, 2015) followed swiftly by a denunciation of problematic ‘Muslimness’ that has an immediate and otherizing effect (see Cameron’s speech two days later echoing his 2011 call for a “muscular liberalism”, François, 2015). As François (2015) (whose work at SOAS includes a project on social cohesion) notes in response to Cameron’s targeting of Muslims as individuals prone to radicalization and violence:
“…the reality is that individuals are enmeshed in structures. They are not floating atoms, they are part of a broader fabric that contributes to their sense of self and belonging – or lack thereof. That is partly the fabric of their local communities, but also, the fabric of broader society. To focus purely on individual motivations – or ideology – is to try and disculpate broader society from its responsibility to its citizens. It essentializes Muslims as somehow the pure product of their religion and conveniently glosses over government failings…”
Afzal (2017) highlights how narratives of segregation in Bradford focus on Muslims’ isolation but do not look at the numerous reasons for the situation. This has been picked up by the Scottish Government in their report on Muslims (2011):
“There appears to be an underlying assumption that lack of cohesion[iv] amongst communities is a problem in Britain that needs to be addressed… A key theme in the literature is that these policies often fail to recognise the impact of economic and social deprivation, along with discrimination on community relations. As Jayaweera and Choudhury report, there has been a growing critique of aspects of the community cohesion policy. In particular: “a key line of criticism challenges the extent to which the focus on social capital in the community cohesion policy turns attention away from the importance of social and economic deprivation and inequality” (Jayaweera and Choudhury 2008).
As a strategy or indeed expectation for civil society, the importance of citizenship as a narrative is crucial. Kundnani (2017):
“I don’t think we can just give up on citizenship because we’re dealing with nation states and the only thing that we have in trying to tame them is the rights that come with being a citizen of them. I don’t think it makes sense to completely give up on the language of citizenship but as soon as you start using the language of citizenship you’re in some sense also binding yourself to the nation state. There’s always a dilemma there… Because of the history of the British empire, there is a way in which we can play the game of citizenship but also play other games because we also have in our history experiences of British colonialism and experiences of struggle against that. We can operate inside the citizenship frame but then also draw on things that are outside it and counter to it. I think that we should allow ourselves to be in that double space and allow it to be productive for us. It’s not surprising to me that the thing that seems to terrify the Islamophobic propagandists is precisely that relationship of being inside and outside. So, the ideal Muslim for the Islamophobe is the one who completely cuts themselves off from their relationships to the rest of the world and completely disowns Muslims in other parts of the world, and signs up in the most patriotic way to some idea of a nation. But, precisely being able to say “I’m inside the nation but also not of the nation” is the radical space to be and the one that gives the most purchase in taking on the Islamophobes. What that means in practice is that we become advocates both for our own communities in Britain but also for those parts of the world that are being victimized by Britain.”
With some ‘risk taking’ in how ‘autonomous narratives’ are deployed, Kundnani (2017) suggests:
“out of [this]… a stronger politics that can defend the community can emerge. And doing that in a way that is actually rooted in the needs and the lives of the communities rather than something that’s abstract. It has to be something that can have that magical effect that you sometimes get in movements where you find the language that suddenly a lot of people are empowered by it and start participating in a project together and it spreads with its own energy – that kind of moment.”
This failure to include Muslims whether as individuals or groups within the story of the (one) nation needs to be directly addressed. This extends not just to understanding the diversity of Muslims, but also in naming the problems Muslims face but also the problems of society in general. François (2017) argues both that the experiences of Islamophobia are distinct and are clumsily lumped under the one banner of Islamophobia when the impact on working class Muslims in Blackburn is considerably different than that on Muslim city workers in London. Further the problems faced by Muslims as a result of being differently categorised in the past:
“… at a different point in history, might have been looked at as working-class communities or second-generation immigrant communities or even communities that might have been identified according to their ethnicities. Today they are all just bundled under the label Muslim and I don’t think that’s a particularly helpful development because (Muslims know this) it’s such a broad church for want of a better word…”
The issue of how inequality is conceptualised and dealt with is discussed in further detail in counternarrative seven below. The idea again of who or what is a Muslim and what are the problems society face are not so easily collapsible as the current narratives of Islamophobia claim, and recognising this in the production of public discourse is a first step.
Kundnani (2017) talks about the return to a baseline of the ‘very simple equality and multiculturalism story that is in a way the official, liberal, tolerance argument that’s been there in British society for some time as the official way of thinking about race.’ He continues that more is needed in terms of diversifying the conversations, highlighting the narrowness of the foregoing in and of itself:
“…what’s important [is] to have alongside that some more radical counter-narratives that in the end… will be necessary to really get to the root of this issue. Those ultimately take us to questions of empire and the economic system that we live under… that’s one of the roots by which the discussion about Islamophobia connects over to issues of both class and issues of foreign policy and makes it part of the conversation that is ultimately a deeper crisis in British society. That part of the conversation is often neglected because it feels like it’s starting to sound conspiratorial or it feels like it’s starting to sound like the usual accusation of being apologist or terrorist. But I think it’s a necessary part of the conversation.”
The acknowledgement of the ‘crisis of British society’ in itself and as a conversation Muslims must be part of will be explored further in counter-narrative below but dovetails with the metanarrative of Muslim space (4) to create their own narratives. Kundnani sounds some warnings from previous experiences of conversation and dialogue between marginalised groups, in this case Muslims and wider civil society, institutions and the state:
“the responsibility on the rest of us in British society is in a way the flip side of that which is to respect the autonomy of Muslims, and to hear the voices that are coming out of Muslim communities on their own terms not of course then to be translated into the languages that we might feel more comfortable with (which was the issue of the nineties).”
Whilst there were some examples cited of Muslim figures within the commentariat that might add some texture to this counter-narrative, the overall view was that their participation was still conditional:
“[Mehdi Hasan] is a mainstream figure but he is a practising and believing Muslim… I see him as a mainstream figure and he only goes so far and therefore he’s not really dangerous to the system. Whereas maybe someone like Assed [Baig], if he was allowed to do the journalism that he wants to do, maybe he’d be more dangerous. But the system needs more opposition to justify its existence, it needs to give the impression that it’s open and can tolerate dissent but it can only go so far. So many people like Mehdi and others like Owen Jones and Miqdaad Versi who is getting more of a prominent presence in the mainstream, they’ll put aside… the harsher aspects of domestic and foreign policy… they won’t talk about fundamental systemic issues that actually threaten the system and might force the system to challenge the system and might force them to fundamentally change their outlook.” (Salih, 2017)
Williams (2017) sees the ‘collusion with the Saudi regime’ by successive governments as a factor in perpetuating demonised representation:
“…there is an emerging group of articulate young Muslim leaders but they are not getting heard. There is another kind of problem which is the political and economic dominance of certain influences in the Muslim world coming from Saudi that feed the myth that Islam is one thing and that is not getting any less either and that is to do with the political collusion with the Saudi regime which western powers seems to be stuck with.”
Baig (2017) also argues that the parameters of Muslim participation in the cultural fabric of the nation is severely curtailed. He highlights how his report on Muslim women who do not speak English (which has been viewed in millions on social media[v]) received much support from Muslims but also from people who had hitherto not considered the issue in terms different from mainstream narratives[vi] . The Prime Minister had criticised Muslim women who did not speak English, and also announced plans to test the English skills of spouses allowed to come to settle in the UK, with the possibility that they may be deported if their skills were not to an acceptable level. In particular the argument raised by Parveen Sadiq (in Urdu) in Baig’s piece that: ‘The English invaded more than half the world. Of the countries that they ruled, how many languages do the English speak?… People from third world countries contributed to making Britain, Great Britain, which up to this day they are in denial about…’ was widely commended. It gave voice to the people deemed outside the pale by the narrative that Muslims are segregationist; it also gave space to the autonomous voices of grassroots Muslims, whose more incisive critique has hitherto found little expression in the national conversational space.
Williams (2017) stated that the highlighting of e.g. Muslim women teachers working in many urban areas would form the basis of a good counter-narrative in the media, both highlighting Muslim contribution and subverting Islamophobic narratives of Muslim women as oppressed, segregated etc. In previous research (Ameli et. al. 2004a, Ameli and Merali, 2006a and Ameli et. al, 2007) highlighted from Muslim respondents this type of thinking – that is the truth telling on a mass scale will normalize Muslims. There are however now, some caveats to this. Ameli and Merali (2015) identify the pervasive environment of hatred against Muslims as forming a barrier that mediates all representation of Islam and Muslims. Whilst images of Muslims – even positive ones – are ubiquitous, the ambivalence of film and photography in particular (Sontag, 1982) and representation in general (Ameli, et. al., 2007) mean that representation is both familiar and alienating. No matter what a nonMuslim ‘viewer’ is shown about Muslims, the operation of Islamophobic discourses frames that view and the general Islamophobic ‘gaze’ pertains.
Poole (2017) describes grassroots initiatives that tackle this in the school setting as a short-term fix, which needs to be developed into longer term projects like:
“Educating in schools and through other organisations and more diversifying of the content that’s out there, as well as diversifying contact. The issue of contact seems to be a really big one. It’s a good mechanism in combatting some of the Islamophobia on a personal level but it’s about trying to go beyond a kind of tokenistic contact e.g. schools take children out to mosques to try and educate them about Islam but it’s not enough, it’s too infrequent and too fleeting. There needs to be more mixing on a more regular basis.”
Anonymous 4 (2017) also raises the issue of Muslim presence in Europe as something that needs to be funded and promoted through media and education:
“there is a rich hidden history of Islam in Europe from which to draw on – many Muslims already know about this – but it needs institutional funding (councils, central government, EU) to bring the history into common knowledge, e.g. through teaching it in schools, trips to historic sites, museums, media.”
He likewise highlights existing materials on the Muslim presence, specifically the English Muslim presence in the UK.
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].
[iv] Footnote from citation: According to this report such diversity amongst Muslim communities includes the context for migration, different settlement histories, geographies and employment trends. See link www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1203896.pdf. 32 Home Office (2001), Community Cohesion: A report of the Independent Review Team – Chaired by Ted Cantle, London Home Office
[v] Facebook views of the official Channel 4 News post number at the time of writing 2.1million, with over 25,000 shares https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/vb.6622931938/10153567236491939/?type=3&permPage= 1. The video also has been posted on various social media platforms and its reach is undoubtedly much higher.
[vi] In January 2016, David Cameron made series of much criticised comments about Muslim women as “traditionally submissive” and targeted the small minority of women in the UK who did not speak English (Merali, 2016a)
