Measuring the Secret Cost of Islamophobia.
Published by CJ Werleman Independent, a crowdfunded and independent investigative journalism project that seeks to expose and end injustices against Muslims around the world. Please SUPPORT his fight against injustice and the Islamophobia Industry by clicking HERE.
Measuring the cost of the anti-Muslim discourse, and by extension the Islamophobia Industry, is typically measured in anti-Muslim hate crimes. In the years spanning 2001 to 2015, there were more than 2,500 anti-Muslim incidents, which targeted more than 3,000 Muslims, according to the FBI.
Even more concerning is the fact hate crimes against Muslims in the United States surged 67% in 2017, no doubt fuelled by the hostile tone and rhetoric US President Trump has used to demonize Muslims and Islam, while hate crimes against Muslims have surged in the UK and Europe, no doubt fuelled by the kind of anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by re-energized far-right political parties.
“Muslims have been shot and killed, execution-style, in their living rooms and outside of their mosques. They have been fatally stabbed on their way home. They have been beaten in their stores, in their schools and on the streets. They have been kicked off airplanes, egged outside Walmart, scorched with hot coffee in a park, shot in cabs and punched while pushing their children in strollers. Their clothes have been set on fire and their children have been bullied. Men have come to their door and told them that they would burn down their house if they did not move away. They have been fired for wearing hijabs and for praying. They have seen their cemeteries vandalized and their Quran desecrated. A Muslim congressman has received death threats, and business owners have posted signs advertising “Muslim-free zones,” notes CNN.
As horrific and troubling these incidences truly are, they tell only part of the story. Islamophobia does more than invite violence and threats from those infected with the kind of baseless and conspiratorial fear mongering espoused by those who profit both politically and financially from portraying Muslims as a civilizational threat.
Islamophobia is a form of racism that has been defined as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction towards, or preference against, Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslim) that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life,” according to Runnymede, the UK’s leading think tank on race equality and race relations.
Moreover, referring only to ‘anti-Muslim hate’ or even ‘anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination’ doesn’t fully capture the widespread or structural ways racial inequalities persist, note the authors of a 2017 report into Islamophobia in the United Kingdom.
Islamophobia is a form of racism that either restricts of denies Muslims, or anyone perceived to be Muslim, access to employment, education, socio-economic mobility, freedom of movement, and free speech, while at the same time subjecting them to counterterrorism laws and strategies that unfairly discriminate against Muslims based on their appearance or identity.
In the United Kingdom, for example, disparity between Muslims and other groups when it comes to accessing the labor market is well pronounced. Despite the fact the percentage of British Muslims (15%) attaining a university degree is slightly higher than the national average (14%), employment outcomes and social mobility is much lower for Muslims.
Whereas 58% of those aged 16 and older enjoy full-time employment in the UK, the percentage is significantly lower for Muslims (46%). In the 16 to 24 year age bracket, 51% of the country is employed, compared with 29% for Muslims (Social Mobility Commission, 2017).
All in all, British Muslims suffer the highest levels of poverty in Britain, with more than 50% experiencing household poverty, compared with 18% for the rest of the country.
“Discrimination could play a part at the point of recruitment through a de-selection of candidates with ‘foreign-sounding’ names or whose residential address is an area with a high level of minority ethnic and religious concentration,” observes Runnymede. “At interview stage, candidates could be rejected because they are visibly Muslim because of religious attire or clothing, for example.”
A British Muslim writer and journalist described her experienced in the job market after attaining her degree: “When I compare myself to white friends and colleagues I notice that I need to work twice as hard for what I want to accomplish. Maybe it’s my non-English name, which means my CV gets overlooked, but when I do manage to get through to interviews, the fact that I am an ethnic minority who also wears the hijab makes them less likely to offer me a job.”
As a form of racism, Islamophobia also produces negative health outcomes for Muslims, and there is a growing body of evidence that points to the affects discrimination has on a person’s physiological well-being.
“This occurs via several mechanisms: first, racism increases exposure to the internalization of negative messages that may lead to decreased self-esteem and poorer mental health; second, exposure to racist stressors, such as interpersonal discriminatory treatment, may result in physiological changes and to the subsequent onset and worsening of disease, and last, racially motivated violence directly affects mental and physical health,” observes Runnymede.
Muslims are also losing their right to free speech as a result of government counterterrorism strategies, including Prevent UK and CVE programs in the United States, as a result of erroneous notions that posit Islam as an ideological gateway or conveyer belt to terrorism. In the UK, for instance, Muslim children have been referred to authorities by their school teachers for expressing support for Palestinian liberation or condemnation of Assad’s brutality in Syria; for criticizing the government to refusing to play sports associated with British culture. All of which is having a self-censoring affect on Muslim students, whose parents now encourage them to remain silent rather than risk attracting potential negative attention from teachers or peers.
Essentially, these policies serve to degredate and dehumanize Muslim citizens, stripping them of their civil rights and ability to express their opposition to government policies and, in doing so, creating quiet and conformist Muslims.
Domestic security policies that make Muslims the referent object are also putting limitations on the the way Muslims travel, further restricting their freedom of movement.
For a piece I wrote for my column at Middle East Eye, more than 400 Muslims shared with me their fears and anxieties about traveling, and more specifically flying. Their comments ranged from making light of a bad situation to narrating the dark reality faced by nearly every traveller who could be construed of having a Muslim-ish appearance or sounding name. Many reported feeling constrained in how they can act and dress within the airport terminal. Muslim men reported shaving their beards before flying, Muslim women reported removing their hijab until passing through security, and a number described how they attempt to conceal their Muslim identity by intentionally dressing in a Western sympathetic manner.
For Muslims entering and exiting the United Kingdom, airports have become extra tricky to navigate. Under the UK’s controversial Schedule 7 law, all airport passengers forfeit their right to remain silent or request an attorney, allowing authorities to stop-and-search and detain anyone entering or exiting the UK for up to six hours and without grounds for suspicion.
Moreover, authorities have the right to demand access to your laptop and cell phone during the period of detainment. For those who refuse to comply, a possible prison sentence awaits, a reality that Muhammad Rabbani, a British Muslim lawyer, now faces.
Between 2009 and 2010, as many as 85,000 transiting passengers were searched and detained under this legislation, although this figure has dropped since to 19,355 last year, according to Home Office figures. However, while the government has claimed the measure to be non-discriminatory, a 2011 Durham University study said Schedule 7 has had the “single most negative impact on Muslims”. In 2017, Home Office figures showed more than 88 percent of detained travellers were minorities or from an ethnic group that was otherwise “not stated.”
As one can see, widespread bigoted and false perceptions about Islam are what’s driving Islamophobia as a form or racial discrimination, but as Baroness Sayeeda Warsi notes, “there has been little funding for work combating Islamophobia and little political will to tackle the issue,’ all of which is exacerbated by a media landscape that profits from negative portrayals of Muslims.
As the number of hate crimes against Muslims continues to ratchet upwards, and as Islamophobia becomes ever more normalized in political discourse, the structural racism against Muslims becomes ever more entrenched, and thus denying them equal education, employment opportunities, and health outcomes, while excluding them from mainstream political and social life.
So far, however, Western governments have continued to display a blind spot towards Islamophobia, adopting positions consistent with anti-Muslim groups on the far-right that falsely claim Islamophobia isn’t a form of racism because Islam isn’t a race, which intentionally serves to undermine the struggle against the kind of racism Muslims experience. All forms of racism, however, contain a cultural component. For instance, Judaism isn’t a race, but no one in their right mind would argue that anti-Semitism isn’t a form of cultural racism.
Thus it’s time governments begin to address Islamophobia as a form of racism in order to foster societal cohesion in a time of escalating hostilities towards their Muslim citizens.
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