Ep 200. - Unpacking Islamophobia: Drone Warfare, Refugees and The Hijab with Dr Amina Shareef
Islamophobia across the Western world is on the rise. It is a pernicious prejudice that seems to have seeped into public acceptance. It is not just the prize of the ultra right, across the West, even liberal minded governments have sought to malign Muslims unjustly. Consider President Macron’s separatism Act, that maligns in effect any believer that follows the shariah. Or consider at home, the Labour government’s reluctance to recognise anti Muslim hatred as a cause of the most recent riots across northern England. Or the US administration downplaying the murder of Palestinians.
My guest today, Dr Amina Shareef argues that Islamophobia is more than a visceral hatred. It is a death dealing project. It aims to dehumanise, and expose Muslim populations to death. Dr Amina is an academic specialising in anti-Muslim racism, Islamophobia and the war on terror policies, practices and its impact upon Muslims . You can find Dr Amina Shareef here: Website: https://aminashareef.com/ Twitter: @AminaShareef1
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Transcript - This is an automated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
0:00
I am definitely saying that the end game of anti-muslim racism is death itself things like
0:05
the hijab things like the beard things like Muslim practice prayer so on and so forth they racialize
0:11
going on about islamophobia breeds a sense of victimhood the terrorist is outside of this rules-based order therefore stuck in the state of nature there are certain lives that matter
0:20
and certain lives that don't Gaza has really made it clear without any Shadow of Doubt that Muslim
0:26
life it simply doesn't matter there's this image of a Christian Europe that is being invaded by the
0:31
Muslim migrant islamophobia or anti-muslim racism is a tool used by Muslims to avoid uh criticisms
0:38
of of Islam as a faith we know one of the representations of Muslim woman only knowable as a victim she's a victim of Muslim misogyny Islamic patriarchy whatever you want to call it to be
0:49
anti-feminist is to be anti- civilizational and we don't pay enough attention to the the place of the
0:54
hijab islamophobia across for West World Is On The Rise it is a pentious Prejudice that
1:03
seems to have seeped into public acceptance it is just not the prize of the allra right
1:10
across the West even liberal-minded governments have sought to malign Muslims unjustly consider
1:16
president macron's separatism act it maligns in effect any believer that follows the Sharia
1:22
or consider at home the labor government's reluctance to recognize anti-muslim hatred
1:27
as a cause of the most recent riots across Northern England or the US Administration
1:33
downplaying the murder of Palestinians my guest today do am Sharif argues that islamophobia is
1:41
more than a visceral hatred it is a death dealing project it aims to dehumanize and expose Muslim
1:48
populations to death Dr armina is an academic specializing in anti-muslim racism islamophobia
1:55
and the war on terror policies practices and its impact upon Muslims Dr Shar welcome back to the
2:02
fing Muslim alayum thanks for having me well it's great to have you with us and um I think
2:09
today's conversation is is a really important one uh we're just ending islamophobia awareness
2:15
month and there's a lot of conversation uh in the press or maybe less so probably this year about
2:21
islamophobia now um what struck me when we had a preliminary discussion about this subject is
2:28
you define Islam islamophobia as a deaf dealing project um what do you mean by this yes so this
Death Dealing project?
2:37
perspective is most certainly an unusual one and it definitely needs unpacking and it needs
2:43
unpacking very slowly and so I want to do it very concretely to begin with right so I want to do it
2:50
by looking at what life for Muslims looks like both in the UK and more broadly right so let's
2:56
begin with the UK uh we know that British Muslims face a higher highest levels of unemployment
3:02
relative to their uh National counterparts we know that if you're um if you have a Muslim
3:07
sounding name you're three times less likely to receive an offer for an interview uh we know
3:13
that British Muslims face the highest reported levels of poor health for the age fracket about
3:19
uh 50 years old um over half or nearly half of uh so 40 to 48% of Pakistani and Bengali
3:30
women in this country have no qualifications at all uh British Muslim women are 1.5 times more
3:38
likely to not receive epidural pain relief during child birth uh 2.1% more likely to be in prolonged
3:46
labor and 2 uh 4% more likely to experience postpartum hemorrhaging right the list goes
3:54
on and on I could give you many more statistics but let's pause there and interpret them okay
4:00
one way to interpret these statistics would be to say that these statistics are evidence of Muslim
4:07
exclusion from education Healthcare health and and employment yeah another perspective
4:14
or another approach would be to say these statistics are evidence of the slow death of a population right because what happens when you are dis deprived from education from employment
4:25
from health health and healthare but slow self right and so this this is a perspective that I take and this this perspective becomes a bit more compelling when you consider other metrics
4:36
the fact that British Muslims are subjected to death and injury on the street uh they experience
4:42
high levels of poverty such as uh crowding uh in housing and so on and so forth right but let's
4:48
look outside of the the UK for a moment here to sort of um consolidate this argument that
4:53
I'm making let's take um Refugee debts in the Mediterranean due to cross right uh between the
5:01
years 2015 and 21 there were an estimated 20,000 Refugee debts in the Mediterranean many of them
5:09
are Muslim let's take drone Warfare between the years 2004 and 2018 uh there were an estimated
5:18
6,500 deaths due to uh targeted killing by drones and say most of them were Muslim in the countries
5:26
of Yemen Pakistan and um Afghanistan let's also look at uh refugee camps there are refugee camps
5:38
that house Syrian refugees in Lebanon turkey and Jordan there are almost 800,000 Syrian refugees
5:46
languishing in these camps that's nearly 1 million living in conditions between life and death right
5:52
and we could interpret what we what we have with these statistics is evidence of slow death and
6:00
actual death for Muslim populations and so this is why I say that anti-muslim racism creates the
6:06
conditions for the premature death of Muslim populations I mean I find what you say there
Prejudice and End game
6:12
pretty interesting very interesting because you're linking what seems like disperate a disperate set
6:18
of Statistics towards Muslims domestically and internationally and are you arguing that they're
6:26
all very much linked to a Prejudice that has taken hold and that prejudice is leading to the slow or
6:33
the quick death if if we come to drone Warfare the quick death of of Muslims is that your argument almost there a there's a conveyor belt here and the end result is is death I am definitely saying
6:45
that the endgame of anti-muslim racism is death itself and sometimes what we do with our analysis
6:52
of anti-muslim racism or islamophobia is we sort of we sort of look at the origin right we say okay
6:58
it's rooted in Prejudice it's Ed in bias um it's expressed through discrimination but what happens
7:05
as a result of that we're not necessarily telling that story so what I'm saying is I'm taking
7:12
exclusion from Healthcare and health education and employment and saying what is the consequence
7:17
of all of that right and I'm drawing of course on um theories that have been presented by you
7:24
know black um the black tradition on racism to say that look what we have a situ is a situation where
7:32
um Muslim populations are facing you know various forms of death right including physical death now
7:39
my approach to anti-muslim racism recognizes that it's not just interpersonal right it's not just
7:45
between a victim and a perpetrator on the street it's not just between a victim and a perpetrator in a place of um employment or in an educational setting it's also between you know Muslim people
7:59
and states right Muslim people and policy institutions legal regimes state apparatuses
8:05
right and so it's that personal and that interpersonal and that institutional sort
8:11
of uh Focus that I take when I do my analysis on anti-muslim racism so you've used two words here
8:18
anti-muslim racism and islamophobia uh I know we we spoke briefly about it on our previous
8:24
in our previous discussion uh but tell me if there is a difference between the two and one
8:29
you use islamophobia and anti-muslim racism as as uh as as a way of explaining this Phenom I prefer
8:38
to use anti-muslim racism not because I don't not because I think islamophobia is not a valid term
8:45
right we have all this debate and discussion about islamophobia being insufficient or inadequate to
8:52
describe what Muslims are facing today because we somehow think that we can sort of peer into
8:58
the emology of a word and say this is what this word means for us now right but we don't do that
9:04
for other words like carpet for example we're not looking into the emology of that word and
9:10
saying this is therefore what it means right so we can't we can't either neither can we do that
9:15
for islamophobia and say Islam and phobia and therefore it's a kind of fear um with regards to
9:21
Muslim people that's not the approach that I take yeah um so I want to emphasize that islamophobia
9:29
is is is a project it's a racial project it's a political project that's racial in character yeah and so to keep that emphasis on the racial character of islamophobia I use the
9:40
term anti-muslim racism and then we'll get to later perhaps how I am approaching and
9:45
understanding uh racism itself well let's maybe maybe discuss so I understand that the APG the
Anti-Islam vs Islamophobia
9:51
all party parliamentary group on uh islamophobia anti-muslim racism they prefer to use this term
9:58
anti-muslim racism as a as a way to describe this phenomenon um but but in a s i I've heard from
10:05
critics of uh of the APG who argue that it doesn't go far enough because the what we're seeing here
10:14
is a prejudice against a Muslim not necessarily because of their race or racial characteristic although that may be there but actually it's because of their observance of Islam or what
10:23
they perceive to be Islam sure so for example the conversation we had last time about a young
10:29
person wanting to conduct Praise In Schools uh wasn't that less about their color and know that's
10:37
not just what racism is but it wasn't less about their color and more about their Islam so would an
10:43
islamophobia in a way be more adequate term that's a really important question and I'm glad you
10:48
raised it because you are making reference to this very popular argument that we find in across the
10:54
political Spectrum right center and left and it goes like this Muslims are not race and therefore
11:00
islamophobia is not a form of racism yeah now this argument is based on an unspoken assumption the
11:08
assumption is that you have races okay people who are divided on the basis of some kind of external
11:14
feature whether that's hair texture skin color eye shape lip size skull size so on and so forth and
11:21
then those races experience racism as a result so what this assumption is doing is telling a chicken
11:28
and egg story it's saying that racist came first and then racism followed because of it but what
11:35
if we flipped the script what if we said racism came first and then races or racialized categories
11:42
followed because of it right because after all that is what we did we looked out onto the Sea
11:50
of human difference and one we tried to categorize this difference on the basis of external features
11:57
right the the hair color the the hair texture the skin color the ey shap that I just referred to and
12:03
then two we've tried to name these differences white black brown red yellow and then three we
12:10
organize these differences or these categories uh on some hierarchy with white being at the
12:16
top uh inferior and brown black yellow red in some relation of inferiority what I'm trying to say is
12:23
that this process this process of racialization or racism created right these categories and
12:31
then established the relationships between these categories and so there's two competing stories
12:38
here racism race came first and then racism followed or racism came first and races followed
12:44
if we take the second story then we can say anti Muslim racism created Muslim created the Muslim
12:52
as a racial category it decided anti-muslim racism decided that there's something biologic essential
13:00
to muslimness for example a proclivity towards political violence right a pent for misogyny a
13:08
propensity for irrationality and extremism various other tendenc Tendencies so if we take that Second
13:15
Story which is that racism came first and then because of that you have racialized groups yeah
13:21
you can challenge this idea that islamophobia is not a form of racism and then we can begin to use
13:27
the language of racism to talk talk about even religious discrimination okay so that's really
13:32
really well explained um I'd never understood it like that just have look at for explaining like that now just to finish off the conversation then um so imagine if a a convert um a white convert
Racializing hijab
13:45
say of course you can be racist towards a white person but imagine if a convert uh became Muslim
13:51
and started to wear the hijab at work and as a result faced Prejudice from her boss or from her
13:58
co-workers um would that person be comfortable in defining themselves uh as or defining the
14:06
Prejudice as a racial project or a or a project against a religious grouping I hope you understand
14:14
yeah I'm not quite sure how that specific person would imagine their experiences but
14:19
as a researcher of antim Muslim racism I would say regardless of the skin color of the person wearing
14:25
the hijab yeah her experience is an experience of racism because the processes that have meant that
14:33
a racial meaning have been given to the hijab or the same processes of racialization that black
14:39
people experien right that other minoritized racialized groups have experienced because that
14:44
process is the same then it makes sense then to call that experience racism yeah so is in
14:52
effect your suggesting that now that this person has made a a move to become a Muslim they're now
14:59
othered they seem to be different to the host or to the majority population and they're now seem
15:05
to be part of the opponents camp or the camp that one needs to apply this level of prejudice to I
15:12
think things like the hijab things like the beard things like uh Muslim practice prayer so on and so
15:20
forth they racialize right so it's not just okay so just before I mentioned that you know external
15:28
features yeah were used historically to racialize groups hair color hair texture skin color so on
15:33
and so forth right for Muslim people because we come from all you know colors black white brown
15:40
red yellow for us it's it's our Islamic practice that becomes the defining feature of our racial
15:47
difference right and so let's just take the hijab here for a second the hijab can be racialized it
15:53
can be given a racial meaning and the same way skin color was given a racial meaning skin color
15:59
was taken as an indicator of a racial difference an indicator of some kind of biological difference
16:06
in a black person yeah and so if that same racial signification can be given to the hijab then the
16:13
we then sort of uh develops this racial alterity because of wearing it and so the experience is
16:21
deeply racial and what about the argument uh so I do want to get to this you know your AR your major
Victimhood
16:29
uh point which is you know islamophobia is a de defining project and I think it's a really fascinating conversation to have uh but what about the argument of some Muslims who suggest for going
16:38
on about islamophobia and Ines commas um breeds a sense of victimhood uh we know that there's
16:44
Prejudice out there we know that there are people who dislike us and we know that Islam features
16:50
very strongly in this Prejudice and our practice of Islam but uh why do we need to even classify
16:58
the IDE of of Islam phobia like our parents who face very visceral uh anger on the street
17:05
Sometimes They carried on and made a good life for themselves you know I think it's really important
17:11
to do the work that you know researchers and um you know think tanks and uh Grassroots nonprofit
17:20
organizations are doing around islamophobia in terms of defining it first and then acting against
17:25
it right we cannot develop any kind of iCal policy legal intervention against something that doesn't
17:33
exist that is amorphous that has no definition so what we're doing when we talk about islamophobia
17:39
is saying look there is a shared experience right that is lived by Muslims in the UK and
17:46
more broadly and this shared experience has a set of patterns and these patterns we're going to sort
17:53
of intellectualize them we're going to track their genealogies back to particular policies back to
17:58
particular histories back to particular discourses and in so in so doing what we do is we create a
18:04
picture about the political project that is racial and character that Muslims are experiencing and
18:11
then by doing so we're able to strategize right come up with action plans mobilize people uh
18:19
raise money we can't do any of that unless we've done that preliminary groundwork of establishing what it is that we're fighting against you discuss drone Warfare as part of this project of
Drone warfare
18:30
anti-muslim racism or islamophobia um what is it about drone Warfare and it's um it's it's a tool
18:38
of War how how do we make the link between uh this horrific way of of killing people and islamophobia
18:47
explain that link to me please okay so if I am coming with the argument that anti-islam racism exposes Muslim populations to premature death then how is that facilitated that's what
18:57
we need to answer first to answer the question how does drone Warfare contribute to that okay
19:03
I think it's really important to take into account the war on terror and securitization when it comes to discussion of anti racism it is the political Matrix it is what gives meaning to anti-muslim
19:15
racism today right for me that's that's the approach that I take securitization is critical in
19:23
constructing Muslim Life Is killable Life explain securitization to right so securitization is is a
19:29
process by which a particular population is deemed to be a threat right very simply um
19:36
there are other perspectives on that but I think that's uh a good place to start now let me explain
19:42
this by looking at the figure of the terrorist okay the figure of the terrorist was constructed
19:48
by terrorism discourses terrorism discourses are discourses that Tred to demarcate between
19:56
legitimate violence and illegitimate violence right so legitimate violence is a violence
20:01
of militaries of um intelligence agencies of private security forces acting at the behest
20:07
of State actors who are part of a rules-based order okay illegitimate violence is violence
20:15
that is uh enacted by non-state actors who are challenging The Sovereign power and the Imperial
20:21
projects in the state violence of this category of violence right so in other words illegitimate
20:27
violence is known is made Noble as terrorism and its actors are made Noble as terrorists now the
20:34
terrorist it's important to know is outside of this rules-based order okay it's outside of the
20:40
rule of law and therefore is stuck in the state of nature what terrorism discourses are trying to say is that Those who commit acts of terrorism do so out of some kind of ingrained biological
20:50
penchant for committing irrational violence right what I'm trying to say is that the terrorist is a
20:56
racialized category of okay it's a category of a population that hasn't progressed into the rule of
21:02
law for reasons that emerge at the intersection of biology and culture okay now what the figure
21:07
of the terrorist does is that it allows an entire population to be securitized right and racialized
21:16
as a threat and to be racialized as killable therefore why what do we do when we have a threat
21:22
a threat we know needs to be eliminated okay and so securitization makes Muslim life kill the life
21:30
and it makes the depth of Muslim populations not just normalized but even necessary for
21:35
the flourishing of a particular population that is deemed at risk from the risk the threatening
21:43
Muslim terrorist yeah that's that's really um fascinating um but but you know we are led to
Otherization
21:49
believe that the rules-based order is meant to strip away uh this Prejudice from uh essentially
21:59
who have coined this term and so everyone in the world is is meant to be treated equally and uh
22:06
States uh set up these International Norms in order to make sure that um uh people are
22:13
not otherizing people do not feel that uh their Community or their grouping uh is of lesser worth
22:20
and lesser value so I suppose I and and as I'm saying I know how hypocritical all of that sounds
22:26
to all of us but you know how does how does one get away with uh that level of prejudice that you
22:33
described when you've got this world that's meant to have moved Beyond uh civilization at least
22:39
moveed Beyond uh this um this dark world that inhabited you know this be sort of global space
22:46
premodernity really important question to ask in the context of the ongoing genocide um in Gaza H
22:55
my view on this is that and this is a view that I share with other Scholars of racism yeah which is
23:02
that the law and the universals that are enshrined in law have a limit right okay and that limit
23:14
stops at the limit of the human right what do I mean by that I referred to it earlier we looked
23:20
at at the Sea of human difference and we said oh these are humans and these are animals and this
23:26
is another species and so on and so forth right what is the limit of the human it is a category
23:32
of people that we wouldn't see as fully human and that perhaps we would even dismiss them as animals
23:40
we've dehumanized them right so this International order that we're talking about it has an edge and
23:45
it stops at the limit of the human wow and at the limit the limit is populated by people who
23:51
haven't been given who haven't been deemed to who aren't seen as having full personhood right and so
23:59
therefore they're not elgible for the protections and guarantees that enshrined in international
24:05
humanitarian law for example and that's why we continuously see violations of international
24:10
humanitarian law because these people were never considered applicable for the universals that
24:16
enshrined in law in the first place they're outside of this judical order if we go back to your question on drone Warfare yeah we will we can illustrate this okay Joan Warfare it emerged
24:29
during the Bush Administration and massively expanded during the Obama Administration and
24:36
it emerged as an alternative to uh capturing and detaining uh suspected terrorists at the
24:43
US prison um in guantan Bay Cuba now the purpose of uh Joan Warfare is not to counter an attack
24:54
but to preempt the the possibility of a Potential Threat from developing right in other words it's
25:02
a form of counterinsurgency uh in which death is the technique of power okay as the Obama drone
25:11
Doctrine uh stated kill rather them capture so there's this ne ne this there's this NE there's
25:18
this necropolitical logic here which is kill them before they kill us right so drone Warfare is all
25:24
about killing right and it doesn't uphold inter ational requirements legal requirements to make
25:31
a distinction between combatants and civilians why the kill radius right of a drone strike is 15 met
25:38
from the point of impact right so anybody within that kill zone is dead essentially
25:46
these International requirements to observe the distinction between combatants and civilians is
25:51
in fact dismissed by the US which has redefined a legitimate Target as any military AED men within
25:58
the Kill Zone right which has enabled innocent people uh to be killed on the basis of Guilty
26:05
By Association and in fact innocent people die all the time in drone Warfare and drone strikes uh and
26:12
Obama's very first drone attack okay drone strike uh in 2009 killed 20 civilians after it mistook a
26:22
yemeni bedwin village for a terrorist training camp okay now going back to our discussion
26:29
how is it possible for drone Warfare to have persisted for all these years right except if
26:37
the international order accepted that it had a limit and that its legal jurisdiction didn't
26:43
cover a particular category of people who were on the limit of what we count as fully human
26:51
right and so that limit of what is and what isn't fully human we can see that played out in in say
Muslim lives
26:58
Ukraine where the Russians do use drones against Ukrainian cities but the Uproar uh when there are
27:06
civilian deaths is is a hundred times worse it's more intense than any deaths in in say
27:13
Somalia or in yenon or in daza today is that is that what you're saying so in a sense your your
27:18
basically your basic argument is that European lives or those who look very similar to Europeans
27:25
are far more valuable in their eyes is than the lives of Muslims it's what the black lives matter
27:33
movement has been telling us for years now there are certain lives that matter and certain lives that don't and Muslim lives don't matter within that calculation okay uh we are seeing that
27:43
play out on our screens now with the ongoing genocide in Gaza yeah uh the biggest lesson
27:49
that we are learning with this genocide is that Muslim life doesn't matter and that there is no International Community that is going to guarantee its protection uh we always knew this we always
27:59
knew this uh because we were seeing it in the case of the rohinga we were seeing this in the case of
28:05
the abandonment of the Syrian people we are seeing this in uh the Detention of weaker Muslims right
28:11
but Gaza has really made it clear now without any shadow of a doubt that Muslim life it simply
28:19
doesn't matter right simply doesn't matter there may be um some comments that we get we get a lot
Muslim tradition
28:25
of comments from non-muslims who uh who riew a program and some of them are faithful and some
28:31
of them are not like Muslims maybe but there are some non-muslims who will push back and say well
28:37
fine but you would never get this level of moral morality in any ideology so Muslims would have a
28:43
similar discernment in in the case of Muslims it would be Muslims versus non-muslims so we would
28:49
attentionally historically see the lives of of non-muslims as lesser like isn't this just sort of
28:55
uh part and parel of what it means to be a member of a civilization or would you argue that there is
29:00
something different about Muslims and Islam when it comes to human life I think I would push back
29:06
on the idea that within a Muslim majority context we might value Muslim life over a non-muslim life
29:14
but I don't think that's what you're saying anyway right I think um there is very clear indication
29:19
in our religious tradition or SC scriptural tradition that you know Allah has given dignity
29:25
to all of humanity right and that dignity comes with that the fitra that he's put in us and and
29:33
that sacred purpose that he has given us and you know this chance that he's given us to to earn um
29:41
what we believe awaits those who believe and do good uh work towards the Hereafter we wouldn't
29:49
necessarily reproduce we wouldn't I don't think a Muslim society would reproduced a white Western
29:57
civilizational structure and a Muslim majority kind of uh political Arrangement because if our
30:04
Arrangement our political Arrangement leans on our sacred scripture right which has given dignity to
30:10
human life regardless of its belief in God or not yeah then we wouldn't we wouldn't do what
30:18
they have done to us right I strongly believe that we would not do that and I also believe that you
30:26
know the pressor cannot the Press cannot become the oppressor right we cannot think that we are
30:32
going to dismantle these systems of racism only to become racist ourself right we are dismantling
30:39
this system because we are bringing a new vision right a new vision to to humanity in terms of how
30:45
it should be arranged and how life chances should be distributed and how Humanity should be valued
30:52
that's what the Muslim project on this Earth is right it's about coming with this new vision and so I strongly push back against people who would suggest we would do the same thing and uh refugees
Refugees
31:02
uh we have seen uh large numbers of refugees over the last decade or just under a decade uh many of
31:08
them crossing the Mediterranean and many of them dying on in the Mediterranean or in their Journey
31:14
for Europe or of course uh across the English Channel uh between France and the UK and you
31:22
argue that this is part of this project also it's killing Muslim life explain this idea to me please
31:28
right so as you said we know that refugees are taking irregular roots to migration because there
31:37
are no legal Roots made available yeah we know that they're crossing the Mediterranean on very
31:42
unseaworthy vessels right rubber boats and all sorts of vessels that simply cannot cross what
31:49
the UN has defined to be one of the most dangerous migration routs right the central Mediterranean
31:55
yeah and yet what has been the response to M uh Refugee Crossing in the Mediterranean NOS have
32:03
launched launched search and rescue operations right which means they go out and sea they search The Horizon they find refugees they bring them on board they bring them safely to Europe
32:13
what has been the EU response to NG NGO search and rescue operations it has been to contract
32:18
search and rescue operational capabilities right and other words stop NOS from rescuing refugees
32:25
at Sea how by Prosecuting NOS on the basis of facilitating illegal immigration by impounding
32:34
and seizing NGO vessels by finding crew members in some cases up to1 million euros okay um by
32:44
not allowing disembarkation at National ports and also by not allowing rescue ships to enter
32:52
Waters where distress calls are likely to be found right so what we see here is EU policy
32:58
what is essentially EU policy to Refugee um to a refugee crisis is an abandonment to death in
33:07
the med Mediterranean right and this is where I believe the abandonment to death and the killing
33:15
of Muslim life becomes blurred this distinction becomes blurred right how how can you uphold
33:21
the distinction between abandoning to death and killing a particular form of life and so this is
33:27
why I do think that EU response to migration across the Mediterranean has been a form of
33:35
exposing Len life to death itself and and how do we create or how did they create the conditions
33:40
of prematur death okay so just to connect the two then securitization creates those
33:46
conditions for refugees to be seen as you know disposable life abandon life life that's killable
33:55
yeah uh you can leave them to die at the sea because their security threats right they um
34:00
are a threat to the flourishing of our nation not just existentially right demographically
34:06
because so we quote unquote outproduce um our white female counterparts but also because we
34:13
um come with this ideological difference right we come with Islam and if you look at anti- migrant
34:22
discourse which is really anti-refugee discourse yeah uh there's this image of a Christian Europe
34:28
that is being invaded right by the Muslim migrant even though migrants can also come in different
34:34
uh come from different religious backgrounds like uh uh Ukrainian refugees right there's this idea
34:39
that migrants are Muslims and our migration to Europe is this project of demographic Jihad of
34:47
islamization we're seeking to supplant the white population or a population defined through this
34:52
imagined whiteness and um we want to replace also uh Western civilizational values right and so I
35:01
think the securitization of Muslims the threat that we pose both existentially and ideologically
35:06
means that we can as a as a na as a continent uh essentially have a defacto policy that abandons
35:14
Muslim life to death how widely do you feel this project has been embraced by society and of course
Project accepted?
35:21
it seems like it's a political project but but it must have uh some level of credit ability amongst
35:29
populations I'm I do remember during the brexit uh referendum niga frage had uh a poster behind him
35:36
of a Quee of refugees and they're all Muslims from Syria and um you know it's very clear that was a
35:42
dog whistle to islamophobia it was very clear that he was referring to the Muslim you know as you
35:49
just describe it the Muslims are there the Muslim hordes are here to conquer Europe uh how widely
35:55
accepted do you feel that that project is within Western populations you know here in the UK I
36:02
would say it's it's really institutionalized right just in the recent elections I remember getting on
36:08
my Twitter feed a election uh video made by the labor party right no so it was the conservative
36:15
party and in this video um the the video was about why labor is bad for the UK right and in this
36:25
image uh it was there was a beach right probably do where you know um migrant uh were Channel
36:34
Crossing refugees land yeah and there was like a red carpet that was rolled out right so this
36:41
is this is a video made by the conservative party um about a mainstream election and it demonstrates
36:50
therefore that anti-migrant discourse has taken hold at taken hold of our political system at
36:56
the very heart and it's at the very heart of our political system right yeah uh further evidence that this uh anti-migrant discourse which is really anti-refugee discourse I really don't like
37:06
to call it anti-migrant discourse anti-refugee discourse um was there in the Southport riots the
37:13
post Southport riots right uh stop the boats that was the chance that um these farite riers were
Rights and left
37:21
chanting as they committed all sorts of violence in my introduction I uh suggested that it's not
37:27
just the prize of the far right but it seed into broader discourse and especially you know when it
37:34
comes to so-called allies of Muslims you know more liberal-minded or social Democrats um do
37:39
you find that and and how how do we observe that that tendency in across the political Spectrum
37:47
we see anti-refugee discourse in the fact that we have as a un response to the refugee crisis
37:57
today refugee camps okay let me explain this yeah refugee camps are politically rationalized and
38:05
popularly imagined as a humanitarian response to force displacement but the fact of the matter is
38:11
that refugee camps are more or less in violation of international communitarian law right State
38:18
signatories have a requirement to offer uh refugees three options one repatriation back
38:23
to their home country two uh Asylum and second country or three resettlement in a third country
38:31
but what we have are Syrian refugees trapped in these camps for protracted situ for protracted
38:38
situations right uh 5 years is already considered a protracted situation but in fact many of these
38:45
Syrian refugees are in these camps for upwards of 10 years now right refugee camps are not meant
38:51
to be permanent Solutions they're meant to be temporary stays or Transit Transit places of stay
38:59
okay um and they're they're highly securitized they've got exit permits uh they are regulated
39:05
in ter in terms of who can get in and who can get out barp wire fencing all of that there's plenty
39:11
of academic literature that has indicated that refugee camps are actually a form of containment
39:18
okay they their purpose is to obstruct the movement of refugees towards the borders of
39:26
wealthy Nations where Asylum Claims can be made yeah in other words the purpose of a refugee camp
39:32
is to Warehouse unwanted Refugee Asylum claimants we don't see any Ukrainian refugee camps we see
39:39
Pathways being opened for refugees to uh Ukrainian refugees to come legally into the UK we see action
39:46
plans being made that aim to facilitate the integration of ukrainians uh Ukrainian refugees
39:53
in society so there is a marked difference here right but going back to the refugee camp what
39:59
you have is is a situation of containment right of Syrian of Muslim refugees Syrian refugees are
40:06
essentially Muslim refugees yes and this is a policy that's adopted this is EU this is United
40:13
Nations policy right and so going back to your question to what extent is this anti-refugee
40:20
discourse institutionalized well the evidence is the fact that you can have these containment
40:27
camps which have genealogies by the way with prisoner of war camps with concentration camps
40:33
with detention with uh internment camps yeah right you have these kind of camps to Warehouse some
40:41
of the most vulnerable people who are escaping political conflict right and that's policy that's
40:47
that's that's the strategy by which uh these people are being dealt with and so that indicates
40:53
the extent to which these anti-refugee discourses have become institutionalist how do we respond
Islamophobia a tool?
40:59
to uh many who fight back who push back and argue that islamophobia or anti-muslim racism is a tool
41:07
used by Muslims to avoid uh any uh criticisms of of Islam as a faith I say we welcome debate and
41:17
discussion on Islam and Muslims yeah okay I say bring your discussions about what's wrong with
41:26
Islam from a philosophical perspective from an from a scriptural perspective from a theological
41:32
perspective but the fact of the matter is that most islamophobes and those who turn out this
41:38
kind of islamophobic um representation they know very little about Islam and Muslims and they come
41:46
with these tired ideas and lazy ideas about who we are and what Islam is that isn't rooted in any
41:52
kind of intellectual engage with the S so that's what we what we have problem with not with an
41:58
intelligent uh appro uh discussion with Islam but this but this approach that produces racializing
42:06
images of Islam and Muslims that then Expos his Muslim populations to premature death and all
42:12
of that masquerades as critique of of religion right that's what we have a problem with we have
42:19
a problem when former ukip counselor Eric kitson right we know this tweet he's uh it's a tweet in
42:26
which there's a pig wearing a hat that says Allah LA on it and he spit roasting a Muslim over a fire
42:32
that's fueled by the Quran we have a problem with that kind of imagery right and we have a problem with the crown prosecution the crown prosecution Services which ruled that that treat was not
42:42
incitement to religious hatred right and so so I point on incitement to religious hatred right
42:49
yes we have laws in the UK that um adjudicate that and we also have law that laws that protect
42:58
um the right to critique religion in the UK it's the religious and racial hatred Act of
43:04
200 six now this act it uh defied incitement to religious hatred as a new criminal offense and
43:13
it was careful to protect the right to criticize religion and so it defined incitement to religious hatred as any uh any speech act or behavior that's threatening and then the publication and circul
43:27
ation and displaying of written material that threatens okay so this act essentially
43:33
prescribed a very narrow Rage of speech acts right or behaviors that are both threatening
43:42
and can that are intended to incite to religious hatred okay what this act did
43:50
essentially is that it fails that it made it virtually impossible to prosecute incitement
43:56
for Rel religious hatred one because it's very difficult to prove intent and two it failed to
44:04
recognize that even if speech is not threatening and doesn't intend to stir up religious hatred
44:13
if it's if it ridicules for example then it can racialize and that racialization that racializing
44:21
capacity exposes populations to violence death and injury pre premature death right
44:27
we just if we take the example of Boris Johnson's comments about Muslim women who were the niov as being bank robbers and letter boxes that might not be considered threatening it might not have
44:37
the intent to uh incite to religious hatred but it certainly racializes and we know that
44:45
as soon as population is racialized then violence becomes legitimate against them let's talk about
Women
44:50
uh the islamophobia and women in particular Muslim women in particular because I do feel that it's a
44:57
different variants of discrimination um that men may be uh I mean talk me through through that like
45:05
how how do women face face discrimination face islamophobia I think Muslim women face the same
45:13
conditions of premature death yeah as Muslim men through M misdistribution of employment
45:18
Education Health and Healthcare opportunities and Provisions right yeah however I think Muslim women
45:24
are more likely to face anti-muslim raal violence on the street we know that statistically uh Muslim
45:30
women are also more likely to uh be vulnerable to spiritual death uh because of legal moves to ban
45:38
the hijab and other forms of um uh Islamic trust for Muslim women yeah and we talked
45:45
about spiritual death being the topic for another conversation uh Muslim women we tend to be visible
45:52
as well and so we be the brunt of you know social hostility and mistreat M and social isolation and
45:59
so on and so forth now I think what we understate is the importance of gender to the securitization
46:09
of Muslim populations right let me explain this we know one of the representations of Muslim
46:15
women is the representation of what sh Rak calls the emper of Muslim woman it's this Muslim woman
46:21
who is only knowable as a victim right she's a victim of Muslim misogyny Islamic patriarchy whatever you want to call it um she's this victim of forced marriages polygamous marriages child
46:32
marriages terrorist marriages right shum um she's a victim of FGM honor killings the whole
46:38
nine yards but this image the imperal Muslim woman she allows Islam and Muslim men to be
46:48
constructed as anti-feminist right and this gender oppression that Muslim women supposedly face is
46:57
on the hijab such that it becomes a symbol of isam's hatred for Muslim women now in this age
47:05
of so-called gender equality in which the West sort of has designated itself as the flag bear to
47:14
be anti-feminist is to be anti-civilization and so this gender um this gender Dimension allows Islam
47:24
to be situated Islam and Muslim men to be situ uated in opposition to Civ civilizational values
47:30
I.E as an ideological threat and so now that ideological threat that Islam and Muslims face or pose articulates with the existential threat that they posed the ter the TR the the threat
47:41
of terrorism and that together does the work so the the figure of the imperil Muslim woman does
47:50
the work of securitizing Muslim populations and so gender is so incredibly Central to the this
47:57
project of anisim racism and I think we don't pay attention enough to it and we don't pay enough
48:03
enough attention to the the place of the hijab and allowing all of that to happen in the first
48:08
place and hence um the war in Afghanistan was was coined as or framed as a war to save Muslim women
48:17
definely um that's really really interesting so so where do we go where do we go from here I mean
What can be done?
48:23
it seems like uh someone watching this may feel about this is pretty hopeless you know we' we're
48:29
we're now in a situation where this Prejudice has seek into everyday life how do we as Muslims fight
48:36
back how do we respond to this all pervasive anti-muslim or racism or islamophobia I think
48:44
what is important to keep in mind is that what is at stake with anti-muslim racism as I'm defining
48:53
it as a project that exposes Muslim population to premature death yeah is life itself right that is
49:00
what is at stake with anti racism life itself so sometimes we say if we don't do anything to
49:07
tackle islamophobia we won't be able to wear hijabs we won't be able to eat halal meat we won't be able to build our mosques but I say if we do nothing about anti-muslim racism then we won't
49:18
be even alive to worry about those things okay if we do not act and if we do not act today and
49:24
if we do not act strategic when we uh thinking about long-term change then all that awaits us
49:30
is Step itself okay so what can we do so while the situation looks Grim I there are plenty of
49:39
Grassroots community- based movements that have taken up the government to challenge islamophobia
49:45
right and I think if you want to do something just Join one of them for example if you have legal expertise join the islamophobia Response Unit which is the charity that seeks or that
49:54
gives legal support uh to victims of anti-muslim violence on the street if you have leverage
50:00
in your workplaces then join Muslim friendly employers which is another organization that
50:07
makes sure uh workplaces accommodate practices such as the hijab prayer Ramadan Eid Hajj so
50:14
on and so forth um if you have academic expertise why not join Community the community policy Forum
50:20
which is a think tank that provides that brings evidence-based research to policymaking when it
50:26
um concerns British Fons um there's also educate against islamophobia right and this is an
50:33
educational intervention against um islamophobia and if you're an educator or if you're a teacher
50:41
then you can be a part of bringing some of that material into classrooms into other educational institutions to challenge some of the representational Frameworks that drive this whole
50:51
political project of islamophobia um and antimos racism so there are plenty of ways to get involved
50:58
if there's a gap yeah in what you see right now at the moment then set up your initiative but I think
51:06
what's important is to get involved um recognize that we have agency we are not victims of
51:14
islamophobia we should never adopt that framework okay that has to be banished from our vocabulary
51:20
that word victim we are not victims we are here as stewards on this Earth God gave us a purpose
51:26
okay and that purpose means that no matter what the political situation is that we are going to
51:34
strive and we have agency and we are going to disrupt those political conditions that purpose is actually what is going to allow us to surmount any kind of political difficulty because
51:47
we recognize that purpose is with us no matter how bad it gets right and that purpose never changes and so recognize that purpose and look around you see what's being done be involved and
52:02
the rest is is to God with Dr an Shar it's really been a a wonderful conversation and there's a lot
52:09
of lot there to unpack and maybe we should have a further conversation especially about the the
52:14
imperal Muslim woman's uh angle that you raised there because I think that's really important in in explaining a lot of how the West frames Muslims and Islam and in particular foreign policies
52:26
but thank you very much for your time today PK thanks for having me please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube
52:37
channels and head over to our website thinking muslim.com to sign up to my Weekly Newsletter
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