tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/islamophobia-9376/articlesIslamophobia – The Conversation2024-03-14T19:58:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254182024-03-14T19:58:07Z2024-03-14T19:58:07ZIn France, abortion rights and hijab bans highlight a double standard on women’s rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581779/original/file-20240313-26-4feh20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C153%2C5348%2C3443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even though laws on religious symbols are worded neutrally, in practice, they are mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French parliament recently voted in favour of enshrining the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/04/france-enshrines-freedom-to-abortion-in-constitution-in-world-first_6584252_5.html">right to abortion into the country’s constitution</a>. While crowds celebrated outside, the slogan “my body my choice” was projected onto the Eiffel Tower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/06/france-abortion-rights-emmanuel-macron">in giant letters</a>.</p>
<p>Although concerns about <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/05/france-protects-abortion-guaranteed-freedom-constitution">barriers and access</a> still remain, women in France are now guaranteed the right to an abortion up to 14 weeks into their pregnancy, mirroring Spain but still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/01/france-expands-abortion-access-two-key-moves">well behind</a> Sweden’s 18 weeks and the 24 weeks allowed in The Netherlands.</p>
<p>The decision comes at a time when women’s reproductive rights elsewhere are under threat. In contrast to the United States Supreme Court’s decision <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">overturning abortion rights</a>, France’s vote to enshrine them into its constitution looks like a feminist dream. </p>
<p>In his triumphant speech, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/europe/france-abortion-rights-constitution.html">“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead.”</a> </p>
<p>Yet just last year, Attal, as education minister, banned Muslim girls from wearing <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/french-education-minister-announces-ban-on-islamic-dress-in-schools/">abayas in schools</a>. His message — and France’s — to Muslim girls and women seems to be the opposite.</p>
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<h2>Hijab bans</h2>
<p>France’s double standard on women’s rights is most plainly seen in its treatment of Muslim women and girls. A week after its historic abortion vote, France marks 20 years since the adoption of the <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000417977">March 2004 law</a> that bans students in public schools from wearing conspicuous symbols or clothing that manifest a religious affiliation.</p>
<p>In principle, the 2004 law applies to all students and prohibits them from wearing religious symbols like crosses, kippas (yarmulkes) and hijabs. But in practice, it is a sexist and racist law that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">disproportionately targets Muslim girls</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/a9fd3c25-946c-4486-8dd5-5d9d13da4a34">My doctoral research</a> showed how Muslim girls are racially and religiously profiled by school administrators and have been suspended or expelled for wearing hoodies, hats, <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/04/04/la-jupe-et-le-bandeau-lettre-a-sirine_893735/">headbands</a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/islamophobie-comment-les-elites-francaises--9782707189462.htm">even long skirts</a>. Last year, they were also <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2023/Hebdo32/MENG2323654N">banned from wearing abayas</a>, which are long garments that are worn over clothing.</p>
<p>In my research, I refer to these bans as “anti-veiling laws” because, although they speak of religious symbols in general, the primary motivation behind these is always Muslim women’s dress. </p>
<p>France’s law led other jurisdictions across Europe and North America to ban Muslim women’s attire in various contexts. <a href="https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/0b300685-1b89-46e2-bcf6-7ae5a77cb62c/policy-brief-restrictions-on-muslim-women%27s-dress-03252022.pdf">A 2022 report</a> from the Open Society Justice Initiative found that out of the 27 European Union member countries, only five have never enacted, or attempted to enact, bans on veiling. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Québec holds the distinction of being the only province in Canada to implement a <a href="https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/l-0.3">ban on religious symbols</a>.</p>
<p>Former Québec Premier Pauline Marois cited the French law as being an <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/395252/pauline-marois-et-jean-marc-ayrault-sont-sur-la-meme-longueur-d-onde?">“inspiration”</a> for her government’s failed <a href="https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-60-40-1.html?appelant=MC">Bill 60</a>, known as the Charter of Québec Values. That bill was a precursor to <a href="https://ccla.org/major-cases-and-reports/bill-21/">Québec’s Bill 21</a>, which bans teachers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and other officials in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.</p>
<h2>Discrimination against Muslim women</h2>
<p>Even though the laws are worded neutrally, claiming to defend abstract principles like secularism, religious neutrality, gender equality or “<a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-145466%22%5D%7D">living together</a>,” in practice they are <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/behind-the-veil-9781788970846.html">mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire</a>.</p>
<p>Human rights groups like <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">Amnesty International</a> and the <a href="https://ccieurope.org/report2023/">Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe</a> have demonstrated that the surveillance, suspension and expulsion of Muslim girls at school have led to a decrease in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055420000106">educational and employment outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to <a href="https://ccieurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/report-ccie-2023.pdf">increasing discrimination</a> against them, these bans also violate their right to education without discrimination, a right that is upheld in several international treaties, including the United Nations <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>.</p>
<p>However, the most insidious aspect of France’s 2004 law is how it has been used to justify even further restrictions on the rights of Muslim women and girls, such as women wearing <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000022911670">face veils or niqabs</a>, mothers wishing to accompany their children on <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/circulaire-preparation-rentree-2012?cid_bo=59726">school outings</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230629-top-court-rules-in-favour-of-hijab-ban-in-french-women-s-football">women athletes</a> who <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/france-ensure-muslim-women-and-girls-can-play-sports/">wear hijab</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, Muslim women are routinely told to take off their clothes or to wear less clothing, even in places or contexts where they legally have the right to wear whatever they want, including at <a href="https://doi.org/10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0101">public beaches</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61883529">swimming pools</a>.</p>
<h2>Body sovereignty</h2>
<p>This brings us back to the issue of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. Access to abortion is an important right for women everywhere, but women’s rights extend beyond abortion.</p>
<p>The concept of body sovereignty was developed by Indigenous feminists and activists, and refers to a person’s autonomy over their own body as well as to their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2017.1366179">relationship to land</a>, <a href="https://www.adiosbarbie.com/2016/01/a-critical-conversation-with-sheena-roetman-on-body-sovereignty-and-justice/">belief systems</a> and ways of being that are <a href="https://www.journal.mai.ac.nz/system/files/MAI_Jrnl_2020_V9_2_Gillon_FINAL.pdf">intersectional</a>, <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4">sexually diverse</a>, non-Eurocentric, non-ableist and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319893506">non-fatist</a>. It includes everything from diet, clothing, sexual activity and beauty ideals to reproductive health and freedom from violence.</p>
<p>Anti-veiling laws discriminate against Muslim women and girls, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">encourage violence against them</a> and undermine the principle of body sovereignty.</p>
<p>Feminists and pro-choice activists everywhere should pause and think about what it means for governments to guarantee abortion rights to women while denying them the more expansive concept of body sovereignty. If feminists and their allies are outraged when theocratic regimes impose religious dress on women, they should be similarly outraged when democratic governments also restrict what women can wear: these are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Both undermine women’s freedom, body sovereignty and self-determination. It is time for feminists everywhere to demand an end to laws that force women to dress one way or another, regardless of where in the world they are enacted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roshan Arah Jahangeer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As France enshrines abortion rights in its constitution, the country’s ban on wearing religious symbols in schools turns 20 years old.Roshan Arah Jahangeer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2250312024-03-05T13:49:08Z2024-03-05T13:49:08ZQuick, blame the deep state! The tactics at play when Tories spout conspiracy theories<p>Conservative MPs seem increasingly willing to use the rhetoric of conspiracy. Recently, Liz Truss claimed that her brief tenure as prime minister had been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbz-mYLzdw">ended by the deep state</a> – shadowy forces within the British establishment and the media.</p>
<p>A few days later, Lee Anderson, the Conservative party’s former deputy chairman, asserted that London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/23/tory-mp-lee-anderson-claims-islamists-have-got-control-of-sadiq-khan">controlled by Islamists</a>. He was adding his own twist on a similar conspiracy theory put forward by former home secretary Suella Braverman, who claimed in a Telegraph article that Islamists are <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/22/islamism-suella-braverman-gaza-ceasefire-lindsay-hoyle/">in charge of the whole country</a>. </p>
<p>Why do politicians make conspiracy claims like these? It seems strange for MPs whose party has been in government for almost 14 years to imply that they aren’t really in control and that power is wielded by hidden actors.</p>
<p>Maybe Truss and Anderson mean what they say, and say what they mean. But even if they do believe that Britain is governed by a deep state or Islamist plotters, knowing a bit about rhetoric can help us to see that there is more going on when politicians use the language of conspiracy.</p>
<h2>Context matters</h2>
<p>A good politician will adapt what they say to fit the moment and their audience. For example, Truss’s deep state comments were made at CPAC, a conference for American conservatives. She was speaking in part to promote her new book, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEykZe1z6nY">Ten Years to Save the West</a>, and so had little reason to do anything other than give her audience what it likes. Conspiracy theories have become prominent in American conservatism (think QAnon and the claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen), so echoing the rhetoric is an obvious way for a CPAC speaker to ingratiate themselves with an audience.</p>
<p>Anderson, though, was speaking in the UK, where conspiracist language is more unusual. His comments were seen by many as deliberately divisive and Islamophobic, and quickly landed him a suspension from his party. That said, government ministers <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/nick-ferrari-cuts-interview-short-after-minister-refuses-answer-question/">were evasive</a> when asked why his comments were wrong and whether they were Islamophobic.</p>
<h2>Part of the brand</h2>
<p>Courting controversy carries risks, as Anderson’s suspension shows. But it can also thrust a politician into the limelight, giving them a chance to speak to a broader audience and potentially gain new supporters. Much of the time, politicians make their own character – or ethos, as it is known in classical rhetoric – part of their pitch.</p>
<p>In her comments alleging a deep state conspiracy, Truss took on a populist tone. She portrayed herself as an anti-establishment figure fighting for the British people against the elites. She didn’t mention her party’s long period in government in charge of the civil service that allegedly made her tenure so impossible. Nor did she refer to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sterling-hits-all-time-low-two-things-can-turn-this-around-but-neither-is-straightforward-191370">economic problems</a> brought about during her fleeting administration.</p>
<p>Speaking to an audience which is likely to be less familiar with her political career, Truss was able to present herself as the protagonist in a David and Goliath narrative – albeit one in which David is defeated.</p>
<p>Similarly, Anderson used the controversy around his comments to present himself as a man of the people. Rather than giving any evidence to back up his claims about Islamists controlling Khan, Anderson instead justified his views by citing the positive reaction he had received from his constituents. When told in an <a href="https://youtu.be/No7evaiMj-M?feature=shared&t=285">interview with Channel 4 News</a> that people were puzzled by his refusal to back down, Anderson replied: “If you go and speak to people in Ashfield [Anderson’s constituency] and ask them if they’re puzzled about it, no they’re not.”</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the controversy, <a href="https://youtu.be/YSOnSWys-yM?feature=shared&t=337">Anderson told GB News</a>: “When I went into pubs in Ashfield at the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I got a round of applause when I went in. And these are normal working-class people.”</p>
<p>Such comments can be seen as part of a broader trend. Politicians have learned to cite the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00953.x">opinions of ordinary people</a> in order to justify spurious claims. Rather than explaining anything about how he came to view Islamists being in charge of London, Anderson’s response to questions has been to use them as an opportunity to present himself as an outsider to the political establishment – a man in tune with what voters really think.</p>
<h2>Pitting ‘us’ against ‘them’</h2>
<p>This focus on presenting a certain persona and using it to justify baseless comments tells us something important – that identity is a key ingredient in conspiracist rhetoric.</p>
<p>It enables a politician to construct a conflict between an in-group and an out-group – a struggle between “us” and “them” – and asks the audience to pick a side. Rather than focusing on policies or ways of improving life for the British population, this rhetoric wants the audience to identify with the speaker’s character and join them in opposing a threatening enemy.</p>
<p>In this way, conspiracist rhetoric is much like the Conservatives’ attacks on “woke ideology” – it deflects attention away from their record in government, and rallies their supporters against an enemy at a time when the party is down on its luck. </p>
<p>Counteracting this is no easy task. Rhetoric is an art, not an exact science. One strategy could be to focus more on what politicians are trying to achieve when they use conspiracist rhetoric. While it is important to determine whether or not they really believe in a deep state or Islamist conspiracy, we also need to challenge the personas that politicians craft for themselves, as well the us-against-them divisions they construct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Koper has received funding from the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), and is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>When Liz Truss blames shadowy elitists for her failings as prime minister, she is leaning into a tried-and-tested formula.Adam Koper, WISERD Civil Society Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239292024-02-28T16:52:39Z2024-02-28T16:52:39ZRestaurants outside of Palestine and Israel are being attacked in protest of the war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577061/original/file-20240221-18-tts63c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olives at a stall in Machne Yehuda Market, Jerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rebecca Haboucha</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023 and the ensuing war between Palestine and Israel, there has been a rise in <a href="https://cst.org.uk/data/file/9/f/Antisemitic_Incidents_Report_2023.1707834969.pdf">antisemitism</a> and <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-11-09/i-was-terrified-islamophobic-incidents-up-by-600-in-uk-since-hamas-attack">Islamophobia</a> around the world. </p>
<p>Much of this hate-driven crime has been committed against restaurants owned by Israelis and Palestinians, as well as by Jewish and Muslim people. Scholars <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-boycotting-everything-russian-and-blaming-russian-society-rather-than-putin-is-xenophobic-179267">highlight</a> the long-standing trend of <a href="https://www.bonappetit.com/story/russian-restaurant-owners-ukraine-war">restaurants being attacked</a>, physically or virtually, on social media, in relation to sociopolitical events.</p>
<p>My research looks at <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003085430-4/reimagined-community-london-rebecca-haboucha?context=ubx&refId=bb3d8c68-e404-4d4e-9e7b-49cee15abf6b">culinary heritage and diaspora</a>. People attacking restaurants in protest create a false dichotomy between food culture and national conflict, wherein one group casts the opposing group’s restaurants variously as villains or as diplomats. The question is what power such protest can wield in addressing war abroad. </p>
<h2>Food as a tool for soft power and protest</h2>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, food has been used as a tool for soft power, that is a means for achieving influence through means other than directly political ones. </p>
<p>When places like restaurants and warehouses, where food is sourced or served, have become <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2603315">sites of protest</a>, the aim has been to directly address a contemporary issue (<a href="https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2031397/m2/1/high_res_d/1981-v59-n02_a02.pdf">segregation</a> in the American south, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190629038.013.46">human rights violations</a> in apartheid South Africa or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12298">diplomatic relations</a> between Japan and Korea). The protest is about enacting a change that could have observable, immediate effect by addressing those responsible. </p>
<p>Restaurants do often represent ethnic or <a href="https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.soas.idm.oclc.org/lib/soas-ebooks/reader.action?docID=7109689&ppg=4">national cuisines</a>. This can build the public’s idea of a particular community’s cuisine. </p>
<p>However, very few diasporic restaurants are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.16980/jitc.13.4.201708.93">sponsored</a> by the diaspora’s home government as a resource for diplomacy. More often, the restaurant’s culinary culture is related to the owner’s personal identity. In this way, the restaurant operates what might be termed <a href="https://liveencounters.net/2017-le-mag/12-december-2017/jennifer-shutek-gastrodiplomacy-in-palestineisrael/">“unofficial” culinary diplomacy</a>.</p>
<p>The attacks perpetrated against Israeli and Palestinian food stores and restaurants over the past five months, however, follow a different model. </p>
<p>In London, one attack on a restaurant, which was later classified as a burglary, evoked fear in the Jewish community. This led to public comments by <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/jewish-restaurant-pita-attack-golders-green-free-palestine/">local politicians condemning</a> the excuse to <a href="https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-jews-always-rise-globally-when-conflict-in-israel-and-palestine-intensifies-216590">target Jews</a> as a response to the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Similarly, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67172707">Palestinian takeaway in London</a> has been receiving dozens of death threats, daily. The staff have spoken about being frightened and intimidated.</p>
<p>In Philadelphia, the Philly Palestine Coalition stormed an Israeli restaurant, <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/usa/antisemitic-mob-targets-jewish-falafel-restaurant-in-philadelphia-g3xe630y">Goldie Falafel</a>, after closing time, chanting: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” This accusation was rightly likened to the long-recognised antisemitic trope of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26770791">“blood libel”</a>.</p>
<p>Dating back to the middle ages, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2015.1110380">blood libel</a> accused Jewish people of killing Christians to use their blood in Jewish ritual. The unfounded accusation that a Jewish restaurant owner is “genocidal” is a modern iteration of that idea in that it wrongly views a Jewish individual – and the Jewish people – as violent and hateful against others and uses that view as a justification for antisemitism.</p>
<p>The restaurant’s owner, Michael Solomonov, does not hide the Israeli inspiration of his restaurants or his Israeli-American identity. However, the fact that the restaurant was closed at the time of the attack shows that the protestors’ accusation was not entirely about the owner himself. Rather, it was an attempt to publicly scare Jews and hold them responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. </p>
<h2>Eating together can create community</h2>
<p>In this kind of attack, a national cuisine (Israeli or Palestinian) becomes a nationalistic symbol. The distinction is important. The protesting group simplifies their understanding of a national character and imposes it on the restaurant and the local community it is a part of, in a bid to justify its iconoclasm. By targeting a restaurant that identifies with a specific cuisine, the protester makes that restaurant’s owner responsible for the actions of an entire group, or country. </p>
<p>In so doing, the protestor also dehumanises the “other”. These attacks preclude any attempt to engage in a nuanced conversation with those of differing opinions, a phenomenon mirrored on <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43545-021-00240-4">social media</a>.</p>
<p>This point is made clearer by the fact that protesters have also targeted <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/i-fought-off-the-golders-green-knifeman-with-only-a-broom-u9zhon1h">kosher</a> and <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/amp/ex-barack-obama-official-arrested-for-islamophobic-harassment-of-halal-food-seller-in-new-york-13014119">halal</a> outlets, that have links to neither Israel nor Palestine. </p>
<p>Research shows that the act of equating Israel with all Jews and speaking of Judaism as a homogenised entity is <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-is-criticism-of-israel-antisemitic-a-scholar-of-modern-jewish-history-explains-220995">antisemitic</a>. In the same way, attacking anyone or anything that is Muslim, in response to Hamas’s actions, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-islamophobia-and-anti-palestinian-racism-are-manufactured-through-disinformation-216119">Islamophobic</a>.</p>
<p>Restaurants, ironically, are precisely the kind of spaces where nuanced understanding can actually be built through what is termed <a href="https://theconversation.com/family-meals-are-good-for-the-grown-ups-too-not-just-the-kids-158739">commensality</a> – the act of eating together. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N50bl-1UdWg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">For the owners of Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn, food is a way to bring people together.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This has been evident both in some responses to attacks on restaurants and in actions restaurants themselves have taken. Contrary to iconoclastic or dehumanising protest, some have chosen to create opportunities for diners to find comfort in being together. </p>
<p>On the day after the rally outside <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/04/pa-gov-rebukes-protesters-for-chanting-outside-jewish-restaurant/">Goldie Falafel</a>, hundreds of customers showed up in solidarity. They bought and ate falafel. Some prayed together. </p>
<p>In January, meanwhile, a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/29/ayat-brooklyn-palestinian-restaurant-jewish-sabbath-shabbat-dinner">Ayat</a> rose above the threatening calls and online messages they had received since December, by hosting a meal for the Jewish Sabbath. </p>
<p>They provided meals to over 1,300 customers. People came from across all communities – Muslim, Jewish and others – looking to support the restaurant. This act of eating together was about finding hope in a hopeless situation. </p>
<p>Access to food is playing a central role in the conflict itself. In Gaza, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/16/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-un-israel-war-intl-hnk/index.html">Palestinians</a> are facing <a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-siege-has-placed-gazans-at-risk-of-starvation-prewar-policies-made-them-vulnerable-in-the-first-place-222657">famine and starvation</a>. Aid has been hampered, with the World Food Programme <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68360902">citing</a> “complete chaos and violence” for its decision to halt deliveries.</p>
<p>In Israel, meanwhile, around 200,000 people <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02521-7/fulltext">have been internally displaced</a> by the war. This has led to new initiatives for <a href="https://asif.org/en/the-open-kitchen-project/">food sharing</a> and volunteering in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/volunteers-rush-israeli-farms-stripped-workers-after-hamas-attack-2023-11-16/">agriculture sector</a>. </p>
<p>Ayat’s owners said that through their Shabbat meal, they wished to convey a message of peace and shared humanity that has largely been lacking from this conflict. Food has the incredible power to unite, to provide natural spaces for conversations and to heal, if we let it. In a time of overwhelming grief, it is worth remembering that food is charged with the power we give it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Haboucha is currently the holder of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2023-2026) for her project, titled 'Jewish Table Talk: Discerning Mizrahi Belonging through Foodways'.</span></em></p>By targeting a restaurant owner who identifies with a specific cuisine, the protester makes that one person responsible for the actions of an entire group or country.Rebecca Haboucha, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Anthropology, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244792024-02-27T16:32:40Z2024-02-27T16:32:40ZLee Anderson’s Islamophobia 101: how the Conservatives dodge responsibility for the prejudice that is rife in their ranks<p>Despite the furore, the recent attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan by the now-suspended Conservative MP Lee Anderson should come as no surprise. In much the same way, neither should we be surprised at prime minister Rishi Sunak’s failure to call out what Anderson said as being anything other than blatant Islamophobia. When it comes to the Conservative party, we have been here before. For them, this is Islamophobia 101.</p>
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<p>The recent controversy began when Anderson – who was until very recently the party’s deputy chairman – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/23/tory-mp-lee-anderson-claims-islamists-have-got-control-of-sadiq-khan">told GB News</a> that Sadiq Khan had “given our capital city away to his mates”. As he went on, “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan, and they’ve got control of London”.</p>
<p>Since then, Anderson has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/26/lee-anderson-stands-by-attack-on-sadiq-khan-and-launches-fresh-broadside">doubled down</a>, adding: “when you think you are right, you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness”.</p>
<p>Anderson has lost the whip, but beyond that the message coming out of the Conservative party has been tempered. Sunak has <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/lee-anderson-sadiq-khan-islamophobic-racist-islamist-london-tories-b1141445.html">failed to even acknowledge</a> Anderson’s comments as Islamophobic, let alone condemn them as such, <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-storm-lee-anderson-rant-islamophobia-b1141641.html">saying instead:</a> “I think the most important thing is that the words were wrong, they were ill-judged, they were unacceptable.”</p>
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<h2>The Conservatives’ problem with Islamophobia</h2>
<p>In recent years, the Conservative party has struggled to disentangle itself from various allegations that it is Islamophobic. In 2018, the Muslim Council of Britain presented the party with <a href="https://drchrisallen.medium.com/a-summer-of-islamophobia-considerations-of-the-lessons-learned-9d7b85b05014">a dossier detailing near-weekly incidents</a> involving various party members. </p>
<p>For those such as the former party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the dossier was merely the tip of the iceberg. Noting how experiences of hate and discrimination are notoriously under-reported <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-islamophobia-tory-party-racism-baroness-warsi-a8394271.html">she claimed at the time</a> that Islamophobia is “widespread [in the party]…from the grassroots, all the way up to the top”.</p>
<p>In the same year, former prime minister Boris Johnson referred to Muslim women who choose to wear the full-face veil as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/05/denmark-has-got-wrong-yes-burka-oppressive-ridiculous-still/">in an article for the Telegraph</a>. He dismissed the comments as little more than a gaffe but the allegations prompted the then home secretary Sajid Javid to ask his rivals during a BBC Conservative leadership debate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/18/sajid-javid-puts-rivals-on-the-spot-over-tory-party-islamophobia">to commit to an external investigation into Islamophobia</a>, whoever the next leader might be. All, including Johnson, agreed. </p>
<p>Once Johnson had secured the party leadership however, the investigation was <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-the-conservative-party-key-points-from-the-inquiry-on-discrimination-161532">shifted away from Islamophobia</a> onto discrimination more widely. Doing so enabled the party to distance itself from the very reason why such an investigation was deemed necessary in the first place: claims of widespread Islamophobia.</p>
<h2>Quibbling over definitions</h2>
<p>Another way the Conservatives – and indeed others – have chosen to deny allegations of being Islamophobic is to claim that they do not have a definition for Islamophobia and therefore cannot assess whether comments such as Anderson’s are Islamophobic. Such a premise is of course a farcical, straw man argument.</p>
<p>Like all other discriminatory phenomena – from racism to homophobia – plenty of definitions have been put forward that could be adopted by the Conservatives. They could simply look to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, which in 2018 made history by putting forward the first working definition of Islamophobia in the UK. In its report <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c3d2febbd1a90cffdd8a9/t/5bfd1ea3352f531a6170ceee/1543315109493/Islamophobia+Defined.pdf">Islamophobia Defined</a>, it posited that “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.</p>
<p>Despite this definition being adopted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and various local governments across the country, the Conservative party announced it was not intending to adopt the definition on the basis that <a href="https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/factsheets/islamophobia-defined/">further consideration was necessary</a>.</p>
<p>Continuing to deny the existence of an appropriate definition is, at this point, a convenient way to avoid being accused of being Islamophobic. As I put it in my 2020 book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-33047-7">Reconfiguring Islamophobia</a>, all the debate around definitions achieves is to afford detractors permission to do nothing about the problem itself.</p>
<h2>Attacks on Sadiq Khan</h2>
<p>Opposition parties were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/23/tory-mp-lee-anderson-claims-islamists-have-got-control-of-sadiq-khan">immediately critical</a> of Anderson’s comments. But while the Labour party Chair Anneliese Dodds described them as “unambiguously racist and Islamophobic” and the Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate Rob Blackie castigated the MP for “spreading dangerous conspiracy theories”, it is interesting that no one has highlighted how attacking Khan specifically is becoming an alarmingly common political tactic.</p>
<p>This was nowhere more evident than during Zac Goldsmith’s 2016 London mayoral campaign. Branded “disgusting” at the time, Goldsmith published a piece in the Mail on Sunday with the headline: “Are we really going to hand the world’s greatest city to a Labour Party that thinks terrorists are its friends?”. Goldsmith went on to paint rival Khan as a security risk, claiming he had past links with extremists and that he supported Islamic State. Sound familiar?</p>
<p>So too does the Conservative party have a history of laying claim to Islamist extremists infiltrating other parts of British society. Michael Gove, during his time as education secretary, launched an investigation into claims “Muslim hardliners” were taking over state schools in Birmingham, despite the letter that made the allegations being immediately dismissed as a hoax by the police. In 2015, Theresa May, while home secretary, took it even further, launching <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/19/new-counter-extremism-strategy-revealed-theresa-may">a campaign against “entryist” infiltration</a> across vast swathes of the public and third sectors by Islamist extremists.</p>
<p>While there should be no hierarchy when it comes to hate or discrimination, the reality is that when it comes to Islamophobia, the scrutiny directed at other forms of prejudice is undeniably absent. What can be said and alleged about Muslims in political (and public) spaces cannot be said about other religious groups and communities.</p>
<p>It should be shocking that the prime minister cannot even acknowledge Anderson’s comments as Islamophobic – but it isn’t. It’s just another example of the sheer disregard and utter contempt that is shown by political leaders towards this problem.</p>
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<p><em>Far-right parties and politicians are mounting election campaigns all over the world in 2024. Join us in London at 6pm on March 6 for a salon style discussion with experts on how seriously we should take the threat, what these parties mean for our democracies – and what action we can take. Register for your place at this <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/social-science-perspectives-on-the-far-right-tickets-838612631957?aff=theconversation"><strong>free public session here</strong></a>. There will be food, drinks and, best of all, the opportunity to connect with interesting people.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has suspended the MP over his comments about Sadiq Khan but has conspicuously failed to acknowledge the Islamophobia at the heart of the scandal.Chris Allen, Associate Professor, School of Criminology, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167002024-02-12T13:25:17Z2024-02-12T13:25:17ZA brief history of Dearborn, Michigan – the first Arab-American majority city in the US<p>Dearborn, Michigan, is a center of Arab American cultural, economic, and political life. It’s home to several of the country’s oldest and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/4462?login=false">most influential mosques</a>, the <a href="https://arabamericanmuseum.org/">Arab American National Museum</a>, dozens of now-iconic Arab <a href="https://halalmetropolis.org/story3">bakeries and restaurants</a>, and a vibrant and essential mix of Arab American <a href="https://www.accesscommunity.org/">service and cultural</a> organizations. </p>
<p>The city became <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/09/26/census-data-shows-arab-american-population-in-dearborn-now-makes-up-majority-of-people-living-there/">the first Arab-majority city in the U.S.</a> in 2023, with roughly 55% of the city’s 110,000 residents claiming Middle Eastern or North African ancestry on the 2023 census.</p>
<p>One of us is an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/old-islam-in-detroit-9780199372003?cc=us&lang=en&">author</a> and <a href="https://umdearborn.edu/people-um-dearborn/sally-howell">historian who specializes in the Arab and Muslim communities of Detroit</a>, and the other is a <a href="https://umdearborn.edu/casl/centers-institutes/center-arab-american-studies/faculty-spotlight-amny-shuraydi">criminologist</a> born and raised in Dearborn who conducts research on the <a href="https://umdearborn.edu/people-um-dearborn/amny-shuraydi">experiences and perceptions of Arab Americans</a>. We have paid close attention to the city’s demographic shifts. </p>
<p>To understand Dearborn today, we must start with the city’s past. </p>
<h2>Ford and Dearborn are in many ways synonymous</h2>
<p>Dearborn owes much of its growth to automotive pioneer Henry Ford, who began building his famous <a href="https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/ford-rouge-factory-tour/history-and-timeline/fords-rouge/">River Rouge Complex</a> in 1917. Migrants from the American South alongside immigrants from European and Arab countries settled <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/63">Dearborn’s Southend</a> neighborhood to work in the auto plant.</p>
<p>While most early 20th-century Arab immigrants to the United States were Christians, those who moved to Dearborn in the 1920s were mainly Muslims from southern Lebanon.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A history of Dearborn in photos by local photographer Millard Berry.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Life downwind of the world’s largest industrial complex proved challenging. But the real threat this diverse population faced in the 1950s through the 1970s was from a city-led rezoning campaign designed to turn the Southend over to heavy industry. </p>
<p>Most of the white ethnic groups in the neighborhood had churches and business districts scattered around Detroit, which <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/63/538">facilitated their departure</a> from the Southend. But for Arab American Muslims, this community, with its mosques and markets, was indispensable as they began to welcome distant kin from the Middle East after <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/hart-celler-act/">U.S. immigration laws</a> relaxed in the 1960s. </p>
<p>Fleeing <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3012042">civil war in Yemen</a> and the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469630984/the-rise-of-the-arab-american-left/">Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories</a> in 1967, these new Arab immigrants breathed new life into Dearborn. In 1973, they filed a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1791528153904541635&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">class-action lawsuit</a> against the city that eventually saved their neighborhood.</p>
<p>When the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469630984/the-rise-of-the-arab-american-left/">Lebanese civil war</a> broke out in 1975, the Southend again welcomed a new generation of refugees and migrants. By the 1980s, this mix of first- and second-generation Arab Americans had begun to spill into other neighborhoods in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/4462?login=false">East Dearborn</a>. New mosques began opening in the 1980s, and Arab entrepreneurs began investing in neglected commercial corridors. </p>
<p>But Arab Americans frequently <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/63/538">faced discrimination</a> in the housing market and in the public schools, which struggled to address the needs of a large cohort of English language learners. </p>
<h2>Overcoming discrimination</h2>
<p>Tensions came to a head in 1985, when Michael Guido won a mayoral race in which the “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/decades-after-the-arab-problem-muslim-and-arab-americans-are-leading-political-change-in-metro-detroit">Arab problem</a>,” as his <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3040/Arab_Problem_%282%29.pdf?1707574613">campaign literature</a> described it, pitched the interests of the white working class against new Arab migrants. </p>
<p>Arab American activists responded by pushing for more city services in East Dearborn and running for office. Republican <a href="https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-bhl-2015006">Suzanne Sareini</a> was the first Arab American elected to the City Council in 1990. </p>
<p>But with at-large elections, those with <a href="https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=pad">more Arab-sounding names</a> were at a disadvantage. It took another 20 years, when Arabs became the plurality of the population, before other Arab Americans joined Sareini on the council. </p>
<p>Following the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, Dearborn became a target for anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/12638">government surveillance,</a> and harassment. <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/arab-detroit-911">The city became a fixation of national media</a> seeking to make sense of its growing Muslim American minority. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137290076_6">Anti-Muslim activists </a> regularly staged <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/02/pastor-bikers-plan-rally-against-mosque/9858613/">Quran-burnings</a>, paraded around ethnic festivals with the <a href="https://www.dearbornfreepress.com/2012/07/01/protestors-disrupt-arab-festival-with-pigs-head-on-pole/">heads of</a> <a href="https://www.dearbornfreepress.com/2012/07/01/protestors-disrupt-arab-festival-with-pigs-head-on-pole/">pigs on spikes,</a> and threatened to <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2011/01/dearborn_mosque_concerned_abou.html">bomb local mosques</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Arab American community continued to grow and diversify. Iraqi and Syrian refugee populations began to arrive in the 1990s and 2010s, respectively, following wars in their homelands. <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5cd95a380e2646d78b425ca308902458">They settled in Dearborn</a> and on its periphery in Detroit and neighboring suburbs. </p>
<p>Together, this new cohort of Arab Americans joined the established community in fighting back against president Donald Trump’s <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/muslim-travel-ban/">Muslim travel ban</a> and other policies that discriminated against refugees, migrants and Muslims by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/10/us-democrats-introduce-bill-to-repeal-trumps-travel-ban">building alliances with Democrats</a> and engaging the broadening civil rights coalition, represented by groups such as Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March. </p>
<p>Rep. <a href="https://tlaib.house.gov/">Rashida Tlaib’s</a> landmark election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 as the first Palestinian American woman and one of the first two Muslim American women reflects this growing progressive political base for Arab Americans. Her district includes Dearborn and parts of Detroit and other suburbs.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smiling woman with black hair and glasses claps as she walks down a hallway wearing a lanyard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574778/original/file-20240211-24-o6qb9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rashida Tlaib arrives on Capitol Hill for a new members briefing in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/incoming-representative-rashida-tlaib-arrives-for-a-house-news-photo/1061905936">Brendan Smialowski /AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>New leadership</h2>
<p>Reflecting the increasing demographic and political clout of the Arab population in Dearborn, <a href="https://cityofdearborn.org/government/meet-the-mayor-3">Abdullah Hammoud</a> became the city’s first Arab American elected mayor in 2021. </p>
<p>Hammoud’s priorities have included creating the city’s first <a href="https://cityofdearborn.org/news-and-events/city-news/2483-mayor-hammoud-announces-inaugural-director-of-dearborn-department-of-public-health">Department of Public Health</a>, introducing <a href="https://cityofdearborn.org/2-uncategorised/2642-dearborn-public-health-announces-new-narcan-vending-station-to-address-opioid-crisis?highlight=WyJkaW5nZWxsIiwiZGluZ2VsbCdzIl0=">Narcan vending</a> machines to address the opioid crisis, fighting for <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/city-of-dearborn-files-lawsuit-against-scrap-yard-over-hazardous-air-pollution-violations/">clean air in the Southend</a>, and hosting <a href="https://halalmetropolis.org/story1">Ramadan festivities</a> and an <a href="https://arabamericannews.com/2023/05/01/dearborn-mayor-abdullah-hammoud-hosts-first-eid-al-fitr-breakfast-in-the-city/">Eid al-Fitr breakfast</a>. He’s also shown outspoken support for the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ahammoudmi/p/CjB9JfxLz54/?img_index=1">LGBTQ+ community</a>. </p>
<p>Hammoud <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/dearborn-mayor-abdullah-hammoud-responds-after-house-censures-rep-rashida-tlaib-over-israel-comments/">objected publicly</a> to the congressional censure of Tlaib in 2023 following her remarks about the violence in the Gaza Strip. He also <a href="https://twitter.com/AHammoudMI/status/1750961949674762260">called for an unequivocal cease-fire in Gaza</a> at a time when other Democratic leaders were silent.</p>
<p>Dearborn often becomes a topic of global media interest during election years or at times of conflict in the Middle East. That has certainly been true during the ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal recently published an editorial labeling the city as America’s “jihad capital,” which led to public threats against the city that forced Hammoud to <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/02/03/us/dearborn-michigan-mayor-wsj-opinion/index.html">increase police patrols</a>. </p>
<p>Public officials, from <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2024/02/05/arab-american-leaders-demand-apology-retraction-after-wall-street-journal-piece/72479221007/">local leaders</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1754206954715513083">President Joe Biden</a>, have rallied around the city and asked the paper to rescind the editorial and to apologize. </p>
<p>So far, it has not.</p>
<p>The more interesting story about Dearborn, however, is what happens when the national spotlight is turned off. Then, as we have witnessed decade after decade, <a href="https://twitter.com/AHammoudMI/status/1753926374341915131?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">the city’s residents</a>, Arab and non-Arab, <a href="https://wdet.org/2023/06/06/detroit-today-how-dearborn-is-growing-its-population-opposite-of-state-trends/">new and old</a>, work to make their home a better, safer, healthier place to raise their families and their voices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nothing to disclose.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amny Shuraydi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The city often becomes a magnet for anti-Arab sentiment during election years and global conflicts; however, the more interesting story is what happens in the city when the spotlight is turned off.Sally Howell, Professor of History, University of Michigan-DearbornAmny Shuraydi, Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197862024-02-01T23:03:34Z2024-02-01T23:03:34ZGirls in hijab experience overlapping forms of racial and gendered violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570251/original/file-20240118-27-ltadts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=308%2C625%2C5251%2C3075&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violence against girls who wear hijabs is often situated in structural oppression, including gendered Islamophobia and white supremacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/girls-in-hijab-experience-overlapping-forms-of-racial-and-gendered-violence" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://worldhijabday.com/">World Hijab Day</a> recognizes the millions of Muslim women and girls who wear the traditional Islamic headscarf.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/europe/un-hijab-olympics-intl/index.html">Around the world</a>, Muslim girls in hijab are experiencing unique forms and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/islamophobia-canada-health-care-muslim-1.6792148">heightened rates</a> of gender and race-based <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9549134/ttc-islamophobia-nccm-police-toronto/">violence and discrimination</a>. Overt violence against girls and women in hijab have captured global attention, evidenced most recently in the violent Canadian attacks on <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/community-groups-join-calls-for-further-action-in-attack-on-two-women-1.5839402">women in hijabs in Alberta</a> and the horrific <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/it-s-been-6-months-since-members-of-the-afzaal-family-in-london-ont-were-killed-what-s-changed-1.6274751">murders of the Afzaal family in London, Ont.</a></p>
<p>Violence against hijabi girls is often situated in structural oppression, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600788503">gendered Islamophobia</a> and white supremacy. Understanding the underpinnings of this violence is key to imagining more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</p>
<h2>Islamophobia</h2>
<p>The term Islamophobia has often been used and understood in different ways. While often used interchangeably, some have argued that the term anti-Muslim racism, rather than the term Islamophobia, better encapsulates the systemic nature of anti-Muslim hate and violence.</p>
<p>Sociologist and Muslim studies scholar Jasmin Zine <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48696287">has outlined how Islamophobia in Canada is comprised of systemic oppressive networks</a> and industries that are both fueled by and fuel anti-Muslim racism. Zine explains that an “industry behind purveying anti-Muslim hate” distinguishes Islamophobia from other forms of oppression.</p>
<p>According to Zine, this well-funded, lucrative and often transnational industry is comprised of media outlets, political figures and donors, white nationalist groups, think tanks, influencers and ideologues that support and engage in “activities that demonize and marginalize Islam and Muslims in Canada.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl in a pink hijab watches a sunset" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Understanding the underpinnings of violence is key to creating more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Gendered Islamophobia</h2>
<p>Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism is part of the fabric of institutions. Critics of laws such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">Bill 21 in Québec</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.738821">similar measures in France</a> have argued that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/muslim-women-most-affected-by-quebec-s-secularism-law-court-of-appeal-hears-1.6644377">Muslim women who wear the hijab are most affected</a>. These measures reflect narratives that <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088269">position Muslim girls and women as oppressed victims</a> in need of rescue, as well as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/159783/orientalism-by-edward-w-said/9780394740676">Orientalist tropes</a> in the form of the <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">“save us from the Muslim girl” narratives</a>.</p>
<p>As Muslim women in hijab, we grieve horrific violence alongside our communities. Violent attacks highlight how anti-Muslim racism is often situated at a nexus of anti-Black racism, xenophobia, white supremacy and patriarchy. </p>
<p>We know that anti-Muslim violence is often aimed at girls and women in hijab. Yet, academic literature on hijabi girlhood is relatively scarce. Two years ago, we put out <a href="http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/ghs/GHS_cfp_TheGirlInTheHijab.pdf">a call to the international academic community</a> seeking papers and creative submissions on the experiences of girls and young women in hijabs.</p>
<h2>The girl in the hijab</h2>
<p>Two years later, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160302">our new special issue</a>, called <em>The Girl in the Hijab</em>, has now been published in the international journal <em>Girlhood Studies</em>. It comes at a time when anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and <a href="https://www.canarablaw.org/s/Anti-Palestinian-Racism-Naming-Framing-and-Manifestations.pdf">anti-Palestinian racism</a> are on <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/muslim-groups-report-skyrocketing-number-of-islamophobic-incidents-across-canada">the rise around the country</a> and around the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/16/3/girlhood-studies.16.issue-3.xml">The special issue</a> includes academic articles written by mostly Muslim women and creative works produced by hijab-wearing girls themselves. Both types of work provide insight into the current global landscape of hijabi girl experiences. </p>
<p>Cultural politics lecturer <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160303">Noha Beydoun explores the events surrounding the donning of the American flag as a method of protest</a>. She finds that this phenomenon gained popularity because it worked to conceal complicated U.S. histories regarding Muslim immigration and broader imperial interests. Beydoun’s analysis evidences that the “American flag as hijab for girls and women reinforces the larger constructs it seeks to resist.”</p>
<p>Gender studies professor Ana Carolina Antunes highlights <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160305">how unconscious bias and microaggressions hinder a positive sense of belonging among hijab-wearing students and impacts their academic success</a>. This study also reveals that anti-Muslim sentiment in schools affects the everyday experiences of Muslim girls, leading to disconnection from the school community. </p>
<p>Among the central themes in the special issue is <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">how women and girls resist gendered and Islamophobic discrimination in their everyday lives</a>. Hijabi girls resist oppressive narratives through their everyday actions and activist engagements. In Antunes’s study, girls asserted their right to occupy space in the educational environment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-schools-how-teachers-and-communities-can-recognize-and-challenge-its-harms-162992">Islamophobia in schools: How teachers and communities can recognize and challenge its harms</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl in a black hijab with a handbag walks down a tree-lined path" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For Muslim women, donning the hijab can be an act of resistance and resilience in the face of discrimination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Clinical social workers Amilah Baksh and her mother, Bibi Baksh, provide insight into their <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160306">lived experiences as Indo-Caribbean social workers and university educators</a>. In their article, they identify the hijab as a form of resistance and resilience in their personal and professional lives. In their words, “it was never the hijab that rendered us voiceless. It is Islamophobia.”</p>
<p>The special issue highlights how Muslim girls and women, racialized through donning hijab, continue to be at the forefront of the struggle against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence, even as we remain among the primary targets of that violence.</p>
<p>The articles in this special issue demonstrate the need for better policies, education and laws that consider the unique experiences of girls and women in hijab. To counter violence against girls and women in hijab, we must name and understand the complexities of anti-Muslim racism and gendered Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Critically, this must center the voices of girls and women in hijab, opening or widening spaces for girls and women in hijab to practise acts of resistance in ways that are not bound by colonial logics and respectability politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salsabel Almanssori receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Muna Saleh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (2022-2024) for her research titled “A Narrative Inquiry into the Curriculum-Making Experiences of Palestinian Muslim Youth and Families in Alberta.”</span></em></p>Around the world, Muslim girls who wear hijabs are experiencing unique forms and heightened rates of gender and race-based violence.Salsabel Almanssori, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of WindsorMuna Saleh, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206492024-01-10T16:59:43Z2024-01-10T16:59:43ZIn Sweden, burning Qur'ans threaten to send the country’s history of tolerance up in smoke<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568129/original/file-20231225-19-xykc6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C365%2C2160%2C1529&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Danish-Swedish extremist and politician Rasmus Paludan as he burns a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21, 2023.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_Paludan#/media/Fichier:Rasmus_Paludan_burning_the_Koran_2023-01-21_(2).jpg">Tobias Hellsten/Wikipedia </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Long known for its multiculturalism, Sweden has recently witnessed unprecedented tensions accompanied by palpable and, alas, justified concerns about the safety of Swedish nationals abroad.</p>
<p>Last summer, demonstrators in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/28/sweden-quran-nato-iran-iraq-russia/">Ankara, Beirut, Islamabad and Jakarta</a> set fire to the Swedish flag. In <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/religions/article/2023/07/20/swedish-embassy-in-baghdad-stormed-and-set-on-fire-in-protests-over-quran-burning_6060045_63.html">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/molotov-cocktail-thrown-at-swedish-embassy-in-beirut-amid-quran-burning-tensions/">Lebanon</a>, protests also boiled over, with demonstrators alternately throwing cocktail molotovs and storming the country’s embassies. And in Brussels on 17 October, two fans of the Swedish football team who were in the city to watch the Belgium-Sweden match were killed by a man who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67195715">claimed to have been inspired by the Islamic State</a>.</p>
<p>Since last year’s events, the Swedish government has advised its citizens to exert caution while travelling abroad, a shock for a country that has long been identified with relatively generous migration policies and a concern for intercultural dialogue.</p>
<h2>Anti-Islam provocations and threats of violence</h2>
<p>The upsurge in hostility has one cause: burnings of the Qu'ran. Although the sacred text first went up in smoke in <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/04/25/denmark-s-quran-burning-politician-gathering-support-for-election-candidacy">Denmark in 2010</a>, desecrations have since been more frequent in Sweden. The trend’s initiator is a 41-year old Danish-Swedish dual citizen, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/27/burning-of-quran-in-stockholm-funded-by-journalist-with-kremlin-ties-sweden-nato-russia">Rasmus Paludan</a>, trained as a lawyer. The leader of a Danish party called “Hard Line” (<em>Hart Stram</em>), Paludan emerged a few years ago as a critic of the “Islamisation of European societies”. <em>Hart Stram</em> won 1.8% of the vote in the 2019 Danish parliamentary elections, but was excluded for manipulating the lists of signatures required to file candidacies.</p>
<p>In response, Paludan turned to Sweden, where immigration-related issues have increasingly stirred controversy in the past decade. In 2020, he burned <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/29/riots-rock-malmo-after-far-right-swedish-activists-burn-quran">a Qur'an in Rosengården</a>, a district of Malmö, where almost 90% of the inhabitants are of foreign origin. Paludan’s actions sparked an <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2020/08/620385/riot-sweden-amidst-quran-burning-rally">upsurge in violence</a>. While he was banned from entering the country, as a dual national he was able to continue his activities, and even attracted emulators, such as Iraqi refugee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/02/swedish-government-condemns-islamophobic-burning-of-a-quran">Salwan Momika</a>. </p>
<p>Together, Paludan, Momika and their imitators target sites with the explicit aim of exacerbating tensions, including places of Muslim worship, neighbourhoods with a high concentration of immigrants and in front of Muslim countries’ embassies. In the spring of 2022, Paludan embarked on a series of desecrations across Sweden that he dubbed an “election tour”. These led to violent clashes in several towns and a deterioration in the country’s image in the Middle East. An umpteenth provocation in the vicinity of the Turkish embassy in January 2023 provoked a virulent reaction from Ankara, to the point of compromising the first item on Sweden’s foreign policy agenda: NATO membership.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Turkish Parliament reacted by calling for Sweden’s application – which had been formalised seven months earlier – <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/monde/adhesion-de-la-suede-a-l-otan-un-coran-brule-a-stockholm-seme-la-zizanie">to be rejected</a>. For several days, Sweden’s official agency for cultural diplomacy counted w interventions per hour on social media in Turkish, denouncing Paludan’s actions without Swedish authorities intervening. </p>
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<p>In June, at the opening of the <a href="https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/qu-est-ce-que-l-aid-el-kebir-la-grande-fete-musulmane-28-06-2023-2526640_23.php"><em>Aid al-Adha</em> festivities</a>, burned a Qur'an in front of Stockholm’s Grand Mosque. It triggered a deluge of protests, with the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation protesting against the intolerable… tolerance of Swedish justice. In Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and other Muslim countries, demonstrators called for a boycott of Sweden, or even revenge against the country.</p>
<p>In response, in August the Swedish counter-espionage agency, SÄPO, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/08/18/sweden-raises-terror-alert-level_6097778_4.html">raised the alert threshold for terrorist attacks</a> against the country to level 4 (out of 5). This was a return to the climate of 2016, when the war in Syria triggered a historic surge in the number of refugees.</p>
<h2>Homegrown causes and a new split in the political spectrum</h2>
<p>While the spate of anti-Islam actions is the work of transnational players, it is in Sweden that they manifested themselves most conspicuously. The interethnic tensions that have shaken the country since the migrant crisis of 2015-2016 and the proliferation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/30/how-gang-violence-took-hold-of-sweden-in-five-charts">settling of scores between gangs</a>, have helped to create a fertile ground. According to the Swedish government, Russia has also sought to use its networks to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/russia-using-disinformation-to-imply-sweden-supported-quran-burnings">fan the flames of conflict between long-settled Swedes and newcomers</a>. The Kremlin’s goal is to destabilise a country that has strongly supported Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, to the point of ending two centuries of neutrality to join NATO.</p>
<p>The controversy comes at a time when domestic policy has been marked by a turning point: the breakthrough in September 2022 of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/world/europe/sweden-far-right-election.html">Sweden Democrats</a> (SD), a far-right party with neo-Nazi roots. It succeeded in part by making its stand against immigration – based on the premise of a “war of civilisations” – the focus of its discourse. While liberal-conservative Ulf Kristersson leads the government, the Sweden Democrats give him a majority through their support. This allows them to inject their obsessions into the country’s debates. Their latest proposal is the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/27/sweden-pm-condemns-far-right-call-to-tear-down-mosques_6292541_4.html">demolition of many of the country’s existing mosques</a>.</p>
<p>The multiplication of Qur'an burnings has only served to exacerbate the Islamic world’s concern that such acts are becoming commonplace. But Muslim communities are also outraged by the inaction Swedish authorities, which is in stark contrast to neighbouring countries such as <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-ban-quran-burning/">Denmark</a> and <a href="https://yle.fi/a/74-20015426">Finland</a>. How can we explain the stance of Swedish officials in the face of this phenomenon, at a time when the political security situation appears (according to Prime Minister Kristersson’s <a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/swedish-pm-delivers-a-grim-christmas-speech/">2022 Christmas speech</a>) to be “the worst since the end of the Second World War”?</p>
<h2>Legal and cultural reasons for governmental action</h2>
<p>The technical reason most often cited to explain the prevalence Qur'an burnings in Sweden is the lack of a legal arsenal to prohibit it. Laws banning blasphemy and the defamation of religion were struck down more than 50 years ago, so the issue of the formally curbing such provocations that the discussion has crystallised.</p>
<p>To date, Sweden’s courts have been reluctant to invoke two relevant articles of country’s criminal code, which punish, respectively, “vexatious behaviour” and “incitement to racial hatred”. The former requires the offensive impact of the gesture to be proven – and not just probable. In the latter case, the current interpretation among judges is that insulting a religion is not the same as discriminating against an ethnic group. At present, administrative courts of appeal have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66310285">overturned police bans</a> on Paludan and Momika’s actions.</p>
<p>Faced with an outcry that unites not only Erdogan, Vladimir Putin and Victor Orban but also the United Nations’ <a href="https://unric.org/en/human-rights-council-condemns-the-burning-of-the-quran-as-a-religious-hate-act/">Human Rights Council</a>, the parties in the government coalition oscillate between criticism of the Qur'an burnings and a refusal to “give in to foreign diktats”. Sweden’s Social Democrat party, now in opposition, seems to be leaning toward a readjustment of the legal arsenal. </p>
<p>It should be remembered that while the principle of freedom of expression has been a pillar of Sweden’s national identity since the 18th century, legislation often prompted by political emergencies has restricted its scope. Since 1933, for example, Swedish citizens have been forbidden to wear clothing revealing their political affiliation. In 1996, a man who wore a Swedish flag decorated with mythological figures and the word <em>Valhalla</em> on national day was convicted in court. In 2014, artist Dan Park’s collages – depicting the hanging of three coloured individuals, identified by name, as if after a lynching – <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/154676/sentenced-swedish-artist-dan-park-incited-against-an-ethnic-group/">earned him</a> a heavy fine, six months in prison and the destruction of his works.</p>
<p>The reluctance to change the law today can be explained by the rejection of the idea that the sphere of the sacred can be the object of guardianship or <em>ad hoc</em> bans. Attacking a “symbol” – as the public prosecutor ruled in the Qu'ran burning in front of the Turkish embassy – is never illegal, as long as the demonstration does not target flesh-and-blood believers. </p>
<p>In a polarised political spectrum, the dispute has contributed to a hardening of positions. While the Sweden Democrats perceive an opportunity to set themselves up as defenders of a national virtue – tolerance, extended to extreme expressions, of the right of assembly – the government is engaged in a perilous balancing act: denouncing the exploitation of Islamophobia by foreign powers that are often highly undemocratic, while dissociating itself from repulsive manifestations of xenophobia.
A public enquiry, launched in August to examine revising the standards on freedom of expression, will deliver its conclusions on 1 July 2024. Relying on well-established consensual mechanisms, the government is seeking to break a deadlock that places Sweden in an outlying – and uncomfortable – position.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Piero S. Colla ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Anti-Islam activists in Sweden have repeatedly burned Qurans in public, not only earning the country vehement criticism from Muslim countries but also raising the threat of terrorism.Piero S. Colla, Chargé de cours à l’université de Strasbourg, laboratoire « Mondes germaniques et nord-européens », Université de StrasbourgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196822023-12-14T23:53:02Z2023-12-14T23:53:02ZThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict is putting Canadian multiculturalism to the test<p>In popular thinking, and according to its general image, Canada is considered to be open and welcoming to ethnocultural and religious diversity. </p>
<p>Immigration is perceived as an <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/af/index.php/af/article/view/29376">asset for Canada</a>, and over the decades, multiculturalism has come to be considered a value to be protected and cherished. This can be seen in <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm">the 2020 General Social Survey</a>, where 92 per cent of the population endorsed multiculturalism. <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-18.7/page-1.html">The Canadian Multiculturalism Act</a> states that multiculturalism is a “fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity and that it provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of Canada’s future.” </p>
<p>However, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the demonstrations that have followed — both in favour of, and against Israel or in support of Palestine — have revealed many tensions linked to immigration. Hate crimes are also on the rise; in Toronto alone, there are reports of a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hate-crime-rise-israel-gaza-1.7001288">132 per cent increase since the start of the conflict</a>.</p>
<p>So it is imperative to consider the potential for conflict within Canada’s various communities. The issue is particularly concerning for those who are simultaneously facing racism and the repercussions of ongoing conflicts in their countries of origin. For example, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sikh-separtist-movement-punjab-1.6981041">historical conflict between Hindus and Sikhs</a> is raising concern among Sikhs in Canada, particularly since one of their leaders was murdered in British Columbia.</p>
<p>As a sociologist who specializes in inclusive education, I quickly observed that racism and discrimination are significant issues in our society. I recently wrote an article entitled <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/trema/6042#:%7E:text=L'%C3%A9ducation%20inclusive%20englobe%20et,n%C3%A9gliger%20for%20all%20the%20worst">“Thinking about inclusive education in a context of discrimination and diversity in Canada,”</a> which explains, among other things, the limits of Canadian multiculturalism in the fight against discrimination. In line with the perspective <a href="https://www.ehess.fr/fr/personne/serge-paugam">of French sociologist Serge Paugam</a>, who maintains that the sociologist’s role includes speaking out <a href="https://www.puf.com/content/La_pratique_de_la_sociologie">“against all forms of domination,”</a> I will analyze how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is undermining this multiculturalism.</p>
<h2>Increase in hate crimes</h2>
<p>Statistics on hate crimes show that tensions do exist, in spite of the results of the 2020 survey. For example, from <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/cg-a004-eng.htm">2019 to 2021</a>, the Jewish community was the group most frequently targeted by hate crimes, and there was a significant increase in reports made to the police. In 2019, 306 antisemitic crimes were reported nationally. A year later this figure rose to 331 and by 2021, it had risen significantly to 492. <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd16-rr16/p1.html">A further rise was recorded in 2022, with 502 incidents reported</a>. </p>
<p>Muslim communities have also been heavily affected by hate crime: in 2019, 182 incidents were reported. In 2020, this number fell to 84, but increased to 144 in 2021. Finally, Catholics have also been the target of hate crimes, with a significant increase in reports: in 2019, 51 cases were recorded compared with 43 in 2020 and 155 in 2021.</p>
<p>Ontario, the province with the highest number of immigrants in Canada, seems to have the highest percentage of hate crimes per capita. According to Statistics Canada data for 2021, Ottawa is the city with the highest rate of hate crime. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510019101">Among the top 10 Canadian cities most affected by the phenomenon, there are more than eight Ontario cities</a>.</p>
<h2>A switch in public opinion</h2>
<p>To put it bluntly, not all Canadians see multiculturalism as an asset, and this change is exacerbated by the ongoing conflict between two of the country’s most discriminated communities. All this is taking place in a context where Canada’s capacity to welcome immigrant populations is being questioned.</p>
<p>According to an <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/there-s-going-to-be-friction-two-thirds-of-canadians-say-immigration-target-is-too/article_7740ecbd-0aed-5d36-b5da-b67bda4a13c5.html">Abacus poll published on Nov. 29</a>, more than 67 per cent of the population believes that there will be tensions between communities, principally because of the federal government’s immigration threshold, which is considered excessive. The government is still aiming to welcome <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-immigration-500000-2025-1.6636661">more than 500,000 immigrants a year over the next few years</a>. On the other hand, Ottawa rejected the Century Initiative, led by a former McKinsey executive, which aimed to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-immigration-public-opinion/">increase Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100</a>. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canada-diversity-poll">another poll</a>, by Leger-Postmedia, more than 78 per cent of Canadians express concern about the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the country. With respect to pro-Palestine demonstrations, more than three-quarters of those polled believe that the government should expel non-citizens who are guilty of hate speech or who have demonstrated support for Hamas from the country. </p>
<p>These figures show a major shift in public opinion about the value of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is no longer seen simply as making citizens aware of the richness of the country’s ethnocultural and religious diversity. It is also seen as supporting the various communities that live in, or want to immigrate to Canada. <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canada-diversity-poll">According to the same survey</a>, more than half say that the Canadian government should do more to ensure that newcomers accept Canadian values, and more than 55 per cent think that Canada’s immigration policy should encourage newcomers to adopt these values, in particular by abandoning any beliefs that are incompatible with Canada.</p>
<h2>An increasingly complex world</h2>
<p>The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to have shaken the foundations of multiculturalism. </p>
<p>It is striking to note how a value once considered fundamental — one that in 2020 was supported by more than 92 per cent of the population — can be questioned to this extent just three years later. On the other hand, it is important to remember that hate crimes existed before this conflict and that indicated multiculturalism was not as much of a “Canadian value” as it was believed to be. </p>
<p>Sociologist Edgar Morin maintains that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095715589700802401?download=true&journalCode=frca">“diversity creates complexity and complexity creates richness</a>.” Of course, Canadian multiculturalism rightly relies upon the richness of diversity, but it’s now being called upon to renew itself in an increasingly complex society and world. </p>
<p>At times, Canadian multiculturalism gives the impression that communities are living side by side, tolerant of ‘the Other,’ without actually co-constructing a society in which everyone belongs. The social situation must not be allowed to deteriorate, because we do not want to live in a state of confrontation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219682/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian J. Y. Bergeron ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas has exacerbated hate crimes in Canada and put Canadian multiculturalism to the test.Christian J. Y. Bergeron, Professeur en sociologie de l’éducation, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166812023-11-08T20:16:39Z2023-11-08T20:16:39ZCampus tensions and the Mideast crisis: Will Ontario and Alberta’s ‘Chicago Principles’ on university free expression stand?<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/campus-tensions-and-the-mideast-crisis-will-ontario-and-albertas-chicago-principles-on-university-free-expression-stand" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Our tolerance for expression that we value often exceeds our tolerance for expression we find distasteful. Nonetheless, if there’s a place in society where the high ground on free expression should be consistently held, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/267/monograph/book/64763">surely it’s on university campuses</a>.</p>
<p>While universities are expected to foster robust debate on a range of contentious and controversial issues, finding the right balance between free expression and protection from harm is no easy task. </p>
<p>University campuses across Canada and <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/education-news/2023-10-18/colleges-struggle-to-balance-free-speech-and-student-safety-amid-israel-hamas-protests">the United States have been</a> consumed by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-hamas-palestinians-war-mood-0cebcbcf0550ee08c0d757334f69851d">the war between Hamas and Israel</a>, and there have been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/campus-free-expression-israel-hamas-1.7010284">concerning incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia</a>. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents have left Canadians <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-antisemitism-gaza-islamophobia-1.7022244">“scared in our own streets.”</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-canada-must-act-to-prevent-hate-crimes-against-muslim-and-jewish-communities-216416">Israel-Hamas war: Canada must act to prevent hate crimes against Muslim and Jewish communities</a>
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<p>In Ontario and in Alberta, university decision-making will be an important test of recent <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2020/the-complexity-of-protecting-free-speech-on-campus">university policy shifts pertaining to free expression</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/defending-space-for-free-discussion-empathy-and-tolerance-on-campus-is-a-challenge-during-israel-hamas-war-216858">Defending space for free discussion, empathy and tolerance on campus is a challenge during Israel-Hamas war</a>
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<h2>Conservative campaign promises</h2>
<p>When majority Conservative governments came <a href="https://cfe.torontomu.ca/blog/2021/03/free-expression-campus-assessing-alberta-ministerial-directive">to power in Ontario in 2018 and Alberta in 2019</a>, they <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-doug-ford-says-ontario-postsecondary-schools-will-require-free-speech/#">quickly implemented campaign promises</a> to compel post-secondary institutions to create or update their free expression policies. </p>
<p>These policy shifts arose in response to the perception of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2021.1999762">a “crisis” of free expression at universities that has gained momentum</a> over the past decade.</p>
<p>They also followed high-profile expressive controversies on campus —
like <a href="https://thevarsity.ca/2016/10/24/u-of-t-letter-asks-jordan-peterson-to-respect-pronouns-stop-making-statements">the Jordan Peterson</a> and <a href="https://macleans.ca/lindsay-shepherd-wilfrid-laurier/">Lindsay Shepherd affairs</a> in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Provincial policies were intended to address what some conservatives believe is an inhospitable environment for them on campus. </p>
<p>Alberta touted its comparatively collaborative approach, and Ontario <a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3800&context=scholarly_works">explicitly threatened funding cuts for non-compliance</a>. </p>
<p>Ontario reported <a href="https://heqco.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/HEQCO-2019-Free-Speech-Report-to-Government-REVISED-3.pdf">every public college and university complied</a>, and Alberta reported every institution obliged with <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9458130/alberta-government-free-speech-post-secondary-schools/">the exception of one university (Burman University)</a> for religious reasons.</p>
<h2>‘Chicago Principles’ and free expression</h2>
<p>Alberta instructed post-secondary institutions <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/free-speech-demetrios-nicolaides-ucp-university-lethbridge-1.6735905">to endorse</a> “<a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/advanced-education-minister-promises-chicago-principles-details-coming-soon-as-students-academics-concerned-for-september-deadline">the Chicago Principles</a>,” a policy template with <a href="https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu">origins at the University of Chicago</a>, and Ontario told <a href="https://macleans.ca/education/will-new-rules-around-free-speech-on-campus-wind-up-silencing-protestors">post-secondary institutions to consult the Chicago Principles in creating or updating now-required policies</a>.</p>
<p>Key pillars of the Chicago Principles are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s up to the university community — not the administration — to make judgments about the merits of campus expression. </p></li>
<li><p>The proper response to problematic expression is argument rather than censorship. In the words of the report that spawned these principles: “The university’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth <a href="https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/FOECommitteeReport.pdf">are thought by some or even by most members of the university community to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed</a>.” </p></li>
<li><p>Universities ought not “shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable or even deeply offensive.” </p></li>
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<h2>Widest possible latitude for expression</h2>
<p>While the Chicago Principles emphasize civility and collegiality, they also argue the absence of these values ought not be invoked as a justification for expressive restrictions, even in the context of “offensive or disagreeable” expression. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-you-be-civil-to-a-racist-yes-but-you-should-still-call-them-out-142703">Should you be civil to a racist? Yes, but you should still call them out</a>
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<p>The principles envision the widest latitude possible for campus expression, subject only to narrow time, place and manner restrictions (to ensure the proper functioning of the university) and any applicable legal prohibitions (that is, <a href="https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/201825E#a3.4">criminal hate speech and anti-discrimination legislation</a>). </p>
<p>The Chicago Principles are relatively uncontroversial for an academic environment, even if they reflect <a href="https://campusfreespeechguide.pen.org/the-law/the-basics">American laws that are much more tolerant of harmful expression</a>.</p>
<p>But applying them to a Canadian context is easier said than done. Although institutional policies now reflect them in some form, there is still some variability between them. Furthermore, most expression that sparks campus controversy exists in a grey area between the controversial and the potentially discriminatory. </p>
<h2>Challenges responding at universities</h2>
<p>Following Hamas’s attack <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-humanitarian-aid-hamas-attack-war-united-nations-a068d629255e803849ad5c78387380c8">on Israeli civilians and Israel’s siege of Gaza</a>, university administrations have issued statements <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9458130/alberta-government-free-speech-post-secondary-schools">condemning discriminatory forms of</a> expression and intimidation. </p>
<p>In response, some faculty and students have questioned administrations and are accusing them of bias and silencing dissent. </p>
<p>At York University, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-university-israel-hamas-statement-update-1.7004246#">the administration gave student unions an ultimatum</a> in response to an open letter that it says has been widely interpreted as a “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-head-of-york-student-union-wont-retract-statement-on-hamas-attack-says">justification for attacking civilians and a call to violence</a>.” </p>
<p>As a result of such controversies, the reasonable limits for expression are being redefined in real time. </p>
<h2>Disagreement on expressive harms</h2>
<p>Within academic communities, there is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-political-science-revue-canadienne-de-science-politique/article/abs/expressive-freedom-on-campus-and-the-conceptual-elasticity-of-harm/6617A5755E9BAF0AC14077947D551819">intense disagreement</a> about which forms of expressive harms ought to result in expressive restrictions.</p>
<p>To complicate matters further, universities have significant discretion in their decision-making in the context of expressive restrictions. It’s subject to a deferential standard of “reasonableness” in administrative law, and Canada’s strongest protection for free expression — <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2b.html#">Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights</a> — scarcely applies at all. </p>
<h2>Legal remedies, questions of university mission</h2>
<p>Universities are faced with the dilemma of what to do about expression that may not be discriminatory as a point of law. </p>
<p>Universities can exercise their additional discretion and restrict expression if they believe it compromises their mission (facilitating an inhospitable environment) or rely solely upon the reasonable limits established by Canadian jurisprudence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/free-speech-on-campus-means-universities-must-protect-the-dignity-of-all-students-124526">Free speech on campus means universities must protect the dignity of all students</a>
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<p>Each option has costs and benefits. In the context of polarizing issues, university decision-making will rarely satisfy everyone. </p>
<p>Given redoubled efforts to protect expression in Ontario and Alberta, universities arguably bear the burden of showing that any expression they restrict at least appears to cross a legal threshold. </p>
<h2>Conservatives embracing restrictions?</h2>
<p>However, the dilemma for some conservative politicians, parties and pundits who have insisted before now that free expression is imperilled on campus is more daunting. </p>
<p>Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government recently took the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/sarah-jama-censor-1.6997689#">extraordinary step of barring Sarah Jama, an NDP member of the Ontario legislature, from speaking in the legislature</a> in response to her criticisms of Israel. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sarah-jamas-censure-making-people-feel-uncomfortable-is-part-of-the-job-216704">Sarah Jama's censure: Making people feel uncomfortable is part of the job</a>
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<p>In response to campus reactions to the conflict in the Middle East, the <em>National Post</em> recently said “<a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/reaction-to-hamas-attack-on-campus-shows-canadian-universities-are-in-desperate-need-of-fixing">universities need to be fixed</a>,” including “reprimanding the most egregious professors.” </p>
<h2>Will calls for censorship grow?</h2>
<p>With no sign of campus unrest relenting, calls for censorship may grow. </p>
<p>In theory, compelling universities to conform <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/education-news/2023-10-18/colleges-struggle-to-balance-free-speech-and-student-safety-amid-israel-hamas-protests">to the Chicago Principles</a> means they bear a greater obligation to protect expression that is within the bounds of law. </p>
<p>But given the backlash and legitimate concern about discrimination and hate, how universities will navigate this fraught time is far from certain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dax D'Orazio receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is affiliated with the Centre for Constitutional Studies and Centre for Free Expression. </span></em></p>In Ontario and in Alberta, university decisions about balancing free expression and protection from harm will be an important test of recent university policy shifts pertaining to free expression.Dax D'Orazio, Peacock Postdoctoral Fellow in Pedagogy, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169222023-11-06T13:06:16Z2023-11-06T13:06:16ZGaza conflict: if the cycle of violence is to end we must not prioritise one side’s suffering over the other<p>Shortly after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, people I know and respect were posting Palestinian solidarity notices on their social media feeds. I am supportive of the rights of the Palestinian people and am greatly disturbed by their treatment under Israel’s military occupation. But I found this response troubling. </p>
<p>Why is it appropriate to respond to <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/566249/israeli-officials-and-civilian-responders-describe-evidence-of-rape-and-other-atrocities-in-hamas-attack/">rape</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forensic-teams-describe-signs-torture-abuse-2023-10-15/">torture and murder (including decapitation)</a>, as a moment to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/08/israel-hamas-war-security-police-jewish/">celebrate</a> Palestinian resistance? </p>
<p>This response has only increased with time and the rising <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142687">Palestinian death toll</a> because of Israel’s bombing campaign.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed a discourse in some quarters that repeatedly privileges the victimhood and suffering of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/nyregion/israel-gaza-kidnapped-poster-fight.html">one group at the expense of the other</a> – in this case the Palestinian civilian casualties of Israel’s assault on Gaza over the Israeli civilians massacred on October 7. There are also those who tend to prioritise the suffering of Israelis in this terrible conflict. </p>
<p>And here’s the problem: it comes down to a <a href="https://publicseminar.org/author/ilan-zvi-baron/">zero-sum debate</a> about the righteousness of being the greater victim and dismisses the rights, pain and suffering of the other.</p>
<p>This seems to stem from an impoverished way of understanding political responsibility. </p>
<p>In political thought, responsibility is often understood as a <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/290293">synonym for being “answerable” for something</a>, which assumes that we can be <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/abs/collective-responsibility/26700BC2E1DCCFAA959950C4BE8E6DE8">held to account for our actions</a>. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/4381">Political</a> or <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3634549.html">collective</a> responsibility explores the question of being responsible for things that we have not done but arise because of our membership in a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/burdens-of-political-responsibility/burdens-of-political-responsibility/1514F5586A37CCAC5894DE7C011D6D4D">specific group</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever definition we take, when we hold any individual or group responsible, we are attributing to them a form of moral agency. A problem in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that responsibility is used to dehumanise the other.</p>
<h2>‘Us versus them’</h2>
<p>Too much rhetoric about this conflict is a simplistic contrast between right and wrong in its “us versus them” formulation. It is not hard to find fault on both sides. There is nothing inherently wrong with holding both the Israeli government and Palestinian militants such as Hamas liable for their actions.</p>
<p>But when it comes to Israel-Palestine, it is sadly common to hear that <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/27/business/adl-open-letter-colleges-spj/index.html">Israel is to blame</a> for the actions of Palestinian terrorists. Such claims stretch the idea of responsibility to the extent that it becomes largely meaningless.</p>
<p>It is undeniable that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is responsible for creating the conditions for Palestinians to want to resist. His policies – and the ideology of the ultra-nationalist right that he has worked with over his many years in office – involved supporting Hamas. </p>
<p>This took the form of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-1.7010035">significant financial payments</a> to Hamas in Gaza alongside a wider strategy of undermining the peace process by supporting the expansion of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-palestinian-territory-israel-has-turned-into-a-firing-zone-meet-the-cave-dwelling-people-of-masafer-yatta-191356">Jewish settlements in the West Bank</a>, who all too often get away with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-palestinians-violence.html?searchResultPosition=1">the murder of Palestinians</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-palestinian-territory-israel-has-turned-into-a-firing-zone-meet-the-cave-dwelling-people-of-masafer-yatta-191356">The Palestinian territory Israel has turned into a firing zone: meet the cave-dwelling people of Masafer Yatta</a>
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<p>However, he is not responsible for the actions taken by Hamas.
It is possible to <a href="https://file.hukum.uns.ac.id/data/PDIH%20File/e-book/the%20question%20of%20german%20guilt.pdf">contribute to an outcome without being responsible for it</a>. Hamas needs to be held to account and we must not forget what they did on October 7.</p>
<p>Hamas violated multiple international humanitarian laws in its October 7 attack, which included murdering more than 1,400 Israelis, wounding another 5,000, and taking <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/israel-hostages-hamas-explained.html">over 200 hostages</a>. They are responsible for that, and for the high number of <a href="https://twitter.com/IsraelinUSA/status/1719333607108378833?s=20">missile launches</a> against Israel. We should not buy into the “look what you made me do” excuse that attempts to justify Hamas’ terrorism as a legitimate response to the treatment of Palestinians by multiple Israeli governments over the years.</p>
<p>Israel has the right to self-defence. But the brutality of the October 7 attack does not mean that we can excuse the form of Israel’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-11-2-2023-6a398d4aeba979aef24960efc31eb772">military response</a> or <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/01/gaza-israeli-attacks-blockade-devastating-people-disabilities#">blockade</a> of Gaza which is in violation of the international law pertaining to collective punishment, among other aspects of the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf">Geneva conventions</a>. </p>
<p>We need to hold the appropriate agents responsible for their own actions and choices, including Netayanhu and his government, and Hamas. </p>
<h2>Antisemitism and Islamophobia on the rise</h2>
<p>There are a lot of different ways to be held responsible, but blanket condemnations that feed into a zero-sum ways of thinking are dangerous.</p>
<p>The dangers are evident in <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/global-antisemitic-incidents-wake-hamas-war-israel">rising antisemitism</a> including <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/10/31/paris-prosecutor-opens-investigation-after-stars-of-david-found-tagged-on-buildings_6216629_7.html">spray painting Stars of David on buildings</a> in Paris which has <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/nazi-soldiers-rousting-office-workers-nazi-soldier-news-footage/509271021">echoes of Nazi era Germany</a>. </p>
<p>When we hold Jews in the diaspora <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-obligation-in-exile.html">responsible for Israeli policy,</a>, we are not engaging in any sensible notion of individual or political responsibility. Holding Jews to account for what Israel does is a variant of antisemitism. </p>
<p>By the same token, blaming all Palestinians – or Muslims – for the actions of Hamas is equally disturbing. Worryingly, both antisemitism and Islamophobia seem to be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/26/israel-palestine-hostilities-affect-rights-europe">on the rise</a>.</p>
<p>Much of the public discourse and protest against Israel’s military response has sought to minimise Hamas’ violence on October 7. At times it seems that the horror of Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians is diminished once Palestinian suffering is taken into account. That’s disturbing. </p>
<p>One side’s tragedy does not undermine the reality of the other’s. One group’s responsibility does not mitigate the other’s moral agency. Responsibility is a mechanism that makes us moral agents. Let’s not use it to dehumanise each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have received funding in the past from the British Council for Research on the Levant, as well as a scholarship from the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv (Europe).</span></em></p>Blaming an entire nation for the actions of some of its people is unfair, unproductive and will perpetuate the hatred and suffering.Ilan Zvi Baron, Professor of International Political Theory, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164162023-10-30T21:34:56Z2023-10-30T21:34:56ZIsrael-Hamas war: Canada must act to prevent hate crimes against Muslim and Jewish communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556728/original/file-20231030-29-z9qjr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4496%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People marching from Manhattan to Brooklyn against the rise in antisemitism in New York in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/israel-hamas-war-canada-must-act-to-prevent-hate-crimes-against-muslim-and-jewish-communities" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The violence in Israel and Palestine has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-gaza-conflict-is-so-hard-to-talk-about-216149">reached brutal and devastating levels</a> in recent weeks. Thousands have been killed and injured. Witnessing the extreme violence against civilians has been polarizing for many around the world. </p>
<p>In such a climate, potential hate crimes and the spillover effects of the ongoing conflict need to be addressed and governments need to take action to prevent grave consequences. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza">Dehumanizing rhetoric</a> is further inflaming the situation and risks leading to even more extreme violence. </p>
<p>Already, we have witnessed tragic consequences of the violence unfold in different communities. A Chicago-area man was recently arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after police alleged <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/us/chicago-landlord-attack-muslim-boy-mother/index.html">he stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy to death</a>. </p>
<p>Police in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hate-crime-rise-israel-gaza-1.7001288">Toronto</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10040666/montreal-police-hate-crimes-israel-hamas-jewish-muslim-arab-community/">Montreal</a> have reported an increase in hate crime calls since the beginning of the conflict on Oct. 7. </p>
<h2>Hate on the rise</h2>
<p><a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230322a-eng.htm">Recent statistics</a> indicate that religiously motivated hate crimes are on the rise in Canada. There has been a 67 per cent increase in police-reported hate crimes from 2020 to 2021, with a specific rise in hate crimes against Muslim (71 per cent) and Jewish (47 per cent) Canadians. </p>
<p>Canada has the <a href="https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/ca">fourth-largest Jewish community in the world</a>, with a population of over 390,000, and a Muslim population of around two million people. In recent years, there have been violent attacks against Muslim Canadians such as the killing of the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-muslim-family-attack-what-we-know-1.6057745">Afzaal family</a> in London, Ont., the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/tag/quebec-city-mosque-shooting/">mosque attack</a> that killed six Muslims during prayers in Québec, and violent attacks against hijab-wearing Muslim women in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-police-muslim-women-hijabs-assaulted-1.5903427">Alberta</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-islamophobia-and-anti-palestinian-racism-are-manufactured-through-disinformation-216119">How Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation</a>
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<p>Jewish Canadians have been attacked through a variety of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/transparency/open-government/standing-committee/ahmed-hussen-pch-contract-cmac/antisemitism-canada.html">hate crimes</a> including vandalism and graffiti, online and offline racist propaganda and bomb threats to Jewish schools and community centres.</p>
<h2>Conflicts trigger hate crimes</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/68492">2021 study</a> from the United States explored whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leads to acts of hatred towards Jews and Muslims. The study discovered that instances of conflict trigger hate crimes, displaying a retaliatory trend: occurrences of hate crimes against Jews escalate following Israeli assaults, whereas incidents of hate crimes against Muslims increase after Palestinian attacks.</p>
<p>The threat against Muslim and Jewish communities has become more concerning given the rising violence in the region and its potential spillover. </p>
<p>These effects on diaspora groups have been observed across different countries. <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkish-kurdish-conflict-spills-over-into-europe-47610">Turkish and Kurdish diasporas in Europe</a> have been affected by the decades-long conflict between the Turkish government and the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/turkiyes-pkk-conflict-visual-explainer">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>. </p>
<p>Occasional tensions and violence break out between diaspora communities, especially when the political situation back home becomes fraught or violent. Similar tensions have been seen between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2023.2199601">Turkish and Armenian diasporas</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2023.2199598">Hindu and Muslim</a> diasporas. </p>
<p>Rising hate crimes can negatively affect the psychological and physical well-being of diaspora communities. Even if they are not directly targeted, people can experience fear and insecurity in their daily lives. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v9i4.1514">recent research study</a> on the impacts of hate crimes, colleagues and I found that victims significantly changed their lifestyles to avoid conflict; as a result, they became alienated from their own community and society. These changes might include moving to another neighbourhood or city, changing daily routines and avoiding being in certain places and attending group activities.</p>
<h2>Canada’s role</h2>
<p>To prevent the spillover effects of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Canadian government should take a proactive role. This includes fostering a sincere dialogue and understanding among diverse communities through genuine campaigns and listening to the concerns of each affected community. Community leaders must also be involved in these efforts. </p>
<p>Establishing <a href="https://cacp.ca/index.html?asst_id=2131">hate crime investigation units</a> within Canadian police forces is a more professional approach to preventing and investigating hate crimes. Communities should be informed about the existence of these units, and invited to come forward when they feel intimidated or witness any hate crimes. Police officers should also be trained about the unique aspects of international conflicts and how best to intervene in conflicts among diaspora groups.</p>
<p>In a broader sense, the Canadian government should actively engage in diplomatic efforts through international organizations and bilateral relationships to reduce the violence we are now seeing. </p>
<p>Canada has committed to <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2023/10/13/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-president-palestinian-authority">provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza</a> and called for “<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-calling-for-humanitarian-pauses-to-be-considered-amid-israel-hamas-war-1.6615146">humanitarian pauses on hostilities</a>,” but much more must be done to ensure a fair and peaceful resolution. Much of the world has called for an immediate ceasefire, however, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/unga-calls-for-humanitarian-truce-in-israel-hamas-war-how-countries-voted">Canada remains among a minority of countries to not do so</a>. </p>
<p>Canada must join calls for an urgent ceasefire to end the violence in Israel and Palestine, and avoid violence at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Davut Akca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>International conflicts can often trigger hate crimes against diasporas and other connected communities. Canadian governments should take action to prevent a rise in hate crimes.Davut Akca, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Lakehead UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161192023-10-23T21:55:26Z2023-10-23T21:55:26ZHow Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-islamophobia-and-anti-palestinian-racism-are-manufactured-through-disinformation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In political communication, a big lie — what is known as the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5">illusory truth effect</a>” — is when the constant repetition of misinformation makes people more likely to accept it as truth.</p>
<p>Repetition is how <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-believe-lies-just-people-repeat/">lies gain traction</a>. The more exposure to specific ideas and tropes that may be false claims, the more likely it is that this misinformation becomes understood as real.</p>
<p>A plethora of <a href="https://guides.lib.umich.edu/fakenews">fake news</a> circulates on the internet and social media. Unlike <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/misinformation-evidence-its-scope-how-we-encounter-it-and-our-perceptions-it">misinformation</a>, which refers to false or inaccurate information, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/countering-disinformation">disinformation</a> campaigns deliberately spread propaganda to create fear and suspicion.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-gaza-conflict-when-social-media-fakes-are-rampant-news-verification-is-vital-215496">Israel-Gaza conflict: when social media fakes are rampant, news verification is vital</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/europe/disinformation-social-media.html">Disinformation industries</a>, and the brokers who exchange in this false currency, have an immense capability to circulate propaganda and conspiracy theories to a greater public, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/echo-chambers-filter-bubbles-and-polarisation-literature-review">outside of their own echo chambers</a>.</p>
<h2>Producing social fictions</h2>
<p>Through media outlets and <a href="https://iphobiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canada-Report-2022-1.pdf">co-ordinated networks</a>, Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian tropes and conspiracies are circulated. Eventually, they become regarded as social facts, especially in times of war, conflict and heightened political tensions. </p>
<p>During these fraught times, the ability to authorize wholesale violence relies on circulating dehumanizing tropes and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/muslim-scare-stories-media-halal-sharia-niqab">scare stories</a>.” This targeted propaganda frames entire populations as deviant “<a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/folk-devils-and-moral-panics-cohen-1972.html">folk devils</a>,” responsible for crimes and social problems. This then creates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/opinion/columnists/moral-panic.html">moral panics</a>, used to justify acts of oppression.</p>
<h2>A violent threat</h2>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/under-siege-products-9780228011187.php"><em>Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation</em></a>, I document how since 9/11, two billion Muslims globally have faced collective punishment. Constructed as folk devils who imperil western societies, Muslims have been framed as inextricably linked with the support and promotion of violence. </p>
<p>More recently, this trope was evident in public statements made by Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister <a href="https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1711487882416767030">Justin Trudeau</a>. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow described recent Palestinian solidarity rallies and movements as <a href="https://ca.news.yahoo.com/olivia-chow-mayor-palestine-israel-rally-161254626.html">“glorifying” violence</a> and characterized anyone attending these events as “Hamas supporters.”</p>
<p>The ubiquity of Islamophobia has led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2012.727291">generalized stereotypes of Muslims and Palestinians</a> (including those who are not Muslim) as being prone to violence and terrorism. When these racist narratives are espoused by politicians, they falsely equate the support of Palestinian people with support for terrorism and instil fear and moral panic about the Muslim presence in this country and elsewhere.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a woman in hijab shouting into a megaphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555102/original/file-20231021-21-if7xpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Muslim woman protester shouts through a megaphone during an anti-racism demonstration in London, U.K. in Feb. 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Anti-Muslim policies</h2>
<p>Public belief in the vilifying narratives of violent Muslims can become second nature to people who watch biased news reports on <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/canada-s-news-media-are-contributing-to-mistrust-of-muslims/article_7d875ab7-3411-5250-ac2c-bec90dfb01f8.html">mainstream media</a> and a variety of social media platforms that circulate anti-Muslim narratives. </p>
<p>For instance, negative Canadian attitudes about Muslims were evident in a <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/most-canadians-favour-values-test-for-immigrants-while-23-per-cent-think-muslims-should-be-banned-poll">2017 Radio Canada poll</a>. Fifty-one per cent of respondents in Canada — and 57 per cent in Québec — felt the presence of Muslims in this country made them “somewhat” or “very worried” about security. Nearly one out of four Canadians — 23 per cent — would favour a ban on Muslim immigration to this country, a level of support that rose to 32 per cent in Québec. </p>
<p>Widespread Islamophobic sentiments translate into anti-Muslim policies and practices. Recently, Markham Public Library in Ontario <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/markham-public-library-1.6999205">temporarily removed Islamic Heritage Month displays</a> from its branches after an email was sent to staff saying that, “given the current situation in the Middle East, it is best for us not to be actively promoting the Islamic Heritage Month … .”</p>
<p>Islamophobia also has more deadly consequences. In 2021, four members of a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/12/1005268914/hate-wiped-away-a-muslim-canadian-family-heres-how-friends-want-them-remembered">Canadian-Pakistani Muslim family</a> were mowed down and killed by a truck in the Ontario city of London. Evidence introduced at the trial of the man accused of the murders has shown that after his arrest, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/ontario-terror-suspect-railed-against-far-left-cited-grooming-conspiracies-immediately-after-killing-muslim-family/article_1b472fa8-8f2c-521e-8655-db3bfbbb9489.html">he repeatedly referred</a> to fabricated scare stories about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396819895727">Muslim “grooming gangs”</a> when being interrogated by police.</p>
<h2>Online rumours and disinformation</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/decapitated-babies-claim-intent-dehumanization.html">unsubstantiated claims of Hamas decapitating and burning 40 Israeli babies</a> were repeated by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/unverified-allegations-beheaded-babies-israel-hamas-war-inflame-social-rcna119902">international heads of state, celebrities and media outlets</a>, despite the fact that there was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.html">no official confirmation</a> by Israeli authorities of this alleged horrific act.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Al Jazeera fact checks claims about Hamas.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Nonetheless, the repetition of this <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/13/watching-the-watchdogs-babies-and-truth-die-together-in-israel-palestine">false story</a> led to the dehumanizing characterization of Palestinians as “<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/hamas-israel-palestine-war-breeding-ground-new-recruits-paul-rogers/">bloodthirsty monsters</a>” and “<a href="https://www.newarab.com/video/israel-defence-minister-calls-palestinians-gaza-human-animals">human animals</a>,” fomenting widespread <a href="https://www.cjpme.org/fs_227">anti-Palestinian racism</a>. </p>
<p>These campaigns of disinformation and demonization also tragically resulted in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/us/chicago-landlord-attack-muslim-boy-mother/index.html">murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim boy</a>, in Plainfield, Ill. He was stabbed 26 times, allegedly by his family’s white landlord, who is also accused of repeatedly stabbing Al-Fayoume’s mother, proclaiming, “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/funeral-be-held-chicago-area-muslim-boy-killed-attack-2023-10-16/">You Muslims must die</a>!”</p>
<h2>Casualties of war</h2>
<p>These violent trajectories bring to mind the <a href="https://www.umass.edu/ellsberg/podcast/epilogue-truth-is-the-first-casualty/">military maxim attributed to the Ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus</a>, which warns that “In war, truth is the first casualty.” In times of war and conflict, <a href="https://www.startribune.com/casualties-including-truth-and-truth-tellers-keep-mounting-in-the-mideast/600313774/">disinformation is the first weapon to be deployed</a>.</p>
<p>Uncritically consuming political or media narratives is no longer an option. In these dystopian times, the public needs to be able to <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/campaign-free-to-speak-safe-to-learn/dealing-with-propaganda-misinformation-and-fake-news">separate fact from fiction</a> as fabrications masquerade as truth. The consequences are dire.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to include a reference to the ongoing trial in the London, Ont. case.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmin Zine has previously received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Deliberately circulated disinformation — big lies — are used to foment Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, with deadly consequences.Jasmin Zine, Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098402023-07-27T20:35:02Z2023-07-27T20:35:02Z‘The Kerala Story’: How an Indian film ignited violence against Muslims and challenges to interfaith marriage<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-kerala-story-how-an-indian-propaganda-film-ignited-violence-against-muslims-and-challenges-to-interfaith-marriage" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>A controversial low-budget Indian feature film <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65481927"><em>The Kerala Story</em>,</a> about a <a href="https://time.com/6280955/kerala-story-movie-india/">discredited anti-Muslim conspiracy theory</a>, has been causing a political storm, going all the way to India’s Supreme Court. </p>
<p>The movie has helped circulate the idea of <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-love-jihad-anti-conversion-laws-aim-to-further-oppress-minorities-and-its-working-166746">“love jihad,”</a> a right-wing conspiracy theory that Muslim men are predators and out to marry and steal Hindu women. These ideas date back to the British colonial era and have far-reaching implications for people’s everyday lives. </p>
<p>The trailer claimed <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/4/kerala-story-film-on-alleged-indian-isil-recruits-gets-pushback">32,000 Hindu girls had been converted to Islam by Muslim men with the intent of recruiting them to ISIS.</a> </p>
<p>Once the film came out, citizens <a href="https://scroll.in/latest/1048448/amid-row-the-kerala-story-trailer-changed-from-being-the-story-of-32000-women-to-that-of-3-girls">tried to get it banned by sending a petition to the India’s Supreme Court</a>. </p>
<p>“Love jihad” is a conspiracy theory that claims Muslim men are converting Hindu and Christian women to Islam. Allegedly, the men feign love, get the women pregnant and eventually traffic them. The motive? To increase the Muslim population of India, perpetuate fanaticism and ultimately establish an Islamic state. </p>
<p>According to a recent <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/religious-segregation/">Pew Report</a>, 99 per cent of married people in India share the same religion as their spouse. Muslims account for approximately <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/projected-population-of-muslims-in-2023-to-stand-at-1975-crore-govt-in-lok-sabha/article67106178.ece">14 per cent</a> of India’s population. </p>
<p>There is no such thing as a “love jihad” and an investigation by India’s National Investigation Agency has said there is <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/nia-love-jihad-kerala-hadiya">no evidence of “love jihad” taking place.</a></p>
<h2>Political fallout</h2>
<p>The figure of 32,000 women in the film’s trailer was immediately <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/movie-the-kerala-story-an-attempt-to-destroy-states-communal-harmony-ruling-cpim-opposition-congress/article66792442.ece">challenged by Indian political leaders</a> and also debunked by <a href="https://www.altnews.in/32000-kerala-women-in-isis-misquotes-flawed-math-imaginary-figures-behind-filmmakers-claim/">fact-checkers from the website, Alt News</a>. </p>
<p>The filmmakers agreed to change the number and a new trailer was released. <a href="https://scroll.in/latest/1048448/amid-row-the-kerala-story-trailer-changed-from-being-the-story-of-32000-women-to-that-of-3-girls">It removed and replaced “32,000 girls” with “the true stories of three girls.”
</a> </p>
<p>And the movie went forward with its release, which according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/india/indian-film-kerala-story-controversy-intl-hnk/index.html">some news reports, was successful at the box office</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539600/original/file-20230726-15-pfd09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cinema in Bangalore, India. (CP)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Challenges in the Indian Supreme Court</h2>
<p>Some politicians decried the propagandist nature of the movie and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65523873">in West Bengal, it was banned by the government</a>. Politicians there said the film <a href="https://scroll.in/latest/1049228/the-kerala-story-contains-manipulated-facts-and-hate-speech-west-bengal-tells-sc">“manipulated facts and contains hate speech in multiple scenes”</a> and they banned the film to <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/mamata-banerjee-announces-ban-on-the-kerala-story-in-west-bengal-film-producer-reacts-101683546969420.html">“avoid violence and hatred.”</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/prohibition-order-not-tenable-sc-stays-west-bengal-governments-ban-on-the-kerala-story/articleshow/100326856.cms">The Indian Supreme Court</a> lifted the state ban though agreed that a disclaimer on the film was necessary. The disclaimer indicated that the film provides “no authentic data” to support the 32,000 figure and that it presents fictionalized accounts.</p>
<p>Other politicians, including some from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, promoted the film. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65481927">Some of them even offered complimentary tickets or organized free screenings</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://thewire.in/film/kerala-story-prime-minister-modi-misleading-claim">Prime Minister Narendra Modi</a> endorsed the movie, assigning to it a distinct legitimacy. </p>
<h2>Islamophobia from the 19th century</h2>
<p>The idea of “love jihad” is both current and historical with notions coming from Indian and Hindu nationalism as well as 19th-century British colonial narratives. Both streams constructed Muslim men as hypersexual and hyperaggressive. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108196">Hindu scholars and new religious organisations (like Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha)</a> began producing a new Hindu-centric version of Indian history. This history grew in response to British colonialism but <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb88s">at the same time, shared similarities with British colonial ideas</a>.</p>
<p>The British portrayed themselves as just rulers, partly by contrasting themselves with their casting of Muslim kings as hypersexual fanatics. </p>
<p>They pointed to a medieval darkness marked by the lust and tyranny of Muslim rulers. Mughal rulers were <a href="https://dvkperiyar.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/We-or-Our-Nationhood-Defined-Shri-M-S-Golwalkar.pdf">portrayed as rapists attacking both Hindu women and “Mother India”</a>. This portrayal included the Muslim <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/5969?language=en">Prophet Muhammad who was portrayed in some places as sexually perverse</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.448955">These ideas became part of the curriculum</a> in certain Indian states and elite Hindu scholars, educated at colonial schools, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb88s">perpetuated these narratives in their writing</a>. And the idea of a type of “love jihad” became part of the discourse created through pamphlets, novels, newspapers and magazines — especially in North India.</p>
<p>By the late 19th century, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108196">India was constructed around Hindu heterosexual relationships and family values</a> in opposition to Muslim sexual deviance and rampant Muslim sexuality.</p>
<p>In 1923, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108196">Madan Mohan Malaviya, the president of the Hindu Mahasabha</a> said in a speech, “hardly any day passes without our noticing a case or two of kidnapping of Hindu women and children by not only Muslim <em>badmashes</em> (rogues) and <em>goondas</em> (hooligans), but also men of standing and means.” </p>
<h2>Challenges to interfaith marriage</h2>
<p>Today, it’s not just <em>The Kerala Story</em> that has circulated the “love jihad” myth. Reportage in Hindu nationalist media continues to make headlines.</p>
<p><em>Organiser</em>, a magazine run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a network of Hindu nationalist organizations, recently reported that <a href="https://organiser.org/2023/06/28/181109/bharat/madhya-pradesh-three-cases-of-love-jihad-following-same-pattern-like-film-the-kerala-story-reported-in-a-month/">three cases of love jihad following the same pattern as those in ‘The Kerala Story’ were reported in a month</a>.</p>
<p>Love jihad’s centrality to Hindu nationalist politics has led to specifically stringent laws <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1068">focused heavily on sexuality and marriage</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-love-jihad-anti-conversion-laws-aim-to-further-oppress-minorities-and-its-working-166746">India’s 'love jihad' anti-conversion laws aim to further oppress minorities, and it's working</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/07/03/love-jihad-law-india/">Hindu vigilantes, in partnership with the police,</a> launch missions to separate interfaith couples. Muslim men have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/21/they-cut-him-into-pieces-indias-love-jihad-conspiracy-theory-turns-lethal">brutalized, killed, forced into hiding and incarcerated</a> using <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2018298841/">historic anti-conversion laws</a>. </p>
<p>One response to the chatter about “love jihad,” is an Instagram channel called <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/10/countering-love-jihad-by-celebrating-indian-interfaith-couples">India Love Project</a> launched to celebrate stories of interfaith love and marriages. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539606/original/file-20230726-25-5qmkg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This photo of a newlywed couple is from the Instagram account called the India Love Project. The groom is Muslim and the bride is Hindu-Punjabi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CptlucmPFgr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3Dhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CptlucmPFgr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D">(India Love Project)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hopefully, such efforts continue to address Islamophobia and broaden to include a larger public discourse looking at transnational Islamophobic interlinkages, both past and present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wajiha Mehdi receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Public Scholars Initiative UBC, International Development Research Centre Canada and the University of British Columbia</span></em></p>A controversial low-budget Indian feature film about a discredited anti-Muslim conspiracy theory has been causing a political storm, going all the way to India’s Supreme Court.Wajiha Mehdi, PhD Candidate, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084442023-07-12T20:27:05Z2023-07-12T20:27:05ZCanadian law enforcement agencies continue to target Muslims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536418/original/file-20230709-145234-1zd726.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C1904&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People hold signs during a protest in Montréal against Islamphobia in 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadian-law-enforcement-agencies-continue-to-target-muslims" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>As Canadians, we often take pride in perceiving ourselves as different from the United States, proudly <a href="https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2848&context=wmlr">asserting our contempt</a> about <a href="https://vancouversun.com/news/conversations-that-matter-we-cant-be-smug-about-canadian-democracy">events south of the border</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, a haunting question lingers: have we fallen into some of the same practices we so vehemently condemn, specifically systemic Islamophobia?</p>
<p>On Canada Day in 2013, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody were <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/alleged-canada-day-bomb-plot-targeted-b-c-legislature-1.1408115">arrested by the RCMP</a> after allegedly attempting to bomb the British Columbia legislature. </p>
<p>The arrests were widely celebrated as a victory in the global war on terror. However, three years later, Canadians discovered that the arrests were not the success story the RCMP portrayed them to be. </p>
<p>In July 2016, Justice Catherine Bruce of the B.C. Supreme Court <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9097868/nuttall-and-korody-sue/">ruled that the RCMP manufactured</a> the case against them and entrapped Nuttall and Korody. </p>
<p>The case represents the only terrorism trial in North America where entrapment was successfully invoked by the defence to overturn terrorism convictions, leading to a stay of proceedings and ultimately the couple’s acquittal. However, behind this groundbreaking case lies a darker truth — the deeply concerning tactics deployed by the RCMP. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A tall man embraces a shorter woman wearing a black head scarf." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536414/original/file-20230709-196949-2zr9v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Nuttall and Amanda Korody embrace at B.C. Supreme Court after a judge ruled the couple were entrapped by the RCMP in a police-manufactured crime in Vancouver in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inside Project Souvenir</h2>
<p>In a tale that reads like a Hollywood thriller, the RCMP found themselves entangled in a web of intrigue when they received a tip from CSIS in February 2013 that Nuttall had been purchasing potassium nitrate and making some violent pro-Islamic remarks.</p>
<p>In response, the RCMP launched an elaborate surveillance operation it called Project Souvenir.</p>
<p>Undercover “Officer A” roped Nuttall into a fictitious jihadist organization planning a large-scale attack on the West. Nuttall, tasked by Officer A with devising the plan, presented a wide range of grandiose ideas, from train hijackings to firing rockets over the B.C. legislature. </p>
<p>As the operation unfolded, it became clear that Nuttall was not capable of carrying out any of the proposed plans. Officer A threatened Nuttall with expulsion from the organization if he did not come up with a viable attack plan. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"740316183522611200"}"></div></p>
<p>Ultimately, a plan came together about planting pressure cookers at the legislature in Victoria. Yet Nuttall’s lack of knowledge and incompetence in handling explosives became glaringly apparent.</p>
<p>This led Officer A to promise Nuttall that all resources, including the elusive <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2001510222/">C4 explosive</a>, would be provided. </p>
<p>On Canada Day in 2013, Officer A gave the couple a ride to the legislature, where they planted the pressure-cooker bombs. Later that afternoon, the couple was arrested.</p>
<h2>The over-policing of Muslims</h2>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/john-nuttall-amanda-korody-rcmp-terror">Nuttall’s long criminal history spanning 20 years</a>, he only seemed to attract the attention of RCMP after his conversion to Islam. </p>
<p>It became evident in the trial that the police lacked substantial evidence to support any suspicions about the couple. There was no corroboration for the CSIS alert that initiated the investigation in the first place, but police proceeded with it anyway.</p>
<p>It seemed instead the police were profiling the couple based on their religion, and falsely associating devout religious beliefs with political violence and terrorism. </p>
<p>The RCMP allocated around <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/project-souvenir-john-nutall-amanda-korody-investigation-overtime-1.3468323#:%7E:text=Documents%20obtained%20by%20The%20Canadian,was%20code%20named%20Project%20Souvenir.">$1 million in overtime payments to 200 Mounties</a> for this five-month operation. </p>
<p>This raises the question of whether Muslim communities in Canada are over-policed, as <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487545901/systemic-islamophobia-in-canada/">suggested by University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach</a>.</p>
<p>The RCMP’s unwavering determination to proceed with the investigation, disregarding <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/john-nuttall-amanda-korody-rcmp-terror">warnings of a potential police-generated crime</a> within the police ranks, poses the question: were investigators fuelled by stereotypes and discrimination? </p>
<p>What Roach describes as “over-policing” of Muslims has led to rampant human rights abuses. Alarming parallels emerge in cases like <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/legal-brief/case-maher-arar/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwtamlBhD3ARIsAARoaEykUENR2ZN5F8zx0qW_V6UOHsdkTI_lMsLqghp5mmWWb-6vBC2QnxkaAuLREALw_wcB">Maher Arar</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/abdullah-almalki-apology-ottawa-morning-1.4032265">Abdullah Almalki</a> and other targeted Muslim Canadians, where intelligence may have stemmed from guilt by association and anti-Muslim stereotypes. </p>
<p>These cases paint a brutal picture of the over-policing of Muslims in Canada, underpinned by suspicions of Muslims as terrorists. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bearded man listens to a question at a news conference. A row of Canadian flags is behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536417/original/file-20230709-21-ryopai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maher Arar, an Ottawa telecommunications professional wrongly accused of having ties to terrorism when arrested by American security officials in 2002, listens to a question at a news conference in Ottawa in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tom Hanson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mass surveillance</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492231151587">recent study</a> by criminology and sociology academics Baljit Nagra and Paula Maurutto sheds further light on CSIS’s mass surveillance of Muslims in Canada. </p>
<p>The study documents how CSIS fosters a culture of informants and reveals how racial narratives surrounding perceived “radicalized extremist” Muslims have provided legitimacy for sweeping surveillance at the hands of intelligence services under the guise of the war on terror.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/csis-targeting-of-canadian-muslims-reveals-the-importance-of-addressing-institutional-islamophobia-199559">CSIS targeting of Canadian Muslims reveals the importance of addressing institutional Islamophobia</a>
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<p>CSIS adopts a “radicalization” framework, which identifies religious devotion as a marker that labels young Muslims as “at risk” for potential indoctrination into “radical extremism,” directly linking Islam to potential terrorism. </p>
<p>As we reflect on the safeguarding of our rights and freedoms, we are confronted with a humbling realization: we may not be so different from our neighbours south of the border. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hate-crimes-associated-with-both-islamophobia-and-anti-semitism-have-a-long-history-in-americas-past-116255">Hate crimes associated with both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have a long history in America's past</a>
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<p>Canada must continue examining the tactics and decision-making processes employed by its law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p>In doing so, we must reflect on the profound consequences of over-surveillance on the freedoms of religion, expression and association — particularly for Muslim Canadians — and their impact on equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Basema Al-Alami is affiliated with the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at University of Toronto</span></em></p>Canada must reflect on the profound consequences of over-surveillance on the freedoms of religion, expression and association — particularly for Muslim Canadians — and their impact on equality.Basema Al-Alami, SJD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2090422023-07-10T01:44:27Z2023-07-10T01:44:27ZThe Islamic State flag hijacks Muslim words of faith. Banning it could cause confusion and unfair targeting of Muslims<p>The Australian government may make the Muslim community a target through an ill-informed proposal.</p>
<p>New <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r7048_first-reps/toc_pdf/23077b01.PDF;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/r7048_first-reps/0000%22">legislation</a> has been introduced to parliament to outlaw the public display of “prohibited symbols”. These include two Nazi symbols and the Islamic State flag.</p>
<p>The bill was initially introduced to ban the Nazi Hakenkreuz (swastika) symbol as Australia tries to deal with a rise in <a href="https://time.com/6286524/australia-ban-nazi-symbols/">Neo-Nazi activity</a>. Neo-Nazi groups are becoming a greater threat as they try to recruit new members and are becoming more brazen through <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/neo-nazi-groups-becoming-more-brazen-says-asio-chief/f4ke3kbyv">public displays</a>, according to ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess.</p>
<p>The Islamic State flag was not in the initial <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/s1373_first-senate/toc_pdf/23S01020.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/s1373_first-senate/0000%22">bill</a>. To justify its late addition, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/speeches/second-reading-counter-terrorism-legislation-amendment-prohibited-hate-symbols-and-other-measures-bill-2023-14-06-2023">said</a> the IS flag symbolised the “abhorrent actions taken by one of the world’s deadliest and most active terrorist organisations”.</p>
<p>According to the proposed bill, the IS flag is to become a prohibited symbol. Anything that “so nearly resembles” the IS flag such that “it is likely to be confused with, or mistaken for” the IS flag, is also to be banned.</p>
<p>The bill then details what is meant by public display: “if it is capable of being seen by a member of the public who is in a public place”.</p>
<p>This can include documents such as newspapers or a magazine. Basically, anywhere in public where the “symbol” can be seen.</p>
<p>But this is problematic because the IS flag hijacks words which are sacred for all Muslims. The IS flag ban will likely create more problems than it solves and should be removed from the legislation. Or at the very least, the ban should be postponed until solid data is available about its problematic use.</p>
<p>There has been some backlash over the proposed wording already. In response, Dreyfus said the Labor government <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/well-listen-government-responds-to-concerns-over-proposed-is-flag-ban/y5xqk8wf5">would listen to such concerns</a> and that final changes to the wording are still possible, though it remains to be seen what form that would take. </p>
<p>The bill will now be looked at by a parliamentary committee.</p>
<h2>What is on the IS flag?</h2>
<p>The wording on the IS flag is of great significance for Muslims. The IS flag writes, “There is no God but God” in Arabic which is the fundamental tenet of Islam. It is the Islamic creed. It’s a phrase that Muslims declare at least once in their lifetime, while most Muslims would repeat it multiple times in a day.</p>
<p>The wording in the white circle of the flag reads “Allah, Messenger, Muhammad”. It is believed this is a <a href="https://time.com/3311665/isis-flag-iraq-syria/">seal</a> used by Prophet Muhammad in sealing letters that were sent to dignitaries. Historically, it was common to seal letters in such a way.</p>
<p>All Muslims embrace the wording found on the IS flag. IS adopted such a flag to claim they are acting in the name of God and following the way of Prophet Muhammad. </p>
<p>With such an approach, terrorists are claiming <a href="https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-hoax-in-the-isis-flag/">legitimacy</a> – they are hijacking Islam.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Saudi Arabia flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Islamic creed is also on the Saudi Arabian flag: La ‘ilaha 'illa-llah ('there is no God but God’), muhammadun rasūlu-llāh (‘Muhammad is the Messenger of God’).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Confusion and unnecessary suspicion</h2>
<p>Banning the IS flag or anything that “so nearly resembles” it could potentially create many problems and confusion in everyday life for Muslims – a group of people who have already endured so much due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-rip-it-off-her-head-new-research-shows-islamophobia-continues-at-disturbing-levels-in-australia-179106">Islamophobia</a>.</p>
<p>Many Muslims display the Islamic creed in its Arabic wording within their homes, as stickers on their cars, in mosques, or as artwork in various forms. Only last week, I was driving behind a car that had the Islamic creed written on its rear window, large and bold.</p>
<p>Even the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-Saudi-Arabia">Saudi flag</a> has the Islamic creed written on it, though with a green background. Nevertheless, it is the exact wording found on the IS flag. </p>
<p>A law enforcer, politician or lay person may not know the nuanced differences between an IS flag and the use of the Islamic creed by a member of the Muslim community in their personal lives. This may result in unnecessary suspicion or even arrest.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1503599434319474688"}"></div></p>
<p>For Muslims and for those who understand Islam, the creed has been hijacked by a terrorist organisation. While the intent of the ban may have been good, going ahead with such a ban will create more problems than it solves.</p>
<p>The wording of this proposed bill may even strengthen the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48603170">narrative</a> of IS, that “Muslims and the Muslim identity is under attack in the West”.</p>
<p>What’s more, the impact of IS is significantly <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/syria-isis-terrorism/">dwindling</a> – it’s not the threat it was between 2014 and 2019.</p>
<p>New South Wales police data shows public displays of the IS flag have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/islamic-state-flag-flown-over-300-times-in-nsw-in-last-six-years-20211130-p59dje.html">markedly declined</a> since their peak in 2015. As such, there’s no need to ban a flag for a <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/syria-isis-terrorism/">weakened organisation</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zuleyha Keskin is affilitated with ISRA Academy.</span></em></p>While the flag ban is well-intentioned, we must remember the creed of Islam has been hijacked by a terrorist organisation - and one which is dwindling anyway.Zuleyha Keskin, Associate Professor, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040012023-04-20T20:43:01Z2023-04-20T20:43:01ZRecent mosque attacks raise questions about the affinity between white supremacy and far-right Hindu nationalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521950/original/file-20230419-2235-axsfat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C50%2C8317%2C5519&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People carry placards and shout anti-government slogans during a protest against Islamophobia in Bengaluru, India in April 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During Ramadan, <a href="https://www.yorkregion.com/news/update-man-allegedly-tried-to-run-over-worshippers-at-markham-mosque-during-ramadan/article_ff54f3fe-bc6b-5993-8658-3435072a1d19.html">a man attacked a mosque in Markham, Ont.</a> He allegedly yelled slurs, tore up a Qu'ran, and attempted to run down worshippers in his vehicle. </p>
<p>Some people on Twitter have raised the idea that the attacker was connected to Hindu extremist groups; however, the investigation is still ongoing. </p>
<p>This is one of two <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9615942/man-47-charged-in-connection-with-suspected-hate-motivated-incident-at-markham-mosque/">hate-motivated incidents at mosques in Markham</a> in a week. Although police said <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mosque-suspected-hate-motived-incident-april-9-markham-1.6807097">they don’t believe the incidents are connected,</a> as a researcher of online extremism I can theoretically link these events to a global trend of Islamophobic violence.</p>
<h2>Legal discrimination and violence</h2>
<p>From <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/4/empty-promises-the-us-muslim-ban-still-reverberates">the United States’ Muslim ban</a>, to India’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/6/10/analysis-islamophobia-is-the-norm-in-modis-india">Citizenship Amendment Act</a>, to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-london-attack-1.6059756">Québec’s Bill 21</a>, Muslims face legal discrimination globally. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/niqab-bans-boost-hate-crimes-against-muslims-and-legalize-islamophobia-podcast-180012">Niqab bans boost hate crimes against Muslims and legalize Islamophobia — Podcast</a>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women wearing hijabs stand on the sidewalk outside a white building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521924/original/file-20230419-28-io0ue7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslims have faced legal discrimination globally. Here community members gather outside the Islamic Society of Markham in Ontario.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Alongside these laws, Muslims face physical violence. This includes: the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58406194">beating</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/6/25/obvious-religious-hatred-muslim-man-in-india-lynched-on-video">lynching</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/india-delhi-after-hindu-mob-riot-religious-hatred-nationalists">burning</a> of Muslims in India, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-strike-at-the-heart-of-muslims-safe-places-from-islamophobia-113922">Christchurch massacre in New Zealand in 2019</a>, the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/quebec-city-mosque-shooting">Québec City mosque shooting in 2017</a>, and more recently the murder of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">Afzaal family</a> in London, Ont.</p>
<p>Collectively, these policies and killings demonstrate a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/india-islamophobia-global-bjp-hindu-nationalism-canada/">transnational quality of Islamophobic prejudice and violence</a>. </p>
<p>While the two incidents in Markham may not be directly linked to extremist groups, they have occurred within this <a href="https://iphobiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canada-Report-2022-1.pdf">global ecosystem of Islamophobia.</a> To me, the attacks indicate that these online conspiracies do not occur in a vacuum and can have potentially horrifying real consequences.</p>
<h2>Hindutva-based terrorism in Canada</h2>
<p>Over the last several years, I have carefully examined the digital and transnational connections between <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/13/why-white-supremacists-and-hindu-nationalists-are-so-alike">white supremacists in North America and far right Hindu nationalists in India</a>.</p>
<p>My preliminary findings show how <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-twitter-investigation-reveals-what-the-freedom-convoy-islamophobes-incels-and-hindu-supremacists-have-in-common-177026">these two seemingly unrelated extremist far-right groups</a> have become increasingly allied on social media platforms as they position Muslims as a “common enemy.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/how-a-supremacist-political-ideology-from-india-is-said-to-be-gaining-influence-in-canada-1.6295956">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)</a>, the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization, promotes the Hindutva ideology which believes India only belongs to Hindus.</p>
<p>A recent published <a href="https://www.nccm.ca/rss-in-canada/">report</a> by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization documents how this organization has gained ground in Canada. Jasmin Zine is a Canadian scholar whose <a href="https://iphobiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canada-Report-2022-1.pdf">recent report</a> also outlines a network of Hindu nationalists that aids in the circulation of ideologies that promote Islamophobia.</p>
<h2>Governments spreading misinformation</h2>
<p>In 2014, the BJP, the most prominent <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/23/what-you-need-to-know-about-indias-bjp">Hindu nationalistic right-wing party in India</a> came to power. Like the RSS, the BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties believe that India belongs only to Hindus. </p>
<p>Since elected, the BJP has actively spread <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003052272">misinformation and conspiracies about Muslims through social and mainstream media</a>, intensifying hostilities between Muslims and Hindus.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Indian prime minister Modi on the back of a car with two other men waving to a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521947/original/file-20230419-16-oli2no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The BJP and other Hindu nationalists believe that India belongs only to Hindus, not minorities like Muslims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>While seemingly different on the surface from white supremacy, my <a href="http://gmj-canadianedition.ca/current-issue/">research</a> shows how these two movements similarly mobilize emotional rhetoric and visual content to spread their influence. </p>
<p>Twitter, as one of the main platforms for both groups, has been used extensively to perpetuate new <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003052272-11/hindu-nationalism-news-channels-post-truth-twitter-zeinab-farokhi">forms of gendered Islamophobia and to forge surprising alliances</a> and affinities.</p>
<h2>The Love Jihad conspiracy</h2>
<p>One of the conspiracy theories shared by these groups is called Love Jihad. Originating in India by <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/201">Hindu nationalists in 2013</a>, this conspiracy alleges Muslim men actively seduce non-Muslim women to marry and convert them to Islam. </p>
<p>The #LoveJihad hashtag was quickly picked up on social media by <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1083">white extremists</a> and other Islamophobic groups in North America, modulating it to fit their own conspiracies such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030201">The Great Replacement</a>.</p>
<p>This example demonstrates how anti-Muslim sentiment online spreads quickly and transnationally. </p>
<p>Groups I monitor on Twitter from India constantly talk about the perceived threat of Love Jihad. One such Hindu nationalist group, Hindu Jagruti Org, warns Hindu women against “dangerous, sexually aggressive” Muslim men. The tweet below is an example:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"746233106445668353"}"></div></p>
<p>These tweets portray Muslim men as “deceitful, sexual monsters” who view Hindu women as “objects to fulfill their lust.” Hindu extremists argue that to combat these “Muslim monsters,” precautionary measures are needed. </p>
<h2>#LoveJihad travels to North America</h2>
<p>The #LoveJihad conspiracy was quickly taken up by Islamophobic groups in North America. For example, Robert Spencer, who runs <a href="https://hindutvawatch.org/hindu-nationalisms-intense-hatred-for-christians-why-does-robert-spencer-ally-with-them/">Jihad Watch which has a large following among Hindu nationalists</a>, tweeted the following:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1424415135423156228"}"></div></p>
<p>The tweet includes an article that claims the Islamic State encourages Love Jihadis to target non-Muslim women and “abduct,” “forcibly convert, and marry” them.</p>
<p>Love Jihad has been proven a farce. </p>
<p>Yet, Spencer continues to claim there are “real cases that show how Muslim men have duped Hindu women into toxic romantic relations year after year.” </p>
<p>Responses from users to Spencer’s post demonstrate his success in establishing #LoveJihad as fact. For instance:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of two tweets supporting the idea of a love jihad conspiracy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521978/original/file-20230419-26-hm4792.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot of tweets responding to Robert Spencer’s comments on Love Jihad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As these posts indicate, Love Jihad easily reinforces belief in Muslim men as “terrorists” and “groomers” — that is, men who create trust with girls and young women in order to exploit them.</p>
<h2>Transnational alignment of hate</h2>
<p>This shared intense hatred of “monstrous” Muslim men brings Hindu and white extremists into a “transnational affective alignment.” That is, the mutual hate of Muslims and a mutual love for Hindu and white national ideals.</p>
<p>Social media platforms such as Twitter are important in creating these alignments and perpetuating related conspiracies, gaining considerable traction through their repetition.</p>
<p>This alignment is produced through the demonization of Muslim men and extremists’ shared hate and fear of them across borders. Through transnational responses and retweets, extremists forge a layered and cumulatively condensed affective message: Muslim men are dangerous. We fear them. Thus, we hate them.</p>
<p>While it remains to be seen whether or not the recent mosque attackers were directly influenced by online, transnational and affective Islamophobia, recurring incidences such as this should remind us that hate does not abide by international borders. </p>
<p>Misinformation and conspiracies find fertile ground in the echo chambers of social media. </p>
<p>Our response to such crimes — and their online equivalents — must consider that the fear and hate of Muslims does not happen by accident. </p>
<p>As the #LoveJihad conspiracy demonstrates, strange bedfellows are easily made when there is a perceived common enemy. Conspiracies and acts of anti-Muslim hate impact us all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zeinab Farokhi receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>While the two incidents in Markham may not be directly linked to extremist groups, they have occurred within a global ecosystem of Islamophobia.Zeinab Farokhi, Assistant Professor (limited term appointment), Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025452023-04-19T15:58:31Z2023-04-19T15:58:31ZWhy London’s first Ramadan lights celebration has been so important for Muslims everywhere<p>On March 21 2023, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Hamza Taouzzale, lord mayor of Westminster, stood on Coventry Street in central London and switched on the capital’s first ever <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65030988">Ramadan illuminations</a>.</p>
<p>Every evening throughout the holy month, 30,000 coloured lights have lit up this busy streetscape. “Happy Ramadan” is spelled out in a white florid script against a golden half-disc, supported by crescent moons, five-pointed stars and lanterns.</p>
<p>This marks the first time that <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-muslims-believe-and-do-understanding-the-5-pillars-of-islam-155023">Ramadan</a> has been celebrated this way – not just in London’s West End or the UK capital at large, but in any major European city. The significance of lighting up Piccadilly Circus during Ramadan for Muslims in Britain and around the world cannot be overstated. </p>
<p>Major news outlets across the Arab and Islamic world, including <a href="https://mubasher.aljazeera.net/news/miscellaneous/2023/3/23/%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%84%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%86-%D8%AA%D8%AA%D8%B2%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8B%D8%A7">Al-Jazeera</a> and <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2023/03/22/London-s-Piccadilly-lights-up-with-Ramadan-decorations-for-first-time-ever">Al-Arabia</a>, have praised the initiative for the diversity and tolerance it signals within British society. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1638475106421727234"}"></div></p>
<p>Muslims worldwide observe the holy month of Ramadan – which this year ends on the evening of Friday, April 21 – as an opportunity to reflect on their relationship with God and strengthen their faith. It is a time for prayer, charity and kindness towards others. Fasting from sunrise to sunset is seen as a <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/culture/2019/05/ramadan-understanding-its-history-and-traditions">spiritual practice</a> that fosters self-discipline, patience and empathy. </p>
<p>In Britain, local <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/open-iftar-20032744430">open Iftars</a>, where Muslims break the day’s fast, have taken place for decades, with invitations to all – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – to join. Ramadan has always been an opportunity for Muslims to share their cultures with others, and for others to learn about Muslims and Islam. </p>
<p>In my research of Muslims’ participation in architecture and urban projects across the UK, I have found that empowering these communities <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/3/349">to co-design and shape</a> the area they live in, so they can see their cultural and religious practices taken into account, is crucial.</p>
<h2>Community involvement</h2>
<p>London’s Ramadan lights are the result of three years of community campaigning led mainly by the Ramadan Lights UK community group. Founder Aisha Desai set up the project <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/happy-ramadan-lights-up-londons-piccadilly-circus-for-the-first-time-ever-12839979">in 2021</a> with a lit-up structure in north London (Henlys Corner on the North Circular ring road). She cited childhood memories of travelling into central London to see Christmas decorations: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a proud Muslim, I wanted to bring some of that magic to my community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A slightly larger structure followed in Trafalgar Square in 2022. </p>
<p>The current installation follows the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53456508">cancellation</a>, in 2020, of proposals by the Aziz Foundation to turn part of the Trocadero building on Piccadilly Circus into a mosque. Westminster City Council received upwards of 6,000 comments supporting the project, but 2,800 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/22/plan-to-open-mosque-in-trocadero-in-london-sparks-objections">objected</a> with a high volume of these <a href="https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/08/04/proposal-for-piccadilly-circus-mosque-withdrawn-after-racist-complaints/">reportedly racist</a> in tone.</p>
<p>Lighting up a city for Ramadan is an invaluable opportunity for local governments nationwide to boost their Muslim communities’ sense of ownership over their localities. It affords Muslims greater visibility and a sense of inclusion in public spaces. </p>
<p>This is important. Research shows that Muslims in the UK feel excluded <a href="https://www.youthandpolicy.org/articles/young-muslims-and-exclusion/">most of the time</a>, yet also negatively over-exposed whenever a public crisis related to them occurs. This is particularly notable in cities and towns such as Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in the north of England that witnessed <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239466847_Community_Cohesion_a_Report_of_the_Independent_Review_Team">ethnic unrest</a> around the year 2000. </p>
<p>I have done extensive interviews and field work in Burngreave, Sheffield, where 60% of the population <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021">identifies as Muslim</a>. When a public space there, Ellesmere Green, <a href="https://archive.burngreavemessenger.org.uk/archives/2012/august-2012-issue-101/ellesmere-green-proposals/">was redesigned in 2013</a>, I found that local Muslims were not being engaged about it. The people I spoke to expressed their frustration at Christmas lights being put up without them being consulted. No similar effort was made by the local authorities to celebrate Ramadan.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A night scene of some Christmas lights in a green space." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519420/original/file-20230404-28-4ift4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas lights on Ellesmere Green in Sheffield, December 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Farouq Tahar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such lack of engagement not only erodes Muslims’ sense of belonging to British society. It also precludes the community from having any sense of ownership over their local public spaces. </p>
<p>By contrast, the open iftars that have been organised during Ramadan by the Muslim community in Sheffield this year, in several public spaces around the city, have created a welcoming atmosphere for both Muslims and non-Muslims to share. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/linkfm967">Link FM</a>, a local community radio station, interviewed people who attended an iftar at the <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@linkfm967/video/7217556627111546139">Peace Garden</a>. One woman said: “It was open, obviously. I wouldn’t be comfortable going into a mosque, or going to something much more enclosed.” Another said: “I think it is really bringing people together, it was really lovely.”</p>
<p>And a Muslim attendee concurred: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This open iftar brings people of all races together – showing that Sheffield is a very diverse community; showing that our diversity is our strength as a city.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Representatives from the <a href="https://twitter.com/DESA_Sheffield/status/1641543075033157632?cxt=HHwWgMDU7deu98ctAAAA">Darnall Education & Sports Academy </a>, where another open iftar was held, commented on a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/onlinesheffield">Sheffield Online</a> Facebook post saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Witnessing people from diverse backgrounds, both religious and non-religious, come together to share a meal was truly heartening. Such initiatives play an instrumental role in fostering understanding and cooperation, breaking down barriers and dispelling misconceptions. They make social cohesion, often perceived as a platitude, a tangible reality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similar benefits have been reaped in <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-kingdom--sheffield/open-iftar-2023/">other cities</a> across the north, including Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester and Bradford. </p>
<h2>Official endorsement</h2>
<p>Any impact this kind of initiative can have, however, is minimised when not embraced by a local authority. Official endorsement, such as the mayor of London backing the city’s Ramadan lights, is necessary if the goal of bridging different communities and navigating commonalities is to be achieved. </p>
<p>It is highly likely that positive media coverage of London’s Ramadan lights encouraged other establishments to show their values of tolerance and inclusion through open iftars. Chelsea has become <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11906829/Chelsea-welcome-Muslims-Stamford-Bridge-Ramadan.html">the first Premier League football club</a> to host an open iftar on the grounds of its stadium. Similar open iftars <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ae/sports/other/pitchside-prayers-and-joy-as-uk-breaks-ramadan-fast-at-public-iftars/ar-AA19jbId">are being held</a> in other venues around in London. Further afield, <a href="https://pennyappeal.org/news/open-iftar-2023">Bradford cathedral</a> and <a href="https://www.manchestercathedral.org/news-events/news/open-iftar-2023-at-manchester-cathedral/">Manchester cathedral </a> have followed suit.</p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687968221126196">Islamophobia is on the rise</a> in British society. Data published by the <a href="https://muslimcensus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Islamophobia-and-the-Government.pdf">Muslim Census</a> found that 92% of Muslims believe Islamophobia exists within the UK <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-school-cat-stevens-built-how-conservative-politicians-opposed-funding-for-muslim-schools-in-england-161956">government</a>.</p>
<p>In its heightened focus on Muslim radicalisation, the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1134986/Independent_Review_of_Prevent.pdf">recent review</a> of Prevent, the UK counter-terrorism strategy, risks further exacerbating such <a href="https://theconversation.com/prevent-review-why-we-need-a-new-and-clearer-definition-of-islamist-extremism-200664">Islamophobic sentiment</a>. And a forthcoming independent report, commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, on how the UK government engages with faith organisations, is reportedly set to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/29/ministers-urged-to-be-more-aggressive-in-tackling-issues-within-religious-groups">call for stricter measures</a> to be implemented on Muslim groups. Pundits and scholars alike say this will deepen the divide between Muslims and the wider community. </p>
<p>In this context, any initiative that signals social inclusion within the public square – the urban environment that all communities share – is crucial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Farouq Tahar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ramadan is a time for prayer, charity and kindness to others. Having it celebrated in such a public way is empowering for Muslim communities across the country and beyond.Farouq Tahar, PhD Researcher in Architecture, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023852023-03-23T20:37:35Z2023-03-23T20:37:35Z‘Salam, Ramadan Mubarak!’: 4 ways schools can bring Ramadan into the classroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517251/original/file-20230323-1493-yxzkdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C98%2C5973%2C3691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fostering Ramadan awareness is a stepping stone to nurturing deeper connections that matter for affirming Muslim student identities and stopping anti-Muslim sentiments.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/-salam--ramadan-mubarak----4-ways-schools-can-bring-ramadan-into-the-classroom" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>As Muslims begin observing Ramadan, it’s a good time to consider the importance of building a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.13141">strong sense of belonging</a> at school. Affirming the identities of Muslim students and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3264">all minoritized and racialized learners</a> is a way of creating a positive classroom culture.</p>
<p>Fostering opportunities to understand inequities, going beyond stories of racism and spotlighting greatness and achievement all matter.</p>
<p>Over the last 10 years, I have led workshops on Ramadan, Muslims and Islamophobia with district school boards, at universities and at community events. </p>
<h2>Need to educate against Islamophobia</h2>
<p>In the past two years, I have received a considerable number of requests for workshops and presentations. Unfortunately, I believe, it took the death
of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57390398">four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., in a “premeditated” vehicle attack in June 2021</a>, for significant strides to be taken to educate Canadians about Islam and Muslims, and to substantiate that Islamophobia or anti-Muslim sentiments are real. </p>
<p>School boards have started to pay more attention to their Muslim students’ identities, and also to the existence of <a href="https://angusreid.org/islamophobia-canada-quebec/">strong explicit and implicit anti-Muslim biases</a> among students <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-schools-how-teachers-and-communities-can-recognize-and-challenge-its-harms-162992">and teachers</a>.</p>
<p>Muslim youth need spaces in their communities, including their schools, where they are free to be themselves and do not have to worry about facing prejudice. Youth need their schools to be safe havens to build their positive sense of self.</p>
<h2>Growing Muslim population</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="decorations seen in a classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517242/original/file-20230323-1586-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ramadan classroom window decor from Tarbiyah Learning Academy, an Islamic school in Ottawa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tarbiyah Academy)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though Muslims are the <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/survey-shows-muslim-population-is-fastest-growing-religion-in-canada">fastest-growing religious group</a> in Canada, a recent study from the Angus Reid Institute found “<a href="https://angusreid.org/islamophobia-canada-quebec/">unfavourable views of Islam prevalent</a> across the country.” Results were based on a February 2023 online survey among a representative randomized sample of 1,623 Canadian adults.</p>
<p>In 2021, Islam was reported as the second-largest religion in Canada. In the past 20 years, the Muslim population of Canada has more than doubled, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm">from two per cent in 2001 to 4.9 per cent in 2021</a>, now totalling nearly 1.8 million Muslims. </p>
<h2>Identity-affirming activities</h2>
<p>In Ontario, Muslim students account for over 20 per cent of the student body in some school boards. The <a href="https://www.peelschools.org/documents/Overall-board-municipality-infographic.pdf/Overall-board-municipality-infographic.pdf">Peel District School Board has the highest concentration</a> of Muslim students in the province.</p>
<p>And yet, as a parent with a child in a Peel daycare, I’ve noticed sparse identity-affirming activities offered in classrooms. This is in contrast to festivities during Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween, such as wearing different colour outfits to commemorate the day and lots of arts and crafts.</p>
<p>When this is the case, Muslim children’s non-Muslim counterparts are not engaged in challenging their Islamophobic perceptions. </p>
<p>I am not saying that such inclusive diversity-related practices should become an <a href="http://www.edchange.org/publications/Avoiding-Racial-Equity-Detours-Gorski.pdf">equity detour</a> or a replacement for confronting inequities and anti-Muslim sentiments. Affrming cultural activities are merely entry points to help schools start the ideological work required to combat Islamophobia.</p>
<h2>Inclusive public school education</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A door seen decorated with a hanging crescent moon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517243/original/file-20230323-28-cv1nhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students need to see their identities and cultures recognized at school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tarbiyah Academy)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research from 2012 in the United States found that the lack of identity-building in public schools is one of the reasons for <a href="https://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/2013_18_1_12_clauss_ahmed_islamic-school.pdf">a rise of Islamic schools</a>.</p>
<p>Holidays (days away from school) also coincide with Christian festivities. Such inequitable practices <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/holiday-guide/canadian-schools-struggle-with-what-to-do-about-christmas/article1357339/">exclude all other cultures and traditions.</a> </p>
<p>In the U.S., <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-lead-more-public-schools-to-close-for-islamic-holidays-182197">more and more districts</a> are including <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2016/0115/Why-some-US-districts-are-adding-Muslim-holidays-to-the-school-calendar">Muslim holidays in their school calendar</a>. </p>
<h2>Team approach needed</h2>
<p>In Canada, should Muslim students attend Islamic schools to experience the spirit of Ramadan and Eid? </p>
<p>I am a proponent of public schools, and I believe public schools can be spaces for all students from all cultures and backgrounds to feel a deep sense of belonging.</p>
<p>Cross-cultural exchange can be complex and challenging for teachers. Building a positive school culture, especially around celebrations, needs to be a team effort by all educational partners: teachers, administrators, parents, students and community members. </p>
<p>Here are four ways educators in public schools can develop the identities of Muslim students and create a positive school culture during Ramadan:</p>
<p><strong>1. Help students feel the spirit of Ramadan in their public schools.</strong></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Paper cutout of a crescent moon and star are painted gold." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517236/original/file-20230323-1571-p1bn8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ramadan decorations can help lift the spirits of Muslim students during the month of fasting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Classroom or hallway decorations, and Ramadan songs in the announcements, can help lift the spirits of Muslim students during the month-long fast. </p>
<p>Decorations of the crescent moon can work as a culturally appropriate decoration in public schools: it signifies the beginning of a month in the Islamic lunar calendar. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/these-young-londoners-got-real-artsy-to-prepare-for-the-month-of-ramadan-1.6784141">Lanterns are another example</a>. In Muslim-majority countries, lanterns are hung from windows, balconies and in public spaces and create a magical milieu. Music can provide positive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X19843001">transcultural learning</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Intricate white paper cut-out lanterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517255/original/file-20230323-22-cvjh3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lantern decorations and crafts are one idea for schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Educators can also use the language of a student’s culture to greet them on the day of their celebration. Studies suggest using a <a href="https://etfovoice.ca/sites/default/files/ETFO_Voice_Curriclum_Fall2016.pdf">student’s home language</a> provides a deeper connection between students and their school experience.</p>
<p>For example, educators could say: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Salam [student name], Ramadan Mubarak.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It means: “Hello … Happy Ramadan,” in Arabic. Salam means “peace” and is used as a greeting by many Muslims even in non-Arabic speaking countries. Learning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9Ui1aRfOLC4">the specific greetings used</a> in students’ cultures would be a good idea.</p>
<p>Another way to ignite the Ramadan spirit is to enlist the help of Muslim parents, or partner with local mosques, to create loot bags filled with inexpensive items children might receive at a birthday party. These could be for Muslim students (and also non-Muslims who would like one). </p>
<p>This activity would also enhance Muslim school-community engagement. Schools could explore the best way to offset costs to ensure this is accessible to families.
Connecting with local Islamic schools could be another potential partnership. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-i-could-change-one-thing-in-education-community-school-partnerships-would-be-top-priority-188189">If I could change one thing in education: Community-school partnerships would be top priority</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>2. Provide spaces for students during lunch and recess.</strong> Fasting can be difficult for most kids, and doing it alone <a href="https://ing.org/resources/for-educators/other-educator-resources/religious-practices-of-muslim-students-in-public-schools/">while they see other friends eating</a> can make it more challenging.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/louise-arbour-ramadan-club-1.6408922">One school in London, Ont.</a> made a fasting club and attracted 15 students to provide camaraderie, and offered activities to help students keep their minds off hunger.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-ramadan-and-why-does-it-require-muslims-to-fast-180139">Explainer: what is Ramadan and why does it require Muslims to fast?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>3. Send a letter to the school community about Ramadan.</strong> </p>
<p>Informing parents of the day-to-day activities of the school, especially those pertinent to <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/F/Families-and-Schools-in-a-Pluralistic-Society2">minoritized or racialized families</a>, may increase the likelihood of parental engagement. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Decor seen in a school hallway of a sign saying 'Ramadan Kareem' with two smiling figures and presents in front of them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517247/original/file-20230323-1493-of83q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Informing a school community about Ramadan can promote inclusivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tarbiyah Academy)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A school in Milton, Ont. sent a letter to parents last year informing them about Ramadan and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-eid-al-fitr-and-how-do-muslims-celebrate-it-6-questions-answered-118146">the celebration that follows it: Eid</a>.</p>
<p>A parent shared this letter with me in appreciation of the school’s work affirming Muslim identities and creating intercultural understanding.</p>
<p><strong>4. Holding <a href="https://thebutlercollegian.com/2022/04/muslim-student-association-hosts-campus-wide-fast-a-thon/">Fast-a-thons</a>:</strong> Fast-a-Thons offer opportunities for non-Muslims to experience Ramadan with Muslim friends or colleagues, and are typically planned around sharing iftars — the meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan. </p>
<p>Community iftars where Muslim and non-Muslims break their fast together instils a feeling of <a href="https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1292&context=nsudigital_newspaper/">camaraderie and overcoming a challenge collectively</a>. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ramadan-primer-high-school-students-1.5984005">Muslim students</a> and their parents can be invited to speak about what Ramadan means to them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman seen smiling at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517254/original/file-20230323-22-4mg88f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslims can be invited to speak about what Ramadan means to them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Granted, the lack of intercultural understanding is not always the root of Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Islam and Ramadan awareness may not stop anti-Muslim sentiments for some, however, these are stepping stones to starting deeper conversations and connections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asma Ahmed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Educators in public schools can develop the identities of Muslim students and create a positive school culture during Ramadan by fostering community partnerships and introducing school activities.Asma Ahmed, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Niagara UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984842023-02-23T13:33:02Z2023-02-23T13:33:02ZNovelist, academic and tattoo artist Samuel Steward’s plight shows that ‘cancel culture’ was alive and well in the 1930s<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511802/original/file-20230222-20-4w67dr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C10%2C1201%2C890&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Outside of teaching and writing, Samuel Steward took up tattooing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/07/26/books/0726SECRET2/0726SECRET2-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp">The Estate of Samuel M. Steward</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 2023, Hamline University <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/us/hamline-university-islam-prophet-muhammad.html">opted not to renew the contract</a> of an art professor who showed a 14th-century depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class. Hamline labeled the incident “Islamophobic” and released a statement, co-signed by the university’s president, saying that respect for “Muslim students … should have superseded academic freedom.” </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/01/hamline-university-adjunct-professor-freedom/672713/">widespread backlash</a>, the university walked back that statement. However, the lecturer was still not rehired.</p>
<p>Concerns about academic freedom are nothing new. Rather than being a product of recent “<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-we-cancel-cancel-culture-164666">cancel culture</a>,” tension has long existed over the ability of professors to freely teach and write about controversial topics without fear of retribution.</p>
<p>More than 80 years ago, an English professor named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/books/26secret.html">Samuel Steward</a> was dismissed from his teaching position after publishing what his college’s president deemed a “racy” novel.</p>
<p><a href="https://works.bepress.com/alessandro-meregaglia/">As an archivist and scholar</a> studying publishing in the American West, I’ve located published and unpublished archival sources detailing the controversy surrounding Steward after he published his first novel, which ultimately cost him his job.</p>
<h2>A book met with backlash</h2>
<p>A native of the Midwest, Steward earned his Ph.D. in English in 1934 from Ohio State University. The following year, Washington State College – now Washington State University – hired Steward to teach classes on a one-year contract.</p>
<p>An aspiring writer, Steward drafted his first novel while still a graduate student. He worked to find a publisher and contacted a small firm in rural Idaho. After an editorial review, Caxton Printers agreed to publish Steward’s novel, “Angels on the Bough,” which told the story of a small group of characters and their intertwined lives in a college town.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of man wearing small glasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511495/original/file-20230221-28-b44wu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Caxton Printers founder James H. Gipson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lehigh University Special Collections</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Founded in 1907, <a href="https://www.caxtonpress.com/">Caxton Printers</a> has earned national attention for its fierce defense of freedom of expression and unique publishing philosophy. Caxton’s founder, James H. Gipson, understood the transformative power of books and sought to give a voice to deserving writers when other firms rejected them. Profit was not a motivator. As Gipson <a href="https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv02075">explained</a> to Steward, “We are interested not in making money out of any author for whom we may publish, but in helping him.”</p>
<p>Caxton published “Angels on the Bough” in May 1936. </p>
<p>The book immediately received reviews, almost entirely positive, in dozens of newspapers across the country. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1936/05/31/archives/trouble-in-academe-angels-on-the-bough-sm-steward-317-pp-caldwell.html">The New York Times</a> wrote favorably about the novel, describing Steward as possessing “a very distinct gift above the usual.”</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gertrude-stein">Gertrude Stein</a>, the American writer and expatriate who lived most of her life in France, lauded “Angels on the Bough” in a letter she penned to Steward.</p>
<p>“I like it I like it a lot, you have really created a piece of something,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dear_Sammy/A1dbAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22quite%20definitely%22">Stein wrote</a>. “It quite definitely did something to me.”</p>
<h2>Steward loses his job</h2>
<p>Despite the favorable reception, the book started causing trouble for Steward before it was even published. Review copies reached campus in early May 1936. Steward soon began hearing rumors that college administrators found his book distasteful for its sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute, one of the main characters.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A yellow book cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511801/original/file-20230222-26-roekc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The publication of ‘Angels on the Bough’ prompted Washington State College to not renew Steward’s contract.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alessandro Meregaglia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet, as Steward <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gay_Sunshine_Interviews/T8wYAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22little%20women%22">noted in an interview</a> during the 1970s, the book was “very tame – reading like ‘Little Women’ by today’s standards.”</p>
<p>Steward sent an urgent telegram to Gipson asking him to stop selling the book on campus: “A young poor man with only one job asks that you withdraw his novel … because his departmental head and dean hint at his discharge.”</p>
<p>Caxton had advertised the book as “not appeal[ing] to the less liberal mind.” This “alarmed several people,” <a href="https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv02075">according to Steward</a>. The head of the English department told Steward his book contained “unsavory material” and that Steward’s position “would undoubtedly prove very embarrassing” to the college.</p>
<p>Despite this, Steward still planned to return to teach classes the following autumn. Earlier that spring, he had been verbally assured that he would receive another one-year contract. Three weeks later, however – and just hours before he left campus for the summer – Washington State’s president, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100308091433/http:/president.wsu.edu/office/university-governance/past-presidents/holland.html">Ernest O. Holland</a>, summoned Steward to a meeting.</p>
<p>Holland informed Steward his contract would not be renewed. He accused Steward of writing a “racy” novel and of being sympathetic with a <a href="https://content.libraries.wsu.edu/digital/collection/clipping/id/110709/rec/3">student strike</a> a month earlier.</p>
<p>Angered, Steward immediately dashed off a telegram to Gipson: “Discharged by God Holland for writing a racy novel … I have no regrets whatsoever despite the fact his methods were those of Hitler but think I will take up stenography.”</p>
<p>Steward and Gipson both set to work to widely publicize Steward’s dismissal. Steward appealed to the <a href="https://www.aaup.org/">Association of American University Professors</a> for assistance. Founded in 1915, the association’s primary purpose is “to advance academic freedom.” The organization still regularly investigates violations of academic freedom, <a href="https://www.aaup.org/news/aaup-launches-inquiry-hamline-university#.Y_U3HHbMKUk">including what happened at Hamline University</a>.</p>
<p>After months of investigation, the AAUP published <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40219810">its report</a>. It determined that Steward had been unjustly let go and concluded that “President Holland’s handling of the Steward case has been most ill-judged, and indicates … improper restriction of literary freedom.”</p>
<h2>From teaching to tattooing</h2>
<p>After leaving Washington State, Steward promptly found a position at Loyola, a Catholic university in Chicago. Before hiring him, Loyola’s dean read Steward’s book and apparently had no objections. An AAUP member <a href="https://searcharchives.library.gwu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/374014">noted the irony</a>: “Apparently our Catholic brethren are much more tolerant than a state institution in Washington.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Shirtless tattooed man smoking a cigarette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511498/original/file-20230221-3821-5leisr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samuel Steward worked as a tattoo artist under the alias Phil Sparrow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Samuel_Morris_Steward_1957.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Outside of teaching, Steward, who was gay, published gay erotica under the pseudonym Phil Andros and took up tattooing. By 1956, Steward permanently left academia to ply his trade as a tattoo artist full time on Chicago’s South State Street under another alias, Philip Sparrow.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, he moved to California and opened up a tattoo parlor in Oakland, where he became the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Secret_Historian/cl9kgQmqj54C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22official%22%20%22hells%20angels%22">“official” tattoo artist</a> for the Hells Angels motorcycle club.</p>
<p>After retiring from tattooing, Steward lived a quiet life in Berkeley. He still wrote frequently, producing a handful of <a href="https://worldcat.org/search?q=au%3D%22Steward%2C+Samuel+M.%22&itemSubType=book-printbook&orderBy=publicationDateDesc&itemSubTypeModified=book-printbook&datePublished=1950-1993">fiction and nonfiction books</a>. Steward <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/20/obituaries/samuel-steward-84-a-writer-about-stein.html">died in California in 1993</a> at the age of 84.</p>
<p>Despite his prolific and varied career, Steward’s legacy as a “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gay_American_Autobiography/6Frgs5iRL4YC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22remarkable%20figure%22">remarkable figure in gay literary history</a>” was not widely known until the publication of Justin Spring’s meticulously researched 2010 book, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Secret_Historian/cl9kgQmqj54C?hl=en&gbpv=0">Secret Historian</a>.”</p>
<p>Interest in Steward continues. Performance artist John Kelly recently staged a show, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/theater/john-kelly-underneath-the-skin.html">Underneath the Skin</a>,” in December 2022 that examined Steward’s life.</p>
<p>It is impossible, of course, to know the trajectory of Samuel Steward’s career if he had been reappointed to Washington State for another year. But a prescient comment Steward made just before his dismissal suggests that he sensed he couldn’t stay in academia forever: “I am afraid I will have to get out of the teaching profession in order to be able to write the way I want to.”</p>
<p>Academic freedom is <a href="https://www.aaup.org/our-work/protecting-academic-freedom/academic-freedom-and-first-amendment-2007">related to free speech</a>. A <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/For_the_Common_Good/y6ozEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">long-standing tradition</a> afforded to college faculty, it shields professors from retribution – from both internal and external sources – for teaching controversial topics within their area of expertise. <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure">According to the AAUP</a>, academic freedom is based on the premise that higher education promotes “the common good (which) depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” </p>
<p>This protection covers both classroom lectures and publications.</p>
<p>With debates about academic freedom lately making headlines – from <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/hrw-harvard-israel-kennedy-school/">outside interests influencing appointments</a>, to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/01/hamline-university-adjunct-professor-freedom/672713/">administrators kowtowing to vocal students</a>, to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/11/desantis-seeks-overhaul-small-liberal-arts-college">politicians changing oversight of public universities</a> – Steward’s plight some 87 years ago is a reminder that this freedom requires constant defense.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Meregaglia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ability of professors to freely teach and write about controversial topics without fear of retribution is nothing new.Alessandro Meregaglia, Associate Professor and Archivist, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995592023-02-22T18:23:24Z2023-02-22T18:23:24ZCSIS targeting of Canadian Muslims reveals the importance of addressing institutional Islamophobia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511508/original/file-20230221-18-jwylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C4962%2C3330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslim Canadians face mass surveillance that brings entire communities under suspicion.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been an uproar recently among politicians who have called for the <a href="https://montreal.citynews.ca/2023/02/02/amira-elghawaby-apology/">resignation of Amira Elghawaby</a>, Canada’s first <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2023/01/26/prime-minister-announces-appointment-canadas-first-special">special representative on combating Islamophobia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C284%2C8484%2C5458&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman wearing a hijab and glasses" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C284%2C8484%2C5458&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510974/original/file-20230219-332-lgmx5d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amira Elghawaby was appointed as Canada’s first special representative on combating Islamophobia on Jan. 26, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The position was created in January 2023 to address the longstanding discrimination, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00013-eng.htm">hate crimes</a> and intolerance faced by Muslim communities across the country. </p>
<p>In recent years, Canada has witnessed the highest number of Muslims killed in <a href="https://www.nccm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Policy-Recommendations_NCCM.pdf">hate-motivated attacks</a> out of all the G7 countries. </p>
<p>The controversy stems over Elghawaby’s <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/elghawaby-and-farber-quebecs-bill-21-shows-why-we-fear-the-tyranny-of-the-majority">2019 criticism</a> of Québec’s Bill 21. The law prohibits public servants from wearing religious symbols like hijabs, turbans, yarmulkes and crosses. </p>
<p>The bill has been criticized for unfairly impacting Muslim communities — <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-impact-religious-minorities-survey-1.6541241">particularly Muslim women</a>.</p>
<p>There was also criticism of <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/quebec-activists-lawyers-express-support-for-embattled-amira-elghawaby">remarks Elghawaby made</a> in response to an <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-term-bipoc-is-a-bad-fit-for-the-canadian-discourse-on-race/">opinion piece</a> that said French Canadians were the largest group in Canada to be victimized by British colonialism.</p>
<p>In response, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, has called on the federal government to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-must-drop-elghawaby-and-get-rid-of-anti-islamophobia-position/">scrap the position</a> of the special representative on combating Islamophobia altogether. </p>
<p>However, our research on the treatment of Canadian Muslim communities by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), shows how vital it is to address <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/racism-descrimination-claims-canadian-security-intelligence-service-1.6083353">institutional Islamophobia</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492231151587">our recent study</a> we interviewed 95 Muslim community leaders living in five major Canadian cities to learn about their experiences with CSIS. </p>
<p>This study is the first of its kind to map the anti-Muslim tactics employed by CSIS in its racialized surveillance of Muslim communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men bow in prayer at a mosque." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511510/original/file-20230221-22-v2yb4a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men pray at the Hamilton Mountain Mosque in Hamilton, Ont. Mosques have become frequent targets of surveillance by CSIS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Muslims face mass surveillance</h2>
<p>We found that CSIS adopts specific surveillance practices that are informed by Islamophobic tropes. This works on the premise that Islam and any expression of religious devotion to it represents a potential terror suspect. </p>
<p>Consequently, CSIS engages in mass surveillance that brings entire Muslim communities under suspicion. It relies on <a href="https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/islastudj.7.2.0215">false radicalization assumptions</a> that depict Muslim communities as hotbeds of extremism that must be contained through aggressive surveillance strategies.</p>
<p>CSIS engages in mass surveillance with devastating and prolonged effects on Muslim communities. We found that mosques have been transformed into sites of surveillance rather than a safe place for religious worship and community gatherings. </p>
<p>CSIS treats mosques as sites of radicalization and incubators of extremism in order to legitimize its intensive policing and infiltration. CSIS monitors who enters and exits them, and members, especially imams, are subject to interrogation and forced to provide intelligence on their congregations. We found there is a persistent deployment of CSIS operatives at mosques. </p>
<p>Muslim youth in particular are heavily targeted by CSIS. Those who attend mosques, are involved in Muslim student organizations, attend Muslim gatherings or summer camps are frequently interrogated by CSIS, often without their parents’ permission. </p>
<p>Muslim university students who we spoke to informed us they have found recording devices in their campus prayer spaces, and had their social media scanned. The result is that Muslim youth are subjected to extreme forms of state surveillance. At the University of Toronto, faculty and lawyers have even set up a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/csis-students-university-muslim-campus-1.5229670">support line</a> to help Muslim students and provide representation when they are contacted by CSIS. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An elderly man carries a placard that reads: Question authority, in front of a roadside sign that says Canadian security Intelligence service" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510976/original/file-20230219-358-ztot2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CSIS has used mass surveillance to target and monitor Muslim Canadian communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>CSIS relies on coercive techniques</h2>
<p>A key CSIS tactical strategy is the use of coercive techniques to pressure ordinary citizens to become informants. We were informed that CSIS threatens to show up at the workplaces of individuals who refuse to talk to them. They particularly seek out refugees or those with precarious immigration status.</p>
<p>They also use aggressive tactics such as making unannounced visits to people’s homes in the middle of night; actions that intimidated entire families, including children. We were informed that this is a common practice as individuals are unable to access legal counsel or community support at such times.</p>
<h2>Political activism targeted</h2>
<p>Those politically active and critical of the Canadian state found themselves at higher risk for interrogation. In our study, we found those who criticize state policies — particularly concerning politics in the Middle East — come under increased surveillance. </p>
<p>We were informed of the deep chilling effect this has on Muslim communities. Those we interviewed spoke about being fearful of voicing their concerns regarding state practices, as they believe this would incur CSIS surveillance. </p>
<p>This level of political suppression directly violates the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-23/">CSIS Act</a>. This act prohibits investigation of lawful advocacy and dissent. </p>
<p>The result for Muslim communities is a culture of suspicion and internal fear. We were informed of the common suspicion that others in the community are working for CSIS. Furthermore, some concealed being approached by CSIS because they believe they could be ostracized within their own communities. </p>
<h2>Islamophobia institutionalized in Canada</h2>
<p>CSIS is just one institution that racially targets Muslims. There are a host of other counter-terrorism laws and practices that also operate to reproduce racist perceptions and assumptions about Muslims. For example, our previous research has documented how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azz066">Canada’s no-fly list</a> and security practices at <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/canajsocicahican.41.2.165">Canadian border crossings</a> function as endemic practices of institutionalized racism. They target Canadian Muslims, exacerbate racial profiling and subject people to demeaning treatment.</p>
<p>Contrary to the demands for Elghawaby’s dismissal, our work speaks to the vital need for a special representative on combating Islamophobia and to make addressing Islamophobia an urgent priority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baljit Nagra receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paula Maurutto receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>A recent study highlights how mass surveillance of Muslim communities by Canadian intelligence is based on racist stereotypes about Muslims.Baljit Nagra, Associate Professor, Criminology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaPaula Maurutto, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1987142023-02-14T17:39:49Z2023-02-14T17:39:49ZLocal journalism is under threat at a time when communities need more inclusive reporting<p>The future of local newspapers is under threat, according to parliament’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/175585/more-support-needed-to-halt-damaging-decline-of-local-journalism-dcms-committee-warns/">digital, culture, media & sport committee (DCMS) report</a> released in early 2023. </p>
<p>This report into the sustainability of local journalism comes at a time when <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/trust-in-news-uk/">public trust</a> in the national media is falling, while <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/52789">online disinformation, polarisation and hatred</a> towards minorities continues to rise.</p>
<p>But my research shows <a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/how-a-society-tells-a-story-about-itself">local journalism</a> is capable of providing an important antidote to this. And therefore it should be recognised as an essential element for nurturing our diverse, civic communities. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1748048516656305?journalCode=gazb">Research shows</a> how the media can portray Muslims in disproportionately negative ways. They are often represented as the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/discourse-analysis-and-media-attitudes/8305B860E5CCFFE9918986B21FCAD15D">problematic outsider of British society</a>, often portrayed using stereotypes or as “a menace to the west”.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/college-artslaw/ptr/90172-univ73-islamophobia-in-the-uk-report-final.pdf">recent survey</a> on Islamophobia in Britain found Muslims were perceived as the second “least liked” group in the UK, according to polling. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2021-to-2022/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2021-to-2022">Home Office figures</a> released in October 2022 show how Muslims are much more likely to be the victims of religious hate crimes than any other religious group.</p>
<h2>Local journalists and community spirit</h2>
<p><a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/how-a-society-tells-a-story-about-itself">My research</a> has shown that the local media, in particular, has the potential to provide more inclusive ways of reporting on stories involving Muslims.</p>
<p>I conducted interviews with local journalists working for newspapers in areas with relatively large Muslim populations including London and Blackburn. The results showed there were conscious efforts to ensure their reporting did not cause harm to the Muslims within the communities they served. I found that local journalists saw Muslims as an integral part of their local community rather than outsiders.</p>
<p>Muslim celebrations and festivals were covered by local journalists. Stories about terrorist incidents were featured as well as concerns of Islamophobic attacks on local Muslims. And contributions of Muslims to civic life were reported in the same way as anyone else, as were crimes or wrongdoings.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I attempt to go the extra mile in my reporting to get a more truthful picture of where the community is and the real lives of the people within it,” one local journalist told me. “For me, it’s about pushing back against the atomised bullshit that we do see coming back at us online. The reason it’s important to tell stories truthfully and accurately is to push back against this dehumanising narrative that is out there.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, it would be an oversimplification if we took the experiences learned from these particular journalists and applied them to local media as a whole. But <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253221261/the-anthropology-of-news-and-journalism/">other studies</a> of local journalism have also highlighted their often distinctive newsroom cultures. Journalists and their readers are seen to be part of a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Local-Journalism-and-Local-Media-Making-the-Local-News/Franklin/p/book/9780415379540">single community</a> with common values and goals. This closeness to the communities they serve can often translate to a more considered approach to reporting, as well as a greater reluctance to sensationalise or demonise. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003178217-3/trust-ethics-local-journalism-julie-firmstone-john-steel-martin-conboy-charlotte-elliott-harvey-carl-fox-jane-mulderrig-joe-saunders-paul-wragg">Research</a> also points to the commitment of local journalists to create a sense of community and to defend it. </p>
<h2>Threats ahead</h2>
<p>However, as the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/175585/more-support-needed-to-halt-damaging-decline-of-local-journalism-dcms-committee-warns/">DCMS committee report</a> highlights, the landscape of local journalism is changing and not in a good way. Between 2009 and 2019, more than 300 regional newspaper titles were shut down. During the week of February 6 2023, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64581579">it was announced</a> that three hundred employees at publisher DC Thomson will be made redundant. The company publishes newspapers including Aberdeen’s Press & Journal and The Courier in Dundee.</p>
<p>There are serious concerns in the same report that without considerable government intervention, the decline in local journalism will have a harmful impact on civic life. Communities in the most deprived areas of the UK are most likely to be affected. </p>
<p>The DCMS report shows local publishers are struggling to keep up with larger media organisations in the move towards online news services. This is leading to losses in revenues and resources. To combat this, the DCMS committee has called on the government to help local news organisations gain charitable status while providing funding to support innovation, startups and new technology. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A selection of different newspaper brands are stacked in a display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509138/original/file-20230209-20-dn1h0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dolgellau-gwynedd-wales-uk-august-8-1474678949">Wozzie/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The upcoming <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/365/business-energy-and-industrial-strategy-committee/news/173840/report-consumers-at-risk-if-digital-markets-unit-not-given-teeth-say-mps/">digital markets, competition and consumer bill</a> in Westminster will be closely watched by media experts to see how it affects smaller publishers. </p>
<p>Concerns for local journalism are not just about its survival in an increasingly digital news market, however. It is more a case of recognising that nurturing a community spirit is one solution to countering wider hatred, disinformation and polarisation. </p>
<p>Research by campaigning group <a href="https://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/who-owns-the-uk-media">the Media Reform Coalition</a> shows how nearly 84% of local newspapers are now owned by just six companies. And while consolidation has been a lifeline for some newspapers, for others it risks extinguishing the close community connection that appears to be vital for the inclusive and balanced civic journalism we need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Haq receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)</span></em></p>Local journalism should be recognised as an essential element for nurturing the UK’s diverse, civic communities.Nadia Haq, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972772023-01-09T19:58:31Z2023-01-09T19:58:31ZIslamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503431/original/file-20230106-12-3prvbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C1039%2C815&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting showing the Prophet Muhammad raising his hands in prayer while standing on the Mountain of Light in Mecca.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siyer-i Nebi (Biography of the Prophet), Istanbul, Ottoman lands, 1595-96. Topkapı Palace Library, Istanbul, H. 1222, fol. 158v. Photograph by Hadiye Cangökçe.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently dismissed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/us/hamline-university-islam-prophet-muhammad.html?fbclid=IwAR2hnx6-xm3WYbHDxODN-F_5U39bPNyzRcCGtZhNzPafYdnY7-FEHnyf-AY">Erika López Prater</a>, an adjunct faculty member, for showing two historical Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad in her global survey of art history. Following complaints from some Muslim students, university administrators described such images as disrespectful and Islamophobic.</p>
<p>While many Muslims today believe it is inappropriate to depict Muhammad, it was not always so in the past. Moreover, <a href="https://banished.substack.com/p/most-of-all-i-am-offended-as-a-muslim">debates</a> about this subject within the Muslim community are ongoing. Within the academic world, this material is taught in a neutral and analytical way to help students – including those who embrace the Islamic faith – assess and understand historical evidence.</p>
<p>As an expert on <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253025265/the-praiseworthy-one/">Islamic representations of the Prophet Muhammad</a>, I consider the recent labeling of such paintings as “hate speech” and “<a href="https://localtoday.news/mn/hamline-university-fires-depictions-of-prophet-muhammad-professor-in-art-class-twin-cities-114820.html">blasphemy</a>” not only inaccurate but inflammatory. Such condemnations can pose a threat to individuals and works of art. </p>
<p>The Prophet Muhammad has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslims-have-visualized-prophet-muhammad-in-words-and-calligraphic-art-for-centuries-150053">represented</a> in Islamic paintings since the 13th century. Islamic art historians such as my colleagues and me, both Muslim and non-Muslim, study and teach these images regularly. They form part of the standard survey of Islamic art, which includes calligraphy, ornament and architecture.</p>
<h2>Comparing prophetic images</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/UoEsha%7E4%7E4%7E64742%7E103064?page=220&qvq=&mi=220&trs=318">14th-</a> and <a href="https://tr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosya:Siyer-i_Nebi_158b.jpg">16th-century</a> images López Prater selected depict Muhammad receiving the beginning of Quranic revelations from God through the angel Gabriel. In Islamic thought, it is at that moment that Muhammad became a divinely appointed prophet.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A folio from a manuscript showing an image of a winged angel and a man seated in reverence before it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503654/original/file-20230109-7605-as69wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting showing the Prophet Muhammad receiving the beginning of Quranic revelations from God through the angel Gabriel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/UoEsha~4~4~64742~103064?page=220&amp;q%20vq=&amp;mi=220&amp;trs=318">Rashid al-Din, Jami‘ al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), Tabriz, Iran, 1306-1315 CE. Edinburgh University Library, Edinburgh, Ms. Or. 20.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 14th-century painting is part of a royal manuscript, the “Compendium of Chronicles,” written by Rashid al-Din. It is one of the earliest <a href="https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/145535">illustrated histories</a> of the world. The manuscript includes numerous paintings, including a cycle of images depicting several key moments in the Prophet Muhammad’s life.</p>
<p>The one that was discussed in López Prater’s class appears in a section on the beginnings of Quranic revelation and Muhammad’s apostleship. The painting depicts the prophet with his facial features visible as the angel Gabriel approaches him to convey God’s divine word. The event is shown taking place outdoors in a rocky setting that matches the accompanying text’s description.</p>
<p>The second image, made in Ottoman lands in 1595-96, is part of a six-volume <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4629330#metadata_info_tab_contents">biography</a> of the prophet. Over 800 paintings in this manuscript depict major moments in Muhammad’s life, from his birth to his death.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting set on gold-colored background showing a figure dressed in white with hands raised in prayer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503343/original/file-20230105-2380-nzfm79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ottoman-era painting depicting the prophet’s purity through the use of white fabrics, with a large flaming nimbus encircling his body.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Al-Darir, Siyer-i Nebi (Biography of the Prophet), Istanbul, Ottoman lands, 1595-96. Topkapı Palace Library, Istanbul, H. 1222, fol. 158v. Photograph by Hadiye Cangökçe.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that painting, Muhammad is seen raising his hands in prayer while standing on the Mountain of Light, known as Jabal al-Nur, near Mecca. His facial features are no longer visible; instead, they are hidden behind a facial veil. </p>
<p>The Ottoman artist chose to depict the prophet’s purity through the use of white fabrics, and his entire being as touched by the light of God via the large flaming nimbus that encircles his body. Jabal al-Nur is shown, as its name suggests, as a radiant elevation. Above it and beyond the clouds, rows of angels hover in praise.</p>
<h2>Key study questions</h2>
<p>These two paintings show that Islamic representations of Muhammad are neither static nor uniform. Rather, they evolved over the centuries. During the 14th century, artists depicted the prophet’s facial features, while later artists covered his face with a veil.</p>
<p>Islamic art historians ask their students to compare these two paintings while encouraging them to slow down, look carefully, train their eyes to detect pictorial elements, and infer meaning. They also ask students to consider the textual content and historical context accompanying the paintings.</p>
<p>The key question students are prompted to think about through the juxtaposition of these two Islamic paintings is this: Why did the facial veil and flaming nimbus develop as two key prophetic motifs in Islamic depictions of Muhammad between A.D. 1400 and 1600?</p>
<p>The images help a teacher guide a collective conversation that explores how the prophet was conceptualized in more metaphorical ways – as a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/456885/_Between_Logos_Kalima_and_Light_Nur_Representations_of_the_Prophet_Muhammad_in_Islamic_Painting_">veiled beauty</a> and as <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6223682/_Pre_Existence_and_Light_Aspects_of_the_Concept_of_Nur_Muhammad_updated_">radiant light</a> – over the course of those two centuries in particular. </p>
<p>This prompts a larger exploration of the diversity of Islamic religious expressions, including those that are more <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807841280/and-muhammad-is-his-messenger/">Sufi</a>, or spiritualized, in nature. These paintings therefore capture the richly textured mosaic of Muslim worlds over time. </p>
<p>This historically sensitive, pictorial side-by-side is known as a comparative analysis or “<a href="https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-write-comparative-analysis">comparandum</a>.” It is a key analytical method in art history, and it was used by López Prater in her classroom. Now more than ever, a rigorous study of such Islamic paintings proves necessary – and indeed vital – at a time of sharp debates over what is, or is not, Islamic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christiane Gruber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An art historian describes the two historical representations of Prophet Muhammad that led to a controversy at Hamline University.Christiane Gruber, Professor of Islamic Art, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960322023-01-05T20:36:16Z2023-01-05T20:36:16ZFrom hapless parody to knight crusader – how far-right nationalism hijacked the real Don Quixote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501786/original/file-20221219-27-hitmya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5107%2C3399&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s said that Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza were riding their horses in the dark night when they heard the sound of dogs barking. Trying to console the frightened Sancho, Don Quixote uttered what may be the most quoted line attributed to him: “Let the dogs bark, Sancho, it’s a sign that we are on track.” </p>
<p>Today, the phrase is used to express the notion that if someone criticises (barks at) you, it’s a sign you are on the rise. Dogs bark at the moon, don’t they? </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the quote doesn’t appear anywhere in <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/09/29/egginton-cervantes-29sept2016/">Miguel de Cervantes</a>’ famous 17th century novel Don Quixote. But that hasn’t stopped it appearing all over the Internet. Not long ago, for instance, I came across the “barking dogs” phrase in some Facebook motivational meme depicting Don Quixote as a knight crusader galloping on an alabaster-white horse. </p>
<p>Anyone who reads the novel will know Cervantes’ hero is first and foremost a parody of a knight. The novel tells the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a skinny old man maddened by his inordinate taste for reading chivalric romances. Determined to become a knight errant himself, he changes his name to Don Quixote de la Mancha. </p>
<p>In a rusty suit of armour with a helmet patched with cardboard, riding an old nag (in his imagination a noble steed he names Rocinante), he sallies forth to right the wrongs of the world. His quest will inevitably prove as futile as tilting at windmills under the illusion they’re giants. Far from resembling an epic crusader, Don Quixote is a bizarre, laughable character. </p>
<p>The dreadful and never-imagined (at least, certainly not by Cervantes) portrait of Don Quixote as a crusader is the kind of mistake that sets scholars’ teeth on edge. Being a scholar myself, I wondered whether I should bark at this apocryphal Quixote riding through cyberspace, or just let him pass. </p>
<p>But that image, sloppily posted on the web, actually comes from somewhere other than mere literary ignorance. From the early 20th century onward, Don Quixote has suffered a paradoxical fate, wrapped in a crusader’s cloak by nationalist propaganda. And this misrepresentation seems to be growing in the 21st century, threatening to obscure Cervantes’ real message.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501791/original/file-20221219-23-ypz586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feodor Chaliapin Jnr. (right) and George Robey in G W Pabst’s 1933 film version Don Quixote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A national myth</h2>
<p>The closing of the 19th century saw the gloomy twilight of the Spanish empire. The loss of its last colonial possessions dealt a severe blow to the national spirit. Around this time, the novelist, poet and philosopher <a href="https://poets.org/poet/miguel-de-unamuno">Miguel Unamuno</a> wrote an influential essay where he imagined a holy crusade to rescue Don Quixote’s grave. </p>
<p>For Unamuno, Cervantes’ hero was a nostalgic reminder of Spain’s heyday in the 15th to 16th centuries – the days of the “<a href="https://www.thecollector.com/reconquista-christian-reconquest-of-spain/">Reconquista</a>”, or Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, and the beginning of Spanish imperial history in America. Tellingly, Unamuno placed Don Quixote alongside Columbus and Magellan – heroes, in his opinion, led by “a generous and big dream: the dream of glory”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-don-quixote-the-worlds-first-modern-novel-and-one-of-the-best-94097">Guide to the classics: Don Quixote, the world's first modern novel – and one of the best</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Don Quixote thus underwent an odd metamorphosis, from a fallible antihero to an epic ideological hero, from a comic literary character to a national myth. The grotesque old man, his brain dried up and shrivelled from too much reading, became a clever crusader knight, inviting identification and admiration. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501787/original/file-20221219-53611-kxkave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Miguel de Cervantes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the Spanish civil war, the image of crusaders against the “communist and atheist rule” was invoked with ardour by the nationalist cause. After the fall of the republic in 1939, the newly enthroned dictator Francisco Franco flooded the squares with statues of the author of Don Quixote. </p>
<p>With Spain still strewn with war victims, Francoist propaganda recalled the author’s left hand being mutilated from fighting against the Muslims. What better model of Spaniard than the great writer who was crippled in the service of his nation! Thus, Cervantes himself was turned into a crusader knight and a national hero.</p>
<p>More recently, leaders of the far-right Spanish party <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/10/spain-far-right-vox-regional-government-castilla-y-leon-peoples-party-deal">Vox</a> have compared its political agenda with Don Quixote’s quest. During a visit to a field of windmills, former party general secretary <a href="https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/03/inenglish/1554300350_838434.html">Javier Ortega Smith</a> declared: “Those are the giants we have to fight against in politics: climate fundamentalism, gender ideology, historical lies, Agenda 2030, absurd animalism […]” </p>
<p>The true Don Quixote was an infamous dreamer, consistently misreading reality and seeing imaginary enemies. That’s probably the only trait he shares with his current nationalist eulogists. But Vox’s identification with Don Quixote is an irony we can’t afford to take too lightly. While reality always defeats Cervantes’ hero, it doesn’t seem to prevent people from tilting at windmills with nationalist rhetoric.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501789/original/file-20221219-37196-xsut8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Vox president Santiago Abascal at the party’s Madrid headquarters, December 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>Don Quixote in Arabic</h2>
<p>In its rise to popularity, Vox has encouraged crusades against various “enemies of the nation”, such as the pro-independence campaign in Catalonia and contemporary feminist movements. African immigrants and Muslims are also regular targets. </p>
<p>Santiago Abascal, president of the party, has explicitly called for <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/vox-and-spanish-muslim-community-new-reconquista-of-spa/">“a new Reconquista” of Spain</a> to stop the so-called invaders from the south. When asked about it, Abascal said “there was no danger of Islamophobia in Spain: the real danger was Islamophilia.”</p>
<p>Islamophobic and xenophobic views, as well as the use of crusader tropes, are unfortunately familiar among today’s Western nationalisms. Misleading content on the web revolves around the image of medieval Europe as a land populated by white crusaders and nobles. Promoted by white supremacists around the world, this notion of a mythical “West” is even more indefensible in Spanish culture. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vox-how-to-understand-the-peculiarities-of-spains-hard-right-movement-115525">Vox: how to understand the peculiarities of Spain’s hard-right movement</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>From the 8th century to the late 15th century, Muslims, Christians and Jews dwelt side by side in Al-Andalus, the Arabic term for medieval Iberia. This centuries-old relationship, often called “convivencia” or coexistence by historians, left indelible marks on Spanish culture. </p>
<p>In stark contrast to modern nationalist and xenophobic sentiments, Cervantes showed a great deal of respect for the Muslims. And his famous novel doesn’t conceal Spain’s history of racial hybridity and cross-cultural fertilisation – evidenced by an often overlooked aspect of the story.</p>
<p>In the novel, we read that Don Quixote’s adventures were originally narrated by the fictional Muslim historian Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cervantes playfully declares that, while taking a stroll, he just stumbled on some folders full of papers written in Arabic. Cervantes’ appreciation of Spain’s multicultural legacies is clearly reflected in these words of praise for Don Quixote and his Arabic ancestry:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Blessings on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who wrote the history of your great deeds, and double blessings on the inquisitive man who had it translated from Arabic into our vernacular Castilian, for the universal entertainment of all people.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-don-quixote-has-to-say-to-spain-about-todays-immigrant-crisis-45482">What Don Quixote has to say to Spain about today's immigrant crisis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>There are many wrongs in nationalist appropriations of Don Quixote. To right them is not for the sake of literature alone. In a world where facts seem to have less influence over what people believe and how they behave, the real Don Quixote is at risk of being forgotten.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the flamboyant crusader-usurper rides on through cyberspace, declaring to be above all criticism and boldly saying, “Let the dogs bark…”. We should know by now that there are people, gullible or mad, who are willing to follow him, perhaps with horrifying and deadly consequences. </p>
<p>To bark louder is crucial, then, since it might yet help stop those delusional expeditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roberto Suazo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The hero of Cervantes’ classic 17th century novel has been sorely misrepresented since the early 20th century as a symbol of nationalist and Islamophobic ideas.Roberto Suazo, Research Assistant , University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1958592022-12-05T15:29:20Z2022-12-05T15:29:20ZHow celebrity footballers can help reduce prejudice against minorities – podcast<p>In the latest episode of Discovery, an ongoing series via <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast, we hear about recent research that showed how a Muslim celebrity footballer helped reduce Islamophobia. </p>
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<p>When Mohamed Salah joined Liverpool football club in 2017, he quickly became the Premier League team’s star player. As Liverpool went from success to success, fans embraced the Egyptian footballer, who is a practising Muslim. They even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-icmPutQDk">invented new songs</a> about him, including the refrain: “If he scores another few then I’ll be Muslim too.”</p>
<p>For Salma Mousa, a political scientist at Yale University in the US, Salah’s popularity presented an opportunity to study a psychological hypothesis called the <a href="https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Parasocial-Contact-Hypothesis.pdf">parasocial contact theory</a>. This suggests that mass exposure to celebrities from minority groups can improve tolerance towards them. </p>
<p>Mousa wanted to know: “Does exposure to Mo Salah reduce Islamophobia and reduce prejudice toward Muslims?” When Mousa and her colleagues designed a suite of experiments to answer that question, they reported what they <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/can-exposure-to-celebrities-reduce-prejudice-the-effect-of-mohamed-salah-on-islamophobic-behaviors-and-attitudes/A1DA34F9F5BCE905850AC8FBAC78BE58">called the “Mo Salah effect”</a>. </p>
<p>Listen to the full episode to hear Mousa explain their findings, and what they’re looking into next. Follow <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> wherever you get your podcasts for more episodes of Discovery series every couple of weeks. </p>
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<em>Listen to episodes of Discovery by searching for <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> wherever you listen to podcasts.</em></p>
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<p>This episode was produced and written by Gemma Ware with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood are also producers on the show. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. The clip of football chanting in this episode is via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-icmPutQDk">The Redmen TV on YouTube.</a></p>
<p>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>. A transcript of this episode is <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2793/Discovery_Ep2_Football_and_Prejudice_Transcript.pdf?1694452793">now available</a>.</p>
<p>Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salma Mousa has received funding from the Institute for Research in the Social Sciencees lab at Stanford University. </span></em></p>Listen to Discovery, a series via The Conversation Weekly podcast, telling the stories of fascinating research discoveries from around the world.Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952302022-11-25T10:40:41Z2022-11-25T10:40:41ZWhy France, Germany and the UK relate to their Muslim communities so differently<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497073/original/file-20221123-26-vbvv1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C7747%2C5091&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French president Emmanuel Macron greets the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris Chems-Eddine Hafiz in October 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Marin/AFP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The way we perceive and talk about Islam varies greatly from one European country to the next. While this may be easy enough to intuit by glancing over different national headlines, I backed this up with hard data in my PhD research on <a href="https://www.theses.fr/s263315">public discourses on Islam in Germany, France and the United Kingdom</a>.</p>
<h2>The pursuit of German identity</h2>
<p>In Germany, how you approach Islam hinges onto which side of the political debate you stand. On the one hand, the majority of the political elite defends a German identity that is no longer based on traditional culture but on support toward the constitution (<em><a href="https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/jan-werner-mueller-verfassungspatriotismus-t-9783518126127">Verfassungspatriotismus</a></em>). On the other hand, a media and political minority defends the return of a monocultural vision of German identity (<em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-german-leitkultur/a-38684973">Leitkultur</a></em>).</p>
<p>In this narrative struggle, elites see the country’s far right, led by the AfD (<em>Alternative für Deutschland</em>) party, as <a href="https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik">enemy number one</a>, far more than they do radical Islam. Security concerns over Muslims are therefore limited to <a href="https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/111/2017/07/2017-07-20_afd-btw_faltblatt_islam-nicht-zu-deutschland.pdf">the former players</a> and to a handful of figures in the media such as <a href="https://www.emma.de/artikel/islam-und-islamismus-eine-brisante-umfrage-338749">Alice Schwarzer</a> or <a href="https://www.focus.de/politik/experten/gastbeitrag-von-birgit-kelle-es-gibt-keine-islamophobie-aber-sicher-einen-terror-im-namen-des-islam_id_12601630.html">Birgit Kelle</a>.</p>
<h2>Shades of liberalism</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom it is liberalism that calls the shots, with two strands of thought. On the one hand, ideological liberalism aims to protect the British way of life in the face of terrorism and “preachers of hatred”. In 2011, then–Prime Minister David Cameron put forward his brand of <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130102224134/http:/www.number10.gov.uk/news/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference/">“muscular liberalism”</a> that “actively promoted… certain values… [such as] freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality”. But that current of thought is also claimed by hard Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage, who’s ardently opposed to what he portrays as a pro-immigration EU led by Germany.</p>
<p>Inherited from the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230.2017.1398443">British empire</a>, the other liberal current, multiculturalism, seeks to manage differences and face off both populist and nationalist threats. Advocates of “muscular liberalism” view this approach as passive and neutral, merely contenting itself with demanding citizens obey the law. Here again, champions of multicultural liberalism in Westminster and the media tend to focus their energies on the European Union – albeit this time to defend it – rather than on Islam.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Muslims pray in a mosque" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497332/original/file-20221125-16-k2d5y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Muslims pray at the central mosque in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, western Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.afpforum.com/AFPForum/Search/Results.aspx?pn=1&smd=8&mui=3&q=6562230975996011826_0&fst=muslims+germany+mosque&fto=3&t=2#pn=1&smd=8&mui=3&q=6562230975996011826_0&fst=muslims+germany+mosque&fto=3&t=2">Rainer Jensen/AFP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Islam and <em>laïcité</em></h2>
<p>In France, narratives about Islam are articulated in relation to religion, opposing two conceptions of French secularism, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/frances-la-cite-why-the-rest-of-the-world-struggles-to-understand-it-149943"><em>laïcité</em></a>: on the one hand, what other academics and I refer to as <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/rdr/435">axiological laïcité</a>, or values-based laïcité, frames secularism as a refuge against a real or perceived “Islamic threat”. <a href="https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/la-constitution/comment-la-constitution-protege-t-elle-la-laicite">Constitutional secularism</a>, by contrast, aims to regulate all religions, the French Muslims of the Republic included.</p>
<p>Although it is not based on any legal text, axiological secularism has managed to become the <a href="https://theconversation.com/la-cite-lexception-nest-pas-la-ou-les-francais-la-voient-128338">dominant force</a> in French secularism since concerns over headscarves at school <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/12/world/arab-girls-veils-at-issue-in-france.html">first erupted in 1989</a>. Paradoxically, constitutional secularism, which is based on the 1905 law on the separation of church and state and on the preamble of the 1946 constitution, is struggling to make itself heard in the public debate.</p>
<p>In sum, the way Islam is represented across Germany, the UK and France reveals a struggle between two interpretations of <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/two-faces-of-liberalism">political liberalism</a>. The proponents of <em>Leitkultur</em>, muscular liberalism, and axiological secularism understand political liberalism as a set of “common values”, to which the newcomers have to assimilate.</p>
<p>By contrast, proponents of <em>Verfassungspatriotismus</em>, <em>multiculturalism</em> or constitutional secularism, insist on <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/RAWPL">“common rules of the game”</a> for <em>de facto</em> multicultural societies.</p>
<p>These European narrative battlefields show what is politically acceptable or costly in the national public debate.</p>
<h2>Did you say “islamophobia”?</h2>
<p>In Germany and the United Kingdom, pointing out (Muslim) culture as a threat is more acceptable than it is in France, where political players rarely venture to explicitly target a culture. On the contrary, denouncing (Muslim) religion as a threat is more acceptable in the French context, where religion is seen as an opinion. Doing so carries a high political cost in the UK and Germany, where religion is seen as part of one’s identity.</p>
<p>For example, there is no consensus across countries on the use of the term of <em>Islamophobia</em>, which is not officially recognised in France. This is partly because Islam is not protected by the Constitution or the law as a religion. On the other, many would argue against the concept of phobia on the grounds that it is legitimate to oppose Islam amid <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-nouvelle-2020-1-page-9.htm">increased fundamentalism</a>.</p>
<p>In Germany, the phenomenon is well recognised, but there is an ongoing<a href="https://www.kreisgg.de/fileadmin/Buero_Landrat/Integration/Antirassismus_und_Integrationsmanagement/Fachstelle_gegen_Rassismus/Publikationen/Islamfeindlichkeit_Begriffe_.pdf">debate</a> over whether the term ought to be used in official language. Since the <a href="https://www.deutsche-islam-konferenz.de/DE/Startseite/startseite_node.html">German Islam Conference</a> in 2011-2012, the state has favoured the word <a href="https://cik.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/07/2017.07.26-WS1-Germany-Final.pdf"><em>Muslimfeindligkeit</em></a> (hostility toward Muslims), while academics and journalists refer to Islamophobia and its Germanic version, <em>Islamfeindligkeit</em>.</p>
<p>However, UK residents have extensively referred to the concept ever since the <a href="https://assets.website-files.com/61488f992b58e687f1108c7c/617bfd6cf1456219c2c4bc5c_islamophobia.pdf">“Report on Islamophobia”</a> by Runnymede Trust was published in 1997. And, since 2017, an <a href="https://appgbritishmuslims.org/">All Party Parliamentary Group</a> has been working toward the adoption of a <a href="https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/impact/all-party-parliamentary-group-on-british-muslims(e8c74de4-dec2-4ef7-b5b6-bcae59ccacbf).html">legal definition of Islamophobia</a>.</p>
<p>These narrative and conceptual variations from one European context to another reveal country-specific historical traumas.</p>
<h2>The weight of national history in contemporary discourses</h2>
<p>In the United Kingdom, continental Europe is more polarising than Islam for two historical reasons. On the one hand, continental Europe, sometimes <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/archive/volume5issue2/mayblinsmith/">Catholic, sometimes absolutist, sometimes imperialist</a>, has always been perceived as the main threat to the country’s elites. On the other hand, Islam has been part of UK history since the colonisation of India through its trading posts in 1600, and all Muslim subjects of the Empire became full citizens through the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/11-12/56/introduction/enacted">Nationality Act 1948</a>. Designating Islam as a threat is therefore of little value, at least from an electoral point of view, even on the far right of the political spectrum. This is evidenced by the defeat of the UKIP party in the 2019 European parliamentary elections after Eurosceptic Nigel Farage was replaced by the aggressively Islamophobic Gerard Batten as party leader in 2018, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/07/ukip-to-hold-leadership-election-later-this-year-gerard-batten">triggering the departure of some of its founding members</a>.</p>
<p>The ambivalence of German public discourse toward Islam is linked to the traumatic legacy of Nazism and Germany’s division during the Cold War. This dual legacy shaped the emergence of a unified, democratic and liberal state around <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/6/1/67/669061">constitutional patriotism</a>. The former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome more than one million refugees (<a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/pressekonferenzen/sommerpressekonferenz-von-bundeskanzlerin-merkel-848300">“Wir Schaffen Das”</a>) in 2015, however, has precipitated the return of an authoritarian and nationalist movement German <a href="https://www.zvab.com/9783442755929/Europa-Identit%8At-Krise-multikulturellen-Gesellschaft-3442755921/plp"><em>Leitkultur</em></a>, with cracks increasingly appearing within the consensus.</p>
<p>In France, the narrative victory of <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-humanisme-2017-1-page-17.htm">axiological secularism</a> over constitutional secularism also expresses a double legacy. On the one hand, the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08898480.2018.1553410">secular tradition</a>, either through anticlericalism or attachment to a Catholic secular tradition, expresses a reluctance to the visibility of Islam in the public space. On the other hand, the colonisation of North Africa, and with it the trauma of the decolonisation of Algeria, made <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45110512_L%27islam_comme_contre-identification_francaise_Trois_moments">the Muslim Other</a> the figure that still structures French identity to a large extent today.</p>
<p>French identity thus continues to be constructed in opposition to Islam, while British identity hangs in opposition to continental Europe, and German identity, against Nazi Germany. If the future of the European Union rests, in part, on a greater convergence of interest and vision, acknowledging the weight of national histories in contemporary discourses is a necessary precondition for the construction of a European <a href="https://livre.fnac.com/a2572516/Benedict-Anderson-Imagined-communities">imagined community</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeanne Prades works as Senior Consultant at Technopolis Group where she evaluates public policies. </span></em></p>Liberal schools of thought largely inform how Muslims are viewed across Europe, research finds.Jeanne Prades, Docteure en Science politique - Chercheure associée au Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de Polytechnique (LinX), École polytechniqueLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.