The other day I watched a film called "Reel Bad Arabs" about the narrative that our entertainment media (particularly Hollywood) has created around Arabs and Muslims. This resonated with me strongly because I have felt passionately against this irrational hatred of Muslims for a long time. I grew up with many family friends from the Islamic world and because of them learned a fair amount about Islam and some of the surrounding cultures. Because of this, since I was about 13 I remember many instances of calling people out when they made hateful and ignorant comments about Muslims. I would like to share some of what I've learned about dealing with these Islamophobes, because it is important that we change the way our culture talks about Muslims.
I've broken down talking to an Islamophobe into these three steps:
- Understand
- Recognize
- Educate
read about them below the fold.
1. Understand
Before you can start to fight against this irrational hatred of Muslims, you must try to understand its origins and context. Our entertainment media is largely at fault for this demonization of Muslims. Much like homophobia can stem from people who do not know any LGBTQ folk, islamophobia stems from people who have no friends and neighbors who are Muslim. In place of this, they substitute what they hear from the media as their image of what Muslims are. The media restricts their portrayal of Muslims to several familiar stereotypes: 1)the terrorist, 2) the woman in the burqa, 3) or the lecherous and wealthy sheikh.
It is in these schema that many Americans thus see all Muslims. The key point here is that it is important to understand that many people are not islamophobic because they are terrible people, only because they have not been exposed to Muslims in any positive light.
2. Recognize
It's also important to know when someone is perpetuating stereotypes of Muslims and in turn the social acceptability of islamophobia. In many cases, it is obvious. When someone says that all "Muslims believe in a perverted religion all about killing people" you can easily see the islamophobia here (yes, i have had someone try to tell me this). It can be much more subtle in other contexts. For instance, when you hear someone express shock that a Muslim woman is not wearing a hajib, or make one of those tone deaf jokes about Arabs and oil, these while not intentionally offensive, do further stereotypes that perpetuate hate.
3. Educate
When it is one of these subtle perpetuations of stereotypes, it is easier to jump into education, but often you can educate people who have huge misperceptions of Islam as well. One of the most common that I hear is that Islam advocates violence. THIS IS NOT TRUE. While there are some fundamentalists who support violence, this is akin to using the Ku Klux Klan as the poster children of Christianity, something we see as clearly fallacious. When someone says something about "Jihad" as a holy war against "infidels" they are essentially repeating the talking points of extremists. In Islam "Jihad" refers to the holy struggle. In fact, while Mohammad was alive, some of his followers returned from a battle saying, "we have returned from the great jihad." He corrected them, "You returned from the lesser jihad, the great jihad is within." Showing that this term is not meant to mean a holy war, but more the struggle to do what is right.
What about the perception that Muslims are intolerant of other religions most often embodied in the term "Infidels"? Once again, this is incorrect. Islam preaches that other religions are acceptable, most notably Jews and Christians, but often times extending to everyone from Zoroastrians to Hindus. At one point, the Qu'ran says "your religion is for you and my religion for me (109:6)." These people of other religions are referred to as Zimmis, something that implies their protection. Now consider Christianity; at least in terms of what is said in religious texts, it is much less pluralistic that Islam (not to say that there aren't pluralistic Christians)
And their treatment of women? This is another aspect of the religion I hear mythologized often. While there are Islamic states that treat women as inferior, these are decisions made by states, not inherent to the religion. Has the United States ever had a women as president? (no). Has there ever been a female prime minister in Pakistan? Benazir Bhutto). Also, in many Muslim countries there are more women in the university system than men.
I hope this helps you and gives some nice educational ammo to go out and fight islamophobia!