It's true, we Muslims keep our heads down

[N.O.R.F]

It's true, we Muslims keep our heads down

 

Tomorrow night, on the eve of the third anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, Channel 4's Dispatches returns to one of its favourite subjects - Muslims. The programme, called It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim, looks at how life has changed for Muslim families in the UK since 9/11. It recounts vicious stories of horrific, racist brutality against Muslims, not the extremist ones, but the ordinary, law-abiding ones; stories that are rarely reported in the press.

 

I imagine this will annoy a hell of a lot of people. They'll probably post comments on websites of all political hues about how insensitive it is to focus on the so-called plight of Muslims, asking what right 'they' have to play the victim card and speak out about the attacks they've suffered when it was 'they' who started it in the first place.

 

When people start talking about 7/7, 9/11, terrorism and Osama, rationality is lost and prejudice and stereotype emerge. Most people are so (understandably) full of rage at what happened and what's still happening that they don't want to hear that not all Muslims are terrorists, illegal immigrants or uneducated illiterates that the rest of the nation has to 'respect'. Ultimately, it's far easier to lump us altogether.

 

Peter Oborne, the well-known right-wing columnist who is behind the Dispatches programme, pointed this out in two pieces published last week, one in the Daily Mail, the other in the Independent. He spoke out against Islamophobia and how the press is to blame for producing ridiculous stories about Muslims, like the one that appeared last week (funnily enough in the Mail) about how a police advert featuring a puppy sparked 'outrage' from Muslims who find dogs offensive.

 

For the record, I'm Muslim. Trust me, we don't have an issue with puppies.

 

Oborne says: 'We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way.'

 

He was brave to say this. It's obvious that many 'get-back-from-where-you-came-from' people will see him as some sort of 'sympathiser'.

 

Some of what he said rings true. If you're a Muslim, even a middle-of-the-road one, you don't have to have been a victim of an Islamophobic attack to realise that things have changed. Sometimes, it's subtle, like how my hijab-wearing mother had to justify to colleagues why she'd started wearing a headscarf. At other times it isn't. Every Muslim can probably tell you a story or two of how they got held for hours of interrogation by immigration on the way to the US for no apparent reason other than because they had a Muslim-sounding name or an Arab/Asian face.

 

My elder brother, an orthodontist, once told me that the best thing for us (for Muslims in general) to do right now was to 'keep our heads down; don't draw attention to yourself unnecessarily'. Even the open-minded, educated, Muslim contingent worries about the misperceptions people have of us, largely because of the fear factor people tend to use when talking about Muslims. 'If people know I'm Muslim, will they judge me differently because of it?' is something that worries me.

 

Every year, I fast for Ramadan, but (until now at least) probably only one of my colleagues actually knows. I'd rather not shout about it because then it saves the questions, the quizzical looks, the feeling you get from other people that you're different.

 

Pieces such as Oborne's and tomorrow's Dispatches programme will upset some who don't think Muslims deserve the sympathy. But this isn't about Muslims asking for pity. It's about asking for understanding and the recognition that it's a minority that has ruined our names - and that most of us really aren't that different.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/06/islam.religion

[N.O.R.F]

Is it me or is she quaking in her boots?