Islamophobia and the liberation of living in the margins

From the moment we enter the world, we start to develop a sense of self. We learn who we are in our most nascent stages by distinguishing ourselves from others - the baby learns its own parameters by discovering they are distinct from their mothers. This process of positionality defines the very borders of self.

This process of self-development, -actualization and -understanding is shaped by a number of factors and circumstances. For ethnic minorities, these circumstances can be impairing - living on the margins of society means you aren’t afforded a complete view of your cultural heritage.

British Muslims often see an uglier face to society. While bigotry and prejudice are in themselves violent and irrational positions, this is intensified for Muslims, who are often considered willingly and actively foreign; some people believe we assume the role of ‘other’ and undesirable by choice, and therefore anti-Muslim views are given a hue of legitimacy and validity.

And this is before any additional stereotypes borne from orientalism and a nebulous War on Terror project themselves onto the empty signifier of the Muslim identity. The conceptual Muslim will take on the colour of prevailing social anxieties, serving as a scapegoat from the discomfort of more challenging questions regarding their values and norms.

"British Muslims often see an uglier face to society. While bigotry and prejudice are in themselves violent and irrational positions, this is intensified for Muslims, who are often considered willingly and actively foreign"

The Muslim as terrorist trope serves to deflect from the existential crisis facing Western imperialism. The Muslim as stateless distracts from questions of citizenship, identity and belonging at a time where public disquiet around national borders and identity is most frantic.

For those of us that are forced into the role of this contrived ‘other’, the development of that image in our consciousness is a slow and drawn out process. We come to a gradual realisation that our sense of self is incongruous to outside perceptions of us, and that reckoning between what we are and how we are perceived can initially be unsettling.

The recent announcement that John Cleese has joined the rabidly right-wing GB News reminds me once again how social and cultural shifts make seismic impacts on our sense of belonging and identity. While this news might be sobering to some lovers of Monty Python, for minority ethnicity groups for whom these media narratives debate their very right to exist, it always feels more personal.

King Charles III's admiration for Islam has excited the UK's Muslim community. With the ascension of a Muslim-friendly king, Yahya Birt asks us to consider the monarchy's violent history of empire and current soft power. https://t.co/dhHQV7u9ts

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) September 16, 2022

A history of British Muslim Islamophobes

British Muslims can add Cleese to a growing list of fallen heroes who express hostile views towards our community. Cleese, and many of his contemporaries, would consider himself anti-establishment, yet what pushes him into the bracket of right-wing media and into the hands of GB News is their positions on, amongst other things, Muslims.

Cleese has historically decried a ‘politically correct’ culture that prevents him from making jokes about Islam, because, as he says, Muslims will kill you. We can only assume, ironically, that Cleese intended this statement itself to be a joke. It joins a litany of examples from right-wing commentators of how they are supposedly victimised by minority communities, while enjoying the privileges of a public platform, and the endorsement of mainstream society, political and media establishments.

While Cleese feels his earlier work earns him the title of politically subversive and outspoken critic of the powerful, he has little understanding of the context in which his statements are made.

Making only 6% of the British population, and facing increasingly punitive political measures, Muslims are a beleaguered community in the context of the UK and Europe more broadly. According to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Europe accounts for most of the cases of anti-Muslim discrimination worldwide, and the UK is one of the two worst offenders in relation to Islamophobic incidents.

Rather than being subversive in their portrayal and treatment of British Muslims, Cleese and his colleagues at GB news are decidedly punching downward at an already marginalised and silenced group. Their statements, rather than raging against the machine, join a cacophony of hate which poses an existential threat to Muslims in the UK.

In fact, growing up as a British Muslim, it was these anti-Muslim statements by familiar public faces who I had always seen as sources of safety that spurred my self-alienisation. When Martin Amis stated Muslims needed to suffer until they got their house in order, I came to understand that his books, and oftentimes the cannons they belonged to, weren’t written for people like me.

"There is a specific kind of disturbance that comes from being estranged from the familiar figures that are so part of your extended world"

When David Starkey’s rampant Islamophobia became more apparent, I came to accept that his history did not represent mine. And when BBC news presenters – people I grew up seeing the world through the eyes of – began to lend validity to far-right groups like the BNP and EDL, I came to discern that maybe the reality they presented me with wasn’t all that it seemed.

What crystallised this repositioning was when Trevor Philips, head of Commission for Racial Equality under new Labour, during those halcyon days of multiculturalism, revealed his own Islamophobia. It represented a significant shift in the normalisation of Islamophobia, even among those claiming to be anti-racist.

The denouncing of Islam and Muslims became a common theme amongst those establishment and anti-establishment public figures; a groundswell of Islamophobic sentiment consumed the reality I had known and immersed myself in.

The process of disassociation and liberation

Each of these utterances of bigoted thought are etched in memory because they represent a reordering in my mind of the place society holds for me. With each, the borders of myself were redrawn as I took stock of the dizzying change in political climate as it impacted my own being.

There is a specific kind of disturbance that comes from being estranged from the familiar figures that are so part of your extended world. Those reassuring personalities that looked directly at you through the screen, that you invited into your home, whose words echoed off the walls and whose faces illuminated the room, whose ideas came to define our cultural and political climate, and whose own grotesque characterisation into Islamophobes turned the atmosphere icy.

And while this might sound despairing, it is and remains an entirely liberating position to be in: understanding and reevaluating myself, on my own terms. The social vantage it provides you is one of undeniable enrichment - it releases you from a culture which operates by pedalling fear, suspicion and hatred.

"Despite the initial disorientation, shunning a cultural narrative that tries to portray me as a villain in someone else’s story means I am much more able and willing to question dominant narratives"

Despite the initial disorientation, shunning a cultural narrative that tries to portray me as a villain in someone else’s story means I am much more able and willing to question dominant narratives. It means I can afford others sympathy despite them not being able to do the same for me.

It means I have a more panoramic view of society, its politics, and the history it's bound by and wants to escape. It has made me the author of my own narrative.

Perhaps if Cleese, Amis, Starkey and Philips had pause to question themselves, and society, both would be a little happier and less hateful. And there is definitely some satirical humour in that.

Mariya bint Rehan is a writer and illustrator from London, with a background in Policy and Research and Development in the voluntary sector. She has written and illustrated a children’s book titled The Best Dua which is available internationally. 

Follow her on Twitter: @ummkhadijah13  

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.