Itrath Syed on Gendered Islamophobia and Muslim Women’s Resistance

On November 14th, 2017 Itrath Syed, a PhD Candidate at the School of Communications at SFU gave a lecture on Gendered Islamophobia and Muslim Women’s Resistance (listen to it on Soundcloud). Following the talk, Itrath was in conversation with Samaah Jaffer of SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Here is a transcript of their discussion:

Samaah Jaffer: How do you see the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project’s notion of “civilizational rehab” enacted in Canada?

Itrath Syed: One of the things that I look at in my dissertation is the ideological genealogies of Islamophobia. It is the idea that Muslims are pre-modern and that anything that identifies someone as Muslim is irredeemably premodern. They challenge the core of the western enlightenment theory. That is, with enough development, everybody will look the same, everyone will experience life the same. Some Muslims live their lives in a way that defy that kind of dichotomy between modernity and pre-modernity. For example, Muslims who choose to identify religiously in various different kinds of ways but also want to run for political office or want to get a PhD or want to do many of the other things that are normally associated with a particular construct of modernity.  

SJ: We see moral panic emerge around such instances. For example, Dalhousie student and public figure at her university, Masuma Khan. The awful threats that were sent to her inbox. The media covered the story based on her involvement as a student and nothing was said about the individual behind the threats.

IS: She’s a relatively young person. She’s an undergrad. The rape threats were from adult men. The university should have mobilized on protecting her. That should have been the primary concern of the university. But it wasn’t. It was around protecting white fragility. There is an institutional imbalance of power that was activated in this instance. What was activated was the model minority discourse. Where the Muslim community itself is like, “They hate us. Let’s all behave. Lets just be quiet.” That part of the discourse is understandable because it’s a part of a response of a community that feels racialized. It’s also a disciplinary force that’s used both within the community and by the state to marginalized communities. Masuma’s political words and her defiance in the face of massive civilizational institutional attacks really made her a problem subject for the Muslim community, for the university and for political discourse. There was no box to put her in.

SJ: In this, we see that institutions can also be a site of Islamophobia in discourse and in the classroom.

IS: I had experiences as an undergrad and as a grad student. I know there’s a difference. When I walk into a classroom, I have to do an extra amount of labour to establish authority. There’s a certain kind of labour there that I have to do because my body is not read as being naturally one in that role. I’ve been teaching for about ten years. Still, Whenever I walk into the copy room, I am assumed to be a student whose stealing photocopying. I’ve been at that institution for nine years. We understand what people in certain levels of authority are supposed to look like. Muslim women, particularly Muslim women who wear head scarves, are not understood to be naturally in that role. People will tell me about the one book that they read by a Muslim woman. It’s usually a book that I absolutely hate and is the antithesis of everything that I do or speak or say or write — and they’ll be like, “You remind me so much of that woman!” And I’m like “Well you can’t hear me clearly then.” They can’t tell Indians apart, which I find very interesting.

SJ: You talk about the sites of modernity and how Muslim women don’t necessarily belong in those spaces both as immigrants and as racialized subjects. For example, Bill 62 (the Quebec legislation disallowing people with face coverings to access certain public services).

IS: It’s things like taking buses, getting healthcare, accessing childcare, and being a childcare worker. It’s a real intrusion into the regulation of your body. Even if you don’t choose to wear a face veil, the rights of women who choose to are very important. People don’t have to agree with you to get their rights. I think that’s a basic principle everyone should understand.

SJ: During the Remembrance Day ceremonies at UBC there were Nazi posters that surfaced on the premises. We do see this kind of reemergence of a kind of bold white supremacy. There is an outward expression of it in conjunction with Trump’s election. It has exasperated Islamophobia in this moment, making these conversations even more important.

IS: In Canada, there’s been an emboldening of a far right discourse that gets sympathy and power politically. We’ve both been at rallies where we’ve seen people visibly identifying themselves with Trump and trying to provoke the crowd. It’s a turning point for fascism. It’s important that we have solidarity across different communities to stand against the rise of fascism. A lot of the Islamophobic tropes that have been deployed by the far right, are actually also present on the left. What makes them so pervasive is because they have resonance. There’s a lot of people who would not identify themselves as a Nazi, but would be like, “they do have a point.” There is a sort of latent sympathy for the Islamophobic tropes which allow them to gain a logic in the political discourse. I think that has to be challenged.

SJ: A couple months ago my little sister and I were chatting. She was like “Oh, I want to be a hijab fashion blogger to break all the stereotypes.” I don’t think she was pleased with my response: “really? Another one?” It’s as if you have to be either submissive, oppressed or shattering all of the stereotypes.

IS: I feel really sad that that’s still a thing. Didn’t my generation do enough so that they can have different dreams? I follow @MuslimGirl on Twitter and I find her to be fascinating. I have an ambivalence about the new construction of the consumerist Muslim fashionista where Islam is a style choice. It’s something that has lent itself very neatly into being used by corporate structures as part of the niche. For example, Ibtihaj Muhammad — the olympic fencer — there’s a new Barbie doll based on her. As a feminist, I don’t know how to feel about a Muslim Barbie. I adore Ibtihaj Muhammad. If you hear her speak she’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s talked publicly in the media and in the Muslim community about the kind of hate that she received by other athletes at the olympics. So I adore her… but a Barbie? I don’t know.