Written submission from Newcastle University (HCL0007)
Professor Peter Hopkins, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, in collaboration with Dr Robin Finlay, Dr Kawtar Najib, Dr Katherine Botterill and Dr Gurchathen Sanghera – written evidence
Background to submission - our comments here draw upon three different research projects all of which focus upon the issue of Islamophobia:
Study 1 was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council project and is about the everyday experiences of Muslim and non-Muslim young people growing up in urban, suburban and rural Scotland. Overall this project worked with 382 young people (aged 12 -25) from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds including Muslim young people, other South Asian youth (such as Sikhs, Hindus and non-religious South Asians), asylum seekers and refugees, international students, Central and Eastern European migrants and white Scottish youth. Most lived in Scotland’s main cities, but some were from Dumfries, Fife and Inverness. Our final report is available here:
https://research.ncl.ac.uk/youngpeople/outputs/finalreport
Study 2 was a project where we examined the political interests and political participation of young Muslims (aged 15-27) in Scotland. This work involved 39 interviews, 34 of which were with young Muslims with the remaining 5 being with politicians and public figures. Most of the participants lived in the Greater Glasgow area. Our final report from this project has been published here:
https://research.ncl.ac.uk/media/sites/researchwebsites/youngmuslims/MuslimYouthScotlan d.pdf
Study 3 was funded by the European Commission and sought to map anti-Muslim acts in London and Paris. This project also explored the experiences of 30 victims of Islamophobia in London including their responses to incidents of Islamophobia and how this has shaped their everyday lives more broadly. The project website is located here: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/sama/
We have also combined the findings of these three studies into a short informative booklet called Understanding Islamophobia - https://tinyurl.com/yd42ya7m
Summary points
We comment on all 4 questions raised by the committee as follows:
1 The current extent of Islamophobia in British society
Islamophobia is found in all sectors of British society; the diversity of ways in which it operates is part of the challenge of addressing it. In our research, we found that Islamophobia operates through verbal and physical attacks, damage to property or buildings, the distribution of literature, through demonstrations and marches, hate speech, personal attacks or intimidation and through discomforting looks, stares and glances. Here is further information about the specific contexts in which we see Islamophobia taking place in British society:
1.2 Online – on social media or other platforms, where people share Islamophobic material, images or viewpoints. Online Islamophobia can include words, images, videos, music, discussion forums and messages:
“Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video and it was just a pretty harmless video of people trying Pakistani snacks. And obviously I just randomly went to the comments section just to see what people wrote about. And loads of people were just kind of against Muslims and saying how Muslims should be thrown out of America, thrown out of UK, all kinds of racist comments that you just kind of feel…You just kind of feel scared knowing that people like that are out there”
1.3 Offline – street-based Islamophobia tends to be about stereotyping and demonising Muslims or about calling for physical violence against them. We find that many such incidences take place on public transport, on the way to/from school or work, or outside of places of workshop. Many offline incidents of Islamophobia involve abusive behaviour or physical attack
1.4 Personally – through one-to-one interactions that are Islamophobic in nature. For example, this could be interactions that Islamophobic in nature between two colleagues at work or between two passers-by on public transport or on the street.
“We just thought we’ll go out and something to eat, it’s just Saturday night [after Prayers], like midnight and we were in Jubbahs [white tunics], we walked into the centre, we heard like people singing Rule Britannia and this was literally a couple of weeks after that incident, the Woolwich, and the amount of abuse we got and the amount of stares we got”
1.5 Nationally – through negative government or political policies, strategies, campaigns and initiatives that stigmatise Muslims and work to monitor and control Muslim citizens. The Prevent strategy was regularly cited as an approach that fostered an environment in which Islamophobia can flourish.
1.6 Institutionally and structurally – through institutional decision-making processes that operate to exclude Muslim employees and customers in diverse ways, or to place Muslims under surveillance. This may include Islamophobia by the institutions of the state such as police forces, local authorities or government agencies, and some of this is motivated by policies such as Prevent. In addition, Islamophobia may work through structures that exclude Muslims such as those relating to educational progression, promotion at work or access to health, welfare or public life:
“You can be stopped by random police checks as well, when you are walking… They think you are out to cause trouble…when you are just walking home”
1.7 Resistance to mosque development – planning permission may be refused due to collective Islamophobia mobilised through petitions and lobbying, and internal Islamophobia within planning departments.
“There was a news article in the [local paper] because we’ve got the new mosque…. the headline was… ‘old pub has turned to a mosque’, and you read the comments and you read what people say. That’s the kind of things you get discouraged from, that’s the kind of racism you, kind of, read. Which, I mean, it’s people’s comments you read”
1.8 Locally - Islamophobia operates in everyday public spaces where people interact such as on the street, in shopping areas and on public transport.
“I feel there’s a distrust between our neighbours because our house has been robbed four times… I felt like that they must have known it was Eid for them to know that we were out the house…maybe our neighbours had been looking out the window and seen that we’d gone and they just, when we’d gone they just go in”
Most incidents are in public spaces or on transport networks. As this set of contexts make clear, Islamophobia is found across a diversity of everyday places in the UK and represents a serious challenge.
1.9 From our research, we know that different constituents of the British population are affected by Islamophobia. Although the Muslim community are negatively affected by Islamophobia, it affects other groups who mistaken for being Muslim and so experience Islamophobia as a result of this. Specific cohorts of the population affected by Islamophobia are:
(1) visible Muslim women tend to be the main victims of Islamophobia. Men who visibility display their Muslim identity through their dress or beard and men who belong to visible minority ethnic groups are also affected by Islamophobia;
(2) Children and young people regularly experience Islamophobia at school and in public spaces as they are negotiating the transition to adulthood;
(3) ethnic and religious minorities experience Islamophobia – it directly affects Muslims but also other groups of people who are mistaken for being Muslim such as Sikhs, Hindus and other people of South Asian heritage. It can also affect Black African and Caribbean people;
(4) those wearing clothes perceived as Islamic experience Islamophobia regardless of their religious faith;
(5) migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees of diverse faiths and none but also people who are recognised as ‘not-quite-white’ such as Central and Eastern European migrants recall experiencing Islamophobia.
2 The impact of official adoption of a definition of Islamophobia
We support the official adoption of a definition of Islamophobia as it promotes a common understanding. The main consequence of not adopting a definition is that it may encourage some people to continue to deny that Islamophobia is an issue in society; a concrete definition enables this to be challenged. The impact of adopting a definition of Islamophobia means that this issue will be taken more seriously in general but significantly for victims, they will be more likely to recognise anti-Muslim acts as ‘Islamophobic’ and so may be more likely to report instances of discrimination, hatred or exclusion. Some perpetrators may also think carefully about the consequences for them and their victims of engaging in Islamophobia. That being said, steps now need to be taken to focus on addressing the issue of Islamophobia (rather than debating its definition or existence). We know this is a serious issue in British society.
3 The role of politics
It is clear from our three research projects that the role of politics is fundamental when it comes to understanding Islamophobia. In general, the impact of politics is negative but there are some signs of positive influences. For many young Muslims, everyday experiences of Islamophobia acted as a barrier to them participating in politics. Many of these barriers relate to different political issues and events:
3.1 International politics and global events – the views expressed by international political figures (such as Donald Trump) as well as media and political coverage of global issues and events (such as the war in Syria, the ‘refugee crisis’) led to an increase in experiences of Islamophobia. In particular, in the period immediately following such events, young people reported experiencing more Islamophobia at schools and colleges.
3.2 High profile events - media coverage of high profile events and incidents such as the Woolwich incident (the murder of Lee Rigby) and the Rotherham child abuse scandal act as triggers for Islamophobic incidents. People report increases in Islamophobia following such events.
3.3 Elections – the period building up to and following elections can lead to increased experiences of Islamophobia. We know that the Scottish Independence Referendum led some ethnic and religious minority young people to feel insecure about their future in Scotland as some questioned whether or not they would be permitted to live in an independent Scotland. Furthermore, the Brexit vote has provided a platform for Islamophobia via social media as well as offline.
3.4 National policies – policies such as Prevent were frequently identified as providing a justification for Islamophobia in schools, colleges and universities as well as in the public sector. Likewise, political debate about immigration and citizenship – and the coverage of this in the press – provided fertile ground for Islamophobic ideas and literature to be shared.
3.5 Stereotyping – some Muslims - as well as those who are mistaken for being Muslim - fear being classified 'radical', 'extreme' or 'oppressed' if they engage with political affairs and so chose instead to disengage. Furthermore, Muslim women also felt they had to negotiate multiple stereotypes based not only on religion but also on gender. Additionally, political representations of a fixed, homogenous Muslim community help to promote Islamophobia.
On the positive side, there are some indicators that politics could be playing a positive role in challenging Islamophobia:
3.6 Accessibility – particularly in Scotland, some young ethnic and religious minority people (including young Muslims) were encouraged by the lowering of the voting age to 16. Moreover, the relative proximity of the Scottish Parliament and the discourse of ‘civic nationalism’ that has been promoted meant that some felt that they could easily engage with politics.
3.7 Positive platform – some young Muslims were motivated to actively engage in politics as a mechanism for challenging Islamophobia.
3.8 Emerging Muslim role-models –there is an emerging and growing presence of publicly prominent Muslims and they are very important when it comes to challenging Islamophobia. If those in public roles can foster good relations and openly challenge discrimination then this would be an important step in establishing a more positive relationship between politics and Islamophobia.
4 Intra-faith Islamophobia
In our work, most of the perpetrators of Islamophobia were white British people. However, there were two main divisions within the Muslim community that could be said to be examples of intra-faith Islamophobia:
4.1 Admadiyyan Muslims and Islamophobia - some minority Muslim groups such as the Ahmadiyyans were actively excluded by the mainstream Muslim community. There were examples of Islamophobia within Muslim communities where some families excluded or mistrusted due to their affiliation as Ahmadiyyan. This was connected to complex histories of persecution of Ahmadiyyans with them being identified as not being “proper Muslims”:
“you get comments here and there by other groups but it’s something like we just ignore… disbelievers or scum, just, abusive languages…But different Muslims when they find out that we’re Ahmadiyya, but at the moment we’ve not received any abuse by Christians or Hindus or Sikhs. It’s been primarily all…other Muslims.”
4.2 National identities and Islamophobia – there were some examples in our research of intra-faith Islamophobia between Muslims of different national or regional affiliations such as between South Asian and Arab Muslims or between Muslims from the African continent and those who were born in the UK.
“A lady came and she wanted the same thing, she wanted to buy it. The lady was from his country because they were speaking the same thing. I saw her literally buying the same price that I wanted for that item and I could not believe it. So there is even interracial discrimination even within Muslims because there are different communities. I found it really, really shocking”.
4.3 Asylum seekers and Islamophobia – our research found that many asylum seekers were victims of Islamophobia as they were labelled as originating from ‘dangerous’ places. These perceptions are connected to stereotyping and criminalisation in global political discourse and media coverage of immigration and ‘refugee crisis’.
Those involved in this submission
Professor Peter Hopkins is a Professor of Social Geography at Newcastle University and has conducted research with British Muslims for over fifteen years. He has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and has published widely about Muslim identities, racism and Islamophobia. He led all three studies involved in this submission
Dr Robin Finlay is a Research Fellow in Geography at Newcastle University. His research focuses upon issues of diaspora, migration and Muslim identities.
Dr Kawtar Najib is a visiting researcher in Geography at Newcastle University. Her research focuses upon socio-spatial inequalities and Islamophobia in the UK and in France.
Dr Katherine Botterill is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Glasgow. She has research expertise about migration, mobilities and geopolitics, and was a full-time researcher on the everyday geopolitics research project.
Dr Gurchathen Sanghera is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. He has conducted research with Muslims in both England (particularly in Bradford) and Scotland. He has published on a range of issues connected to this including: social capital, gender and Muslim identities.
January 2019