It was generally agreed by all participants that particular print media had a large role to play in the negative social depictions of Muslim communities. Zine (2006) uses the term ‘gendered Islamophobia’, contextualising particular stereotypes and argues that it ‘operates socially, politically, and discursively to deny material advantages to Muslim women’ (Zine, 2006: 240). Peek’s (2003) study of Muslims in New York University campuses following September 11th, 2001 also highlighted how participants felt anger and distrust towards the media. Similarly, one of my participants, Kalsoom, a 54-year old working in her local community in Glasgow describes how she feels the media have failed in addressing the variations in religious belief among Muslims and have thus supplemented the already prevalent harm caused by some uninformed statements in newspaper articles:
“[W]ell there’s a new one adding because we’re terrorists as well now but
generally that we are oppressed we are you know hard done by, by our religion you know people, they don’t just distinguish between the way people behave in their culture, they consider it’s the religion” (Kalsoom, Glasgow,
121
Kalsoom identifies that representations of Muslim women have been continually negative, although a ‘new’ depiction has arisen as a result of terrorist activities. Nagel and Staeheli’s study (2008) also found that British Arab activists felt this way too and a number of participants commented that public suspicion had increased since September 11th 2001. Kalsoom also recognizes that this representation is critically damaging for Muslim women as they access services, for example in this case, attempting to seek advice about domestic abuse counselling:
“Islam is going to be portrayed wrong or potentially is, so do we want to take
that risk, and individual women also have to take that thought of ‘if I go to the mainstream services and talk about my husband, they’re not gonna understand my situation and are they just going to act on these stereotypes’”
(Kalsoom, Glasgow, 18th January, 2010)
As previous literature also suggests, derogatory depictions within particular media have affected the integration of already isolated communities, making grass roots level success all the more harder to accomplish (Haw, 2009). Kalsoom’s argument on one hand identifies that negative media perceptions of Muslim women only work to further segregate already isolated women whereas on the other, she also highlights that the media perceptions of Muslim women are attempting to recognize the plight of women across the world. By her argument, they contextualize the representations into those belonging to secular British society, an attempt at representation which has ultimately had the opposite effect for Muslim women in the West. Khadijah, a divorced mother-of-three also senses this in her interview and agrees that although she is unhappy to be stereotyped, the meanings behind such labels do exist:
“Islam is just seen horrendously, I think… any article you read, there is
seventy to seventy five per cent that will always be against, or something negative will always be put across about Islam… I think they see women are being repressed and they’re being forced. And I think they are in certain countries and even maybe here in the UK, you do hear stories, it does happen
unfortunately” (Khadijah, Glasgow, 15th December, 2009)
Another participant, Kamila, a 35 year old mother-of-two in Dundee addresses the problems of sensational media stories, noting that this sensationalism draws attention away from the real issues experienced by Muslims in Scotland and across Great Britain:
122
“[T]hey never seem to get to the real issues and hit the nail on the head, they
just seem to skirt around that side with things like that you know or the extreme views of course which are always coming to the forefront” (Kamila,
Dundee, 29th January, 2010)
Increasingly, Muslim women in Scotland and throughout Britain are becoming ‘risk- aware’ (Haw, 2009: 365) and are acutely alert to the media portrayals surrounding Islam, Muslims and how this can impact their social and political lives, together with having a detrimental effect upon the various identities they hold. The women are highly conscious of the perceptions being created about them within the media and often want to disassociate themselves from that but are unable to due to their religious inclination and this is evident from the use of words such as ‘they’ to mean the non-Muslims and ‘the media’, and ‘my’ to mean oneself as well as the wider Muslim community. The women are equally aware of how these media depictions can affect their lifestyle and use of mainstream services. The damaging images publicized by particular media, then, extend further than solidifying public perceptions. It can also lead to a decline in quality of service which is vital to community integration and anti-segregation debates. The following excerpt from Aisha, a Muslim convert since the age of 18, now 27, highlights how she feels about her experience of Scottish media and the role it has played in the portrayal of Islam and Muslims.
“I think where we do better than down south, is that erm we… because we
have smaller media organisations in terms of the BBC is the BBC, but the base here is much smaller. They're a group of journalists who have a lot more creative freedom I think and they also outsource a lot more than London does and the same applies to ITV erm they outsource to a lot of other companies who, again, have a lot more freedom because they're small Scottish based production companies. Since the formation of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, they have done an awful lot of work in terms of lobbying and campaigning the media for change and they have been able to use the erm the participants from their border and particularly from their campaign groups to take part in a lot of these programmes. So there is a lot more scope for us to influence and change media perceptions, even if the people at the top are still holding onto their archaic views of Muslims. I think we have a lot more power in Scotland to change it and that’s where I think we do better really” (Aisha, Glasgow,
123
She feels there is much more freedom in Scotland in regards to media reporting and, as such, there are also opportunities available to direct the media into providing positive depictions of Muslims. It is through projects set up by organisations such as the Scottish Islamic Foundation that Aisha has been empowered to discuss her own experiences and exercise her agency. At the time of the field research Aisha’s work, as a result of her visual impairment, was geared towards setting up online resources for blind and visually impaired Muslims, with these resources being accessible for both Shia and Sunni Muslims alike. It is particularly interesting here that Aisha draws out the complexities in localisation of media depictions as she previously worked for BBC Scotland and discussed the flexibility of approaches that Scottish media has had towards portraying communities in Scotland, particularly Muslim communities.
Here, Shazia, a 25 year old trainee solicitor in Glasgow feels particularly angry about the events of September 11th, 2001, describing how she is not responsible for other people’s actions, only for her own, but felt that she was the victim of a lot of scrutiny at the time:
“I just think it’s stupid, just stupid. It’s anger, it’s more like annoyance
because of their actions we’re gonna have to suffer and I’m gonna have to justify myself because I’m not gonna let anyone judge me by who I am so I’m gonna have to justify myself now and I’m gonna have to put myself across
more” (Shazia, Glasgow, 14th December, 2009)
This passage exemplifies how young Scottish Muslims are feeling the pressure to often defend themselves against depictions in the media as a result of terrorist and other illegal activities from aggressive Islamic minority factions. Humera in Edinburgh is an active volunteer of the group Beyond the Veil8. A mother-of-two and a teaching assistant in her local primary school, Humera discusses here how she often feels the need to justify herself and her position on a number of things pertaining to the acts of other Muslim groups, namely, global political acts in the name of Islam.
“Sometimes yeh, when people speak to me or ask me questions, I kind of have
to, not sell myself, but offer explanations but why should I have to?” (Humera,
Edinburgh, 24th June, 2010)
8 Beyond the Veil is a women’s group in Edinburgh, set up to promote a better understanding of Muslim
women and their needs. The group focuses on creating a safer environment for Muslim women through befriending services and community engagement events.
124
For this reason, her role in the community group Beyond the Veil is a significant turning point in her life as she is able to answer those questions in an environment specifically set out for such agendas, to mark out how and why Muslim communities are different. Humera’s work with Beyond the Veil has opened up a number of opportunities to work alongside the wider community in Edinburgh, extending her social networks, highlighting the emergence of activist cultures within the female Muslim community across Scotland.
Beyond the Veil is but one of the examples I highlight in this chapter as a group who work
to condemn the negative depictions of Muslim women through active engagement with local communities and service providers.
In Glasgow, Shazia feels that she now has to work much harder to gain social credibility but also blames the media intrusion for the difficulties she has faced:
“Because Islam is not what is shown in the media, it’s not that at all, it doesn’t
take a genius to dig behind those headlines, look at what Islam really is about and feel connected to it. Islam is not about bombing people, it’s not about what the media makes it out to be at all. I mean if you’re thick as mince, then you’re gonna believe that ‘oh I’m not gonna talk to a Muslim in case they’re
ticking’” (Shazia, Glasgow, 14th
December, 2009)
Here Shazia is particularly upset about the negative media affects upon her own life as she has worked hard to reach the point in her career where she is currently at. In a later stage of the interview, Shazia tells me that she feels her career opportunities have suffered due to the negative media attention and although, she is unable to prove otherwise, a number of applications were rejected, she thought, on the basis of her Muslim name and background, echoing findings from Zine (2006) as she discusses ‘gendered Islamophobia’. Hajra, 33, from Glasgow discussed the sense of responsibility she felt had been forced upon her and others in the Muslim community, an unfair and unjust response to the events on September 11th 2001:
“I think it’s, it’s the perception that just because this group of people did it
and they were Muslims then other Muslims they have to make up, they have to compensate for what happened. Just as I wouldn’t expect the British people you know or white people or erm the British government to compensate for the slave trade that happened thousands of years ago [sic.] because it wasn’t themselves that did it you know and it doesn’t matter that they're the same
125
colour or the same religion, they weren’t the culprits” (Hajra, Glasgow, 7th
January, 2010)
As argued by Hopkins and Gale (2009), Muslim communities throughout Britain are victims of this type of social vindictiveness and have thus sought to eliminate the problem through the use of civic responsibility, a responsibility which takes into account their religious, social and political values, providing a space for community-level or micro- level activisms to take place.