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Some years ago, a young girl called Takwa Rejeb suffered a situation of Islamophobia. She was expelled from a school in València because she wore a headscarf. The Education Department forced the high school (IES José Benlliure) to allow access the girl. The High School claimed that, according to their regulations, coming to the centre with the head covered was forbidden. Then, Takwa won the battle and she could wear the headscarf freely. However, this struggle is not over for the Muslim community, and especially Muslim women, since they are pointed fingers at, questions and discriminated because they wear a hijab.
Gender-based Islamophobia is a daily reality, as the Plataforma Ciudadana contra la Islamofobia points out again in their last report. Discrimination at school, at work and in society due to the lack of acceptance of the headscarf by a part of society still goes on. In the digital age, many times this discrimination turns into Cyber Hate (on-line hate speech). As a matter of fact, in 2017 it represented 70% of the incidents listed in the last report.
“Imagine that someone wearing glasses is told that he or she can’t”, Rejeb recalls. Thanks to her, the regulations in the Valencian Region changed. This is a progress that is also included in the report by the Platform. According to the Resolution from July 20th 2017 by the Regional Secretariat for Education and Research of the Valencian Regional Government, “access to people wearing clothing which is characteristic or related to their religious identity and neither represent any problem in terms of identification nor impair the dignity of anyone will not be deterred”.
At that moment Takwa couldn’t believe what just happened. She thought that, if she didn’t speak up, she would be an accomplice of a system that discriminates her and the Muslim community. “If a person doesn’t speak up when he or she is right or has a right, then they stop being right and make other people suffer the same as they do”.
Women as the target of Islamophobic discrimination
Out of all the attacks suffered by the Muslim community in 2017, 48% were targeted at Islam itself and Muslims in general, but when we focus on specific profiles, the largest percentage (21%) places women as the main target of discrimination, according to the report of the Plataforma Ciudadana contra la Islamofobia (Citizen’s Platform against Islamophobia).
Amparo Rosell, president of the Platform, points out that women are the main target of discrimination because they are more visible given their clothing and due to the fact that we live in a male-dominated society. “They consider that we are more vulnerable and that they have the authority to decide for us of to impose us a way of clothing or what to believe, feel or think. They even dare to act as our defenders or saviours”.
For Carmen Barceló, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universitat de València, there is no possible rebuttal. “The headscarf is the main target of islamophobic discrimination, since people discrediting it think that the freedom for women they defend is the only possible one. What do these people say about their grandmothers, who not so many years ago also covered their head with a headscarf? Were these women being discriminated?” questions Barceló. “Our society thinks is in possession of the truth and considers politically right to defend the “freedoms” of women. These “freedoms” have been defined from diverse and contradictory positions: of course, not on those based on the respect to the ideas of others”.
Thus, the headscarf becomes a manifest symbol of the presence of Islam in Spanish society, and hence is generalized Islamophobia built. According to the Citizen’s Platform against Islamophobia: “Muslim women suffer a series of prejudices: they are thought to be submissive, ignorant, members of a backward culture”. Besides, Muslim men also suffer this discrimination, “since they also have to cope with prejudices: rapists, sexual predators or male-chauvinists just because they are Muslim, that is, because of the prejudices about their supposed negative behaviour towards women”.
Takwa Rejeb reminds us that, as a woman practising Islam, she can choose between wearing the headscarf and not doing it. “I have Muslim women who do not wear it, but I wanted to”. For her it was a really personal challenge and today it has become part of her identity. “I wanted to wear it because my mother received strange look because she wore it, and that shouldn't happen”.
How does the negative image of Islam prosper?
Nonetheless, discrimination is repeated day after day, with a look, with an action... In the 21st Century in the Europe of Human Rights. We still belong to a society that considers itself the political avant-garde, but even if we are moving there is still a long want to go. Carmen Barceló points out “education and respect” as the only way to achieve it, and in both cases, she considers that “society in our country has an important gap in this sense”.
But, how does the negative image of Islam prosper? How is the islamophobic discourse built? “This discourse has been practised since the Middle Ages. It appears in the Western world as a result of the interpretation of facts with patterns inherited from the family, the social environment, the mass media... All of them collectively formed under the optics of the religious superiority of the true faith (ours) and transferred by tradition. Besides, among others, this discourse is based on excessive generalisations, in arbitrary interpretations of the actions of others and in the downgrading and/or denial of positive aspects from other cultures”.
How can we counter this negative view of Islam?
To counter this negative view of Islam, we need to draw a scenario of mutual understanding. Muslim communities are trying to open the doors of mosques and to open themselves to society, as Amparo Rosell points out.
In this sense, we highlight that the creation of associations composed by Muslim young people, in many cases of the second generation, that unite to defend their rights, to raise awareness in society and to create a meeting place. This is the case of the ACHIME association (Muslim girls in Spain), the Asociación Jóvenes Musulmanes de España (Spanish Muslim Youth Association) or the Asociación de Jóvenes Musulmanes de València (València Muslim Youth Association).
The analysis of Islamophobia falls mainly in the hands of civil organisations, since there are no official sources that publish reliable date on hate crimes against the Muslim community in Spain. Only Germany has started to collect data officially. In order to delve deep into this phenomenon, it would be advisable to carry out an exhaustive and thorough official study in our country, as well as a mapping of measures and actions that are being implemented in Spain to counter Islamophobia.
On the other hand, the involvement of public institutions to fight the hostility against Islam is necessary, especially at these times when political extremism is spreading all over Europe. For instance, we can highlight the campaign launched by the València City Council in 2017 called “Ojalá, València - Por una ciudad intercultural” (Hopefully València - For an intercultural city”, or the City Plan to counter Islamophobia, including around thirty measures and a budget allocation of 102.000 euros, approved by the Barcelona City Council in 2017.
Besides, it is essential to make use of the information, as well as having a critical sense regarding what we receive from the media and the social networks. In this sense, the work carried out by the Observatory of Islamophobia in the Media, born as an initiative from IEMED and the Al Fanar Foundation, is commendable. Its goal: to follow up the media to identify islamophobic news and to publish recommendations. To sum up: “to provide tools to facilitate the representation of a diverse society”.
Information is power and can enable knowledge, empathy and the cohabitation of society in harmony. Otherwise, we may face other risks. “The contamination of news in the hands of mass media is not innocent, and behind it we may find Zionism, the CIA or other agencies interested in the political instability of Arab of mainly Muslim countries”, according to Arabist Carme Barceló.
Just as Takwa Rejeb, the young girl that made our society a bit better thanks to her experience, told us: “It is important to have an open mind, to be willing to learn from others, from other cultures. Mingling is really nice, otherwise it would be boring if we would all be the same”.
You can watch and listen Takwa Rejeb’s full testimonial in this link: this is one of the “stories with a soul” from “La Caja”. Through this project, Jovesolides pays special attention to Islamophobia. This topic will be present in our Strategic Plan through the project “No sin mi velo” (Not without my headscarf).
