Resisting Islamophobia

Don't Stoke the Fire of Fear

This really isn’t on point with the theme of my newsletter, but I felt compelled to write this today, given the stabbing of Salman Rushdie.

I grew up in southwestern New York, a Panama Panther alum, and while in high school and college, I spent many summers working at Chautauqua Institution. The Bookstore, Bellinger Hall, the YAC.

Like many of my peers and southwestern NY community members, I was deeply shaken to hear the news that Salman Rushdie had been stabbed in Chautauqua Institution, on the Ampitheater stage.

I think some of the shock is because Southwestern New Yorkers enjoy the belief that we live in a very safe community, and this one just hit too close to home. Likely why this news was so deeply unsettling for many of us. How could something so violent and unsafe happen in our little community?

The fear is warranted, but with this deep fear, anger and blame often lurk close behind. People often look for someone to blame, especially when Muslims are involved.

So, that is why, in the midst of all of this, and while it is still fresh, I want us all to pause and remember: We have a choice in how we think about and respond to these events. More specifically, how we choose to regard Muslims and the Islam religion, given what transpired today.

After the initial shock and concern for Rushdie's wellbeing, I felt uneasy. It took me a little while to realize what I was fearful when I realized that this tragedy could have deep ripple effects, in how Southwestern New Yorkers could react and, subsequently, how some may regard Muslims and the Islam religion.

Moments like these are when sparks of Islamophobia often become ablaze. Our fear becomes the fuel that ignites the flames...if we're not careful.

I spent five years living in Indonesia, the biggest Muslim country in the world, with around 89% of the population registered Muslims. Though I taught at a Christian University, roughly 40% of my students identified as Muslim. My students, colleagues, and neighbors were all Muslims. All day and every day, most of the people I encountered were Muslims.

In Indonesia, they were as diverse as Christians are in America. Some women wore burqas and jilbab. Some women wore no headcoverings. Some Muslims were deeply devout, prayed five times a day, avoided pork and alcohol and contact with dogs. Some were one wife of many.

But some were the equivalent of what we would call "Easter and Christmas" Christians. They would only celebrate the biggest holidays, Idul Fitri and Idul Adha. Some rarely went to Mosque. Some were atheists and just registered as Muslim on paper.

The common factor though was that my friends and neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances were all appalled by Muslim extremism and violence. They found it deeply abhorrent and spoke against it.

From my experiences living abroad, in a place where millions upon millions of Muslim lived, I learned that we cannot offer simple categories for Islam and all Muslims. They are as diverse as Christians are in the United States.

Applying a similar logic, I--as an American Christian--could be likened to Christian extremists who murder abortion doctors or the type who gleefully count the days that Matthew Sheppard has been in Hell, after his heinous murder.

I certainly don't want to be placed in those categories of Christians. I don't associate with those people and I do not identify with that mindset, even though we share the same religious faith.  

Extremists get the most attention when they're violent. But if you live in a place, in a community, where you are exposed to a wide spectrum of people who share the same faith, but practice it differently, it becomes easier to understand that not all people who follow this religion are like this.

Now could be a turning point in how southwestern New Yorkers will regard Muslims, both in actions and in mindset.

My fears of how community members would respond were foregrounded when I read snarky comments already from Post Journal readers, scoffing how Islam is indeed a "the religion of peace."

I came of age in a post 9/11 world; on the day that changed American history, I was entering a theatre class. After that terrible day, even from my small midwestern Ohio college, I witnessed the fear and hatred, the desire to blame and find a scapegoat after attacks on the Twin Towers. I watched as fellow college students who were from the Middle East, brown-skinned and Muslim, were attacked and became the victims of hate crimes. They soon dropped out of college.

I started to pay attention to the ways in which the tv shows and movies began to portray Muslims. I later developed this into a part of a course on American Culture. In Indonesia, we looked at many movies, songs, and tv shows, and I tried to explain to my students why so many Americans feared Muslims. That we were conditioned to do so from all we saw. That we were scared. And many of us didn't know any Muslims, personally.

I explained to my students that this is easy to do, to fear, and even to hate, especially if you had never met a Muslim. I explained to them--imagine if you never had any other examples of Muslims other than the ones you saw in news stories, examples of the violent extremists.

I understood it. Before I moved to Indonesia, I probably could have counted on one hand the number of Muslims that I had ever met. I had no Muslim friends, colleagues or neighbors.
 
This makes a difference. When I moved to Indonesia, I too had to calm the Islamophobia in my mind and the reactive ways that I bodily responded to seeing burqas and hearing Arabic spoken...I had to quiet the fears that were stoked within me, living in a post 9-11 world, having absorbed all that the media poured out.

Therefore, I implore us: as horrendous as what happened was today, as scary and violent, let us remember that not all Muslims are terrorists, are extremists, and condone such violent behaviors, even despite the fatwa.

In a time when southwestern NY has already received much attention and media coverage for racist violent hate crimes, such as the shooting in Buffalo, please, let's not fuel the fire of hate with our own fears.