Placating words can’t sweep away Canada’s rampant gendered Islamophobia

Watching Canadian politicians offer condolences and perform acts of solidarity in the wake of the Islamophobic terrorist attack in London, Ont., has been gut-wrenching. And not just because 91 Canadian MPs voted against motion M-103 to condemn Islamophobia in 2017, or that Canada’s foreign policy continues to uphold instability and genocide in the Middle East. But also, because as a young Muslim woman in politics, I witnessed firsthand the Islamophobic ideology and behaviour rampant in our political culture and on Parliament Hill, and how it upholds Islamophobia and emboldens gendered Islamophobic violence across the country. According to the Rivers of Hope Toolkit, gendered Islamophobia describes the specific kinds of stereotypes and discrimination that Muslim women face, including the false and toxic idea that Muslim women are weak, oppressed, repressed, or victims. In the same sense, pinkwashing, the deliberate appropriation of gender and sexual liberation movements towards regressive political ends, is often exercised to justify the ongoing construction of Muslim and Middle Eastern peoples and cultures as barbaric, oppressive, and in opposition to Canadian values—as if Canada’s ongoing colonial violence against Indigenous peoples is not our defining characteristic. Our civic institutions are guilty of continuously employing Islamophobic ideologies and tactics, building a discourse that emboldens gendered Islamophobia in an already white supremacist Canadian culture. I was only 17 when a white man called me “exotic” at a policy convention and a Quebecois woman called me “oppressed” at the same event. I was 18 when I experienced sexual assault motivated by Islamophobia at the hands of a staffer who repeatedly called me “ISIS,” and continued to joke about it in front of other staffers, who did not call him out or ask me how I was doing, for weeks. My experiences are extreme, but not isolated. Many young Muslim women are constantly patronized in our civic institutions while bearing the brunt of constant sexualization. I know young women who have been told by sitting Members of Parliament to remove their hijab if they want to run for office to increase their chances of election, or to remove their hijabs while welcoming certain guests to the Hill. At the same time, gender-based and sexual discrimination in Middle Eastern countries, which is as prevalent in western countries—including our neighbours to the south—is often used to rebuke criticisms of Canada’s role in global instability and violence (see pinkwashing), especially when brought up by queer Muslims in civic spaces, as if they are not aware of their own experiences and are in need of saving. The same elected officials, staffers, and volunteers who perpetuate and normalize Islamophobia in our civic institutions at all levels of government, are in charge of creating policies and responding to public safety needs that continue to disproportionally endanger and marginalize Muslim women, especially those of us living with multiple intersecting identities and visibly practicing our faith. In Quebec, Muslim women in “positions of authority,” including judges and teachers, are barred from wearing religious symbols such as the hijab, treating them like second-class citizens. In Alberta, Black Muslim women continue to be targets of Islamophobic street violence, with at least seven women having been targeted in Calgary and Edmonton since December 2020. Of the 349 police-reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2017 and 173 in 2018, 45 per cent targeted Muslim women, the highest percentage of women victims among other groups targeted by hate, similar only to the rates of violence faced by Indigenous women. None of these experiences are coincidences. Canada’s civic institutions continuously set the stage for the victimization and marginalization of Muslim women. Canada’s out-of-touch citizenship handbook, Discover Canada, still singles out and trivializes gender-based violence as experienced by women in majority Muslim or Middle Eastern countries under the guise of “the equality of women and men,” much of which reflects the language used in the Islamophobic and white-saviourist Conservative Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act debate; language that continues to form much of the Canadian psyche regarding the lives and needs of Muslim women. It is time for Canadian leaders to end the political clown show that takes marginalized communities as fools and seeks to pacify us through crocodile tears and empty gestures. The only thing oppressing Muslim women and gender-diverse people in this country is the Islamophobic violence and political patronization that hinders our ability to grow, heal, and lead in ways that empower us. Arezoo Najibzadeh is the co-founder and managing director of Platform. Follow her on Twitter @ArezooJaan. The Hill Times