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Help Vera fight Islamaphobia

5/ 8/2008

IN 1997, the Runnymede Trust published its groundbreaking paper, ‘Islamophobia: a challenge for us all’ In the paper, the report named for the first time the indiscriminate racialisation and demonisation of all Muslims to promote prejudice. It called this unjust and ugly phenomenon – Islamophobia.

Yet, just over 10 years later, little has changed: Muslims are still indiscriminately vilified and marginalized in Britain’s public and political spaces. The only difference is that now, Islamophobia is rarely in your face and obvious. It has become subtle and coded, or even invisible. In its less visible form, Islamophobia passes beneath the radar of comment or challenge, because it is disguised and hidden within debates about issues concerning today’s society - for example, asylum, immigration, multiculturalism, secularism, or civil liberties. As such, Islamophobia is even more dangerous and difficult to tackle.

But what is Islamophobia? Is it a modern form of racism? Is it targeted at just ethnic, cultural or religious markers - or all three? How do Muslims of all ages experience Islamophobia in their daily lives?

I’m a student at Manchester Metropolitan University researching what makes Islamophobia worse and what might resist it. I’m passionate about highlighting injustice and inequality. So, though I’m a non-Muslim, I want to do what I can to help eliminate Islamophobia and see it replaced by genuine and mutual respect for difference.

As part of my work, I have a photostream on the website ‘Flickr’, where I’ve posted some photos sent to me by Muslims with whom I’ve worked with on other parts of my research. My ‘Flickr’ space is under my name ‘vera.em’ and it’s called ‘Islamophobia@in-ya-face.uk’ – go into the ‘Flickr’ website and take a look by searching for ‘vera.em’ under the ‘people’ tab.

What I’d like to do is show in pictures how Islamophobia affects the daily life of ordinary people – what every day things or events make Islamophobia worse and what things or events resist it or make it better? If you would like to send photos too, then I would be very grateful.

You can send them to my e-mail address vera.em@hotmail.co.uk or my mobile phone 07523 520606; please suggest a title for the photo and, if you like, give a short sentence describing the event. I’ll place your photos on ‘Flickr’ under your first name (it can be a pseudonym).

I hope that you can help and make the site grow and become meaningful.

Vera Marten, Manchester Metropolitan University, Department of Psychology and Social Change