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12/2/22

BY SAHAR KHAMIS

When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in 2020, it caused a plethora of unexpected effects which impacted various aspects of life, including education, employment, travel, health, the economy, and even media consumption, information-seeking, and information-sharing. It also widened the gaps and magnified the disparities between the haves and have-nots, whether between one country and another or even inside the same country. It became obvious that the less developed regions in the world suffered greater problems than others and that the less fortunate inside each country also suffered the most, as their existing socioeconomic challenges were dramatically exacerbated amid the global health crisis. These new trends had particularly dangerous implications for the world’s most vulnerable groups, namely women, the poor, rural communities, migrants, non-traditional workers, refugees, and displaced persons, to mention only some.

However, it is important to bear in mind that even in the most developed countries in the world, such as the United States, there were significant impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated intervention, assistance, solidarity, collaboration, and community building. This provided unprecedented opportunities for various communities to step up their humanitarian relief efforts and to extend their support to their fellow Americans. One of these communities was the American Muslim community. ”

This essay provides a brief overview of some of the philanthropic efforts and activities made by diverse groups of American Muslims in various domains during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and examines its many social and economic implications. Muslim social and philanthropic contributions during the pandemic challenge the negative stereotypes about Islam and Muslims, and highlighting these efforts may counter the rising tide of Islamophobia. Examining the complexities of these interrelated issues and giving examples of American Muslim engagement in philanthropic efforts amid the COVID-19 pandemic, both in their own communities and beyond, demonstrates how the boundaries of Islamic philanthropy and Muslim communal ethics have been both redefined and expanded.

An Overview of American-Muslim Responses Amid COVID-19

The American-Muslim community has been one of the most active philanthropic communities amid the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath in a number of meaningful and tangible ways. The ISPU (Institute for Social Policy and Understanding)’s 2020 study, “Community in the Time of Corona: Documenting the American Muslim Response to the Covid-19 Crisis,” reveals how the American Muslim community provided medical support, through medical clinics, doctors, and nurses all serving as brave first responders amid the pandemic, in addition to helping those in need maintain food security and receive all the needed supplies. These efforts were not just confined to helping other Muslims, rather they extended far beyond the Muslim community to help others from different backgrounds and their local communities more broadly. Another important contribution of the American Muslim community amid the pandemic has been disseminating accurate medical information. This was especially important in light of the increasing wave of distrust towards science, which was exacerbated during the pandemic. To counter this, the American Muslim community made sincere efforts to debunk misinformation, fight disinformation, and spread science-based medical information, while also providing vital supplies across all fifty states and across the boundaries of faith, race, culture, and ethnicity.

This ISPU study cited only a few examples that do not do full justice to the magnitude of the countrywide efforts and philanthropic contributions of the American Muslim community amid the pandemic. For instance, members of IMANA (Islamic Medical Association of North America) donated $1.5 million to the US Virgin Islands’ COVID-19 response efforts, as well as medical expertise and personal protective equipment (PPE). Similarly, the American Muslim Community Foundation created a fund for donations to nonprofit organizations and was able to successfully raise $350,000. Additionally, in response to the increase in mental health challenges during the pandemic, the Family & Youth Institute created and shared mental health resources to support not only members of the American Muslim community, but anyone who needed such resources, across all communities. To combat food insecurity, ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Relief provided half a million people from different backgrounds with massive amounts of food, in addition to the necessary hygiene products. These are just a few examples among many.

These examples clearly illustrate how members of the Muslim community in the United States, and elsewhere rose up to the occasion as role models of Muslim giving, sharing, and caring across all communities and beyond all demographic boundaries. This reflects how Muslim communal ethics could be best exercised and illustrated in a contemporary context and during times of change and crisis.

Redefining and Expanding Islamic Philanthropy: Capacity Building and Global Outreach

There are Muslims of various ethnicities and cultures living across the globe and practicing different variations of the Muslim faith. Consequently, there are many different ways that philanthropy is practiced, and defined, by Muslims. The most general forms of almsgiving include “helping the poor, sick, elderly, and homeless” as well as dedicating time to mosques and other organizations (Siddiqui 2010, 39).

Such practices have their roots in the Islamic tradition of zakat, the practice of almsgiving that is viewed as a religious requirement for Muslims (Singer 2008, 34), and which is one of the five pillars of Islam. Within the understanding of philanthropy in the context of Islam, there is another term: sadaqa. While sadaqa and zakat can both be understood as referring to almsgiving, sadaqa is broader and more comprehensive, since it is often defined as an institutional practice of charity rather than as a tax, which is how zakat is systemically categorized (Hassan, 2007, 25). Charity (sadaqa) is distinct from other forms of giving in that it is an empathetic and fast response to a dire situation (Philanthor, 2018). The Muslim responses to the COVID-19 pandemic constitute one powerful example of this. Sadaqa is also further defined to include emotional and non-material acts of kindness to others, reflecting Muslims’ strong emotional and spiritual commitment to giving (Siddiqui, 2010, 31). Thus, sadaqa is a much broader understanding of giving and focuses more on the intentionality and appropriateness of the almsgiving act and the emotional motivations behind it, compared to zakat, which is understood as a specific, mandated religious practice.

However, charity is more short-term in nature than philanthropy and is based more upon one’s emotions, while philanthropy is more intentional, strategic, long-term, structured, and planned (Siddiqui, 2010). It is for this reason that members of the American Muslim community are increasingly invested in redefining, expanding, and strategizing their acts of charity and giving to transform them into philanthropic acts.

One way to do so, according to Tayyab Yunus, a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of “Intuitive Solutions,” is to change the definition and perception of philanthropy from narrow acts of charity to broader acts of capacity building. “When I founded this global company my aim was to invest in training young people to become the leaders of the future and to provide them with all the needed resources to succeed and all the support networks they can benefit from, moving forward. This is the true meaning of philanthropy from my perspective” (Yunus, 2020).

Another important aspect in the redefinition and expansion of Muslim philanthropy is going beyond the local to reach the global. This global outreach, which also expanded during the pandemic, has been described by some American Muslims, including Osman Dulgeroglu, the executive director of “Embrace Relief,” as an absolute necessity in an age of globalization. “It is essential to expand all forms of charity and acts of philanthropy to reach as many people as possible in all corners of the world. This became even more crucial amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with all the hardships which came along with it and the increasing demand for help and support globally” (Dulgeroglu, 2020). Similar views were expressed by a number of interviewees from Islamic Relief USA, one of the most active and internationally-recognized Muslim charity organizations, which receives support from both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, thanks to its outstanding reputation and wide global reach.

One of the most important factors that aided this acceleration of global Muslim philanthropy amid the pandemic was the phenomenon of digitalization, or the reliance on new, digitally-based communication tools. A number of American Muslim interviewees hailed the more modern ways of giving that were made possible through internet-based practices, which facilitated digital almsgiving across boundaries of culture, region, religion, and geography. Some of them mentioned new applications such as “GoFundMe,” for example, which facilitates giving a helping hand internationally and reaching out to people in need throughout the world via social media.

They also highlighted the significance of these parallel processes of digitalization and global outreach in countering the spread of misinformation and disinformation about the pandemic internationally, as well as ensuring that the right information reaches the right people at the right time, which they perceived as another essential component of their Muslim communal ethics.

This is especially important since the overwhelming explosion of information which accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in some cases in an information overload, which came to be known as an “infodemic,” a term coined by the World Health Organization (WHO) to refer to the wave of misinformation, disinformation, and rumors that accompanied the spread of COVID-19. Another parallel, yet contradictory, threat could be referred to as an “info-deficiency,” meaning the shortage of important, basic information amid this pandemic. This phenomenon posed especially dire consequences for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups around the world, as it intersects with underlying systemic divides and existing inequalities. This necessitates a special focus on how and why the “digital divide,” or the gap between the technological haves and have-nots, has been a major contributing factor to accelerating inequalities, including socio-economic disparities, through impacting access to information, training, and employment. It is certainly important to explore the best solutions for closing these gaps amid, and beyond, the COVID-19 pandemic, as a number of Muslim American interviewees rightly mentioned when describing their Muslim communal ethics and their philanthropic contributions and commitments, both nationally and internationally,

Gendered Responses Amid the Pandemic: Muslim Women Stepping Up

The complex struggles faced by women, including multiple layers of invisibility, marginalization, inequality, discrimination, and violence significantly worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women have traditionally, and historically, been known as the caretakers of their respective families and wider communities. While this places additional burdens on their already limited socio-economic resources and adds more constraints on their physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, it also provides them with unprecedented opportunities to step up to positions of prominence, visibility, and even leadership amid crisis, which counters their traditional marginalization and invisibility.

This is especially true in the case of Muslim women, who have been negatively and stereotypically misperceived as helpless, powerless, weak, and oppressed, mainly due to international media’s skewed portrayals and misrepresentations, which are oftentimes caused by Islamophobia, while simultaneously contributing to more Islamophobic tendencies. While the pandemic placed additional burdens on the shoulders of women all over the world, contributing to their already marginalized and underprivileged positions, it also opened the doors for a unique moment of visibility for them through service and community leadership in a number of meaningful and powerful ways. American Muslim women were no exception. American Muslim women played a number of vital roles in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, shattering these negative media portrayals and challenging false stereotypes.

Some of my interviewees are a living example. For example, Mona Negm, the founder and executive director of AMSS (American Muslim Senior Society) and an award-winning community leader in Montgomery County, Maryland, was able to offer a wide range of services to one of the most vulnerable groups, namely Muslim seniors, especially those who happen to be isolated and/or marginalized during the pandemic. These broad, umbrella services included medical checkups, healthcare services, and medical supplies, such as masks and sanitizers, in addition to mental health monitoring, and even hot halal meals, as part of an initiative known as “Halal Meals on Wheels.”

“Our main aim at AMSS was to provide all those in need, especially isolated and marginalized seniors, with all the support they need amid the stressful days of the pandemic. Our wraparound services are varied and diverse, just like our clients, and they are meant to address their mental, physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing in the most comprehensive way. Most of our volunteers are Muslim women who decided to courageously step up to serve the communities in dire need” (Negm, 2020).

Nisa Muhammad, a PhD candidate in the African Studies Department at Howard University and the Assistant Dean for Religious Life at Howard University, commented on the important role played by Black American Muslim women to support the most vulnerable in their community.

“COVID-19 revealed health care disparities with Black Americans experiencing the highest COVID-19 mortality rates nationwide. Black Muslims are a subset of this population, and they comprise 20-25% of the overall Muslim population in the United States. In the early days of the pandemic, little attention was placed on the risks to Black Muslims. Muslim Wellness Foundation partnered with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative to launch the National Black Muslim COVID Coalition on March 23, 2020.  Both of those organizations are led by Black Muslim women. They brought their skills and talents to these new initiatives to provide the necessary advocacy, research, and resources which are most needed for the Black Muslim community” (Muhammad, 2020).

She also remarked that:

“The coalition’s other projects include the publication of the Black COVID Survey and report, and the establishment of the ‘Wisdom of the Elders’ project to address the devastating impact of social isolation, loneliness, and disconnection from the community amid the pandemic. This is an intergenerational storytelling and documenting project. They also organized the American Muslim COVID Loss Survey to gather information about deaths in American Muslim communities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these projects are also led by Black Muslim women” (Muhammad, 2020).

All interviewees agreed that the significant and prominent roles played by American Muslim women across all racial, demographic, and ethnic groups was exemplary not just in serving the communities in dire need during the pandemic, but, most importantly, in defying the false narratives, skewed misrepresentations, and negative stereotypes which cloud Muslim women’s true identities and mask their lived realities.

Concluding Remarks: Demonstrating Muslim Communal Ethics, Changing Perceptions

One of the important factors which creates similarity across the Muslim experience in the United States is the experience of Islamophobia, which is commonly defined as the negative treatment of Muslims stemming from an excessive fear of Islam. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon, as all countries in which Muslim populations constitute a minority experience some sort of marginalization, if not outright discrimination. It has, however, been significantly on the rise in the United States, especially after the events of September 11th, 2001.

While American Muslims did resort to social media campaigns and other forms of digital communication to counter dangerous  Islamophobia, it is safe to say that actions always speak louder than words. Therefore, the impressive acts of charity and philanthropy which American Muslims, and Muslim elsewhere, are initiating and contributing to could be regarded, in fact, as the best and most effective response to counter Islamophobia.

These efforts have the possibility of improving the image and representation of Muslims, moving forward. However, this is not something which can be achieved overnight. It certainly takes a village. In the case of Muslims, it requires the solidarity, commitment, and dedication of a community which puts its faith into action for the service of humanity and the betterment of others, while striving to dispel the skewed stereotypes and negative misrepresentations of Islam and Muslims in mainstream media, social media, and political discourse simultaneously.

8/25/22

UMD COLLEGE PARK COHORT

 

 

 

 
DR. GERSHUN AVILEZ, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equality and InclusionDr. GerShun Avilez is a cultural studies scholar who specializes in contemporary African American and Black Diasporic literatures and visual cultures. His scholarship explores how questions of gender and sexuality inform artistic production. In addition, he works in the fields of political radicalism, spatial theory, gender studies, and medical humanities. He has published several books, and is currently working on a third project, which focuses on documenting queer history.

Throughout his work and teaching, Dr. Avilez is committed to studying a wide variety of art forms, including, drama, fiction, non-fiction, film, poetry, visual and performance art among others. He was the recipient of the Poorvu Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Teaching in 2011 (Yale University).

GerShun received his PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies. Dr. Avilez has held professorships at Yale University, UNC Chapel Hill, and a post-doctorate Fellowship at the University of Rochester.

You can learn more about Prof. Avilez here: https://umcp.academia.edu/GerShunAvilez


Crystal U. Davis, Assistant Professor
Dance, Performance and Scholarship
Head of MFA Dance Program
School of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Crystal U. Davis is a dancer, movement analyst, and critical race theorist.  As a performer her work spans an array of genres from modern dance companies including Notes in Motion to East Indian dance companies including Nayikas Dance Theater Company to her own postmodern choreography at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Dance New Amsterdam.

Her creative work centers around the incongruities present between our daily behaviors and belief systems. She has conducted ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India on the relationship between religious beliefs and both creative and pedestrian movement. Her current research explores implicit bias in dance through a critical theory lens and how identity politics of privilege manifest in the body. Some of her recent publications include “Tendus and Tenancy: Black Dancers and the White Landscape of Dance Education” in the Palgrave Handbook of Race and Arts in Education and “Laying New Ground: Uprooting White Privilege and Planting Seeds of Equity and Inclusion” in Dance Education and Responsible Citizenship: Promoting Civic Engagement through Effective Dance Pedagogies.

You can learn more about Prof. Davis here: https://tdps.umd.edu/directory/crystal-davis


Dr. Sahar Khamis, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Sahar Khamis is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago.

She is the co-author of the books: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace(Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the co-editor of Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Additionally, she authored and co-authored numerous book chapters, journal articles and conference papers, regionally and internationally.

Dr. Khamis is a media commentator and analyst, a public speaker, a human rights commissioner in the Human Rights Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a radio host, who presents a monthly radio show on “U.S. Arab Radio” (the first Arab-American radio station broadcasting in the U.S. and Canada).

You can learn more about Dr. Khamis at: https://communication.umd.edu/directory/sahar-khamis
https://saharkhamis.wordpress.com/

 
Dr. Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor
American Studies

Nancy Raquel Mirabal is Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and Director of the U.S. Latina/o Studies Program. Mirabal is an historian who has published widely in the fields of  Afro-diasporic, gentrification, and spatial studies. She is the author of Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017) and co-editor of Keywords for Latina/o Studies (NYU Press, 2017), winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is currently working on two projects: Whiteness as Gentrification and a Radical Lens: Visual Culture and the Racial Politics of Place in Washington DC1973-1999.

She is a recipient of several grants and awards, including a Scholar in Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, University Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship, U.C. Berkeley; Social Science Research Council International Migration Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, and Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. In 2021 Mirabal was named a University of Maryland Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year.

You can learn more about Dr. Mirabal here: https://amst.umd.edu/directory/nancy-mirabal

 
Dr. Catherine Steele, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Catherine Knight Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland – College Park and was the Founding Director of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative (AADHum). She now directs the Black Communication and Technology lab as a part of the Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration, & Optimism Network. Dr. Steele also serves as the Director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities.

Her research focuses on race, gender, and media, with a specific emphasis on African American culture and discourse and new media. Dr. Steele’s research on the Black blogosphere, digital discourses of resistance and joy, and digital Black feminism has been published in such journals as Social Media + Society, Feminist Media Studies, and Television and New Media. Her book Digital Black Feminism (NYU Press), examines the relationship between Black women and technology, and was the 2022 recipient of the Association of Internet Research 2022 Nancy Baym Book Award.

You can learn more about Dr. Steele here: http://www.catherineknightsteele.com

 

The talk is part of a series centering ARHU faculty expertise on issues of systemic racism, inequality and social justice.

Date of Publication: 
2022-03-23
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 - 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Launched in Fall 2020, the College of Arts and Humanities Dean’s Colloquium Series on Race, Equity and Justice introduces audiences to faculty expertise on issues of systemic racism, inequality and social justice.

Sahar Khamis, associate professor in the Department of Communication, will discuss "Insights on Countering Islamophobia through Research, Activism and Media Outreach.”

10/18/21

By ARHU Staff 

The College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) at the University of Maryland continues its successful Dean's Colloquium Series on Race, Equity and Justice, a colloquium and conversation series hosted by Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill. The series, which began in 2020, seeks to introduce audiences to faculty expertise on issues of systemic racism, inequality and social justice, and continues this year with a focus on the impacts of systemic racism on Asian, Jewish, Black, LGBTQ+, Arab and Muslim populations in the U.S. The events are free and take place virtually. 

The first colloquium of the 2021–22 academic year will be held Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021, from 9–10 a.m. and features Associate Professor of History Christopher Bonner. Bonner’s talk “Willis Hodges's Shield: The Meanings of Black Voters” will focus on voting and racial justice through the lens of the 19th-century activist Willis Augustus Hodges. It will be followed by a conversation with the dean and a Q&A. 

Upcoming talks will focus on topics ranging from countering Islamophobia to fan fiction and social justice. A full list with links to register is available below.  

“I am so pleased that this successful series continues into a new academic year with even more opportunities for the community to learn from our incredible ARHU faculty members,” said Thornton Dill. “They are nationally-known thought leaders on issues of race, inequality and social justice and their expertise will undoubtedly promote dynamic conversations and spark new ideas for social change.” 

The series is part of a collegewide campaign launched in 2020 to address racism, inequality and justice in curriculum, scholarship, programming and community engagement. Among other actions, the Committee on Race, Equity and Justice, made up of faculty, staff and graduate students, serves to advise the dean on goals related to the eradication and dismantling of structural racism and on strategies for ensuring equity and social justice throughout the college, campus and community. 

Each event is free. These conversations are also ARHU TerrapinSTRONG events.

The full list of 2021–22 colloquia events is as follows: 

Oct. 27, Christopher Bonner, associate professor in the Department of History, whose talk is titled "Willis Hodges's Shield: The Meanings of Black Voters." Register here

Nov. 19, Janelle Wong, professor in the Department of American Studies, whose talk is titled “At the Crossroad: Black and Asian American Relations in U.S. Politics Today.” Register here.

Dec. 9, Robert Levine, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English, whose talk is titled “The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.” Register here.

Feb. 17, Alexis Lothian, associate professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, whose talk is titled “Fan Fiction, Social Justice and the Politics of Fantasy.” Register here.

Mar. 16, Sahar Khamis, associate professor in the Department of Communication, whose talk is titled “Insights on Countering Islamophobia through Research, Activism and Media Outreach.” Register here.

Apr. 15, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, associate professor in the Department of American Studies, whose talk is titled “How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Toward a Mad Methodology.” Register here.

Apr. 27, Shay Hazkani, assistant professor in the Department of History and Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies, title forthcoming. Register here

To watch previous talks, visit: https://arhu.umd.edu/news/arhu-series-talks-centering-race-equity-and-justice

6/16/21

This commentary sheds light on some of the most creative online campaigns which have been launched to counter Islamophobia and overcome the negative stereotypes and skewed (mis)representations of Islam and Muslims, especially in the West. It provides a number of scholarly definitions of Islamophobia and explains why, and how, social media could act as a double-edged sword, which may fuel Islamophobia, on the one hand, while providing effective tools to counter it, on the other hand. It highlights several examples illustrating both effects of the social media, while focusing on the factors behind the success of some online countering Islamophobia campaigns, such as the amplification of Muslims’ voices, including gendered voices; the deployment of humor; and the selection of suitable strategies, tactics, and tools. It concludes with a few thoughts on what needs to be done to ensure the success and continuation of countering Islamophobia efforts, moving forward.

Introduction

Muslims globally are using the internet, not just as a window to see and be seen by the rest of the world, but also as a tool with which to push back against the many attempts to sideline them, profile them, stigmatize them and silence them.1 Their efforts to deploy digital media as a platform that gives voice to the voiceless, thus helping them to amplify and spread their messages, became particularly important in the midst of the rising wave of Islamophobia after 9/11, especially in the West. With the alarming increase in incidents of hatred against Muslims worldwide and the dangerous new wave of Islamophobia that has been witnessed more recently, many Muslims have resorted to online campaigns to fight against negative misrepresentations, rectify their images, and spread correct awareness about their faith and traditions, their multifaceted identities and lived realities. This commentary provides various examples illustrating how different groups of Muslims are engaging in tireless online efforts to achieve all of these goals.

Definitions of Islamophobia
The idea of fearing a certain group of people because of their culture, race, traditions, religious beliefs, or simply because they are different is not new. It has been around for centuries. This process of ethnic, racial, and religious profiling has been commonly referred to as stereotyping. One example of the process of profiling and stereotyping the ‘Other’ is Islamophobia.

Islamophobia could be defined as “an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from social, political, and civic life.”2 Its spread has prompted “an increasingly visible ‘backlash’ against Muslims across Europe and the United States.”3 The term ‘backlash’ encompasses all of the negative messages received by Muslims and all harmful acts against them, whether physical, psychological, or both. This includes the controversial cartoon drawings of Prophet Muhammad by Danish artists in 20064 that triggered negative reactions among many Muslims and some non-Muslims.

Some authors define Islamophobia as “an unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and, therefore, fear or dislike of all or most Muslims,”5 while others define it as “an allegedly irrational fear of losing life or liberty to Islamic rule merely because the laws, sacred texts, and traditional practices of Islam demand the submission of culture, politics, religion, and all social expression.”6 This last definition, unlike previous ones, mentions ‘losing life’ as a direct result of Islam. This fear could be attributed to the fact that many terrorist attacks are covered extensively and disproportionately, on national media in the West, especially if the attacker happens to have an Arab or a Muslim name, creating an association in the minds of Western audiences between Muslims and acts of terrorism. However, only a very tiny fringe of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims support terrorism, let alone engage in it.

There is no doubt that the rise of recent international trends, such as right-wing politics, populism, and White Supremacy, and the rhetoric associated with them, especially from some of the political leaders in Europe and the United States in recent years, have fueled Islamophobic sentiments, resulting in attacks on mosques, Islamic centers, and Muslim individuals on an unprecedented scale. These Islamophobic acts have a greater impact on those with visible Muslim identifies, such as women who wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf), for example.

Muslims in Europe suffer from different forms of discrimination, including racial and religious profiling, and sometimes even restrictions on their rights to adhere to various aspects of their Muslim faith. One glaring example is France’s repeated efforts to impose restrictions on Muslim women’s religious attire. The most recent of such efforts is France’s 2021 decision to ban girls under eighteen years of age from wearing the hijab in public, and prohibiting mothers wearing the hijab from accompanying their children on school field trips.7 These decisions are just the latest among a series of actions by the French government aimed at restricting the hijab in France.8 These include banning the wearing of the hijab in public schools in France, banning the burkini (the modest, religiously compliant swimwear worn by some Muslim women), and banning the niqab (full-face covering) by law in 2010 –an action that was subsequently critiqued by the UN Human Rights Commission as an unjustified decision that disproportionately targets the minority of Muslim women who wear it, thereby violating their rights of religious freedom.9

Islamophobia has been steadily on the rise in the United States since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which marked a seismic geopolitical shift in the portrayal of Muslims across the media. It changed people’s perceptions of Islam and made them anxious and fearful of an entire group of people. The attacks made people wonder if all Muslims were extremists and, if they were, when would they attack again? Given that thousands of people died that day, they were right to fear terrorists, who belong to extremist groups like al-Qaeda. However, the problem was the proliferation of overgeneralized stereotypes that are still widespread, even though terrorist groups represent only a tiny fraction of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims.

Already a problem, Islamophobia became exponentially much worse after President Trump came to office in 2016. During his presidency, some of the most prominent Islamophobes launched campaigns online, using the internet to spout hatred and fuel anger and discrimination against immigrants and minorities in general, and Muslims in particular.10 This new wave of Islamophobia during Trump’s presidency extended beyond mere rhetoric to include serious discriminatory policies targeting Muslims, such as the infamous Muslim Travel Ban,11 which was revoked by President Biden on the first day of his presidency.

As the above discussion clearly illustrates, we must acknowledge the complexities and nuances of the concept of Islamophobia by situating it within the appropriate historical, social, political, and cultural settings, as well as the appropriate temporal and spatial contextualization. Like all forms of discrimination and xenophobia, Islamophobia is part of an ever-evolving, multifaceted and elusive process that takes different forms; and is expressed through various manifestations, based on a multitude of underlying factors and shifting influences.

Click here to read more.

12/18/20

When the Arab Spring movements erupted in at least six Arab countries in 2011––Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain––they were accompanied by high hopes and aspirations in a new era of democratization and reform, with the potential of transforming the region politically, economically, and socially. However, a decade later, a lot has changed in the region, albeit in largely unpredictable and undesirable directions. While Tunisia has been a notable exception, the outcomes have been devastating, including civil war and a massive humanitarian crisis in Syria, factional strife and state absence in Libya, a ruthless war and violence in Yemen, a crushed uprising in Bahrain, and relapse to a harsher military dictatorship in Egypt.

Likewise, overconfidence also faded in the democratizing potentials of the media, in general, and social media, in particular, to the extent of naming the uprisings “Tunisia’s Twitter uprising,” “Egypt’s Facebook revolution” and “Syria’s YouTube uprising.” This left behind a highly ambivalent and paradoxical media landscape the shape of which was reflected recently in the seventh annual Arab Opinion Index (AOI) that was conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar, in face-to-face interviews with over 28,000 respondents in 13 Arab countries. The survey showed important shifts in Arab public opinion trends toward highly intertwined political, economic, and social transformations, including shifts in media consumption patterns.

Media Use and Restrictions

The 2019-2020 index revealed a number of important findings pertaining to the various sources of news and information in the Arab region, including a significant jump in the reliance on the internet, which reached 73 percent of total respondents. The results show a continuing, statistically significant increase in internet penetration in the Arab region over the last nine years.

This is accompanied by an increase in the proliferation and usage of social media applications in the Arab world, with 86 percent having accounts on Facebook, 84 percent on WhatsApp, 43 percent on Twitter, 56 percent on Instagram, and 44 percent on Snapchat. This indicates that despite their politicization during and after the Arab Spring uprisings, the primary motive behind the popularity of social media remains building social networking and maintaining connections.

When the Egyptian revolution erupted in January 2011, there were many Egyptians in Tahrir Square who had never heard of Facebook before. The same could be said about other Arab countries.

When the Egyptian revolution erupted in January 2011, there were many Egyptians in Tahrir Square who had never heard of Facebook before. The same could be said about other Arab countries, especially in rural and remote areas, outside of capitals and big cities, and among older generations. However, just as a trickle-down effect of civic engagement and political activism took place from the younger, more educated, and upper middle-class elites to the grassroots level and the wider public, there developed more reliance on new media tools and technologies. Even those who lacked the necessary technological tools or digital literacy skills were able to rely on more technologically-savvy, younger generations to help them access digitally mediated information.

But with the increasing affordability and availability of mobile devices, especially mobile phones which increasingly became essential elements of media consumption in the Arab world, the technology deficit was addressed. Those who had limited digital or alphabetical literacy or suffered from poor infrastructure, including limited internet access and unreliable connectivity, or both, could enjoy a new window to see the world. This is one valid explanation for the increased access to, and reliance on, social media applications in the Arab world in recent years, despite the persistence of serious challenges in this region, including high illiteracy rates in some countries, limited economic resources, and poor infrastructure.

Furthermore, fundamental changes have appeared over the past nine years in the sources for political news, with an increase in the use of the internet over television. Significantly, 35 percent of the respondents in the AOI survey rely on the internet for political news, which is a sevenfold increase since 2011 as reliance on television decreased over the same period.  Moreover, 80 percent reported using social media for news and political information, while 61 percent use them to express their views and interact with political issues in their societies. This increased reliance on the internet, especially for the purpose of obtaining political information, could best be explained in light of the outcomes which emerged in the media landscape in post-Arab Spring countries, except Tunisia, where the relapse of the calls for democratization gave birth to a highly fragmented, polarized, and stifled media landscape under authoritarian rule, albeit in different forms and to varying degrees.

The heightened patronization and politicization of the media by the regimes, which largely exploited them as tools for public mobilization and swaying public opinion, strangled journalistic autonomy, freedom, and professionalism.

The heightened patronization and politicization of the media by the regimes, which largely exploited them as tools for public mobilization and swaying public opinion, strangled journalistic autonomy, freedom, and professionalism. They also eroded the public’s trust in mainstream media and diminished the latter’s credibility. Some of the examples of tightening governmental control over the media landscape in the Arab world include direct and indirect censorship, ownership, sponsorship, and the enforcement of cybercrime laws which could criminalize any type of content that is not pre-approved or authorized by the regimes. In that way, journalists are at risk of losing their jobs, freedom, or, in some cases, even their lives. Official government media regulatory bodies have also been established to control, screen, and approve the media’s content. Thus, the ultimate outcome is to seek alternative platforms for gathering information, in general, and political information, in particular.

Cautionary Notes about Social Media

When looking at the results of the Arab Opinion Index, however, it is important to show adequate caution about the social media’s role in the Arab world, and to interpret them within the right context, while avoiding the temptation of being overly optimistic about them.

First, 48 percent of the surveyed respondents still rely on television channels for political news coverage, followed by the internet (at 35 percent). Despite the increase in the use of the internet to obtain political information and the decline in television viewership for the same purpose, television still remains the primary source of political news and information in the Arab world. Some factors behind that include the high rates of alphabetical and digital illiteracy, economic constraints, and infrastructural challenges to cyber services which still hamper internet penetration, accessibility, and affordability in many parts of the region.

Second, while many sources on the internet are news sites, including national and satellite television channels and newspapers, the shift has only been in format, or the mode of transmission, instead of the content and its source. This is merely the result of change in the media landscape which is becoming increasingly more electronically based and digital. In other words, with the exception of independent, opposition-oriented, social media sites, many venues of delivering news and information electronically are largely echoing, or even replicating, the same content which is transmitted via mainstream media, whether print or broadcast, albeit in an electronic, digitalized format.

Perplexing Paradoxes

The findings of the AOI 2019-2020 survey also point to a number of anomalies.

First, it would be a mistake to correlate increased reliance on social media to obtain political information and express political views online with an actual increase in freedom of expression and the ability to criticize repressive regimes. It would also be hard to think of increased digital media as reflecting added political participation and civic engagement. As the findings of the AOI survey reveal, 30 percent of Arabs said it was impossible to criticize their own governments without fear of retribution. Additionally, only 11 percent reported belonging to a political party, 16 percent to civil society or voluntary organization, and a high 61 percent said they either do not affiliate with a political party or don’t think that their views are represented by any existing political group.

It would be a mistake to correlate increased reliance on social media to obtain political information and express political views online with an actual increase in freedom of expression and the ability to criticize repressive regimes.

There is also evidence of increased political apathy, with 46 percent saying they do not want to participate in elections, compared to only 27 percent in similar surveys in 2011 and 2013. Moreover, 28 percent said that they are “completely unconcerned” about politics in their countries. In other words, the anomaly here is that just as cyberactivism did not result in effective democratization, the increased access to, and consumption of, political news did not automatically result in increased political activism either, especially because of the absence of effective democratic transitions and their derailment, failure, and relapse in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Another important lesson is that the utilization of social media and the easy access to news and information could not compensate for the absence of civic engagement, a vibrant civil society, and democratic mechanisms, nor are they sufficient to create them.

Second, the AOI 2019-2020 findings highlighted another anomaly; increased repression in Arab countries resulted in heightened activism in Arab diaspora communities instead of in the homeland where it is more needed and necessary. Respondents from countries that have high rates of political repression, highly restrictive public spheres, and much stifling of freedom of expression, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reported following political news the least. But this repression resulted in the creation of activist diaspora personalities, such as the cases of the Egyptian whistleblower Mohammed Ali, the murdered Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and the outspoken young Saudi dissident Omar Abdel Aziz, to mention only a few.

In other words, increased repression gave birth to political apathy at home, on one hand, but inspired counter movements of resistance in the diaspora, on the other hand, using social media as their primary tools to exercise political activism and voice dissent. One point to bear in mind, however, is that these diasporic movements of resistance have limited effectiveness in bringing about political change or actual democratic transitions in their home countries due to their inability to trigger on-the-ground mobilization and coordination from afar through cyber activism efforts alone.

Third, the Gulf region, with its higher rates of technological savviness, economic affluence, infrastructural development, internet penetration, availability and accessibility, and younger populations scored low rates of interest in seeking political information via social media and expressing political views online. Clearly, the interest in politics and activism was most likely related to the political systems that control the region. As the index results convey, a staggeringly high 87 percent of Gulf respondents reported having Twitter accounts––Saudi Arabia is the eighth country in the world in terms of the number of users of the platform––yet they are the least to use social media to affect political issues and express political views online. This, again, could be attributed to high levels of apathy, repression, and authoritarianism that lead to equally high levels of self-censorship which, in turn, hamper the expression of oppositional political views out of fear of regime retaliation.

New Trends and Potential Future Developments  

The current coronavirus pandemic has been accompanied by another equally devastating pandemic in the Arab world, namely regimes curbing press freedoms. The Arab world has been witnessing a dramatic surge in government control mechanisms and ‘digital authoritarianism’ as regimes exert relentless efforts to frame the narrative around the pandemic according to their own priorities, interests, and agendas, while vehemently resisting any counter narratives. These heightened government control mechanisms amid the pandemic include punitive measures, such as enforcing laws against “fake news”; suspending free speech; applying censorship; threatening, harassing, and jailing journalists and withdrawing their accreditation; restricting freedom of movement and access to information; expulsions and visa constraints; implementing surveillance and contact tracing tools; and exploiting emergency measures. It is, thus, safe to assume that the latest trends signal the continuation of an era of contestation between Arab regimes and their opponents, including journalists who dare to speak truth to power and to provide an alternative narrative different from the one propagated by their governments.

It is, thus, safe to assume that the latest trends signal the continuation of an era of contestation between Arab regimes and their opponents, including journalists.

Moving forward, it is expected that each party will sharpen its own set of tools, including the weaponization of social media which is likely to lead to an escalation in ‘digital authoritarianism,’ as Arab regimes continue to tighten their control mechanisms over mediated narratives. In contrast, there is likely to be an escalation in resistance as activists, dissidents, opponents, and journalists invent their own mechanisms to counter and resist the ongoing stifling of freedoms in the Arab world.

It would be enlightening to see how these new trends and developments, in the pandemic era and beyond, will be reflected in the findings of next year’s Arab Opinion Index as well as future surveys.

Dr. Sahar Khamis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park, with an expertise in Arab media. She serves on the Academic Advisory Board of Arab Center Washington DC.

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