Unequal Citizenship: Being Muslim and Canadian in the Post 9/11 Era
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Dissertation Unequal Citizenship: Being Muslim and Canadian in the Post 9/11 Era By Baljit Nagra PhD Candidate Department of Sociology University of Toronto A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of PhD Graduate department of Sociology University of Toronto © Copyright by Baljit Nagra 2011 ii Thesis Abstract ‘Unequal Citizenship: Being Muslim and Canadian in the Post 9/11 Era’ PhD, 2011, Baljit Naga, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto My dissertation is the first empirically based study to closely examine the impacts of 9/11 on Canadian Muslim youth. It develops a critical analysis of how the general public supported by state practices, undermine the citizenship of Canadian Muslims, thereby impacting their identity formation. Conducting qualitative analysis, through the use of 50 in-depth interviews with Canadian Muslim men and women, aged 18 to 30, I have arrived at several important findings. These include findings related to citizenship, the racialization of gender identities and identity formation. First, despite having legal citizenship, Canadian Muslims often do not have access to substantive citizenship (the ability to exercise rights of legal citizenship), revealing the precarious nature of citizenship for minority groups in Canada. My research shows that the citizenship rights of Canadian Muslims may be undermined because they do not have access to allegiance and nationality, important facets of citizenship. Second, young Canadian Muslims are racialized and othered through increasingly stereotypical conceptions about their gender identities. Muslim men are perceived as barbaric and dangerous and Muslim women are imagined as passive and oppressed by their communities. As a result of these dominant conceptions, in their struggle against racism, young Canadian Muslims have to invest a great deal of time establishing themselves as thinking, rational, educated and peaceful persons. Third, to cope with their marginalization, many young Canadian Muslims have asserted their Muslim identities. In order to understand this social process, I extend the work done on ‘reactive ethnicity’ and theorize Muslim identity formation in a post 9/11 context, something not yet been done in academic literature. To do so, I coin the term iii ‘reactive identity formation,’ and illustrate that the formation of reactive identities is not limited to strengthening ethnic identity and that religious minority groups can experience a similar phenomenon. Furthermore, I find that while claiming their Muslim identity, most of my interviewees also retain their Canadian identity in order to resist the notion that they are not Canadian. By doing so, they attempt to redefine what it means to be Canadian. iv Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction 1-32 Table One: Age Distribution of Interviewees 27 Table Two: Number of years living in Canada 27 Table Three: Education Status of Interviewees 27 Table Four: National Origin of Interviewees 28 Chapter Two: The Loss of Everyday Life 33-70 Chapter Three: Flying Without Citizenship 71-110 Chapter Four: ‘Our faith was also hijacked by those people’ 111-135 Chapter Five: ‘My ethnicity does not mean a whole lot’ 136-157 Chapter Six: ‘I am Canadian’ 158-179 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 180-188 Appendix A: Description of Interviewees 189-191 Appendix B: Interview Guide 192-196 Bibliography 197-208 End Notes 209-210 1 Chapter One Introduction I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, and grew up there during the 1980s and 1990s; it is a city that historically has been and continues to be predominantly populated with a ‘white’ British population (Schrier & Ip 1991). As the daughter of Sikh Indian immigrants, I remember experiences of racism throughout my childhood. I remember once going on a walk through my neighbourhood with my family; we were interrupted by a car full of young ‘white’ men hurling racial insults and yelling ‘get out of our country’. Another time, a simple trip to the gas station with my father was disrupted by a stranger screaming at us to ‘leave Canada’. My parents never explained why such incidents occurred. But I quickly realized that we were not always thought of as belonging to Canada and could be reminded of this at any time, leading me to question my Canadian citizenship. As a result, I began to feel ashamed of my Indian identity and avoided wearing Indian clothes or speaking Punjabi in public to conceal my Indian identity as much as I could. As the years passed, these incidents of overt discrimination began to disappear and became more of an exception than a rule. While I still faced instances of subtle discrimination, it was less acceptable for people to hurl racial insults in public in Canada. On September 11, 2001, the world changed. As I watched the twin towers collapse, I remember feeling this was the beginning of a new era, which I now refer to as the post 9/11 era. The post 9/11 era has brought a number of significant changes. 2 Terrorism has become a key concern for Western nations, and countries worldwide have introduced anti-terrorist legislation. Security and surveillance practices, especially at airports and borders, have increased substantially (Helly 2004; Razack 2005; Thobani 2007). The United States has invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these countries are fuelling terrorism directly targeted at the West. At the centre of these changes are Muslim communities which are increasingly projected as enemies to Western nations (Choudhry 2001; Macklin 2001, Helly 2004). I personally did not realize the significant impact of the 9/11 era on Muslim lives until I moved to Toronto in 2003. Here, I made Muslim friends and witnessed Muslims facing discrimination. To my surprise, my Muslim friends told me stories of being asked to leave Canada, the stigmatization of their religion, and violent confrontations, leading me to question how prevalent this type of discrimination was in Canada among Muslim communities and the impact it was having on young Canadian Muslims. I decided to explore how the post 9/11 era was framing the experiences of young adults who were both Muslim and Canadian. Thus, in my doctoral thesis, I began a long and interesting journey that has provided rich and important insights about the lives and minds of young Canadian Muslims. My dissertation, titled ‘Unequal Citizenship Being Muslim and Canadian in the post 9/11 era’, is the first empirically based study to closely examine how the post 9/11 era is shaping the lives of young Canadian Muslims. Through the use of personal narratives, it develops a critical analysis of what meanings dominant groups and institutions try to impose on young Canadian Muslims and how these young Muslims contest dominant conceptions by constructing alternative meanings. 3 In the development of this analysis, my dissertation responds to two main questions. First, what are the experiences of young Muslims in their interactions with state surveillance practices and in their daily interactions with mainstream Canadian society in the post 9/11 era? What do these experiences tell us about citizenship in Canada and the gendered and racialized processes in our society? Second, how do young Canadian Muslims negotiate their identities as Muslim and Canadians in the post 9/11 era, and how do theories of ethnic identity formation help us understand this process? Using qualitative analysis, my thesis arrives at findings related to citizenship, the racialization of gender identities, and identity formation. First, I find that many young Muslims recall living in a hostile environment in the post 9/11 era in Canada. They perceive this harassment as challenging their citizenship as Canadians. Their interactions with state surveillances practices and mainstream Canadian society suggest to them that they are seen as potential threats, not loyal Canadian citizens. They feel their safety and security is jeopardized, they find they are victimized in public spaces, they suffer a loss of religious freedom, and their economic security is compromised. They report increased state surveillance that directly targets their Muslim identity, not only at airports and borders, but in their daily lives, suggesting to them that Canadian citizenship may not hold the same value for them as for others. Second, young Canadian Muslims are racialized and increasingly othered through stereotypical conceptions about their gender identities. While Muslim men are perceived as barbaric and dangerous, Muslim women are imagined as passive, and oppressed by their communities. This racialization of gender identity has an impact on how they are treated by other Canadians and on how they experience surveillance. As a result of these 4 dominant conceptions, young Canadian Muslims invest a great deal of time establishing themselves as thinking, rational, educated, and peaceful persons. Third, such experiences have an impact on young Canadian Muslims’ identity formation as Muslims and as Canadians. To cope with the stigmatization of their religion and in a bid to reclaim Islam, many young Muslims assert their Muslim identities. To understand this social process, I extend Portes and Rumbaut’s (2001) work on ‘reactive ethnicity’ and theorize Muslim identity formation in a post 9/11 context, something not yet been done in academic literature. I find that while claiming their Muslim identity, most of my interviewees also retain their Canadian identity in order to resist the notion that they are not Canadian. In doing so they reshape what it means to be Canadian. Defining Canadian identity through multiculturalism and believing that Canada is more favourable to Muslim communities than other Western nations allow them to retain a strong sense of being Canadian in the post 9/11 era. Muslims in the Canadian Context This thesis uses a sample of well-educated young Canadian Muslims as a case study to understand how the post 9/11 era is shaping their lives. Canada has a growing and diverse Muslim population.