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IMT06294 “They Don't Want Us to Practice Our Faith”: Young South IMT06294 “They Don’t Want Us To Practice Our Faith”: Young South Australian Muslim Women & Their Experiences of Religious Racism In High School Alia Imtoual School of Education Flinders University This paper draws on research conducted with a group of young Muslim women who attended a South Australian High School. It focuses on their experiences of religious racism and their sense of frustration with the school hierarchy whom they see as culpable in the existence of this racism. Placed within a post September 11 context in which religious racism against Muslims is increasing exponentially, this paper seeks to identify the intersections between broader public discourses about Muslims and Islam, and the lived realities of schooling as experienced by the study’s participants. This paper recognizes and honours the agency of the young women in resisting the religious racism but simultaneously also recognizes the limitation of this agency in rectifying or challenging religious racism in their school. Introduction In a post-September 111 Australian context negative public discourses about Muslims and Islam play a role in the increasing levels of religious racism and marginalisation experienced by Muslims (Lygo, 2004; Manning, 2004; HREOC, 2004; Imtoual, 2005 & 2006; Spalek 2002a & b). The beliefs and practices of Muslim communities and individuals have come under unprecedented public scrutiny and discussion over recent years and, in much of this discussion, Muslims and Islam have been framed by discourses of terrorism and an incommensurability between Islam and contemporary white2 Western societies. One particular discussion has been whether or not the Islamic practice of wearing hijab (headscarves for women) is appropriate in publicly funded schools. This debate has occurred in a number of countries such as France, Germany, the UK and Australia. This paper argues that public discourses and discussions about Islam and Muslims have implications for, and impacts on, the schooling experiences of young Muslims in Australian schools. Using interview data from a group of young Muslim women who attend a South Australian co-educational public high school, Buckingham High3, this paper highlights the implications of negative public discourses for Muslims in the form of religious racism and marginalisation. Such experiences are of particular importance for those who are committed to providing education for all students in a safe, supportive and inclusive environment. 1 Although only the events of September 11 2001 are referred to here, this phrase also implies other, more recent, violent events in which Muslims have been implicated such as the two Bali bombings and the 2005 attacks on the London transport system. 2 I use the term ‘white’ in this paper to refer not only to skin pigmentation but also to the institutionalised power and hegemony associated with a range of characteristics and attributes which include, among others, skin pigmentation (white), race/ethnicity (Anglo-Saxon/Celtic), religion (Western Christianity). See also Back & Solomos (2000), Docker & Fischer (2000), Dyer (1997), Frankenburg (1995), Hage (1998), McKay (1999), Hill (1997), Moreton-Robinson (2000), and Razack (1998). 3 Buckingham High is a suburban, middle class, state high school located in the Adelaide metropolitan area. The student population is drawn from surrounding suburbs as well as from across the wider metropolitan area and is made up of students from a wide variety of ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. In interviews with a number of young Muslim women who attended this school they revealed many narratives of religious racism both at Buckingham High and other South Australian High schools they had attended. Interviews were both in-depth and semi-structured, they were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Buckingham High is a pseudonym as are the names given to all the participants in the study. Islam and Schooling in Australia: the ‘hijab debate’ In Australia, as in many other white Western countries with growing Muslim minority communities, tensions have become evident in public discourses whereby Muslim communities have been linked to a potential for terrorism or radicalisation. Most often such discourses have led to discussions about the specific religious practices of Muslims and the appropriateness of these in the context of white Western societies. One religious practice that has come under increasing scrutiny is the wearing of hijab (headscarves). This paper argues that discourses around whether or not wearing hijab is appropriate or acceptable in government funded schools in Australia can be placed in a broader social context in which Muslims are constructed as uncivilized and barbaric, while the white nation (and those who enforce its ‘norms’) is constructed as the saviour of oppressed young Muslim women. This debate also indicates that public schools are seen as spaces where the agendas of the hegemonic white nation are played out with little real regard for the ‘best interests’ of the students who are caught up in these agendas and debates (see also Hage 1998). This paper argues that, such discourses have serious implications for the schooling experiences of young people, in this instance, young Muslim women in Australia. Recent social scientific research (Hage 1998; Imtoual 2004, 2006 & forthcoming - ARSR; Riggs and Augoustinos 2004) has explored how white Australia constructs a view of itself as legitimate and unified through the construction of certain Others as outside its frame of reference. In particular, such research has suggested that white Australia constructs the other most frequently as infantilised, ignorant or savage – or a combination of these. These constructions may be understood as a projection of white anxiety, and as such often operate in ways that are entirely irrelevant to the realities of the subjectivities of the other. Derek Hook, following Homi Bhabha’s theorisation of racism and racial stereotyping, argues that: it matters little what the racial other actual[ly] does or how they are…The details of the actual black man or woman, of how they live their lives and disprove the racist stereotypes of the white racist, are, in a sense, completely incidental to the latter’s racism (2005:29). For Hook, the construction of a demonised or infantilised other is central to the construction of a racist/colonial white subjectivity. When this argument is applied to the constructions of Muslim Australians, Islam is seen as inherently oppressive to women, a construction that positions Muslim Australians as being outside the frame of reference considered as central to the Australian nation. In other words, where democracy is considered to be equivalent to the rights of women, Islam is positioned as being inherently undemocratic, in contrast with the supposedly democratic Australian nation. In debates about whether or not hijabs should be banned in government schools in Australia Muslims have been positioned as either active oppressors of women, or unwittingly complicit in their subjugation, as embodied in the hijab. The Australian debate over banning the hijab began on August 26, 2005, when the federal Liberal backbencher Sophie Panopolous announced that, in her opinion, hijabs should be banned from public schools because ‘for a lot of younger people it seems to be more an act of rebellion than anything’ (Maiden & Lipman 26 August, 2005:6)4. Her comments were taken up with alacrity by fellow Liberal party colleague Bronwyn Bishop who said on national radio: If a young girl is going to a Muslim school and that’s part of their uniform, then that’s part of their uniform. But if they’re in public schools where there is a uniform, the uniform is a great leveller, it is a great sign of a society that is working with different schools, but it is being used by the sort of people who want to overturn our values, as an iconic emblem of defiance and a point of difference. If you saw interviews with certain young Muslim girls recently, they said they in fact wore that as a point of difference (Bishop 2005)5. In the ensuing days, many public commentators voiced either their support for Panopolous’ and Bishop’s proposal, or opposed it. Most of the public (white) commentators who voiced opposition to the idea did so, not because they support Muslim women’s choice to wear a hijab, but because 4 It is unclear what Panopolous or Bishop meant by ‘rebellion’: whether they referred to a youthful rebellion against the conformity of state school uniforms or a rebellion against ‘Australian values’, or indeed, both. 5 I am aware that this quotation does not appear to make grammatical sense but it is a verbatim quotation of an oral statement and so I am reluctant to attempt to edit it for clarity. they felt that a ban would be undemocratic and un-Australian and thus ultimately unproductive in the ‘reform’ of Islam. The following analysis explores how the terms of the debate are framed by white interpretations of Muslim identity and experience, rather than starting from the opinions of Muslim people them/ourselves. The framing of debates over the hijab on the terms set by white Australia serves yet again to reinforce the positioning of Muslim Australians and as always failing to approximate the norms of the ‘democratic white nation’6. In the ‘hijab debate’ the most vocal and influential commentators can be divided into two ‘camps’. On the one hand there are those who argued that the hijab must be banned, either because it represents an oppressive symbol of gendered oppression endemic to Islam (and which is inappropriate in a public school), or alternately because it is merely an act of defiance made by unassimilated Muslims (which is equally inappropriate in public schools). Either way, proponents of a ban believe it is necessary to ensure Muslim women’s ‘freedom’. One example of this comes from ethicist and feminist columnist Leslie Cannold (31 August, 2005:17), who argues that the hijab should be banned because it is seen by most (white) Australians as a ‘symbol of the gender- based oppression [Muslim] women suffer’.
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