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 : 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 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’. Cannold, and others like her, argue that Muslims should be forced to provide ‘freedom’ to their womenfolk whether they like it or not. Of course, this freedom comes in a particular format, one which unsurprisingly reinforces the hegemony of white interpretations of both Islam and the hijab.

On the ‘other side’ of the debate are those commentators who, whilst agreeing that the hijab is oppressive and an unpleasant emblem of women’s subjugation, propose that a ban is undemocratic and ‘unAustralian’ and instead that white (non Muslim) Australia should be empowering Muslim women so that they can ‘unveil’ of their own accord. In a clear example of this patronising position, the Herald Sun’s conservative columnist wrote that he did not support a ban on hijabs, although ‘It’s true a hijab can symbolise something many of us find confronting – the subjugation

6 Similar points are made in the debates concerning Sati (see Rajan 1990:3-6 and 10-12). of women’, because it would alienate ‘moderate Muslims’ and convince them that ‘they were indeed persecuted’ (Bolt 31 August, 2005:25). Bolt utilises a discourse which positions white

Australians as above the pettiness of a ban on hijabs, and instead sees them as the protectors of ‘the little girl in the hijab’. Such a discourse is evocative of colonial discourses of benevolence and paternalism in which the ‘native’ (that is, the inferior other) is seen as being in need of rescue

(Kolhatkar 2002). The Muslim subject is objectified and infantilised as a small child without the mental faculties to protect themselves from degradation, or to ‘progress’ without the kindly intervention of the paternal white subject (Bullock 2002).

Both of these positions operate regardless and irrespective of the voices and experiences of Muslim women. In these debates many of the white female commentators position themselves not only as

‘Australian’ but as ‘feminist’ (see Bishop 2005; Bone 1 September, 2005:15; Cannold 31 August,

2005:17). One implication of claiming a position as Australian or feminist is that it precludes

Muslim women from identifying as Australian and/or as feminist in any ‘true’ sense of the words.

That is, as long as Muslim women reject the viewpoints of these (white, feminist identified,

Australian) women and maintain an opposing view of their own subjectivity or the hijab issue, there is no public space for them to take up a self-construction as Australian or feminist. Indeed two women whose writing identified them as Muslim, as feminist, and as supportive of the choice to wear hijab, submitted opinion pieces to newspaper but neither of these were printed7.

Although the Age printed opinion pieces by a number of women on this issue, only one of them was a Muslim woman: while she deployed an Australian identity she did not identify as a feminist

(Hage-Ali 30 August, 2005:15). Thus, through the media practices of the newspapers feminist was equated with the discourse of ‘saving Muslim women’, and Muslim women were refused the space to identify as Muslim, pro-hijab and feminist.

7 I was one of these women. A colleague and friend from an interstate university emailed me a piece of writing she had submitted to the newspaper while unaware that I had also done so. The similarity of the arguments we made was remarkable. This refusal to recognise the subjectivity of Muslim women demonstrates, not only a projection of white anxieties about gender and oppression onto Muslim Australians (and Islam), but is also a reinscription of colonial discourses in which Muslim women were seen as oppressed and Muslim men as oppressors, which, by contrast, positioned ‘enlightened westerners’ as morally and intellectually superior (Said 1995, 1997; Yegenoglu 1998; Bullock 2002). Within these positions

Muslim women clearly are considered either as not intelligent enough to recognise their own oppression, or, as too downtrodden or indoctrinated to take action (Bullock 2002; Kolhatkar 2002).

Bronwyn Bishop, in her radio tirade against the hijab, described Muslim women who chose to wear hijab (and justified it as their right and as giving them a sense of freedom) as akin to a citizen of

Nazi Germany who thought they were free – ‘this is not the sort of definition of freedom I want for my country’ (Bishop 2005). She said further of these women that ‘neither can I accept someone who wants to be a little bit of a slave, or a little bit subservient’. Speaking as the morally and intellectually superior white woman, Bishop can condemn not only the ‘barbaric’ practice of wearing hijab and decree it to be outside of her imagined national space – ‘not for my country’ – but can also condemn Muslim women who wear hijab for being morally, spiritually and intellectually inferior to her (and other white Australian women) because, in her construction, they willingly choose to be ‘a little bit of a slave’.

Similarly, Age associate editor Pamela Bone believes that women who cover are colluding with their own oppression when they claim that wearing hijab is their choice. She constructs an argument in which she aligns women who wear hijab with women who petitioned against the right for women to vote in Australia, and women who opposed equal pay for equal work. In her own words, ‘there have always been women who have gone along with their subordinate status’ (Bone 1 September,

2005: 15). Unlike Bishop, however, Bone argues that a ban on hijabs would not ‘free’ Muslim women but would enact a further violence on an already oppressed group of people. Instead, she is

‘putting all my hopes into progressive Muslim women’ who she imagines will be instrumental in leading Muslim women into enlightenment (see also Yegenoglu, 1998).

Hook’s point that the realities of how the others lives their life or articulates their subjectivity bears little resemblance to the ways in which white peoples construct them (2005:29) is borne out in the debate outlined here. Media commentaries about Muslims and Muslim women in particular reinforce the construction of Muslim Australians as outside the white nation, irrespective of how

Muslim Australians articulate their own subjectivity. Indeed the gendered nature of these discourses, while ostensibly about ‘freeing’ Muslim women from oppression, act to silence and subordinate Muslim women by denying them a voice. The ‘hijab in state schools’ debate was framed within a white interpretation of Islam which reinscribed and reinforced colonial binaries such as us/them, modern/backward and free/subservient. In a debate which claimed to be about women’s rights, feminist discourses were used to construct Muslim women as being unable to adopt a feminist discourse, regardless of the reality of ‘how they [lived] their lives’, because being

Muslim was positioned as antithetical to women’s equality and freedom. It was also embedded in the debate about Australian identity and ‘values’. Several participants in this debate, such as

Panopolous and Bishop, espouse a neo-liberal vision of national identity in which individuals and choice figure prominently. Conformity in adopting a form of religious dress is positioned as antithetical to an Australian expression of individuality although, ironically, conformity to a school uniform is seen as exemplary ‘Australian’ behaviour.

The ‘hijab in schools’ debate has significant implications for educators and for (particularly) young

Muslim women who attend Australian schools. These young women are framed in the terms set by the debate. If they wear hijab they are framed as ‘backward’, ‘recalcitrant’, ‘defiant’, ‘anti- freedom’, ‘servile’, ‘oppressed’ and ‘barbaric’ and if they do not wear hijab they are framed as

‘progressive’, ‘modern’, ‘feminist’, ‘freedom-loving’ and ‘acceptable’. Neither of these frames take into account the actualities of the lives and experiences of young Muslim women in schools and merely serve to heighten the potential for religious racism against these students. Given the hegemony of the discourses that frame hijab in the above ways, it is likely that the overwhelming majority of teachers and school administrators would hold similar opinions. This likelihood increases the potential that schools would develop a culture that views young Muslim women who wear hijab with suspicion and disapproval and approaches all Muslim students with strongly defined (and largely unhelpful) preconceived ideas about Islam and Islamic practices.

Given international precedents of hijab bans, such as those in Turkey, France and Germany, the airing of similar argument here in Australia cannot be ignored. Weakly worded assurances from the

Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, that such a ban would not be implemented are inadequate and unreassuring. Such debates add to a context in which young Muslim women in

Australia feel marginalised and in which expressions of religious racism are given the space to flourish (Lygo, 2004; Manning, 2004; HREOC 2004; Imtoual, 2005, 2006 & (forthcoming) JASt).

While the proponents of a hijab ban ostensibly called for a banning of the hijab only in state schools, an institution over which the government has some direct control, the discourses present in the debate indicated that the ‘innappropriateness’ of the hijab was not limited to state school but simply that they felt unable to advocate (or legislate) for the banning of hijab in other settings or public institutions. Thus, young Muslim women who wear hijab (or would like to wear hijab) in state schools were forced to bear the brunt of a much broader anti-Muslim agenda, of which the anti-hijab debate was one aspect.

Young South Australian Muslim Women in a State High School: experiences of religious racism Schools are places where ideologies about national identity, religion and belonging are played out.

As such, they are frequently contested spaces in which religious racism (and other forms of racism are experienced, see also: Almond and Woolcock 1978; Rizvi 1990; Hatcher and Troyna 1993; Soudien 1998; Aveling 2002; McLeod and Yates 2003; Shain 2003; Kameniar 2004). The South

Australian public8 education system was created with the 1851 Education Act which made provisions for ‘good secular instruction based on the Christian Religion’ (Almond and Woolcock

1978:5). As Kameniar argues, ‘the authors of the Act understood, indeed presumed, that

Christianity was an integral part of the identity of the colony and not something separate from it’

(Kameniar 2005:95). This paper agrees with Kameniar that ‘attempts to expunge Christianity from conceptions of “secular” education have merely served to make its presence less visible but no less powerful’ (Kameniar 2005:125) and one of the effects of this embedded but unacknowledged

Christianity is that students of ‘other’ faiths often feel marginalised. For students who identify with a religion which is already demonised and marginalised in public discourses, namely Islam, one result of such privileging of Christianity is to further entrench the oppositionality of Islam as a religious tradition (Said 1995; Yegenoglu 1998) and thus impact negatively on their schooling experiences. Drawing on research with young Muslim women in a South Australian high school, this paper presents a number of powerful narratives which demonstrate the marginalisation racism these young women experience. Although much of the material in this paper relates to the young women’s experiences at Buckingham High, some of the narratives touch on schooling experiences these women have had in other schools. This demonstrates that religious racism is not simply pathologically endemic to Buckingham High, but is instead, illustrative of a more widespread experience.

In a narrative which demonstrates this, one of the young women, Shakira told of the reason why she began attending Buckingham High:

Shakira (S):…………………before that I went to a [denominational] school.

Alia (A): Oh so why’d you move schools?

8 In Australia ‘public’ schools are those entirely funded by tax payers via state government funding. ‘Private’ or ‘independent’ schools refer to non-government funded schools such as those run by religious organisations. While these are often thought of as being funded differently to public schools, most of them receive a certain level of government funding, (and now more per student on average than public schools). S: ……………..cos…um, I really hated my last school. It was okay until, ‘til I started wearing hijab..um..and then all this stuff happened…like…do you want me to tell you what happened?

A: Yeah, go on.

S: There was a whole school photo and…when I actually started wearing hijab I went to the principal and said like is it gonna be okay and stuff and she’s like “yeah that’s fine as long as you wear it the same…it goes with the school uniform”. So we organised that I’d either wear cream or brown cos my uniform was brown.

A: Mmmmm.

S: Ummm…and then we had a whole school photo….aand…so I was the only girl in the whole school who was wearing hijab at the time and my school was from reception to year 13…um..so we had this whole school photo and we got it back and what they’d actually done to my photo was, like…they’d air-brushed it out so it looked like I just had brown…like they’d sort of coloured my hijab | in brown

A | Oh my God! |

S: | So I wouldn’t stand out! So I was really, like…upset, and I just went to the, like principal and I just sort of went off at her, like…saying “how would you feel if someone did that to one of..to your hair, you know…?”…and she said “oh well, the, the, we did it because we didn’t think you’d want to stand out so much”…I said “well if I didn’t wanna stand out so much I wouldn’t be wearing it in the first place”.

A: Yep.

S: So that was a bit stupid but I was, you know…um…then she started trying to blame it on the photographer and…I just said “You’re just doing it cos you don’t want, you know, to be seen as a school, a [denominational] school with a Muslim girl in it sort of thing”…um, well the bad thing was that this photo, like only happens every, every ten years or something like that and everyone in the school gets one so that’s…all of them have this stupid photo of me, like with my…hair |

A: | Air-brushed, yeah |

S: | Yeah, so that was pretty bad, so um…yeah.

The actions of Shakira’s former principal may be understood in terms of structural racism in that she took on a ‘managerial’ role (Hage, 1998) in relation to the school space. Being a denominational school with no history of identifiably Muslim students attending (that is, no record of young Muslim women wearing hijab attending the school), the principal acted to control the public image (in the form of a photograph) of her school. Her concept of ‘public image’ was one in which the hijab did not figure. While previously having ‘consented’ to allow Shakira to incorporate the hijab into the school uniform, when confronted with the evidence that Shakira’s Muslimness would be indelibly linked to the school through the photograph, she did not allow this to occur and acted to erase Shakira’s Muslim identity by asking for her hijab to be airbrushed to look like hair.

So why did this racist act occur? One explanation is that the principal could not comprehend

Shakira’s commitment to wearing her hijab and acted to minimise her ‘difference’ to the other students so that Shakira would not have to face the embarrassment of seeing a photograph of herself wearing hijab when she later ‘came to her senses’. Perhaps the principal viewed Shakira’s wearing of hijab in the same way Bronwyn Bishop did – as an act of teenage rebellion and defiance – and thus a passing ‘phase’. However, this explanation does not take into account why the principal felt empowered to erase Shakira’s identity.

Schools are, to a certain extent, private spheres. That is, they operate on a day-to-day level within the confines of the school walls and the students’ homes. What occurs within the school can be regulated by the school structures and hierarchy. Thus, when Shakira asked permission from the principal to wear hijab, an outward sign of her Muslim identity, to a denominational school she was recognising that the principal, who was the embodiment of the school structures, had power to regulate the ‘private’ sphere of the school. The principal initially did not feel that Shakira’s hijab threatened the private operations of the school and so allowed her to wear it provided it was in the colours of the school uniform. However, when a school photograph (which occurred once every ten years) was commissioned, it had the effect of fixing the staff and student body in time and making public the private sphere. That is, the principal felt that through the photograph that which had previously been kept private was made public: Shakira’s Muslimness as embodied in her hijab. The principal’s overtly racist act of erasure indicates that it was unacceptable for a Christian denominational school’s public image to include hijab-wearing Muslim woman, an analysis which

Shakira narrated to the principal when she confronted her regarding her behaviour; “You’re just doing it cos you don’t want, you know, to be seen as a school, a [denominational] school with a

Muslim girl in it sort of thing”. It was this act of racism which directly led Shakira to leaving this school and searching for a school she felt would support, or at least accept, both privately and publicly, her Muslim identity. The public reputation of Buckingham High matched the type of school Shakira and her family were looking for. However, as much of this paper demonstrates,

Buckingham High ultimately did not match her expectations with regards to its inclusivity and acceptance of her religious difference.

Indeed, many of the young women felt that Buckingham High, contrary to public statements about the school9 did not support them in the active fulfilment of their religious identities. They also felt that Buckingham High often failed to recognise that it operated in, and had perpetuated, an environment of secular Christianity in which students of ‘other’ faiths felt uncomfortable practicing their religion. By ‘secular Christianity’ this paper refers to the ways of living, thinking, behaving and viewing the world that is informed by Christian theology but which does not include the day-to- day implementation and practice of Christian rites and rituals.

In one example which illustrates the marginalisation of the young women’s faith, Intisar, Shakira,

Khadija and Jaleelah provided separate but similar accounts of their attempts to gain a space in which to complete one of their compulsory five daily prayers (Thuh’r)10. They indicated that there was considerable reluctance on the part of the school hierarchy to provide a room that the young women felt was suitable (the women had to ask “a couple of times…[they’d] asked a teacher,

[they’d] asked the principal twice [and they’d] asked the counsellor” before being allocated a room). There were many and long negotiations with the school and eventually Buckingham High allowed the students to use a small office for a few minutes every lunch time. While this appeared

9 These public statements were made in a range of school promotional materials as well as on official DECS websites. 10 Completing five daily prayers is one of the central tenets of Islam (known as one of the ‘five pillars of Islam’). The first prayer is Fajr and is prayed just before sunrise, the second is Thuh’r and is prayed just after midday, the third is Asr and this is prayed in the late afternoon, Magrib is the prayer just after sunset, and the final prayer is Isha which is prayed early in the night. Praying all these prayers daily is obligatory on every Muslim except those in special circumstances such as illness, menstruation or just after childbirth. to be an acceptable outcome for the women, on seeing the room, they realised that the space was entirely inappropriate as it served mainly as the personal office for the school’s Christian chaplain.

Not only did the room contain a number of Christian religious artefacts which would have been visible to the girls as they prayed, this was the private office of a member of staff and the young women felt uncomfortable in asking the staff member to vacate her office every lunch hour so that they could perform their prayers, despite the Chaplain’s apparent willingness to do so. The school’s refusal to take into consideration the power difference between the students and the staff member is another indication of its unwillingness to accommodate the young women’s request. The presence of the Chrisitian religious objects in the office meant that the office became, in the eyes of the young women, a Christian place of worship and therefore an inappropriate place to perform Islamic prayers. The school was unable or unwilling to recognise the inappropriateness of the office space despite the young women’s obvious reluctance to utilise the space.

In this narrative the young women identified the always present but rarely articulated assumptions of Buckingham High; that in spite of it being a ‘secular’ government school it is also primarily a

Christian school and that there is little room for those of ‘other’ faiths to actively practice their religion. In her interview Shakira was unable to attribute a reason for Buckingham High’s reluctance to support her wish to complete Thuh’r at the school, other than to say it was “’cos they don’t want us to practise our faith”. The actions of the school need to be understood in their broader context in which public displays of religiosity are deemed inappropriate per se, but in where these acts are associated with religions other than Western forms of Christianity, they are even more inappropriate (Maddox, 2005). Thus, the school, which prided itself on a liberal and inclusive attitude to its students’ religiosity was able to welcome a Christian chaplain into its community, and actively supported the extra-curricular and lunchtime activities organised by Buckingham High’s

Christian students, yet acts of religiosity by Muslim students were deemed inappropriate (although this was never publicly acknowledged by the school) and stonewalled where possible. This was again evident in the Muslim students’ attempts to have halal food provided at the school canteen. Khadija and Intisar expressed their concern that the lack of halal11 food provided at either the school canteen or during Home Economics lessons was a further indication of entrenched religious racism against Muslim students.

Intisar (I): So…you don’t eat it, you don’t trust those things because the teachers doesn’t care [about] Muslim girls she just care about the [inaudible] those girls who doesn’t…vegetarian people?

K: There’s vegetarian food but there’s no halal food!

In this example, the young women feel that Buckingham High is operating on a level which, despite its self-promotion as a ‘multicultural/multifaith’ and ‘inclusive’ school that caters to difference, in practice refuses to support the religious difference of its Muslim students. The young women feel that the school is willing to support those who ‘fit’ into what is largely acceptable within a broadly secular Christian society, as vegetarianism is, but not willing to accommodate the needs of ‘other’ faiths12. Although these young women indicated that they would not expect such accommodation in other schools, they feel that Buckingham High’s promotion of itself as willing to support non-

Christian students is disparate to their lived realities.

Resisting Religious Racism

The young women spoke of numerous incidents of religious racism that had occurred during their time at Buckingham High. In particular they spoke about experiencing verbal abuse, ridicule and overt hostility from their peers. At the crux of many of these stories of racism were negative, stereotypical ideas about Muslims in general, and, Muslim women in particular. The most common representations of Muslim women that the participants

11 Halal refers to food which meets the strict dietary code of Islam. Foods such as pig and pig-derived products, meat not slaughtered according to Islamic practices, or food prepared in utensils containing either of these are prohibited among other things. These guidelines are drawn from the Quran (2:172-173) and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wasallam – may the peace and blessings of Allah be on him). 12 The young women also indicated that there was no provision of kosher food for Jewish students either. encountered were that they are ‘terrorists’ (“[at] first they think…I’m a terrorist…that I’m going to kill them”), migrants with a poor command of spoken English (“they were saying…‘how long

[have] you been in Australia?’ and “you speak very good English”), or meek/quiet/submissive

(“people were just like ‘I thought you’d be really quiet [or] didn’t talk”).

During the interviews the young women were questioned as to whether or not these representations were accurate. This questioning provided opportunity for the young women to articulate ways in which they deliberately defy and subvert these negative representations, as it became clear that there was no accuracy in them when applied to these women.

S: Yep. The whole reason why I wore hijab is cos I was sick of kinda being just one of those people who, like I’d be in a conversation and someone would start saying something really, like, um discriminatory about Islam or something like that and they wouldn’t even realise that I’m Muslim, and I’d be like “I’m Muslim”. They’re like “Oh”, you know, and they’d sort of think and then they’d go “Oh sorry for what I said” and this way like people sort of they…I dunno, they just, like people know that I’m Muslim…Aaand, I also wanted to kind of break the stereotype that you know I’m not one of those, like, just “fresh-off-the-boat-doesn’t-speak-any-English” kinda thing and, like, that I do stuff, like, I’m involved in the school and I’ve got heaps of friend, you know, from different groups kinda thing, so you know…I just wanted to break the stereotype you know that I’m really quiet; that I’m not afraid to talk and stand, I can stand up for myself.

In this narrative, Shakira indicated that she had begun wearing hijab not only as a commitment to her religion but also as a public sign of this commitment. She was ‘sick’ of not being recognised and acknowledged as a Muslim woman particularly by those who were voicing racist comments.

She also wished to overturn dominant stereotypes of hijab-wearing Muslim women (as oppressed or recent migrants or as not speaking English). Shakira’s narrative indicates the complexities of identity and of the decision to wear hijab - a complexity which calls for the banning of ‘hijab’ fail to account for or recognise.

K: …when I first got here they thought I didn’t speak English!

A: Mhmmm. K: (laughs) So they, I got introduced to one girl in my homegroup and she went “H-I, H-O-W A-R-E Y-O-U?” and I just went “Yeah I’m good and how are you?” and she was just like ‘wow’ and she got startled. And she actually said to me “you know, when I first met you I didn’t think you spoke English”.

Khadija’s narrative further illustrates how a good command of spoken English can be used to challenge stereotypes. She indicates that when she was spoken to, by a non-Muslim Buckingham

High student on her arrival at the school, in that slow, patronising manner some native English speakers reserve for new migrants, she responded by emphasising her articulate knowledge of spoken English. Her obvious familiarity with the language and her broadly Australian accent

“startled” the other student because it was so different to the heavily accented, slow, hesitant

English she was clearly expecting. This suggests that, as Derrida (2000) argues, language denotes

“the values, the norms, the meanings that inhabit culture” (2000:133). To speak in the ‘mother- tongue’ is to locate oneself within the dominant culture. When Khadija spoke with an Australian accent while also wearing hijab she fractured, confused and confounded the hegemonic cultural norm.

When discussing the religious racism that the young women experienced, it became apparent that rather than reporting the incidents and allowing the school to deal with them, the young women preferred to “take care of it themselves”. The young women attributed this reluctance to their feeling that religious racism was deeply embedded within the structures of Buckingham High and that their complaints would not be dealt with appropriately.

When reflecting on their methods of ‘taking care’ of racism, Intisar fantasised that she would hit the perpetrator with “a big stone” if she felt the situation was serious enough but had never taken this action, instead she just verbally harangued them. Similarly, Shakira would “make them feel really stupid about what they said” by publicly (and verbally) attacking them for their “stupid and ignorant” views. Zohra and Khadija agreed that if someone “was coming to me with violence…by all means I’d smash ‘em as well” although violence would be a last resort.

Shakira’s narration of the way in which she publicly humiliates the aggressor is a ‘tried and true’

method for her, as is the way she refuses to show her attackers that their words have stung. She

believes that maintaining calm in the face of the attack is one way to confuse and thwart the

racist attacks (Troyna & Hatcher, 1992; Shain, 2000; The Runnymede Trust, 1997). The

maintenance of a calm appearance, however, should not imply that the racism does not hurt, as

Shakira and Khadija both said that they often “collapsed” in private after a racist confrontation.

Zohra’s responses to racism differed from those expressed by the other young women. She said

that she would often “let things go” and in doing so, not give her attacker any satisfaction of

knowing that the racism had an impact on her She indicated that when accused of being

connected to incidents of ‘terrorism’, she would respond by questioning her attackers on their

knowledge of injustices committed upon Muslim people around the world. This ‘counter-

questioning’ can be explained as a way of demonstrating that acts of ‘terrorism’ are often a

matter of perspective and that the hegemonic discourse which embodies ‘terrorism’ in the form

of Muslims is inaccurate and racist.

In other research conducted with young Muslim women in South Australia, one of the ways that they resisted direct and overt racism was through laughter (Imtoual 2006). As explained by one participant, Naima, laughing at racism is one way of not allowing perpetrators of racism to gain the satisfaction of seeing their jibes sting. In this way the women refuse to allow racism to ruin their day:

How did we deal with it? Well we just laughed it off because there’s not much you can do … So you really shouldn’t make anything of it. Anyway it didn’t affect me too much. (Naima) Laughter is also used to resist long-term and more public forms of racism such as media representations and comments by public figures. The use of laughter as resistance in this way can be seen in the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s (IHRC) annual spoof awards13 in which individuals and organisations who are seen to be guilty of religious racism (what the IHRC calls

‘islamophobia’) against Muslims and Islam are ‘presented’ with awards under categories such as

‘Most Islamophobic Media Personality of the Year’ and ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ (Crittenden

2004)14.

The young women at Buckingham High said they often spoke about racist incidents among themselves and shared much laughter when doing so. This was also true in the interviews I shared with them. The laughter may be understood as a strategy through which the women are able to create spaces in which they can then enact agency. Matthews (1996) also argues this in relation to young ‘Asian’ women in schools. However, the laughter may have served another purpose:

A: Allright….so it’s not laughter to hide pain?

(silence)

A: To hide the hurt that racism…

K: Depends how serious it is.

S: Yeah I think it sometimes is…True dat sista!

Everyone: (laughs)

In this conversation it was telling that when I asked the initial question in the group interview there was silence for almost a minute during which time no-one made eye contact with one another. It is

13 Using laughter along with naming and satire is also a long-standing western feminist strategy with examples such as the Guerrilla Girls (see http://www.guerrillagirls.com) and the New South Wales ‘Ernie Awards’ which are annual spoof awards given to the perpetrators of highly sexist and misogynist comments and hosted by a NSW parliamentarian, Meredith Burgmann (for information on the 2004 Ernie Awards see http://www.abc.net.au/thingo/txt/s1180534.htm). 14 Often the awards are ‘accepted’ on behalf of the ‘winners’ by comedic characters who reflect something about the person who has won, or somehow relates to the specific incident that resulted in them winning the award. For example, the 2003 Most Islamophobic Media Award was won by the Fox Network and the award was collected by the ‘first Asian Fox hunter’, that is, a Muslim man of Asian background dressed in the traditional British fox-hunting outfit of red riding jacket, hard hat and jodhpurs. This of course was a pun on the word ‘fox’ and the idea of a news-hunt, it was also a comment on the white-centric nature of fox-hunting which is seen as one of the quintessentially ‘British’ sports and therefore is linked to notions of citizenship and belonging (for further information see the IHRC’s website http://www.ihrc.org). also highly significant that the conversation was quickly turned to a joke by Shakira after which everyone laughed heartily and changed the subject. This excerpt illustrates that the responses of the young women to their situation can be ambivalent

While it is true that laughter is used as a strategy of resistance by young Muslim women, sometimes laughter itself is used as a racist weapon against these women. In these situations, alternative strategies of resistance are needed. Another participant, Omayma, explained her reaction to having laughter and ridicule used against her:

When they laugh at me and say, ‘Look at her – she looks like a nun!’15, I don’t really care because I know that they’re going to tease me and say these things. I was expecting that stuff so it doesn’t affect me that much. For her, the expectation of racism is enough for her to counteract the ill effects of racism16.

However, Beagan argues that laughter and ridicule in the form of racist jokes are particularly

‘effective’ forms of racist violence because they may appear so trivial. She argues that ‘racist jokes are “just” jokes, yet they entrench the power of the dominant group’ (Beagan 2003:858) and so have a cumulative effect that ‘significantly [increases] the level of stress experienced by the recipient’ (Beagan 2003:859). Thus racist ‘jokes’, one aspect of ‘everyday’ racism, are not something to be laughed off as trivial or insignificant. As Beagan argues, when dealing with relatively ‘minor’ incidents of racism such as verbal abuse or racist joking, most of these incidents

‘have to be allowed to pass, to protect one’s time, energy, sanity or bodily integrity’ (Beagan

2003:859). For the young Muslim women in this research, considerable time and energy is spent dealing with and resisting religious racism. Such emotional, physical and psychological expenditure can only occur to the detriment of their wellbeing and their educational experience and this is particularly the case in the context of schooling environments where the young women do not receive adequate support from the school, and/or where the school refuses to address religious racism.

15 In terms of a discussion of religion, this is an interesting example as it demonstrates that although Christianity is embedded within Australian society, overt displays of Christianity outside certain locations are represented as Other. In an overtly Christian society this display would be seen as a mark of inclusion. 16 This also shows how she has to manage the racism – by expecting it and not letting affect her too much. Conclusion This paper argues that young Muslims, particularly young Muslim women in high school experience a significant degree of religious racism. This racism manifests itself in a number of ways; from entrenched school practises to individual instances of verbal abuse or hostility. These experiences also need to be placed in a broader social context where the ‘place’ of Islam and

Muslims in Australia is under attack from politicians, public intellectuals, commentators, journalists and the general public. Debates around such issues as the proposed banning of hijab in state schools adds to a climate in which young Muslim women feel marginalised from mainstream schooling and educational structures and processes as well as the increasing likelihood that these young women will experience religious racism.

This paper also argues that the variety of responses to religious racism indicates that, although it is a significant part of the lives of the young Muslim women in this study, they do not allow themselves to become passive ‘victims’. In effect they are exercising agency over their lives and the situations they experience. This agency is most clearly identified in the variety of strategies they use to resist religious racism such as, laughter, ‘fighting back’, refusing to engage with the racism, and the avoidance of potentially racist situations or locations. However, it needs to be understood that the notion of ‘women’s agency’, while disavowing the labelling of the young women as ‘victims’, needs to be understood in a context where oppression and subordination act to limit the extent to which the women can enact agency (Parker 2005:2). While it may be politically strategic to claim

‘agency’ for young Muslim women when they resist the impact or effects of religious racism, this agency is limited, and to claim otherwise risks trivialisation of racist practices and their effects and may allow schools and educators to disassociate themselves from implementing measures to reduce or prevent religious racism. While this paper has drawn upon the experiences of young Muslim women who have attended

Buckingham High school, it is important that educational researchers and policy makers, teachers and schools do not dismiss their experiences as symptomatic of this particular school. The experiences of the young women in this paper are echoed by other young Muslim women (and other Muslims generally) in a number of other studies and about a number of other schools

(HREOC 2004; Imtoual 2006; Shain 2003). They are illustrative of a wider public context in which religious racism towards Muslims is common. It is also important that those involved in the schooling and education of young Muslims acknowledge and address the religious racism they may experience. Implicit in this acknowledgment is a commitment to addressing the institutionalised religious racism which may be present in the school structures and processes. Even simple things such as providing suitable places for prayer and/or the provision of religiously appropriate food would go a long way towards reassuring Muslim students that they are valued members of a school community. Perhaps, when schools begin to take religious racism seriously Muslim students like the young women in this study, will no longer feel the need to ‘take care of things themselves’ and will be willing to report incidents. Perhaps too, they will no longer have reason to believe that schools such as Buckingham High ‘don’t want us to practice our faith’. Reference List Almond, P. C. & P. G. Woolcock (eds.) 1978, Dissent in Paradise: Religious Education

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