Last year, I visited Indonesia as part of the Australia-Indonesia Muslim Exchange Program, an annual initiative that aims to build understanding of the nature of Islam across the two countries. Five of us shared our experiences as Australian Muslims living in different states. We fielded a range of questions from our Indonesian counterparts—some harmless, others loaded. One female university student pointed to her jilbāb and asked, “Will I be okay to wear this in Australia when I go there to study?”
The question shook me out of my self-imposed stupor of positivity. To be brutally honest, or to take the easy way out?
I decided to tell her about a recent trip to my local grocery store. I was combing through the ingredients list on a new brand of low-fat flavoured yoghurt (it is truly amazing, the petty details one can recall) when I felt something jerk my head backwards, leaving my headscarf tangled around my neck in a chokehold.
More confused than scared, I turned to see a furious man yelling at me, spit frothing at his lips. It took me a good ten seconds to process the tirade of abuse, and a minute to discover that my head was uncovered. I slowly realised that this man had pulled off my headscarf. Three bystanders now stood around me, looking concerned. One of them was an employee of the grocery store who had seen the exchange, and was now offering to ring the police.
It dawned on me that this was an Islamophobic attack like the ones I had read about in the news or heard about from friends. I will never forget the look of hurt in the man’s eyes when he realised that the slowly gathering crowd was not on his side. His words are etched in my memory: “I can’t help it,” he said as he was firmly ushered out by the store manager. “They’re bloody everywhere.”
As I relayed the incident to the Indonesian university student, I made sure to mention myriad examples of my wonderful experiences as a university student in Australia. But as I spoke I realised that I had never before told anyone about the grocery store incident—not my husband, not my family, not my friends. I had quietly written about it in my diary, filed it away for later reflection, and then dutifully booked an appointment with a counsellor so the memory would not resurface later and affect my hectic schedule. I felt mature, brave, and proud of myself for handling it well.
Four months later, as I sat in my room listening to the Home Affairs and Migration Minister Peter Dutton talk about how Australia embraces its cultural and religious diversity, I couldn’t help but remember the two Islamophobic incidents I have experienced since I started to wear the headscarf two years ago. I felt anger uncoiling slowly in my chest.
I am pissed off.
The Islamophobia in Australia Report published in 2017 revealed that Muslim women—particularly hijab-wearing women and their children—bore the brunt of most Islamophobic attacks between 2014 and 2016. Some 79.6 percent of victims were women. Most perpetrators were men.
The report was unveiled at the same time as Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt in Parliament. It was around the time that Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the 2015 Queensland Young Australian of the Year, was hounded out of Australia fearing for her safety because of backlash over a tweet she’d made to illustrate the plight of asylum seekers—a tweet she later took down.
Recently, I met with a high-ranking minister from the Liberal party who waved aside the term Islamophobia and demanded that I name one hate-fuelled incident that I had personally experienced. When I did so, describing the aforementioned incident in vivid detail, she had the courtesy to look ashamed and uncomfortable. But then she collected herself and recommenced her heavily rehearsed pitch about Australia being a multicultural country that was proud of its diversity.
I have heard many versions of this speech in my encounters with politicians, but this was the first time I was offered a seemingly simple solution: Take off the hijab, and assimilate. She then commended me for breaking the stereotypes associated with Arab women by having a job, being articulate and well-presented, and not “sounding angry”.
There are many problems to unpack here, the least of them being that I am not Arab and had made my ethnic origin clear at the very start of the conversation. But this is the root of Islamophobia: Muslims are made out to be one uniform entity. In reality, Muslims in Victoria hail from at least 75 different ethnic backgrounds, each with their own set of cultural practices which they try to reconcile with their Islamic beliefs and rituals. In many instances, cultural practices trump religion.
Months ago, I participated in Speed Date a Muslim, a monthly event where non-Muslims can ask Muslims anything; no question is off the table, provided that it is respectfully broached. There were plenty of questions regarding patriarchal practices. Many of the non-Muslim women presented themselves as white saviours, intervening on behalf of the oppressed woman in the niqāb, and seemed unable to distinguish between cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation, and religious injunctions surrounding such practices.
As per usual, it fell to the Muslim women to patiently explain the differences between culture and religion, and to remind everyone that there is no such thing as a homogenous Muslim identity in Australia.
At an interfaith gathering where I spoke about Islamic practice and my status as a woman in Islam, a woman in the audience commended me for my excellent English, and proudly assured me that any refugee or migrant who “assimilated” and subscribed to “Australian values” was welcome in her home.
She took affront when I asked her to explain what Australian values were, and she could not come up with an answer.
Similarly, at Eltham Station, an old lady warmly grasped my hands and told me earnestly that all refugees were welcome in Australia. The pity on her face was quickly replaced with shock and then disappointment when I said that I had moved to Australia as an international student.
Unfortunately, this is the approach of many well-meaning leaders whose empathy and support only stretches as far as the moulds they create for us: oppressed Muslim women in need of rescuing. They fail to recognise the pivotal role that Muslim women play in their local communities and their households. I have lost count of the number of times I have had to reassure my colleagues that 1) my hijab was not forced on me by family, 2) I was the first woman in my family to wear it, and 3) I had exercised my full agency in making this choice. Muslim women have somehow become spokespeople for the religion, obliged to answer endless ignorant questions that could sometimes be answered through a simple Google search.
Frankly, it gets tiring.
Muslims comprise only 2.6 percent of the population of Australia, but based on media coverage, one need not be blamed for believing that we are “taking over the country”. Irresponsible news stories that strengthen the narrative of the angry Muslim or the pitiful hijabi do not do anything to help mitigate the rising incidences of Islamophobia. Muslims are typically portrayed as helpless refugees fleeing war and terror, or evil freeloaders bringing misery to the first-world countries that have so generously accommodated them.
In 2017, Peter Dutton made it very clear that he thought being a practising Muslim was incompatible with Australian identity, and even expressed regret that many Lebanese refugees were settled in Australia in the 1970s. This sends a terrible message to young Muslims who are already struggling with an identity crisis. Our political leaders must refrain from making hateful, irresponsible statements that then become the standard by which a minority community’s actions are measured. The number of tokenistic food and film festivals that we host, or the numbers of extravagant iftars to which we invite politicians should not determine our viability as a minority in Australia.
If in general a community is not to be judged by the actions of one person, why is this precept not applied to Muslims, who must collectively and visibly and repeatedly condemn a terrorist attack to prove their “Australianness” and to protect themselves and their children from racial abuse? Why must we smile, bow, and scrape to be accepted and be deemed harmless?
Muslims in Australia are trying on a daily basis to shift and reclaim the rhetoric around us. We know that one can be a practising Muslim and embody Australian values. It is time for Australians as a whole to embrace this reality, so that young Muslims do not have to deal with the baggage and labels that their elders have been grappling with for decades. If change is to come, it has to be now, and it requires letting Muslims lead the discourse around our complex identities.
Cover image via Charandev Singh, Facebook
About the author
Anam Javed was born in Pakistan and went to school in Pakistan and Malaysia. As an adult, she has lived in Brunei Darussalam and Melbourne, Australia.
Anam holds a green Pakistani passport along with a blue Australian passport. Pakistan has been flagged by the Australian government as a "terrorist country", and yet she considers it home. This dichotomy defines her daily struggle to find a sense of belonging in Australia.
As part of the 'Speed Date a Muslim' event, she answers questions about Islam on a daily basis, whether in person or online, and also feels the need to prove her "Australian" identity constantly. Pakistan is home, and always will be, even though going back does not seem to be an option. Turn on the news and you'll know why.
Anam teaches a large public high school and represents the sum of the ethnic diversity at her school. She would like to continue travelling the world, and work for the United Nations in any capacity. Anam also hope to live long enough see an inclusive Australia that values its multiethnic landscape, and offers up its "boundless plains" to anyone who needs a safe haven. A far-fetched goal is to write a fantasy book series, and eventually tick off all 63 items on her bucket list.