Stop Blaming Ignorance for Islamophobia

In the popular discourse Muslims are the regular target of diatribe. It is also just as expected to answer such prejudicial behaviour with allegations of ‘ignorance’. So if someone is a bigot, it is because they are ‘ignorant’. If someone discriminates, it is because they are ‘ignorant’. Now, nobody is denying that this is true at least some of the time, but such a way of thinking possesses a serious flaw.

If we assume that a bigoted person is so due to the state of being ignorant, it becomes implicit that this person’s attitude is an irrational aberration, in contrast to rational, non-ignorant society at large. By extension, we go on to assume that this bigotry can be remedied by the removal of ignorance. Thus, ‘educating’ that person, in removing his/her ignorance, makes that person no longer a bigot, bringing him/her in line with ‘normal’ society.

Can anyone see the problem here? Bigotry is seen as the fault of the person. It is up to that person to change, because they are guilty and we are innocent. The onus for tackling religious prejudice is put solely on the shoulders of the individual. But no individual exists in a vacuum. Such an approach effectively whitewashes the responsibility of institutional, structural and ideological factors in contributing to this prejudice.

We keep harping for individuals to ‘stop being so ignorant’ whilst the media continually employs sensationalist, reductionist and value-laden language. Whilst minority communities continue to bear the brunt of socioeconomic disadvantage. Whilst anti-terror laws practically single out Muslims as THE threat. Whilst politicians continually use Muslim-related issues as a convenient vote-buying tool. Whilst the popular subconscious still holds as axiomatic a worldview grounded in Orientalist tropes which cannot help but view Islam and the ‘East’ as inherently inferior - culturally, morally, intellectually and spiritually.

Ignorance? More often than not the most vocal and influential Islamophobes are highly educated, charismatic and intelligent, and actively seek knowledge related to Islam which they use to further their agendas. Indeed, far from being irrational, Islamophobia is a product of a highly rational system of power relations which instigates and reinforces oppression and dominance at multiple levels.

Now if I may hearken back to my university days, in the field of public health, there is a very famous analogy which lecturers are forever paraphrasing to first-year students as a means of illustrating a key principle of the discipline. Basically, students are asked to picture being beside a flowing river, and seeing a struggling person in the water. Of course, one would jump in and rescue him/her. But then another unfortunate person comes floating into view. And so you rescue that person as well. But yet more and more people come floating by, crying for help. You want to rescue them too – but have you ever considered – just who the heck is upstream pushing all those people into the river?

It is precisely these ‘upstream’ factors which we need to deal with if we are to achieve any real progress in tackling Islamophobia.