On the 21st of January 2023, far-right Danish politician Rasmussen Paludan set the Islamic holy book— the Quran— on fire. He claimed that his action was a “democratic right” as a means of “freedom of expression”. Paludan is one of many perpetrators who have attempted to spread hatred towards and cause disruption in the Muslim community. It is sad to think that Islamophobia has crept its way to arguably become a systemic injustice, when it never should have been. The idea of having to draw a line just does not seem right. Should any of this even be tolerated before a line is drawn?
Unpacking Islamophobia
According to the United Nations (UN), Islamophobia refers to the “fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world.” More importantly, it is “motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.” The UN’s definition interprets Islamophobia as a “form of racism, whereby Islamic religion, tradition and culture are seen as a ‘threat’ to the Western values”. This is because Islamophobia does not just largely impact Muslims negatively, but non-Muslims as well; based on perceptions of nationality, racial or ethnic background.
Islamophobia is a plaguing issue in today’s world. Even in seemingly advanced societies today, there are still many individuals and organisations that fail to coexist peacefully with people that believe in different theologies and ideologies. Jasmine Zine’s “Islamophobic Industry” illuminates possible culprits: media outlets, political figures and far-right, white nationalist groups. One characteristic these actors have in common is that they hold positions of power, making the spread of hate and misinformation on Islam even more concerning since they can significantly steer and influence masses.
FIFA Men’s World Cup 2022 — Breeding Ground for Islamophobia?
Being the most prestigious tournament in the world, where 32 men’s national football teams compete to emerge as the champion, it’s safe to say the FIFA World Cup can make or break families, friends, or in this case, communities. The World Cup that was held in Qatar last year gives a comprehensive view of just how far actors within the Islamophobic Industry —or more specifically, Western media publications— go to incite harmful and derogatory messages, targeted towards the Muslim community.
The 2022 World Cup was different from all other World Cups held previously in many ways. For one, it was hosted by Qatar, marking the first time in history the FIFA World Cup would be held in an Arab, Muslim nation. It was thus an avenue for the Muslim world to make a name for themselves. With the successful hosting of the games by Qatar and Morocco’s exceptional performance for being the first ever African and Muslim team to qualify for the World Cup semifinals, pride was brought to thousands of Arabs and Muslims across the world.
Moroccan national team players kneeling in sujood prayer, the prostration of gratitude after their match against France. | Source: AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko
This was also the first time the mainstream media (including those within the “Islamophobic Industry”) produced content centred around a large international event in the Muslim world. It is therefore not a surprise that these media outlets threaded the lines of Islamophobia.
One such instance of Islamophobia was when German sports broadcaster, Sandro Wagner made inappropriate, derogatory statements towards the Qatari traditional attire while he was reporting live for German broadcasters ZDF. The World Cup pundit and former Germany striker, was made to apologise after referring to Qatari attire as ‘bathrobes’ during a match analysis.
Another instance was the BBC putting out anti-muslim content. The BBC was slammed for allowing “racist” remarks against the Iran team to go unchallenged in a post-match analysis. Even the Qatar world cup chief condemned the BBC for racist coverage. The host of BBC’s World Cup Qatar, 2022, Gabby Logan, had spoken to German football manager Jurgen Klinsmann on his opinions on Iran’s 2-0 victory over Wales. “This is not by coincidence, this is all purposefully. This is just part of their culture, that’s how they play it,” Klinsmann said. Logan not only failed to stop Klinsmann for sharing racist and xenophobic sentiments towards the Iranian team, but seemed to share similar sentiments and appeared to be prompting Klinsmann to continue making offensive accusations. Provocative statements from Logan include “if they had a European referee”, to which Klinsmann added was a “big difference with another referee”. The use of the word “another” suggested that the referee’s Guatemalan nationality was a factor that contributed to the Wales team’s loss.
French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine even drew racist and islamophobic depictions of the Qatar football team, where Qatari football players were stereotypically illustrated to have long beards, an angry expression, and worst of all, carrying weapons ranging from guns to machetes.
French newspaper’s Islamophobic caricature depicting the Qatari national football team | Source: Middle East Eye
Included in the caricature was also a player wearing a suicide vest. This caricature has very obvious and harmful consequences, for such malice only reinforces and spreads hate towards Qatar, the Arab, Muslim nation. Despite it being clearly racist and Islamophobic, such content was still approved and deemed acceptable to be published for the rest of the world.
Danish public broadcaster, TV 2 Danmark, made comparisons between Moroccan players celebrating with their mothers on-pitch with a family of monkeys. One of the journalists said: “In continuation of the talk about Morocco and their families in Qatar, we have also an animal family gathering to keep warm, and that is how beautiful those goblin monkeys are.” Another direct comparison made by a Danish journalist was “because they (monkeys) stick together and that is also done with family reunification in Qatar and Moroccans.” Making such comparisons between the human Moroccan football players and primates show the extent to which Western media publications go to dehumanise this marginalised group, highlighting their backwards mindset of the “Western” and “Orientalist” divide. Moroccan anthropologist, Aomar Boum said in a tweet, “I guess invoking monkeys is a way to stress the ‘African primitive’.” Many misconceptions about the Arab world stem from the Oriental thought. Edward Said’s “Orientalism” defines this as “an imaginative and yet drastically polarised geography dividing the world into two unequal parts, the larger ‘different’ one called the Orient, the other, also known as ‘our’ world called the Occident or the West.” Such divisive rhetoric should not have a place in today’s society. Yet, it is not uncommon for the mainstream western media to hint at these ideas through their published content.
Moroccan player, Sofiane Boufal’s embrace with mother, compared by Danish media to monkeys. | Source: Islam Channel, The South African, SNL24
Proving Mainstream Media Wrong
Amongst the unjust and unfair misrepresentation of the Muslim world during the World Cup, Qatar has found sufficient opportunities to provide a perspective to Islam that perhaps was not yet illuminated for many. Western media is notorious for villainising Islam, often pushing stereotypes and inaccurate information about the religion to the general public. However, the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup proved that the narratives put forth by mainstream media are oftentimes, not an accurate depiction of reality.
Many football fans who had travelled to Qatar to witness the games first-hand were pleasantly surprised when they arrived in the country. They described their experience during their stay in Qatar to be much better than what they had imagined, despite their preconceived notions. Qataris were welcoming and hospitable towards visitors, and were happy to introduce their local culture and traditions. It was popular amongst the World Cup fans to don traditional Qatari clothes — white thobe and Ghutra. Qataris are in full support to see the visitors appreciating their traditional clothes and can be often spotted encouraging and helping them perfect the look. Many female fans also highlighted that they felt very safe in Qatar, even when travelling alone as a woman.
Qatar has shown the world that it is not a dangerous country, and its people are definitely not the “backward, scheming, fanatic terrorists, who are dirty, dishonest, oversexed, and corrupt” as stereotyped by Western media.
Korean World Cup fans dressed as the Qataris do | Source: Qatar Tribune
Accountability and Discernment: Tackling Islamophobia
More needs to be done to hold these media outlets accountable for their actions. The increasing hate towards the Muslim community can be seen taking the form of physical aggression and violence, with the hate crimes against Muslims that have increased in occurrence in recent years. The spread of misinformation and the increasing hate towards Muslims due to the “Islamophobic Industry” is extremely detrimental, not just to the 1.94 billion Muslims in the world, but the entire society. The spread of any form of hate is damaging towards societal fabric. Such acts increase division within society and makes the world more segmented.
People and organisations making such dangerous, racist and Islamophobic statements often walk out of the situation unscathed, or at most think a mere one-liner apology on social media would do the trick. These Western media outlets do not seem to show any forms of genuine remorse for their actions. It is hypothesised that such stereotypical and prejudiced portrayals result in the “othering” of Arabs and Muslims. They will carry on making such statements and they will continuously be able to get away with it, unless the community holds them accountable to their actions.
Though it will be challenging and almost idealistic for Islamophobia to be completely eradicated in today’s society, actions can be taken to control and reduce its spread. It all starts with educating the public. Media publications need to start sending out the right content and need to be held accountable when they spread hateful messages. Each media consumer should learn to practise discernment when reading information online. It needs to be understood that not all information found online is factual; it is an individual’s responsibility to ensure narratives are fact-checked before it is regarded as the truth. Apart from that, having an outlet to ask questions respectfully creates an environment for informative exchange and appreciation, which will also help reduce instances of Islamophobia and all forms of xenophobia at large. Prejudice and hate often comes from a place of misunderstanding and misjudgement. When people learn to respect each others’ varying beliefs, regardless of whether they agree with them, society can become a safer place.
Religious freedom is a universal human right, so who are we to take that away from others?
