Giving A Voice To The Voiceless: The 'Invisible' Victims Of Islamophobia
22 October 2017A recent study on
hate crime revealed an escalation of violence against non-Muslim British men
when they are perceived to look 'like a Muslim'
Imran Awan
In August 2016, six teenage boys were arrested in Harlow, Essex, after Polish
immigrant Arkadiusz Jóźwik died following a brutal street attack which his
brother said began after he was heard speaking Polish on the street.
The decision to leave the EU in some cases emboldened people to express their
feelings of hate and "legitimised" the prejudice that they had by empowering
them to express and verbalise those feelings.
An escalation of violence
As part of hate crime awareness week, I was in Parliament this week to discuss
the impact of such hate crimes upon non-Muslim British men and the rise in
trigger events that lead to an escalation of violence against them. Research
has shown that victims of hate crime internalise the experience, so much so
that it becomes "normalised".
The types of hate they experienced included being targeted in public spaces
such as shopping centres, on the train and in car parks.
*Amit, a hate crime victim, told us that:
"This week, I went to the supermarket and I was verbally abused in the car
park. In another incident, I was on the train, and I was working on my laptop.
Another passenger told me to get off the train as I was using my laptop
suspiciously. I switched off my laptop and got off at the next stop to calm
down the situation. The worst part is that no one tried to intervene."
Interestingly, participants also noted how their appearance also acted as a
trigger for the types of hate and abuse they suffered. For example, if they
were perceived to look "like a Muslim" because they had a beard, then they
were more likely to be verbally abused and called a "traitor" and a
"terrorist".
*Dwayne, another victim, spoke about the experience of hate he had to deal
with.
"It's happened to me ever since I grew a beard. I'm not a Muslim but people
stare at me because they think I am. After the Woolwich terrorist attack,
people kept giving me looks, even the bus drivers stared at me. I sat down on
the bus, there are actually people who need a seat but they never sit next to
me."
Hate crimes are not solely committed by verbal or physical abuse directed
against the victim. In some cases hate crimes can target someone by
vandalising their property with racist graffiti because the perpetrators
believe the victims are Muslim. For example, *Aftab, another victim, stated
that:
"We moved to this area, and we went to introduce ourselves to the neighbours
and they said: 'Oh, we had another Muslim family before you and we drove them
out.' We were totally shocked."
Feeling fearful
Research data illustrates that the nature of Islamophobia can have emotional,
psychological, behavioural, physical and financial consequences when
experiencing anti-Muslim hate crime. For example, we found that many
individuals reported that they suffered anxiety, depression, physical illness,
loss of income and employment. Specifically, experiences of anti-Muslim hate
crime had provoked feelings of insecurity, vulnerability and anxiety amongst
participants.
They unanimously reported feeling fearful for their personal safety in public,
as indicated in the following comments. Jayesh, a victim of hate crime, stated
that he was living in fear of being targeted because of his perceived Muslim
identity.
"We live in fear every day. We face abuse and intimidation daily but we should
not have to endure this abuse."
Clearly, participants feared for their safety although this sense of
vulnerability depended upon the geographical area in which they were located.
For example, participants explained that they felt safer in diverse cities. In
contrast, in less diverse areas, the sense of vulnerability as well as the
risk of attack was perceived to be significantly higher.
As a result, participants argued that they avoided mixing with individuals who
were not familiar with "difference".
This infers that the impact of fear of future attacks had restricted
participants' freedom of movement. Furthermore, feelings of insecurity were
exacerbated by the fact that these incidents usually took place in public
places in view of people passing-by who did not intervene to help them.
The fact that no one would normally intervene to help victims had culminated
in feelings of loneliness and isolation. After our study, the people we
interviewed provided us with recommendations that they would like to see
happen. This included, better pubic visibility of hate crime awareness on
public transport, bystander training for front-line workers and helping
support victims through police recording of hate crimes.
If we can go some way in helping victims address these concerns, we may be one
step closer to challenging hate crimes.
*All participants' real names from the study have been removed and made
anonymous
- Imran Awan is an associate professor in criminology and an expert on
issues related to Islamophobia, cyber hate, policing, security and
counter-terrorism. He is the author of a number of papers and books in this
area and is editor of Islamophobia in Cyberspace: Hate Crimes Go Viral (2016).
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