There is perhaps no greater injustice to the memory of Nabra Hassanen than to label her death an incident of ‘road rage’. The American police’s decision to label this violent crime a case of road rage instead of calling it the terrorist act that it was highlights how the system in America oppresses people of colour, and perpetuates Islamophobia.
On the surface, how we label the murder should matter little, but in the toxic environment America has cultivated since 9/11, how the media portrays the incident significantly shapes mindsets. The American media also has a tendency to blame Islam and ‘Muslim Culture’ when Muslims carry out attacks, whilst attacks by Americans-especially white Americans- are considered isolated incidents.
Not only is this monolithic categorization of ‘Muslim Culture’ highly problematic and a product of orientalism, it also perpetuates the ‘west versus Islam’ clash of civilizations narrative, which naturally further enflames Islamophobia in the west.
The word terrorism itself is important because it highlights how acts against Nabra are not in fact targeted against the victim, but against the entire community the victim belongs to.
An act of terrorism is meant to instil fear of future violence in a targeted population. Thus, the act of terrorism against Nabra was not simply an act of road rage. It was a calculated strike meant to disseminate fear in America’s Muslim population and to highlight that Muslims are not welcome in America.
Islamophobia in America also wears the guise of racism. It is no surprise that most victims of Islamophobia are indeed people of colour, and their systemic oppression highlights how race and religion interact to marginalize America’s communities.
This racism usually takes a hyper-sexualized and overtly masculine form. This hyper masculine racism explains why black men were lynched for decades in America simply for glancing at white women. The black men were accused of being ‘sexual beings’ who would violate the chastity of white women if they were not lynched.
Cases like Nabra’s death highlight that misogyny and patriarchy are still very much endemic to the West. In fact, the ideals championed by western liberalism are a farce meant to promote the West’s control over the world
On a more recent note, the torture in the Abu Ghuraib prison highlights how this toxic masculine racism continues to take place. The male Arab prisoners were forced to strip and perform demeaning sexual tasks while white American men and women stood by and laughed. The white Americans celebrated this act as emasculating the ‘inferior’ Arab males.
America’s problem of hyper-masculinity also explains why Islamophobia and racism promote misogyny in America. Most recent victims of Islamophobia in America have been women. These women were physically assaulted and harassed by white males, thus highlighting how the phenomena of Islamophobia, racism and misogyny act together to oppress women.
It is no coincidence that misogyny plays a central role in Islamophobia and in racism in America. The fact that women were targeted depicts how women have come to embody tradition and progress in today’s world.
This process began with the advent of colonialism and liberalism which aimed to ‘enlighten the world’s dark nations’. The west gained a yardstick to measure ‘progress’ in how women were treated in the ‘orient’; a narrative that continues to play out today and which allows Laura Bush to justify her husband’s oppressive war in Afghanistan as a crusade to free the oppressed women of Afghanistan.
The apparent oppression of women also allows ‘secular’ nations like France to take the moral high ground when they ban the burqa or the burkini, since our world believes that what women wear somehow defines how ‘enlightened’ a nation is.
This is a highly problematic stance and must be shunned when we debate and contribute to feminist movements in our part of the world.
What cases like Nabra highlight, however, is that misogyny and patriarchy are still very much endemic to the West. In fact, the ideals championed by western liberalism are a farce meant to promote the West’s control over the world.
The end of history has not dawned on us. Liberal democracy with its free market ideals has not ameliorated poverty. It has only strengthened the hegemony of the West and led to a sharp rise in global income inequality.
Similarly, the quest to destroy patriarchy continues in the west.We must also remain cognizant of how women and minorities continue to face oppression in places like Pakistan and India. The struggle against tyranny in all its forms is indeed a global struggle and an uphill battle.
The writer is a member of staff and graduated from Aitchison College and Cornell University, USA. He also studied at Oxford University and can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, July 4th , 2017.