Only tolerated if invisible
The dangerous portrayal of Islam in the West
Sitting cross-legged, uncomfortably leaning against the window, my eyes are glued to the small airplane icon that is completely immobile.
Yet, although I cannot see it, I know the plane has moved because I am now halfway through the journey between Doha and Montreal.
In exactly six hours, I will be back on Canadian soil. It almost feels as though the icon is mocking me, staring back at me with its glaring symbolism. Equidistant between Qatar and Canada, I am forced to reflect on my conversion to Islam, and how a decision that I made a year ago has completely shattered my perception of self, splitting it between faith and identity.
My journey started two and a half years ago when I began looking into Islam without the intention of ever converting, initially self-identifying as an agnostic. After a year and a half of extensive theological research, I took my shahada, a decision that I made entirely by myself. Until that point, I innocently believed that this choice would not, could not, affect any other realm of my life, except for the spiritual one. After all, I grew up surrounded by people, in a society that claimed it was accepting of everyone. I quickly learned that this acceptance was conditional.
I could be Muslim, as long as it was not apparent, meaning I could not pray, wear the hijab, fast for Ramadan; the list goes on.
One of the first comments a coworker made upon learning I was Muslim was, “You must really love him if you are doing that for him.”
Without even knowing my relationship status, the assumption they made was that I could not have willingly chosen this path for myself. The underlying belief, whether explicitly stated or not, was that Islam oppresses women. Therefore, as a woman, it would have been impossible for me to make this decision without a man being part of the equation. Although I doubt this individual was ill-intentioned, the reality is that those preconceived ideas probably stemmed from narratives crafted and perpetrated by Western media.
In television and film, we often see tropes presenting Islam as a “force of evil,” a problem that needs to be fixed. Those tropes tend to dominate the discourse. Movies and shows that do not revolve around the villainization of Muslims, Islam, and, by wrongful association, Middle Eastern or North African culture are rare, if not nearly non-existent.
When Muslim characters are depicted in such contexts, they tend to fall into either two categories: the embodiment of barbarism and violence or the oppressed in need of saving. While Muslim men tend to be attributed to the former, Muslim women, especially if they wear the hijab, correspond to the latter.
Quintessentially, the Spanish show Elite showcases Nadia Shanaa, a Muslim teenager, in a one-dimensional light, her character’s only arc being to “escape” her religion. Despite her school forcing her to remove her headscarf, Nadia becomes more confident, stronger when she takes off the hijab. Nadia’s transformation compares with the meeting of her own saviour, Guzmán Nunier Osuna, epitomizes the saviour complex of the West when it pertains to Islam. The audience’s constant exposure to similar archetypes has the power to create real damage, crystallizing these images as the only “logical” representation of Muslims.
But these narratives are not limited to fiction. Throughout the past few years, media organizations and governments have contributed to perpetrating those very tropes. The language used by news outlets to describe acts of violence carried out by Arabs, who are therefore directly presumed to be Muslim, is both specific and unique.
On Dec. 20, 2024, a man drove a car into a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five people and injuring more than 200. Shortly after the suspect had been identified as Saudi Arabian, the media was quick to tie the attack to “Islamic terrorism.” Although the man was later identified as an ex-Muslim spreading Islamophobic rhetoric online, biases had already been exposed: Terrorism can only exist when a perpetrator can be linked with Islam in the slightest way. School shootings, despite many being motivated by hatred, bigotry and other political ideology, are almost never labelled as terrorist attacks.
The choice of using the adjective “Islamic” before speaking of terrorism or to use the word “Islamist” is inherently problematic. “Islamic,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means “relating to Islam.” Thus, when used with “terrorism,” the claim then becomes that terrorism finds justification within the religion. Similarly, “Islamist” is often used interchangeably with “extremist.” The suffix “ist,” generally meaning “involved with,” added to the name of the religion, consequently embeds Muslims and Islam within violence and barbarism.
Language has the ability to shape perception.
Depictions of Muslims and Islam both in fiction and news have fuelled Islamophobic rhetoric and given birth to legislation targeting the community. We can see its impact in Quebec too. Although Bill 21—the bill that forbids civil service employees from wearing religious symbols—was enacted to affirm the secular status of Quebec, the law has disproportionately affected hijabis, coercing them to infringe upon their own beliefs.
An Association for Canadian Studies survey on the perceptions and impacts of Bill 21 included a sample consisting of individuals from various faiths. As they observed the data collected from 2019 to 2022, they found that two-thirds of Muslim women reported having been a victim of or witnessing a hate crime. Meanwhile, 73 per cent of them admitted to feeling less safe in public spaces.
According to the Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, “Canada has the heartbreaking distinction of having the highest number of deadly targeted attacks on Muslims of any G7 country.”
It is time for us to start reflecting on our own biases. Continuing to educate ourselves remains as important as ever. Let us not allow Islamophobia to become so rampant that we become numb.
This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 8, published January 28, 2025.