Question Time #1: TELL MAMA’s Fiyaz Mughal “Anti-Muslim Hatred is a Phenomenon that is Sadly Here to Stay for a While”
Fiyal Mughal OBE, founder of the TELL Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks (MAMA) organisation (http://tellmamauk.org) comments on recent MET figures indicating indicating a 70% rise in islamophobic attacks in London.
FM: When Tell MAMA launched in March 2012, looking back, it is easy to describe the experience as launching a project into a cesspit of on-line anti-Muslim hatred that had been developing over years. On launching the project, it was clear that there were thousands of social media accounts and web-sites whose purpose was to promote inaccuracies, hate and in some cases, violent anti-Muslim graphics which had been skilfully developed by individuals and groups. Between 2012-2013, it was clear that the problem was even more difficult to tackle given that Twitter and social media companies were taking the position that anything could be said unless there was a targeted and specific threat, (that position has now changed to acting on accounts that make targeted threats to individuals – hence comments like ‘Muslims suck’ will never be removed by Twitter, for example).
Yet our work has significantly reduced some of the social media accounts as they have been reported in and we have also highlighted those publicly which promote anti-Muslim hate. The ‘naming and shaming’ strategy has partly worked though one of the things about anti-Muslim hate which our work has shown is that it peaks and troughs, driven by national and international issues. Since 2013, these peaks have been measurable and have included the large spike in anti-Muslim hate that took place after the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013 and other peaks included the Gaza conflict in 2014 and the ongoing actions of IS (Daesh) in Syria and Iraq. This was followed by further peaks that have included the Rotherham grooming scandal and the Charlie Hebdo murders that led to another spike of anti-Muslim hate reporting into us in Tell MAMA in January 2015. More recently, the Syrian refugee crisis has led to an increase in reporting to us regarding anti-Muslim hate, with anti-Muslim comments being associated with the refugee crisis and with pitiful pictures showing refugees fleeing.
What is clear is that there is a volatility in the peaks and troughs of anti-Muslim hate that are reported in meaning that cohesion, community safety and integration are all affected and with an increasing frequency given world events that sadly involve Muslim communities. It is this volatility and the peaks and troughs that take place with such frequency which is troubling and with them come tangible changes in language and rhetoric. Therefore after the release of the Jay report in Rotherham in August 2014, the language of anti-Muslim hate predominantly involved words such as ‘paedo’ and ‘groomer’. After the brutal beheadings of prisoners by ISIS, Muslim women reported in that statements were made to them at a street level which involved threats to behead them, meaning that national and international events were shaping the language of anti-Muslim hatred.
Three years into work within Tell MAMA, whilst the on-line world remains a toxic mix of anti-Muslim hate and victim blaming, as though ‘Muslims bring it upon themselves’, anti-Muslim hate crimes within our diverse and metropolitan capital have also shown a measurable jump. Latest Met figures from July 2014 through to July 2015, show a corresponding 70% rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes when compared to the year before. The Met’s statistics record a total of 816 Islamophobic hate crimes during the period from July 2014 – July 2015, compared to 478 over the same period in 2013-2014. According to the hate crime lead in the Met, Commander Mak Chishty, this is due to more people being aware of how to report in anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents. Indeed, community education is part of the work of Tell MAMA, yet this comment does not suddenly reflect an epiphany for large numbers of people in London to want to report in anti-Muslim hate. Whilst awareness may be rising, our data within Tell MAMA showed significant spikes at key points mentioned earlier, meaning that there were possibly more anti-Muslim hate incidents, even in our diverse and metropolitan capital city.
What the latest Met figures also showed, was that outer London boroughs demonstrated a rise in anti-Muslim hatred. Many of these have significant Muslim populations, yet the question has to be asked, that if this is the situation in London, what really is taking place in other parts of our country? Under-reporting of hate crimes is a general issue affecting all communities, yet through our work in Tell MAMA, the anti-terrorism agenda has sadly, created a sense of fear of authority within Muslim communities and many times, victims have not taken cases forward since they were frightened of authority and of police processes, which it should be said, are increasingly victim friendly. In particular, Muslim women do not come forward and if they do, they fail to move the case on even though police support and assistance is there. So, there is much work to be done in raising police confidence, in reaching out to Muslim communities and in getting them to report into Tell MAMA if they suffer anti-Muslim hate.
Finally, we have been proved right at every turn regarding events that spike anti-Muslim hatred. Those who seek to believe that there is no anti-Muslim hatred are either purposefully burying their head in the sand or playing to an audience that will no doubt, have some who ideologically hate or dislike Muslims as a whole. As long as they continue to take ostrich positions, we will continue to carry on with the work diligently and in a disciplined fashion. Anti-Muslim hate is therefore sadly here to stay for some time.