Often, when we discuss issues of racism, discrimination or women’s rights we tend to make comparisons between the West and Muslim countries. The focus is mainly on the different forms of racism that exist or which society is considered to be more discriminatory. Racism is a universal problem, but what differentiates the West from the Muslim world is that it has adopted laws, policies and provisions that safeguard citizens from discrimination. The laws promote equality and diversity. Racial equality in the West is not perfect but it has progressed steadily partly due to the society and culture being one which is open to change and is able to learn from criticism. The mechanisms put in place against discrimination such as a complaint system and accountability can be exercised by everyone who is affected by it. Even somewhere like France, in which there is default racism by virtue of the fact that ethnic monitoring is not conducted, it is my contention that the failure partly exists with the ethnic minorities themselves. It is an immutable fact of power dynamics that powers will only concede to the weak when either they have a pang of conscience or alternatively they are forced to acknowledge the grievances of the weaker group. France’s minorities have not used to their advantage the democratic and legal system in order to allow for the safeguarding of their rights and to address their grievances. Considering there are 7 million ethnic minorities in France, they have failed to capitalize on their numbers in the same way minorities in the UK, US and Canada have.
In Muslim countries however legislation in this area are in some cases non existent, deficient, inadequate and can prove near impossible to enforce. Discrimination is imposed by the government through regulations, for example in Malaysia there are prejudiced policies against non-Malays in employment, housing, education etc. The marginalisation of Shias in Saudi and their exclusion from positions of power in their regions is another example of this. In Dubai it is not unusual to come across job adverts asking for “fair complexion” employees or people of specific religion or nationality. There are few provisions or recourse mechanisms to ensure that individuals grievances are resolved, let alone acknowledged. In fact it could be argued that the concepts of ‘discrimination’ and ‘mistreatment’ are perceived as ‘Western’ value impositions, not real matters that require considering. Sadly the people who are usually at the receiving end of discrimination share the viewpoint that maintains racism and discrimination. So there isn’t a desire to minimize or eradicate racism and discrimination per se, just racism and discrimination against themselves (ala Mahatma Gandhi). Gandhi’s struggle against racism in South Africa was exclusively to ensure his people received preferential treatment to blacks. He opposed racist legislation against the Upper caste Indians in order that they were not degraded to the level of the “raw Kaffir”( blacks). The greatest winners in the discrimination game are the ones who perhaps would be most ardent in challenging it if they themselves were affected by it i.e. Caucasians.
I was watching the trailer of the new Arab reality TV series “The Hydra Executives” which is similar to the Apprentice. The winner of the show will be given $1 million to set up their own real estate business. The creator of the show is Sulaiman Al Fahim, CEO of Hydra Properties in UAE and the contestants they have chosen to compete are eight Americans and eight British. The producers of the show are sending out a message which is- fellow Arabs need not apply, don’t deserve such a big prize and are incapable of achievement, unlike white people of course. Wouldn’t it be absurd if the next season of the American Apprentice, Donald Trump actively sought out sixteen contestants consisting simply of Saudis and Jordanians? Yet the Arab people are fed this rubbish and are expected to watch and lap it up. There is an unwritten but generally practiced rule that people of a particular ethnicity are suited for particular roles only and are paid according to their nationality. The Saudi TV presenter and writer Lubna Hussain in an article talked about her own experience of racism and being replaced by a Westerner in a job.
There was indeed a flaxen-haired woman who had been appointed as my replacement. It came as no surprise that she didn’t even hold a degree, had been offered double my salary and was allowed to reside in an entirely different country altogether! Gentlemen really do prefer blondes it seems.
I suppose the aspect that upset me the most about this hideous episode is how as a nation we have no confidence in the ability of our own people. We have this innate belief that anyone of Caucasian descent must somehow be superior to us regardless of education, talent or intellect. Even if we possess some of the most brilliant minds in the world, we relegate the task of discovering and nurturing them to other countries. Many people disillusioned with this brand of arrogance and contempt for anything local have left the Kingdom seeking and receiving their due share of glory elsewhere.
I sat next to a Brit on a plane once as I was flying in from the UK. We struck up a cordial conversation and I asked him where he worked.
“I’m head of an electrical engineering department,” he sheepishly replied, evidently embarrassed at the grandiose title of his job.
“That’s really impressive,” I remarked. “Where did you study electrical engineering?” I casually enquired. I was shocked by his follow-up confession.
“You would not believe this. I used to be an electrician in Derby. When I applied for a similar job here, they made me head of the whole department! I told the guys that I wasn’t an engineer and that there were loads of Pakistanis and Indians under me who were more qualified to boot, but they’d have none of that.”
The frequent irony of the whole situation is that it is more often than not the Westerners themselves who are appalled by such behavior. They have a harder time fathoming this unwritten rule than we do. One of them had once asked me if I had been subjected to much racism while I lived in London. My response was, “I never encountered true racism until I arrived back.”
Living in the West, one constantly encounters some individuals who are strong proponents of mass hijra and they always paint a picture of the West being the place of fasad whilst giving a rosy picture of Muslim countries as the “lands of tawheed”. If you are going to instruct people to uproot from their native country to another land present them with the full picture.
Filed under: Race, Uncategorized | Tagged: Discrimination, Inferiority complex, Lubna Hussain, Muslims, Racism
‘The laws promote equality and diversity. Racial equality in the West is not perfect but it has progressed steadily partly due to the society and culture being one which is open to change and is able to learn from criticism.’
I really do take issue with how the world ‘culture’ is used here. As I mentioned before you are using it as a yardstick and then assume its explanatory powers!
Anyway, I don’t want to be too long winded, so I thought just to mention some quick pointers:
First — Institutions or the formal legislation is not an exclusive marker or even a marker we can rely upon without considering human practice. We bring institutions about and it us that implement these formal laws and regulations, that supposedly impose social norms. Often practice and legislation can be circumvented, interpreted in novel ways, because these institutions do not determine behaviour, they only provide context. It is the power relations that embody their practice.
Second — Institutional racism is a fact of life in Britain and America. I am not making any assumption here. Some stark facts:
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9579
“In some areas African-Caribbean boys are up to 15 times more likely to be excluded from school than are white boys, and up to 12 times more likely to be incarcerated in prison in Britain. Children and young people are being segregated out of classrooms and disproportionately into prisons by ethnicity in this country.’ Dorling went on to point out, ‘Cut up Britain horizontally rather than by neighbourhood, and you do find minority-majority areas. For example, above the fifth floor of all housing in England and Wales a minority of children are white. Most children growing up in the tower blocks of London and Birmingham – the majority of children “living in the sky” in Britain – are black.’ ”
Then turn to institutional Islamophobia, that has become an accepted prejudice. Yet we supposedly have regulations to curtail these trends, right? As I said it is everyday interactions that embody how reality is structured, that even includes institutional practice, we do not simply embody these regulations.
‘France’s minorities have not used to their advantage the democratic and legal system in order to allow for the safeguarding of their rights and to address their grievances.’
Is it fair game? The liberal idea (or amongst many liberals) that we have egalitarian democracies and that meritocracy is a virtue we should aspire for, is wishful thinking. Social relations are not one of equals to assume that a meritocracy of playing the game can remedy deeper structural inadequacies. The game is titled and rigged as there are disparities of social positions. It was the French state that forced schools to teach the virtues of the French colonial past, even when anti-racist groups and intellectuals were outraged. Similarly repugnant is how New Labour targets schools and plans out curricula, outsourced to the private sector (who else?), to teach children the goodness of empire and all that it brings, or let me quote Brown “There is a golden thread that intertwines the unshakeable British commitment to liberty with another very British idea: that of duty and social responsibility.”
We might have legislation and supposed ‘accountability’ of discriminatory practice (when ‘race’ is often defined in legislation in ways that excuses and entails cyclical racist practice) but empire, racism and institutionalised marginalisation of whole communities continues, again why? These attitudes continue, apparently 83% of the British populace identifies with the army, so why does that happen.
I understand what you mean, it’s Individual discrimination verses Institutional Discrimination.