Tuesday 26-01-2021 - 16:25

Written by Savannah Middleton. Sav is the 2020/21 Societies and Development Officer at The Union.

As many of you may know, Islamophobia Awareness Month was in November.  It’s now a few months later and the focus associated with the month has lessened though the issue remains present. I feel it is still important that we continue to reflect on our actions as a Union, as well as our actions as individuals, throughout the entire year.

I’d like to share my highlights and my lowlight of the month as well as some important information that I learned. Disclaimer: I am in no way claiming to be a specialist on the mechanisms of hate or that I am in any way the most knowledgeable person about the subject. However, I would like to share some of the knowledge that I gained as a non-Muslim and continue to educate myself more every day.

Let’s start with the highlights of the month. Some of our societies put on amazing talks and events that were educational and needed. Special praise goes to the Ahlulbayt Society for their open community discussion with other societies, to the Bengali and Pakistani Societies for their event on Uighur Muslim Genocide Awareness, and of course, the Islamic Society for their Islamophobia Awareness Campaign on their Instagram as well as their discussions and events. November also provided the opportunity to push the issue of prayer spaces with the University. The Muslim community at Manchester Met has been asking for years for more space to practice their faith and finally the Estate Strategy Group is looking into it, with the topic being a prioritised discussion point with University colleagues.  

Another highlight was that staff members of The Union attended an Islamophobia awareness training session, led by the non-profit organisation MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development). Here are some facts that we learnt about Islam that you might not have known:

• Islam is the world’s second largest religion with 1.6 billion followers
• Muslims have been in Britain for over 1000 years
• The Qur’an promotes peace and tolerance, and ‘Jihad’ means to have a spiritual struggle
• Muslim women have been head of state in Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

MEND also shared with us a definition of Islamophobia, which I’d also like to share. Islamophobia can be defined as ‘rooted in racism and [it] is a type of racism that targets the expression of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’ (APPG on British Muslims). This definition is important to understand because victims of Islamophobia usually experience racism simultaneously. Also, not all victims of Islamophobia are Muslim, for example the Sikh community can also be a target of this, and it focuses more the intention of the perpetrator.

A lowlight of the month was my search for educational recourses for students. I started the month with the idea to supply all committee members with educational material on Islamophobia and creating an inclusive and inviting environment for members. I’ve once heard the difference between diversity and inclusion being explained as ‘someone being invited to a party versus them having a good time at the party’. Even though Manchester Met is an extremely diverse institution, we can still work on making sure our Muslim and BAME students are more included and assist them in ‘having a good time at the party’.

However, my idea came to a grinding halt when I struggled to find any material to give to students! I looked within the University, the Chaplaincy, The Union, even NUS and external providers, but there was absolutely nothing aimed towards educating students. There were a few dabs of material for senior members of staff and overall organisations like The Union — but nothing for sports clubs, societies, campaign groups, volunteer committees or even just within lectures.

This project has been a reminder that The Union and the University have a long way to go in their efforts to create a better environment for Muslim and other marginalised students. Thankfully, we can see that the work on race equity is in progress; with The Union consulting a paid race equity specialist to help develop our new race equity plan, the formations of the Black students’ Group and the University race equity charter working group starting to make changes that will also benefit the Muslim community. These things are great to see, but I would have liked this us to be further along in this journey and I’m keen to make sure we are considering the needs of specific groups of students throughout, such as our Muslim students.

So, the question then stands: What are the next steps?

Personally, my next step is to continue the hunt for educational material and try and educate as many students as possible on how to create an inclusive environment within student groups. We are in the process of hiring an equality and diversity specialist with a background in student opportunities to give our students some training and maybe even help us put together some material that we’re lacking on Islamophobia. For The Union overall, the next step is creating and then implementing the race equity plan I mentioned above, with the now recruited race equity specialist, to ensure that we are working to be actively anti-racist and affirming to our Muslim students in all aspects of our organisation. This should in theory help me with my next step too. We will continue to engage the University in discussions on further prayer spaces on campus and seek to involve the Muslim community in these discussions.

If you experience Islamophobia, you can find guidance on how to report it through the University's Report and Support. And finally, here is your reminder to make sure that the people around you are having a good time at the party.