IHRC held the 11th annual Islamophobia Conference on Saturday, 14 and Sunday, 15 December 2024. Entitled, The Vanishing Public Muslim, the focus of the conference was what it means for Muslims when they exercise their rights, particularly those in the Western hemisphere and claim to be liberal democracies, especially in light of what has transpired in Gaza, Palestine.
Professor Saeed Khan’s paper, Islamophobia and The Vanishing Public Muslim, provides the background to the discussions. It can be read here.
Day one of the conference (Saturday, 14) took place online and day two was a hybrid event, online and in-person at the P21 Gallery in Euston.
Watch Day One here:
Quotes have been slightly edited for better readability.
Professor Saeed Khan introduced the conference and the theme of Islamophobia and the vanishing public Muslim:
“IHRC does incredible work and every year hosts a conference regarding Islamophobia, showing Islamophobia is not only a reality but unfortunately one that mutates and takes on many different dimensions every year.
Particularly in light of what has transpired in Gaza, Palestine, and other parts of the world, we are focusing on what it means for Muslims when they exercise their rights, chiefly those in the Western hemisphere and claim to be liberal democracies… especially when it comes to the suppression of their form of expression… [such as] bringing attention to calling out injustice, protesting and dissenting what their respective governments do, in the same way their respective counterparts in society are able to do.
Is there something that is unique about either Muslims or those who try to champion Muslim causes that shows there is in fact a limitation, restriction and suppression of these views? The evidence is certainly there for us to then examine that this is not simply a delusion or paranoia, but it is steeped in reality.
As we view the last 14 months, we have the consider the various ways that Muslims and those who champion Muslim causes, have been restricted in what they say by two different dimensions of society: the public sector and government policy/legislation, the rhetoric of policymakers, and examining how the private sector has been involved, the corporate world, and other organisations and institutions within society.”
Saeed Khan mentions the ways in which this manifests in the US and Australia with efforts to dox and target individuals, as well as Britain, France, Germany, and India.
“Do western liberal democracies even care about upholding the values that they have historically used to define and distinguish themselves from other societies?”
Panel One: Global Policies of Silencing and Suppression
The first panel was chaired by Saeed Khan and the keynote speaker was Professor Anne Norton.
Professor Anne Norton commenced with thanking IHRC for the opportunity to speak against Islamophobia and for Palestine, and praising Saeed’s work and introduction into the topic. She examined how Islamophobia is most intensely manifested in the systemic genocide and erasure of Palestine, particularly Gaza, highlighting a pervasive “Palestine Exception” in the U.S., where freedom of expression and acknowledgment of Palestinian rights are routinely suppressed, Palestinians are silenced and delegitimised, and Israeli crimes are met with exculpatory silence.
“I would argue that Islamophobia’s most virulent and visceral form at this point is visible genocide in Palestine and particularly in Gaza. The silencing of Palestine is so well-known in the U.S. that people in the media and often on the streets will refer to “the Palestine Exception.”
“The Palestine Exception” applies to freedom of speech, to academic freedom, and to freedom of expression altogether. When people speak of rights to freedom of expression, they speak of them as if they were accepted and inviolable, except when the issue is Palestine. Palestinians are rarely called on to speak and often ignored when they do. Palestinians are often the people whose name cannot be said. In wake of October 2023, while Palestinian casualties mounted, the President of my University (and too many others) wrote letter after letter mourning the Israeli dead while remaining silent on the dead of Palestine.
We should not be surprised by this. The silence on Palestine is so complete that Americans are told that there is no Palestine, that “Palestine” is an invented word (are not all words invented words?) of no great age. There are no Palestinians.
There is the long silence about Israeli’s crimes. The violation of one United Nations resolution after another, one massacre after another, and a long denial of basic human rights have remained in a well of exculpatory silence, even as settlements spread.
If you wear a keffiyeh, express support for Palestinians, you make yourself a target. Yet students and faculty and ordinary citizens did speak up. As their numbers increased, they spoke more loudly. They were told, we were told, we could not chant “From the river to the sea.” We could not say “intifada.” We could not speak at all, or carry signs, or wear keffiyehs, because those words made Jews uncomfortable. Their professed discomfort weighed more heavily to many -certainly to University administrators, but also to government officials- than the numbers of the dead.
We have good reason to doubt the protestations of University administrators that they had the welfare of Jewish students at heart. The many Jews among us saw that their words too could not be heard. They could not testify to tikkun olam or their own faith. They too could not speak, and if they spoke, they could not be heard. The alliance with Palestine silenced them as well. Their words too “made Jews uncomfortable.” They were erased as Jews, silenced as Jews.
I have grown up with the Palestine Exception to free speech. I have heard Islamophobic slurs, the repressive demands made of Muslims to “denounce terrorism” or Hamas, or whatever Islamophobes demand. Yet I have never seen repression on this scale. Those older than me, old enough to remember the House Unamerican Activities Committee, tell me that the repression we see now is worse than any since McCarthy.
And yet, there are worse places one could be. Repression is harsher in Germany, Austria, France, Hungary and Switzerland. Some cities outlaw all demonstrations for Gaza and Palestine. Some schools forbid keffiyehs. Many forbid particular chants, not only “From the River to the Sea” but “Free Palestine” as if Palestinian freedom was itself anathema. Some cities send SWAT teams to break in the doors of houses in the dark before the dawn. This, as you may know, was what Vienna did to Professor Farid Hafez.”
Professor Norton later takes a poignant approach to Palestine and Palestinians and Israel’s devastation of Palestinian livelihood, through the senses:
“I hear that the olive oil was bitter this year, because the harvest was late. Is this the taste of grief? What is the taste of months-long hunger? What is the smell of gunfire? What is the smell of blood as it soaks into the dry earth? What is the smell of bodies trapped in the rubble? How heavy is the bag that holds parts of your daughter’s body? We sense only a portion of the suffering in Gaza. We do not often speak of the most visceral senses: of touch, of taste, and most profoundly of smell. Yet these are the senses that testify most profoundly to the myriad harms done to the living and the dead of Palestine. These are the senses that testify to the despoiling of the land of Palestine.
What is done when olive trees are cut down in anger? The living people are denied the olive’s food, shade, life, and beauty. Decades, centuries, are gone in a moment. The labour and care of generations is lost.
Palestinian politics, poetry, literature, bear witness to their belonging to and caring for the land. In the rubble, under bombardment, Palestinians practice this ethics of belonging, this respect for land and landedness.”
Panellists for the first session included Imam Dawud Walid and Sandew Hira.
Imam Dawud’s commentary on papers by Saeed Khan and Anne Norton highlighted the tangible connection between Islamophobia and Palestinian humanity.
He focused primarily on America’s role in global Islamophobia and Palestinian dehumanisation in the American context.
As the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Imam Dawud shared that the past year has seen a record spike of civil rights cases since the inception of CAIR 30 years ago:
“In the past year, CAIR has received more civil rights complaints than even the year after 9/11 to put that into perspective… the resurgence of anti-Muslim hate. There was a huge spike after the renewing of the genocide of Palestinian people after Oct 7.
CAIR Michigan has one of the most densely concentration of Muslims and Arab-Americans. Michiganians reported cases of Islamophobia and bigotry were higher than the national average, despite Muslim representatives in the state. A lot of this has a direct connection to anti-Palestine rhetoric.”
Imam Dawud discusses two aspects of erasure of the negative effects on American Muslims as it relates to Palestine: the intentional erasure of Palestinian Christians and cultural imperialism.
“The intentional erasure of Palestinian Christians through the discourse. Despite Christians in Palestine and churches being bombed, in the diaspora, it is estimated to be between 6-11% of Palestinian diaspora is Christian – their erasure and silencing is a detriment for Palestinians and American Muslims in general. It is a deliberate silencing because it strips sensitivities of knowledge from Zionist and Evangelical Christians. White American Christians are the large percentage of Zionists in America. Making Palestinians and Muslims synonymous aids in the Zionist project.
When we speak about the issue of Palestine is only as an Islamic issue… but by not giving voice in highlighting Palestinian Christians, we actually unwittingly reinforce a framework that aids Islamophobia globally but particularly to American Muslims.
Anti-Palestinian sentiment is a primary driver of Islamophobia within the West; more so while there is a genocide currently going on. By totally focusing all on Palestine as the driver of Islamophobia even from a global perspective, ignores in my opinion or does not give a proper way to the more insidious form of Islamophobia creeping in from people who call themselves affiliated with the political left and how this relates to cultural imperialism.”
Imam Dawud explored U.S. military and cultural imperialism and efforts, and even outright hostility, to marginalise traditional Islamic beliefs, especially from people on the left. As an example, he mentions talking points from the State Department of how the exporting of certain views on sexuality and gender being tied to giving foreign aid, to force western norms or western standards of family, family planning and sexuality on the Muslim world.”
Sandew Hira analysed the silencing of Islamic and Muslim voices globally, emphasising its roots in a broader civilizational clash shaped by the dominance of Western enlightenment ideals, which prioritise secularism, individualism, and class-based ideologies like liberalism and Marxism.
He contrasted this with other civilizations—Islamic, Chinese, Latin American, African, and Indigenous communities—that integrate ethics, spirituality, and collective societal values and social justice, from a theological point of view as well. Hira argued that silencing Islamic perspectives stems from a refusal to engage with alternative civilizational frameworks from the Global South, framing this as both a political and civilizational challenge. He called for dialogue to replace clashes between Western progressivism and non-Western philosophies to envision new, inclusive paradigms. Hira also critiqued intersectionality as rooted in individualism for addressing global struggles like Gaza and Ukraine, proposing an anti-imperialist and decolonial approach connecting activists worldwide to resist Western hegemony and foster alternatives to mental and systemic colonialism.
“Moving forward we need to get engage with anti-imperialist forces within the West, within the global north but also the conversation between intellectuals and activists in the global South on how to build a universal civilisation and that is the counterweight for silencing Islamic and other voices from the global South because the voices of Islam should in the global north, be seen as one of the voices of the global South.”
During the Q&A, discussions covered several themes including decoloniality, transnational activism, double consciousness and the white gaze, social justice in Shi’ite theology, hypocrisies in western secularism, the impact of economics, the limiting binaries of the west versus the rest, among other topics.
Panel Two: Institutional Silencing in Sociopolitical Contexts
Further discussions to follow.
