Education, Society and Being a Muslim Woman in the UK Today

Ian Gilbert recently had the pleasure of interviewing a long-time friend of Independent Thinking who is also an educator and a British Muslim woman.

The interview was recorded for a conference we were running for headteachers on diversity and inclusion and Ian wanted delegates to better understand the Muslim perspective.

Based on his ongoing conversations with the interviewee (who needs to remain anonymous) over the last few years, he felt she had something valuable and insightful to add both from an educational and a societal standpoint.

Starting with a question about her perspective on ‘the Muslim experience’ in the UK today, this is what she had to say:

"I don't think it's fair for me to be able to take ownership for the entire Muslim experience! I think that might be somewhat overwhelming!

But I think it's fair to say that in the last 26 or 27 years that I’ve been in education my experience has been shaped a lot by the external narrative that we've encountered in the UK around Muslims.

As a Muslim child growing up in the UK, I think there was a real kind of watershed moment when 9/11 took place. The narrative around Muslims and anybody that looked like a Muslim or this idea of how ‘Muslimness’ was depicted really changed at that point.

In particular, what changed was the depiction of Muslim women, as organisations like the Taliban became more part of mainstream discourse, along with more people understanding what was happening in other parts of the world.

Overtly, Explicitly, Visibly Muslim

For me, there was now a real issue around misrepresentation of Islam and the representation of Muslims, in particular Muslim women.

As a person who wears a hijab and is overtly, explicitly, visibly Muslim it really had an impact on everyday life.

As an educator, I think what is important here is we have an opportunity to be able to ask the young people in front of us to think about things differently and challenge representations of particular groups of people.

I think what we want our young people to be able to do is challenge and critically think about what's being given to them as a fait accompli. You know, that all of ‘these people’ must be repressed because they wear a head scarf or all of ‘these people’ must be unwillingly subscribed to this religious belief because look how extreme it is etc etc…

So, I think as educators, it's really important to be able to challenge those views and ask our children to critique what they are exposed to.

I think it's really important to be able to have a safe space to have those conversations in the classroom where children are allowed to have open discussions and dialogues without fear of being penalised if they say something that they think might be contentious or controversial.

And, as educators, we need to know how to navigate that space. We can only do that with the appropriate knowledge at our disposal.

That's where I'm coming from.

Misrepresentations and Misconceptions

I think everything I've tried to do to date – including befriending people like Ian! – is to be able to discard those misrepresentations and misconceptions around Muslims – and in particular Muslim women – and to be able to challenge again those views in the classroom.

There are two aspects here, I think.

One is around the Muslim experience in schools and creating a sense of inclusion so that the Muslim communities, Muslim families, Muslim staff, Muslim students and children can feel part of what's going on in school and have equal access to thrive in school.

The other aspect is the broader education of everybody in understanding the Islamic/Muslim tradition and habits and, for example, the treatment of Muslims in the Press by significant politicians.

In this way we can reach and hopefully change our typical ‘white van man’ mentality. We might not be able to change this generation but if we can get one 'white van man' less to be so overtly racist against Muslims and then maybe we've done something.

A White Man In a White Van

I don't want to stereotype ‘white van men’ as it seems harsh, but I had I explained to Ian previously that I was on my way home from work one day, sitting in traffic in the car, and a white man in a white van decided to roll down his window and just hurl expletives and abuse at me through his window.

So, I don't want anybody to think that I just hate anybody who owns a white van! But I shared this anecdote as an example of some of the abuse I've experienced in my everyday life.

As I said before, I think 9/11 was a moment that really shaped the narrative going forward, including what happened in the summer with those horrendous riots across the country in various places.

I haven't really ventured out on my own since them because those people who took part, they haven't disappeared. They are still there and you just don't know which WhatsApp or Telegram groups people are part of. You don’t know which people in the street align themselves with a particular ideology and which people just think there are too many migrants here and they just want rid of them.

Another example – which I also found shocking because I expected more from people – was on a carriage on the Tube during rush hour. People saw what was happening to me but didn't do anything.

Perhaps there was an element of fear on their part?

Or am I excusing their behaviour as a ‘good immigrant’?

I guess I don't know…

Let Down By Society

What happened was that I was on a packed Tube carriage in London. I think it was about 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening during the weekday and a man decided to throw something at my head. He threw something quite heavy and my glasses came off my face and landed in my lap. Then he kicked me. Everybody on the carriage saw this and did nothing. He was with somebody and they were having a laugh and a joke about it.

I felt really let down by my society.

This is my home, so for me to feel like this happened in my home, it's actually quite painful. To acknowledge that, actually, I didn't have any support in that moment was actually quite upsetting.

I had done nothing to warrant that reaction or provoke it in any way and it wasn't until much later on in the evening that I realised what had happened. It was like I had gone into ‘survival mode’ so I didn't even talk about it until later on and then told my husband and he's like, ‘Oh my goodness! That's horrendous! Why haven't you reported it yet?’

We did report it to British Transport Police after that, but what had happened was that I obviously just shut down and erased it from my mind because it was traumatic.

It's trauma isn't it, when you're attacked in that way?

I think maybe pre-9/11, people would have said something, I really do. I didn't grow up where bullies were allowed to carry on being bullies. Isn't that what we teach in the classroom? That you don't let bullies get away with what they're doing because they'll just carry on doing it? We teach our children to understand that you need to take some kind of action to support the person who is being subjected to the bullying.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in that instance.

This Is Our Home

It's things like that that make me worry about my daughter being on public transport on her own or going anywhere that might leave her vulnerable.

As a person who is visibly Muslim, I think I'm particularly vulnerable.

I don't want to stop living my life because of them and I still come to work and I do what I need to do but I am really scared about my daughter taking public transport because she also wears a headscarf.

As a parent, there is that genuine level of fear in me, but I don't want my daughter to also feel as though she has to live in fear.

We're part of British the society and we're not going anywhere. This is our home.

There’s another aspect too when we talk about Muslims and that is that we are not a monolith.

There are nearly 4 million Muslims in this country, that's about 6.5 per cent of the population, and they're not all from the same place and they don't all have the same background.

People have come to the UK for different reasons – be it economic, be it political, be it social – and to lump everybody together is actually quite naïve.

Everybody's story, everybody's journey, is very different.

People that have come over from the Middle East more recently, their reasons are completely different for being here from my parents’ generation that came over in the 60s and 70s.

We need to be aware of these different stories and journeys and the nuances within the Muslim community.

We make up a particular portion of the country, but actually we are all very varied in terms of culture, language, food, music, history and heritage.

Being aware of that is really important.

Legacy and the History Curriculum

I think the biggest thing for me in speaking to educators is to give the children the knowledge to be able to understand why there are so many different people are here.

Put simply, it’s because ‘you’ went around the world and decided to colonize a fifth of the planet!

We all live in that legacy now and I think our History curriculum has to reflect this.

I think that until you have an understanding of that, you won't be able to understand the bigger picture. And then you can start understanding more about people who are coming over more recently and ask questions about what's happening in Syria and what's happening in the Middle East and what's happening in Afghanistan and why are people coming over from Ukraine?

There are political issues and historical issues and we should be able to explain to our children in the classroom, ‘Well, this is what happened 250 years ago and we went and colonised this place, this place, this place, this place and then we were able to rebuild our nation after World War II because we imported people from these places because we needed a labour force and we needed an Army and we didn't have enough people here!’

I think if you arm children with knowledge, you give them the tools to be able to critique what they see and what they're exposed to.

It's only with knowledge that you can understand the lay of the land as it is.

As schools, we are very well placed to do that, but we need to do it properly.

We need to be able to do it not as an add-on or through a bolt-on approach – I don't think that works – but by integrating it into the curriculum.

Diversity Reflected Across The Curriculum

One of the things I had started doing at my previous setting was delivering a way that the entire curriculum could reflect diversity, from food technology to mathematics (maths is not owned by white men, sorry Ian!).

Look at where algebra came from.

It came from the Middle East.

One of the most amazing mathematicians was an Iranian woman, Maryam Mirzakhani.

Why do our children not know this?

It's because we don't share it in our curriculums and in our classrooms so, for me, it always goes back to education.

I think I'm just fundamentally a teacher and that's what it's about – equipping our children with the education and the knowledge that they need to be able to understand the world that we live in.

I would also recommend all schools to know your demographic, know your community. That might mean just a chat or it might involve creating a Parent Forum where you invite people along.

Remember, too, you might have first generation Muslim families or you might have second generation families in your community. Their needs are very different, so it's hard to say you should do this or you should do that.

For example, second generation immigrants especially need to be involved in your governing bodies. You want them to be involved in your school community. You want their voices to be heard.

What are you doing actively to recruit such people?  

A Duty to Engage

First generation immigrants may have language issues and you may have parents who are not able to communicate in English effectively. You still have a duty to engage them in dialogue so do you have translators available, for example?

I remember at one school setting we had a large Somali community. We ran a coffee morning for Somali parents during which we would explain what homework was like, what it should look like, what the timetable was like, how many times a week the child would be getting homework.

To help them check their child’s homework was being done and how well, we had a red/amber/green coding system. Regardless of whether or not a parent spoke English, in this way they'd be able to see if there were lots of red or if there was lots of amber in the child’s book - ‘Oh, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing so we're going to put the Xbox away now!’

Who Is At Your Table?

Think also about your staff body.

Does your it represent your school community at every level? This is something that I'm doing some research on at the moment. We know there is a level of inequity when we look at diversity in education and, as you go up the hierarchy in a school setting, we know that diversity diminishes.

So, what are we doing to show there is representation across the school hierarchy?

Where are those people in leadership?

Do we have all sorts of people not only visible in our staff body but also holding positions of authority, positions of power.

Does everyone have a voice?

Are they at your table?" [ITL]

Please get in touch to find out more about how we can help your school or organisation with its work on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Call us on (0)1267 211432 or email us on learn@independentthinking.co.uk.