Young muslim women talk to former prime minister David Cameron. Photo: Flickr/number10gov. Some rights reservedIn the aftermath of the massacre in Nice on Bastille Day, and amid a series of terrorist attacks linked to Islamist extremist groups, social media has exploded with xenophobic posts - referring to the 'threat' apparently posed by Muslims. Not supporters of Islamic State, not terrorists, but Muslims - as if these were the same thing. Increasingly, those who believe in Islam are seen with suspicion, assumed to be guilty of something - of secretly covering or helping out terrorists, of being terrorists themselves, or simply of following a religion which is deemed inherently violent and at odds with 'our' liberal values. Increasingly, they are targeted only for the 'fault' of professing this faith, and the Western states granting them the apparent freedom to make those professions are not called into question.
The pervasiveness of this flawed logic exacerbates 'us' versus 'them' dichotomies, and gives credit to dreaded scenarios of inevitable 'clashes of cultures'. It is also what ultimately motivated me to share some of my findings from my doctoral research, conducted with young South Asian Muslim women in London. More and more friends' Facebooks are awash with statuses that can be more or less summarised as: 'Enough is enough, look where we've got to, the only solution is to ban the practice of Islam from our country'. This compelled me to provide an alternative view of what it means to be Muslim; a view which is grounded in the narratives and lived experiences of the women I was lucky enough to encounter.
Of Bangladeshi origin, but born and bred in London, these 20-something women came from a variety of family backgrounds. Their fathers were employed in jobs as diverse as cab drivers, tailors, school tutors, construction workers, cooks, doctors and business owners. Their mothers, whilst mostly housewives, also held different positions, as social workers, as managers or company directors. All of the interviewees were in higher education. In the course of my research, they told me about how integral Islam was to their identity.
