In Conversation: Palestine and Decoloniality
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Salaam and welcome to another episode of Network Reorient in association with Reorient Journal and the Critical Muslim Studies Project. In this episode, we have Ismail Patel in conversation with Hatim Bazian on structural Islamophobia, global politics and the demonization of the Muslim. Assalamu alaikum, Dr. Hatim, and welcome to Network Reorient. Thank you very much for joining us today. I know you're a busy person, so welcome. Well, thank you. Assalamu alaikum. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Hatim, Alhamdulillah, you've written a lot of stuff. You've presented a lot of papers and produced a lot of material to cover in the half an hour that we have got today. But let's start somewhere. So let's start at the idea of Islamophobia. And I want to understand how you discuss or frame Islamophobia and how you'd like to present it.

Thanks for this question. Dealing with the field of Islamophobia, which is an expanding field with more scholars and researchers, community activists and groups coming in.

It's important to look at the field in general and what's going on before I can give exactly where I'm locating the work on Islamophobia that I do.

There's some that approach Islamophobia from the lens of acculturation, assimilation, and these are the experiences of individuals and communities going through that process. Other groups of researchers have taken a decolonial approach, looking at it from a decolonial perspective.

researching and looking at both the colonial period and how anti-Muslim animus has been there articulated.

A third aspect, which is also connected to the decolonial, is thinking of Islamophobia as a form of racism. And I know that in the UK there is a solid grounding for that work, including the work of Reorient and scholars at Leeds and other places, including Salman Syed.

And then there's a fourth group that attempts to think of the rise of violence and quote extremism in the Muslim world to be the driver of

for the intensification of anti-Muslim and Islamophobia in the West, which basically get them to argue, especially in projects that often are funded around the whole notion of CVE and so on, that you need to address and reduce violence.

violence and extremism in the Muslim world as a way to try to reduce the racist attitudes in the West, which is a very problematic proposition. But you have a lot of projects that have that linking Islamophobia to anti-violence extremism.

I personally, in my work, focus on both the decolonial as well as the Islamophobia as a form of racism and therefore navigate the long history of colonial discourse, coloniality,

colonial logic, and then the long history of race, racialization, racial projects, and the racial markers that have fluidity between those. Let me stop you there. This is quite loaded. Let's unpack some of the stuff that you've covered so far so quickly.

Let's go back to this rise of extremism in the Muslim world. Do you consider that as part of a construct rather than as much as it's constructed to demand assimilation or acculturation within a state? That these are simply discourses that emerges to problematize Muslims.

Oh, absolutely. I'm just saying when I mentioned this, I'm looking at those individuals that write and engage in that scholarship. I think if we think about from my perspective, when we talk about violence, I think we have to talk about violence that have been committed and structurally produced against the Muslim subject.

You know, I remember when we had the Islamophobia conference in Sarajevo and the ex-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was there.

And he spoke about how the Muslims, theologians and scholars need to answer and respond to the rise of extremism and violence in the Muslim world. And again, this is a person that supported the Iraq war, an illegal invasion of a sovereign state that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands. Yet he had the audacity to be inservable.

where you look up the hill and there is the graves of those who were massacred and yet the framing is that the Muslim is uniquely predisposed to answer for violence and again this is

at the core of both colonialism and racist discourse that approaches the Muslim and I would say the subaltern, the southern hemisphere as basically having a DNA marker that is called violence and extremism. And it's left for the white man burden, the northern, the global north,

the Jack Straws of the world, the players, the Bushes, to come and try to engage in white man burdened civilization of DNA, what you call therapy, to remove this DNA. So that construct, I'm a vehement, what you call, person that constantly understands how that is structured to continue the interventionist policies and draw on resources.

Sure. Hateem, you mentioned some names there that sort of almost takes us from post-colonial to decolonial in the sense that before they were at least considering Muslims as a burden, but now we have got Trump in the United States and

Boris in Britain, who would even go further and say that Islam full stop and Muslim are a problem more than trying to civilize them. Well, again, I would not go down to contemplate Trump having a full sentence to be able to be coherent.

or Boris Johnson and his bumbling way into disaster after disaster. And again, looking at what happened with COVID-19, it just points to this lack of clarity on what is occurring.

And I think what we need moving from post-colonial to decolonial, and I think what we need is really a serious discussion about the problematization of Islam and Muslims, who is benefiting from this Islamophobia discourse. You have a cast of completely discredited political leadership who

that has nothing to offer other than paying and giving to the rich in all in our societies and using the Muslim and Islam as the boogeyman through which these policies tend to be pushed. And as we confront COVID-19 and supposedly

the most advanced societies in the world. And I put this between two parentheses because the criteria of advance has to be challenged. Because if you look at it, this is a society that now is allowing the elderly to die in

in these retirement home and assisted living homes. And again, I'm a deeply faithful person. And if you don't attend to your elder or the young, then what is the definition of quote civilization or advancement or progress? Anybody can add numbers on DNP and DNP, but no one can actually add ethics and morals into the equation.

Thanks for that. Let me bring you back onto the Islamophobia issue. Although we can mention a few personalities, but I think we have to accept that Islamophobia is becoming mainstream. It's almost hegemonic. And therefore, it's just not individuals anymore. It is the whole structure and the society itself.

And there are certain markers that I want you to think of and particularly concerned that what Muslims do as a political agent is being challenged. How do we understand that? Well, as you know, I argue that the primary violators of civil and human rights are governments in general.

Individual discrimination cases could be dealt with. There are actually overall sometimes remedies as a resort to civil courts and so on. But when the governments themselves

as a result of a whole period of stoking animus toward a particular targeted group. And again, I work with the African-American community that exhibit one of this structural and systematic nature. So Islamophobia has become the effective policy

policies that govern and regulate societies in a variety of areas. And as such, it has already become the engine by which the societal structure is regulated and directed. So, for example, in the United States, our financial services

is responding to Islamophobia. So opening a bank account, making transfers, a number of organizations in the US and I know in the UK, charities and Palestinian related groups or Muslim groups, their bank accounts are closed because of this global structure that is directed by the European Union and the United States

uh, that have already shifted normative financial practices, media, and, the domination of media and its infusion and replicating and creating the consent of the government for the Islamophobic discourses, uh, the intrusion into the privacy again, uh,

In the U.S., we had in New York, stubborn frisk, surveillance of mosques, agent in every mosque. Same in the U.K. with the prevent regulating of the body and space of a Muslim in terms of hijab regulations, what could be done in school and not. So in this sense, we have reached a hegemonic period where state apparatus is

Both domestically and also, I argue, I wrote a piece on Muslim majority countries that also, as a result of that relationship, have imbibed this aspect of that we are living in an Islamophobic social, political, cultural imaginary that dominates and regulates everything we do as Muslims. Being a Muslim, you're a moving target to government agencies.

In that case, can we use the idea that, can I ask the question, I suppose, can Muslims speak, and I don't mean speak as in verbal, how we are doing, but speak as in express both politically, socially, economically in the West? Well, actually, I wrote a piece, Can Muslims Speak, in a specific way. And I would argue that we are not allowed to,

Not in the sense that you're going out and just talking, but we're not allowed to speak the political, we're not allowed to speak the economic, we're not allowed to speak in the religious school.

We're not allowed to speak to our children in the way that we raise them. And what is allowed in essence is for us to actually speak what the boss wants. So if the boss is sick, we say we sick.

If the boss is hungry, we hungry. And as such, our Malcolm X is exactly Malcolm X in this sense. And then much of the research that is coming out with exceptions, again, we could point who are doing some of the solid research, but most of the research that is generated is actually is studying the Muslim as if you are in a lab studying

That to see whether you actually, if we pinch you, you're going to say, ouch. If we tickle you, whether you're going to laugh. And then we'll put some programs in front of you then so you could actually begin to see whether your human DNA can emerge from it.

So Muslims are studied. They're not known that we are not actually engaged in knowing Muslims. We don't have that cultural, social inclusivity on an equal footing. You're always brought in.

because the conversation is about you, not with you. So in this sense, the Muslims can't speak, especially in the political, social, cultural, and especially critiquing power.

you know that you immediately get a prevent task force that will try to investigate and maybe they'll have a whole national health project to evaluate where is that came from and maybe they'll find a chapter from the Quran to try to link your speech to what took place. So that's for me is both laughable but as they say in Arabic,

which makes you laugh and cry simultaneously. You paint a sort of certain picture which might take our listeners quite aback and they might want to ask that, you know what, there is success stories within Muslims in the West, the very presence of us settling in the West throughout Europe and America and we have...

sort of they might say this might use a slogan we have made it and how do you counter that well i i i don't discount that uh we have individuals and communities that have are made uh

a path for their way, but I always say it is despite the arrogance, despite the racism, despite the walls, despite the constant violence, despite the intrusion, despite the otherization that we made it not because of the generosity,

or all of a sudden the Boris Johnson government, or because Trump all of a sudden sends a Eid or Ramadan greeting. It is despite this constant erasure that people have overcame.

monumental challenges and prove themselves. So in this sense, if people feel that they have made success, and I would argue that we have made success, it is not because of

the other or government agencies is despite the arrogance, despite the racism, despite the total disregard of our community. And again, you could see it right now. And I know in both the UK and the United States that Muslim doctors, nurses and so on, who are the first responders are the first to die.

But again, they have overwhelming odds that they have been able to sustain themselves and create paths of success at some of the most difficult circumstances before them in the past and in the present. Let me go back a bit and ask you something else. Would you then say Islamophobia is about Islam and Muslims?

Well, it's about Islam and Muslims, but in the sense it's about the majority society not being confident and understanding itself. So it uses Islam and Muslims as a way to craft its identity. So in that sense, it's a weakness and a lack of confidence and lack of...

I don't know if lack of confidence, but a lack of any sense of direction. And therefore, one of the easy ways is to use a scapegoat. So instead of dealing with the economic disaster of neoliberalism globalization, instead of dealing with a disaster of interventions for fossil fuel, instead of dealing with environmental destruction, if you're instead of dealing with the collapsing level of income, you

and bring up the Islam and Muslims in domestic consideration in the Western discourse. And then you also problematize it across the world in, again, the global power dynamics, whether it's with Russia on the one hand or China. So the Muslims become the pawns in a great game that is being played.

If somebody might want to ask why Islam and Muslims then? Why not some other group? Why are we targeted? Well, one, again, there's such a rich reservoir of long history in terms of Muslim-Western relations that dates back

to, again, the emergence of Islam, where the West has still a deep sense of irredentism toward what they call the East. They believe that is their true heritage. So it's very easy for somebody to pick that literature and begin to, what you call, use it as the framing of

there's the period of the Crusades, there's the Inquisition period. So there's a lot of reservoir there. Then you get into the colonial period, there's a lot of material. So that's one aspect. There's a rich, what you call polemical literature

that the Islamophobic industry and the Islamophobes as well as their own government leadership to lean on. So there's that one. The second is that the intensification of Islamophobia as possibly the literature shows, it intensified after the end of the Cold War. It's not surprising yet the Huntington clash of civilization.

thesis comes at the conclusion of the Cold War and he bets on Muslims and the Chinese Sino-Islamic threat and therefore it's actually a

seeing that there's a vast territory and a vast region, so we finish with the communists. How to rationalize our internal structure? Because again, the United States as a superpower is spending about $700 billion. You can't close shop after the Cold War. You need a new

ways to rearrange and reorganize. And I think the Muslim world was conveniently in there as a site to reconfigure internal dynamics. The third, which I think is very, very important, is that the Muslim world also happens to be sitting both at the strategic and also economic

pulse at a global level. Oil is still the primary engine for the global economy, fossil fuel.

And again, we could think of Iran, we could think of Iraq, we could think of the Gulf and the centrality of oil for driving the market. Even though the United States oil production is as equal or as high, sometimes even being the first, the United States wants not only to control its own oil, but also control its oil, the oil supplies to its competitors, both Europe and China in this sense. So

And the Middle East and the Arab Muslim world also with strategic waterways and navigation, all that becomes a convenient way to get a new lease into Western power over the world.

The key fact... Yes. Let me get you... Sorry, carry on. All of this has to work because the notions of having an imperial project, you need to convince the imperial citizenry that this is done for their best interest. And the way to do it, you demonize and you create this threat. So...

And that's what I say that Muslims and Islam today is the new monster incorporated for the Eurocentric superpower Western intervention. As you tell people that if you go to bed, there's a Muslim under your bed.

If you open your car and it's a VW and the engine is not working, it's the Muslims that send the engine. And if you're running for election, you just put up a Muslim horrific negative image in order for you to get your fear factor up to get elected and get in there. Brexit and Trump use that in a masterful way.

Sure, sure. Let me go back to one of the points you raised, strategic. You mentioned the word strategic positioning of Muslim, and in particularly the issue of Palestine, which we haven't touched so far, and colonialism. How do you link colonialism, strategy, and Islamophobia into this network? Well,

Just on terms of the funding front, in the United States, in terms of the research that we have done, the overwhelming amount of funding that is coming to support the Islamophobic industry is coming from pro-Israel sources.

I would estimate about maybe 70% of the funding for the Islamophobia industry in the United States accounted for about 114, maybe right now going to maybe 120 different groups that are Islamophobic.

In the research that we documented through tax returns, we had the San Francisco Jewish Federation, the New York Jewish Federation, the Chicago Jewish Federation, which is the fundraising arm for the Jewish community, funding Tea Party Patriots, funding Gerd Bilder of the Netherlands, funding Canary Mission, funding some of Canvas Watch,

and all the groups that are structurally engaged in demonizing Islam and Muslims as such. So that's on the funding side and the organization side. Now, let me speak in terms of strategically. I think the state of Israel, after the Cold War,

Needed to reorient itself to be of service or of value into a, a unipolar world.

versus before, which is the East-West confrontation, the Soviet Union and the United States. So in post-Cold War, Israel needed to reorient and assert its centrality to the new era. And as such, they have hitched their wagon

both inside Palestine and globally to the Islamophobic discourse. And we could see that immediately after 9/11 and before because again, the anti-terrorism legislation targeting Muslims beginning in the early 90s and then you have the US in 1996, the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

which was President Clinton that declared in the U.S. a state of emergency for the violence that was taking place inside Palestine, began with the attack of Baruch Goldstein on the al-Ibrahimi Mosque.

But the president declared the state of emergency and that gave the omnibus anti-terrorism bill in 1996. From that moment or that period, what we see is the Israeli strategic thinking, policy papers, spokesperson's training, all focus and try to use Islamophobic language.

language in order to say that Israel is in the front line in relation to we and the West. So prior to that, we and the West, meaning Israel and the West, was speaking about the threat of communism. But it's so it's shifted to focus on Islam and Muslims as a strategic, making Israel as having a strategic utility in a unipolar world.

So you think that basically Israel has used this to instrumentalize Islam and Muslim Islamophobia, to be more specific. Absolutely. For their benefit. They have to, again, the post-Cold War, the United States no longer needed Israel as a key ally. Actually, it was increasingly becoming a strategic liability. And I remind people not to hear

as a point of favor one way or another. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the 1990, the desert storm, the United States had to plead with Israel not to enter into the war because it will actually damage its ability to have the Arab coalition or the Arab countries that joined.

which means that if Israel was thought of again from 1950s onward,

until 1991, if Israel was the strategic advanced state to assist the United States in military confrontation, at the moment that the United States was engaged in military confrontation with the so-called coalition, again, I oppose the Iraq war, the first one, the second one, and continue. But if the United States had a strategic ally in the region, it was actually a strategic liability.

In addition, as the Cold War ended and the United States was focusing on China and the Muslim world, Israel was violating the technology restrictions of passing missile technology to China. So again, Israel is a strategic liability in this sense.

Third, as the United States was trying to engage in bilateral relations in various parts of the Muslim world, Israel was, again, a strategic liability in those bilateral relations and then also creating a competition, economic competition for the U.S. in this sense. So Islamophobia may happen.

to reorient Israel as being the key strategic ally in the fight of terrorism and using the Palestinian as the laboratory to rationalize the Israel centrality as the key ally in the region. And this is where we are at. So, uh,

the shift occurring post cold war and Israel shifting from anti-communist, anti-secularist, uh, focus to anti-Islam, anti-Muslims Islamophobia as a way to rationalize its centrality. And that's why Israel becomes the go-to place. So for example, Israel built two towns supposedly to, to train on counterterrorism. And, uh, uh,

police forces from various parts of the Western world, including, I would say, in the UK and maybe the, I know for sure, the United States, they go there to train. And then they come also here to provide the training. And when they do that, it's the stereotypical refinement of the Muslim Islam as the

quintessential threat that is facing the society and Israel is the key ally. The only ally often is being argued even considering how much Saudi Arabia and Gulf states are providing that still they're just the checkbook, but we are the only trusted ally. And I think that language begins to be connecting strategically Israel

to the needs and interests of Western states. That's something very interesting. I'm sure you're quite aware that there's many Jewish groups who are against Israel's occupation colonial project, and they're also against Islamophobia. And I particularly point to the network against Islamophobia by Jewish Voice for Peace. I think we need to distinguish between the state, Israel as a state and its interest and its connecting interests

its work and policies to imperial interventionist policies of Western states versus, I would say, the various segments of the Jewish community, which we have been doing work with them and sustained work. I think Jewish voice for peace in the United States has been very, very important. And they actually also have moved from early on being at least not

anti-Zionist to move into embracing an anti-Zionist perspective. Also, the groups, if not now, are there. So you have considerable shift. And I think the studies, both in the United States and other parts of the world, shows that the young generation, the young Jewish generation,

and young Jews in general are shifting away from thinking Israel as the central of their identity and politics and so on to see that that's no, a state that is violating human rights that increasingly engaged in apartheid is not something that

I would actually put and build my identity on. And I think there is a shift that we are seeing, which possibly points to why some of the established Zionist organizations in the West are becoming more belligerent

because they are feeling that their own logic and rationale for maintaining their own internal cohesion with their community is already faltering, and considering the belligerency that is coming from Netanyahu and his policies that do not bode well in the long term for a continued cohesion within the

broader segments of the Jewish community. So I think we could speak about those alliances and the emergence of real solidarity between Jews, Palestinians, Muslims, both on Islamahoy, but also in confronting anti-Semitism. And again, just to critique Israel's policy, Israel has embraced every right-wing policy

political figure in Europe, their relationship with Orban. Like who would actually invite Orban to visit a country, let alone visit Israel, embracing Gerd Wilder and not only that, actually providing funding from him again, as we see from the tax return here in the United States. If anything, he should be a person that should be shunned, if not actually reprimanded.

but as a person that is hospitable to Nazi ideas or neo-Nazi ideas. All right. So, again, this points to the contradiction that I think Jewish activists that are also embracing a decolonial lens are beginning to see that the solidarity is to overcome the prescribed narrow tunnel of Zionism and what it demands of them.

Thanks for that. I mean, we've come quite a long way on this journey today. We started talking about the framing of Islamophobia and we discussed the fact that, you know, Muslim agency is being denied and the Muslim haven't got the right to speak and the systemic governance of Muslim bodies overall. And then linked it to the funding or to the work of Palestinians and the demonization of the Palestinian government.

activists as well as people who work as Palestinians on the ground. Sorry. To just sum up, how would you particularly link interesting for people in the West, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, who are working for the Palestinian issue to carry on despite the obstacles? Well, I always say if

You think the obstacles we face are overwhelming? Just take comfort and just look at what the situation in Gaza is. And that should give you that the Gazans have not given up nor have said that it's so difficult. Look at the Palestinians that are in the West Bank in the refugee camps or look at the Palestinians in 48.

We are going to face overwhelming odds. There is no question about it. It's an uphill battle. It's an uphill struggle that is confronting us. We're definitely unmatched by resources. Zionist organizations and their infrastructure is very well established, and they mobilize it effectively. They have

relationship with political elites. They're connected to the cultural producers within the society. So all that is there.

But what I tell them is, again, I take comfort in looking at South Africa and what developments in South Africa. Nobody, if they looked at South Africa in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, even to the late 80s, Reagan administration in the early to mid 80s, they were still engaged in what's called constructive engagement policy, which means supporting apartheid South Africa. So

South Africa was the last colonial outpost in Africa, and it was demolished and came down in 1991. So I'm comforted that, again, the arc of justice is long, but it tips toward justice. And I would say that these are, for us, the times and the...

opportunities to engage people to critique the domestic politics that have completely sidelined almost the regular person. I guess the regular British person is as what you call suffering from the circumstances of this

neglect, erasure, and so on, as the Palestinians that are living inside the occupier territories and the refugee camps. So what we need is to actually be very clear that the odds are overwhelming, but the opportunities to work are there. What we need is to be strategic, is to actually use our limited resources to be very effective and focus on our work.

I'm, again, a person that is engaged in the PDS movement, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, currently in the U.S. And I would also know that you're doing the same in the U.K. and the Muslim community, the date boycott campaign. We're in the midst of it. There should be no excuse for any Muslim to buy a box of dates

that originate from an apartheid state that is using and usurping Palestinian lands to grow dates as well as violate the rights of Palestinians who are working or engaged in there. So PDS is an important tool. And I know that in the UK, you have won a major case in the court on the rights of PDS. I myself had won a

case, a court case here at the University of Arizona. And we have been mounting challenges on this. So BDS is an important strategic tool for us to continue to organize and work around. The third, do you have a question or?

No, basically, if time is running out, and I'm sure we could have another hour with you. But I think to summarize, basically, what you're saying is to regain, to go back to the Islamophobia issue, and you asked a question, can Muslims speak, is to say that this is one way of speaking and to reassert political agency.

So I think if you're okay with that, we will have to say thank you very much, Professor Hatim, joining us. Thank you, Ismail. And we wish all of you in the UK and the Muslim community and the broader community all the best. May your health be preserved and may the better days and joyful days return to everyone. Thank you. Wa alaikum salam.

This has been another episode of Network Reorient. Thank you for tuning in. Please have a listen to some of our other episodes and leave a rating.