Shifana Niyas on Islamophobia as nation-making and state-building projects

Although Niyas is currently researching a subject that inclines towards Political Science, she first received a BSc in Management from the University of Sri Jayewardenapura in Sri Lanka. She also wrote weekly articles for various newspapers, becoming an important voice in the socio-political fabric of Sri Lankan politics. Niyas’ interdisciplinary background gives her a unique advantage in navigating the fields of business, economy, and politics. “I can see how these fields intersect and inform each other on a macro-level,” she explains.

Islamophobia: A form of Racism

Indian-American scholar Deepa Kumar says, in works such as Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, that Islamophobia is not just a religious prejudice. It is a form of racism.  Therefore, just like other types of racism, Islamophobia too can be examined and analysed from multiple points of view: economic, social, cultural, and religious – but mainly political. Rather than treating Islamophobia - which Niyas says has two components, anti-Muslim racism and anti-Islam sentiments - as a single issue, her research explores how Islamophobia works as a dialectical process informing nation-making and state-building processes. The transitional character of Islamophobia, therefore, makes this ‘Otherization’ process a predictable pattern with other types of racism. The method by which the nation and state are informed by Islamophobia can be different, but the outcome in most cases can find similarities, since it is aimed at a socio-political transformation. Niyas quotes Arun Kundnani ’s book The Muslims are coming!: Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic war on terror to explain the basic tenets of Islamophobia. Kundnani explains Islamophobia as a lay ideology that offers an everyday ‘common sense’ explanatory framework to make sense of mediated crisis events (such as terrorist attacks) in ways that disavow those events’ political meanings (rooted in empire, racism, and resistance) and instead explain them as products of a reified ‘Muslimness.’ This is what Niyas sees as a utility of racism, especially Islamophobia.

Niyas has identified two key variants of Islamophobia that have emerged out of global politics. One is the variant from the West, which is founded on an orientalist stereotype that took place with the colonization of the Global South. Orientalism is based on false assumptions made by outside observers about a native inhabitant whose language they didn’t speak and whose culture they didn’t understand. Therefore, the stereotypes are prejudices presented as historical facts.

The other variant Niyas has identified is the Hindu nationalist constructed Indian variant of Islamophobia. Unlike Western Orientalism, people who live beside Muslims portray those Muslims, who are indigenous in their own land, as though they are outsiders. She highlights the statistic from ‘More than half of anti-Muslim hate speech on Twitter comes from India: Study - IAMC’ research (2022), to explain that India has produced 55% of total anti-Muslim hate speech on Twitter/X.    India’s Islamophobia works in dialogue with Western-produced anti-Muslim racism to create a right-wing nationalist consciousness that influences the character of the Hindu nation and that, in turn, influences the policies of the state. There is a similar situation in Sri Lanka: “So, I am curious as to how this change is taking place. How far the nation and state allow each other to be racist is something my research deals with.”

Niyas employs a critical and systemic literature review along with a social media discourse analysis to investigate how, in India, the citizenship status of Muslims came to be affected through a law introduced by their right-wing government, and in Sri Lanka, how the state character changed post-Easter Attack  in 2019 after suicide bombers killed at least 253 people at churches and hotels across Sri Lanka.. Both events were made possible because, according to Niyas, the Hindu and Sinhala Buddhist nations had been transformed by Islamophobia so much so that the States in these countries could change their nature to reflect the far-right ideologies. This is a hypothesis Niyas believes her research will prove.

Personal Experience

Talking about the origins of her research interests, Niyas talked about her childhood: “If I was late to school, my teachers would tell me: ‘Go to Saudi Arabia, if you want to be late.’” As a child, she confessed she didn’t understand the logic behind asking her to leave her home. But at an early age, she became aware that she was cast as an outsider due to her status as a minority. “I knew Sinhala Buddhists were the majority in Sri Lanka, not because I am a Muslim but because they could tell me things and treat me in a way I couldn’t reciprocate.” This concept of majoritarianism within a nation-state and the Sinhala Buddhist nation-building process since then has interested Niyas.

Ironically, her teacher, who associated her Muslimness with Saudi Arabia, appeared somewhat comical to her Saudi friend whom she met at the UCD encampment. “When I told my Saudi friend about this story, she was offended. She thought the moral of the story is people in Saudi Arabia are always late,” Niyas says humorously, and had to explain to her friend, “‘No, she wasn’t referring to your punctuality, she was referring to my religion. She was asking me to go to Saudi Arabia because I’m a Muslim.’”

Neo-conservative theories, such as the Clash of Civilizations, have enforced this belief that Muslims are culturally similar, therefore, every Muslim is held accountable for the deeds of another Muslim. “We have to defend ourselves all the time, unlike other communities,” Niyas points out. She further explains how Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists are not asked to renounce their faith when someone from their tradition commits a crime since they are considered individual criminals. “But for Muslims, as a collective, they are asked to renounce their faith, show their allegiance to the state, and condemn themselves when a Muslim commits an act of violence. It is like collective punishment.”

“It is easy to understand why these things happen when you read academic literature, but how it happens is a job for a researcher. Finding variables and their influence on Islamophobia, finding Islamophobic tropes, finding a dialectical relation between the nation and state combined makes a nation-state, and its behaviour, all of interest me because of my experience.”

Recognising Muslims as Political Subjects

How, then, do audiences approach Niyas’ research? “People acknowledge anti-Muslim racism, no question about that,” she notes. “However, the acknowledgement is followed by a ‘but.’ This ‘but’ justifies the prejudice.” She posits that this is because Muslims are frequently presented as a monolithic, homogeneous people. “In a person’s eye, myself, my Saudi friend who doesn’t even recognise me as a Muslim, and an Indian, French, or African Muslim, are the same. But we are not! Even in Sri Lanka, we have so many differences, and it is incorrect and problematic to classify us as one homogenous culture.”

Viewing Muslims purely through a lens of religion strips them of their political rights and identities. What gets highlighted is a Muslim’s religious identity, and their politics are undermined. Niyas points out that, while people read translations of the Quran to analyse the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, “not many people read the Torah to see why genocide in Palestine happens. We don’t read the Bible to find explanations for why the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan either. These are political issues related to geopolitics, imperial expansionism, and neo-liberal economic order that can’t offer theological explanations or solutions.”

Highlighting the hypocrisy, she notes, “a white person is not expected to know everything about whiteness or Christianity. I don’t ask all white people to talk about the Holocaust because Hitler was white; I wouldn’t ask an Italian to talk about what the Belgians did in Congo. But I’m expected to talk about Syria, the Taliban, and Iran, Sudan, and everything associated with Muslimness, and that’s a lot.”

“Furthermore, people like to tell Muslim women about what to feel, how to feel, and their priorities. This points to one of Gayatri Spivak’s pertinent questions in, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ What Spivak explains is, it is not that the subaltern can’t speak. But their voices are not heard. This is a challenge in my research as well as in my day-to-day life,” said Niyas. “It is hard for a non-Muslim society to accept that Muslim women might have different priorities because we experience life and racism differently.”

Ireland and Islamophobia

While Niyas chose to study in Ireland by happenstance after winning a scholarship, it has turned out to be a very interesting space to explore politics and life in its diversity. “Ireland is like home for me. Most people here understand my politics.” Additionally, she notes, “I don’t see Irish people as white. They are colonized subjects whose skin may be white but whose heart is at the right place.” She also has concerns about the rise of the far-right and their willingness to associate with whiteness. However, she has observed that every far-right protest in Ireland is met with a counter-protest. “The politics I am interested in is far more complex than addressing individual racism. The kind of racism and far-right ideologies we see in Ireland will eventually change the nature of the Irish nation. If the Irish nation loses its unique and specific character, then the state has no reason to have centrist politics. It can be far right too.” It is a worrying development that Niyas said she would like to research after her doctorate.

Ireland had no direct interaction with Muslims in the way imperial and colonial powers did. This, for Niyas, is the reason why Islamophobia is not something Irish people are easily drawn towards,  as they are in the UK and US.  “Someone had to teach the Irish how to be properly racist. I would like to do post-doctorate research on this very interesting phenomenon.”

Listening to Muslim Voices

Niyas regularly shares her research with international audiences, having presented in many countries in Europe, Africa, the Balkans, and Asia. Her experience in knowledge dissemination is quite different. “People talk over me, and to me at times. There is always the insinuation that I am oppressed differently than all other women, and therefore, my speeches are expected to carry elements of how oppressive my immediate family, religion, and culture are. They believe that, by virtue of being a Muslim woman, my main problem is what they perceive should be my problems. So, I tell them about a borrowed phrase from Indian Muslim activists, ‘I cover my head, not my brain’. As a Muslim woman living in Sri Lanka, my immediate concern is not the Muslim patriarchy but rather the Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism and the Sri Lankan State. My research speaks to it.”

“The media conditioning is so strong that many people present racism as a valid argument.  There is also a misogynistic and infantilisation view that Muslim women need to be saved from, not only Muslim men, but also from themselves.’ But Niyas also finds allies in this journey. Centring a voice means listening to them and giving those voices legitimacy. Often, Muslim women who talk politics are not afforded this. “Our voices in Europe needed to be validated by a white woman, in India, a Hindu woman, and in Sri Lanka, a Sinhala Buddhist woman. There is reluctance to accept my voice unless someone says, ‘Shifana has a point.’” She adds that this is happening in Gaza, too. “The Palestinians are reporting and livestreaming their genocide, but it’s not enough for the Western audience and policymakers. The entire imperial and nation-state system is rigged against racialized people.”

Because white voices count more than racialized people’s voices, Niyas notes, white Western researchers have an added layer of responsibility to be informed. “It’s not rocket science. For example, Ireland has a diverse Muslim community. And this community is socio-politically active and open for dialogue. Rather than talking to Muslims to confirm stereotypes and prejudices, researchers should go with an open mind. They’d be surprised.”

Transnational Spillover and Statistical Measurements

The focus of Niyas’ research, then, is why this Islamophobia travels so widely, in what she terms ideological spillover. In other words, “if there’s an incident in one part of the world, how does it affect another part of the world which is geographically far and has a different political formation. For example, how did the race riots in the UK spill-over to Ireland? What conditions allow such violence to manifest?” A statistician from Spain has expressed interest in Niyas’ work, so together they want to establish a model to measure the spillover effect. Together, they have agreed to establish a model that can be used for any ideological spillover, be it racism, anti-immigration, or anti-trans ideologies. She is looking forward to extending her research to Ireland. The political climate in Ireland is changing rapidly, and she hopes to contribute to it positively through her research.

- Interview by Dr Sarah Cullen

Works Cited

Kumar, Deepa. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire: 20 Years after 9/11. S.L., Verso, 2021.