Transcription for Episode 74 — Representation, Media & Feminism | Sana Saeed

Speaker 1 (15s): Boys In The Cave I’m your host Tanzim and I’m joined by a very special cohost Ryma Tchier who has had on, on our show before. And she’s very a presenter and a former already a private center, right at the Tempus contributed to vice. And she works as a journalist in Melbourne and Sydney for the Australian broadcasting corporation, based in the newsroom covering stories that affect the cities and States and other works in the legal department and humble LA we’ve have a very, very special guests in the Cave today. So Sana Saeed is she’s a Host senior producer who has been a AJE plus since 2014, she has a background in immediate critique and analysis with her work having appeared in The New York Times Huffington Post LA Times Quartz Guardian Salon and AJE so there’s a lot of big names there.

Mashallah service and working with Sana and welcome to Boys. In The Cave

Speaker 0 (1m 4s): A welcome. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (1m 7s): It’s actually quite a big honor. I’ve been falling your stuff on a and Twitter are Facebook are Mahershala. Cause you’re very much, I guess I feel like it’s, it’s kind of interesting. Cause I remember you made a few posts about something. I think the Malcolm X documentary, and it always feels like the sort of personality York you are, you’re like representing the Muslim community and you already out there on the platform. So, you know what I mean? I can’t really describe it’s like one of those kinds of unique figures, I guess, that we can sort of, it’s sort of representing us in an authentic manner, if that makes sense.

So yes,

Speaker 0 (1m 41s): No, absolutely not. I don’t actually like to consider myself as representing any community per se. I just, for me, it’s always more about like, what are the kind of the questions and ideas I can put out that has members of the community kind of thinking more critically about the way we engage in like politics or media and whatnot. But I don’t like to think of myself as someone who’s representative of the community, but rather someone who wants us, I think to overall think critically about how do we represent ourselves and what does Representation actually mean to us ultimately, whether it’s political or cultural Media so on and so forth.

Do you know what I really appreciate the way? Well, at least you’ve always come across to me as someone who is always trying to be authentic down to earth and critically engaging. This is quite a surreal moment for me. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to embarrass you in any way, shape or form, but you actually have been like Michelle LA is an inspiration to me and you kind of came into my life quite a critical moment when I was actually thinking about giving up on the Journalism law route because I was just stuck in a riot and I really couldn’t

Speaker 2 (3m 0s): See a way forward. And I, I think the first time I saw you was your AJE plus video on breaking down the importance of the 2016 Canadian election. I believe when Trudeau got first elected any, is it like you were walking outside, breaking down why the Hoppa government was a problematic or the policies that they put in place was, is detrimental to Canadian betterment. And I just saw that and I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. I think I can do this. If that’s the end goal and mashallah she got there.

I think maybe I can at least replicate or find out on my own terms here. So thank you for being you. That’s very humbling and, and I’m glad that my work was able to serve as, you know, kind of hopefully make this like helping you make a, a decision that, you know, was you feel is like the right decision for your life as well. So that’s, it’s very humbling and it does mean a lot. Cause sometimes you’re just kind of putting stuff out in the world and you’re like, I hope this is having a positive impact on.

And especially like as a Muslim woman, I always do think about what impact my work is having on other Muslim women, especially in media and who are at all and the public I in any way. So it does mean a lot to hear that a humble that’s. Yeah. Thank you. Any time I’ve just been stalking you ever since that a lot, actually you’d be surprised how many conversations or how many people I meet in the, in the conversation always starts with like, so I’ve actually been stalking you for a while on social media and I’m like, okay, I know where this is going.

For sure.

Speaker 1 (4m 46s): I wanted to ask like a Jew to, I guess nowadays the dynamics of, I guess news. Cause it was speaking about a social media and all that. And with COVID hitting, we’ve had like a bit of like different dynamics in terms of how I guess news reporting is happening. Like, I’ll see, like, I guess some of your AJE plus viewers now, I guess I think, I dunno if you’re doing it from your home, but it seems a lot more a kind of a, a different sort of vibe compared to how was in the past, I guess in the recent past actually.

So this, one of them asked, like how’s been a house on news reporting in general being during COVID like, is it a lot different? Has news reporting shifted dramatically? What’s your sort of our take is a lot of people like, you know, I guess co covert affected them differently, but I guess you’re in a kind of a unique industry and I assume it’s effected things a lot more differently, I guess.

Speaker 2 (5m 38s): Yeah. It’s, it’s weird. Yeah. In terms of like being, you know, a Producer a journalist in the midst of COVID and especially at a very particular work that I do and We yeah, like I’ve been filming from my apartment, which I was also a little uncomfortable with to an extent because you know, it’s apartment, it’s something I try to, you know, sometimes when your, even a little bit public in this day and age, you actually lose a lot of privacy. And so my apartment is like, you know, my little Haven that I’ve created.

And, and so it was a little weird for me to kind of open up my, so I’ve only, I’ve picked a very particular spot in my apartment that I’m like, okay, this is all I really want to show in some of the rest just cause, you know, it’s like, I want to keep it a little private, but yeah, you, you do end up having to, because of the nature of the work that I do and especially being an on-camera personality, it’s like you do, like in this particular context, you have to let people in, right. Because we’re all inside. Right. So unless you have, I know there are some like news anchors we’ve been able to go to their studios and whatnot and work from their, but our company, we went remote on March 12th, essentially March 12th, March 13th, we pretty much went entirely remote starting then.

And since then we were trying to figure out how do we do this in terms of producing content? I think it’s, that’s also been really tough because consumer or viewer habits rather aren’t the same. So people, I mean, just like, I mean, even me, right? Like I’m, even though I’m a quote unquote content creator, I’m a producer. I work behind the camera as well in front of it, but I also consume a lot of content and even my own, you know, the way I consume content has really changed. I went from like really binge watching, a lot of like Netflix and Hulu to, I went almost a month without watching anything or a month and a half or something without watching anything at all on Netflix or Hulu.

And I don’t know what exactly why that was the reason, but I had zero desire to do it. And I think like what we’re trying to figure out, just like any, any one is like, what do people want to watch right now? Right. Initially there was a lot of interest in a lot of COVID content and I don’t do COVID content. I don’t, my job currently was, you know, I was producing kind of a cultural histories and critiques on a pop culture. So that’s kind of what I’ve been working on a project of mine for the last year. And now we’re like, you know, my company was like, you know what, Sana, let’s kind of put you also in a little bit more of a commentary position.

Like, let’s see how that goes with our limited resources, like every newsroom. And so we’re trying we’re so right now we’re kind of in this weird spot where we’re trying to figure out, like, what is, what is it that the audience wants? And I think a lot of, at least here in the United States, I can’t, I can’t speak for elsewhere, but I think especially here, a lot of people are trying to figure out what is it, what is the kind of content that people want to consume from specifically news organizations as well? Because I think everyone’s kinda tired of the gloom and doom of COVID and, but it’s not normal yet entirely either.

So it’s like, what, what is that? And I think that’s the question we’re constantly exploring and trying to figure out. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (8m 42s): For sure. I can definitely relate to that because one of the struggles that I’ve personally been dealing with while working remotely as well, the I’ve been really struggling to try to delineate is really trying to find that divide between the personal and professional, because at least when you were on site, whether you were filming or working or researching whatever second or third degree trauma that comes with dealing or reporting on stories, you were able to at least separate physically and leave behind on site in, you were able to, I guess, have that support network already in terms of more experienced journalists or producers APS that you were able to have these discussions with and really unpack.

However, once you, I brought that into my house, I’m working out of my room. I’ve been working out of my room for the past four months and it’s really done a number on me because I can’t seem to find that balance. It’s like, I’m bringing that trauma directly into my house. And I’m sure as you’re aware, you know, what we publish outside or at least publish externally for the audience based on what we think they need to know is essentially whittled down to essential factor sometime, sometimes teased out in to more meaningful content, but the bulk of it, right, what gets edited out extracted that still sits with us.

And we have to sit there and sift through that information. So I was just wondering, how have you been finding it mentally and emotionally trying to delineate between the two

Speaker 2 (10m 25s): It’s been hard? It’s so hard. You know, I think the first couple of months were emotionally the toughest. And I remember even kind of, we had a bunch of newsroom meetings and I, I made a point to say, I said, I think we should remember that. We’re not just a newsroom, that’s reporting on a story. We’re living the story. This is not just a story that we are kind of getting information from the wire or kind of going on the ground and asking people what’s going on. But that this story has impacted every single one of us very personally.

And we shouldn’t forget that or lose sight of that. And that mental health is absolutely paramount. And so that’s, so there’s that element of it. There’s that aspect of it, which is that this is an, a story. And I think also as journalists, like where we are in tune with the news, like in terms of how much we consume on a daily basis, I think we do it at an exponential amount, right? A couple yeah.

Speaker 3 (11m 23s): Music junkies, which is actually were in content.

Speaker 2 (11m 26s): Absolutely. We’re like complete news junkies. And even if I’m like making an active effort to not read the news every day I read. Absolutely. And if I like, if I go an entire weekend without like, you know, checking my Twitter, which is impossible, but if I don’t check my Twitter, I don’t check the headlines Sunday night or Monday morning, I catch up on everything anyways. Right. And so when you are a living the story, so your living this, this kind of collective trauma and experience of this pandemic and the uncertainty that’s come with it.

And then on top of that, you’re also creating content that’s related to it. Or maybe it isn’t related to it. And you kind of feel like this is weird. I feel like I should be doing something that’s really related to what’s happening in the world right now. And then on top of that, you are also a consumer of news and in a way that is very a voracious, it’s a lot on your mental health, on your heart. And as this depends on, what’s gone on, you know, with me personally, I’ve had a lot of a loss because of my family directly related to COVID. And so that on top of everything else, it’s, it’s really hard.

And I hope that our newsrooms are doing more across the board to recognize that it’s not business as usual, but that rather like journalists are some are oftentimes, you know, we, we do have a lot of second hand or third hand trauma as well, right. And it’s not necessarily, if we’re just doing the story and producing a video or writing it, but even just the proximity to which the proximity we have to these stories, whether it’s through our personal lives or through, you know, just our consumption of it, it takes a toll on you.

And I think that there’s a reason why I know, I see in my personal circles, a lot of people are leaving the industry. I mean, it was already kind of a shift before, like a lot of people were leaving in Journalism and the industry cause they were just sick of it. And in many different, for many different reasons. I think the last four years in the United States, I’ve been extremely emotionally and physically diff a difficult and, and, and, and, and heavy. But now I think people are like, I can’t do this. Like, yeah, I have a job right now and it’s paying the bills and that’s great. And that’s what I need.

I need my health care, et cetera. But I think for a lot of us, a there’s a lot of journalists who are thinking about what’s my move after this, because this has actually, this is too much, this is too much for anyone to take on for their mental health.

Speaker 3 (13m 51s): For sure. I, a hundred percent relate to that. And it’s strangely cathartic to be talking about this as well, especially, you know, trying to relate as well to your audience, as you said, we’re all experiencing this collectively, but there’s just a lot of delineations. And again, as you’ve said, there is this industry wide burnout. And I don’t know about you personally, but speaking from the perspective of someone that works at a public broadcaster in Australia, at least the ABC’s very much similar to the BBC.

There’s no licensing fee, but because our budget does come from government, we have an actual legislation that dictates our charter and the principles that we need to, we need to basically abide by, to provide to the Australian people. And one of the clauses is to inform, educate, and entertain all Australians. But this industry wide burnout that I’ve at least witnessed on this side of the world, specifically from a public broad pop broadcast perspective, is that the toll it takes, especially in those initial, like initial stages, I reckon from February onwards, at least until April 90%, if not a hundred percent of the energy was dedicated just to prevent or at least combat Misinformation Online it had taped, it’s basically taken all of my energy reserves because I felt like I was battling on two fronts.

So the ABC just be running live blogs daily, they just temporarily shut it down. And then because of the state of Victoria and new South Wales with the Ryma reemergence of cases and a stage four lockdown specifically in Victoria, the live blog just went up. But essentially it would just like burning through people, trying to get live updates from government. Also trying to dispel myths, also trying to disprove hoaxes, fake videos, fake content that has just been disseminated through WhatsApp.

And so you’re kind of doing that for eight hours a day. And then, you know, you quote unquote, come home and then you’ve got your parents or elders in your community. You go into your personal Facebook and it’s like, you’re waging that battle all over again, because that very same Misinformation that you tried so hard to dispel because it’s damaging gets resurfaced in your personal life. So I was just wondering if you also felt the same way and how you’re dealing with it, particularly as this pandemic essentially forced us all to connect virtually.

Speaker 2 (16m 37s): I’m sorry. Can you just repeat the last part of the question?

Speaker 3 (16m 40s): So essentially the point was for you personally, how has it been trying to combat the spread of Misinformation particularly as we’re all essentially forced to connect virtually Online

Speaker 2 (16m 54s): The Misinformation thing is the most frustrating thing. I think I’ve experienced in a very long time, and that includes an American election in 2016. Like there is so much Misinformation across the board and not just like here in the United States where it’s absolutely like, I think I’ve given up all hope about even trying, because I’m like, it’s, you know, everyone has their theories and conspiracies and sure. I think there’s, I think there’s a lot of questions that need to be asked.

Absolutely. And I think we should always be questioning things and thinking critically, but you know, unfortunately a lot of times, especially here in the United States, that’s led to a situation where we have the highest number of coronavirus cases are our daily toll is, is, is horrifying. What’s happening in hospitals in the United States is horrifying. And it’s because people and no one’s taking it seriously anymore. If you were to walk, we haven’t even peaked yet. Right? Like that’s the crazy part in the United States is not really peaked.

And because a peak means that that like you’re coming down, your, you know, the cases are gonna come down and they’re not. So we haven’t peaked yet. And you walk outside, you know, I walk outside of my neighborhood and it feels like there’s no pandemic at all, right. That maybe people are wearing a mask because there was like, some people are wearing masks and it feels like, Oh, maybe there was a fire nearby. Like there’s no kind of real, you know, a sense of not panic. I don’t know. That’s not the word, but no sense of kind of like, Hey, we’re all, we’re all in this together.

And we kind of need to take this a lot more seriously than we are versus, Hey, I just want to live my life and have a good time. And it doesn’t help, you know, that we’re in the summer and whatnot. And, and that’s really kind of made people buy into this idea that maybe it’s not as bad as, as it’s being made out to seem, even though the numbers are showing us exactly how bad it is. So here in the United States, like I kinda try to do what I can. And I just try to stick with like, you know, talking about the numbers, talking about, you know, first person stories and experiences.

And also like, like, as I mentioned earlier in my own family, I’ve, you know, I’ve had quite a few losses in just two, two and a half months were related to COVID and, you know, I kind of point to that and say, tell me where the hoax is. Right. Like tell me where the lies are. I can, I can speak to it directly at me. And I lost my uncle last week and I’m like, I can speak directly to what he experienced and what my family went through. And kind of all those, all of those things that people are saying are, this is a hoax, or this is a overblown, et cetera. I can speak to what was happening in that hospital, you know, where he was and how hospitals, whether its here in the United States or whether it’s in Pakistan, like how overwhelmed they are and unprepared, they are really ultimately to deal with these mass numbers.

You know, this is not a hoax to, for, for population control, but at the same time, I do think we need to be aware of like the fact that I do think governments will absolutely take advantage of this moment to kind of, you know, encroach on our rights and freedoms. So we do need to be vigilant and we can be vigilant about that without, you know, going outside without wearing a mask. For instance, I think it’s very possible to do that. And then in my own family, it’s been like, you know, I get those WhatsApp forwards and I just had to be really, really tough on my parents, on my other family members.

I was in the WhatsApp group and I was like, you guys can’t keep doing this. I’m like, I understand that like there’s all this information coming and you don’t know how to sift through a properly, but this is some random dude. I don’t know where he is. And he’s telling you that this is going to cure Corona, but I’m like, it’s just not true. It’s not true. And so they’ve gone a bit like better with that. I think as they themselves have seen firsthand the impact of the virus on our family. And so I think that’s been a really sobering experience

Speaker 3 (20m 49s): Where they’re like, yeah, we do need to be a bit more critical about the information that we’re, that we’re consuming. And it’s really sad that that’s what it’s like for so many people that they don’t take it not necessarily as seriously, but they don’t take it as critically in a serious way of the information that they’re receiving until they’ve actually seen someone go through it. Exactly. For sure. Ah, there’s a really, really great points. And I think it just touches on that aspect of human nature is that it’s essentially out of sight out of mind until it happens to you, which has really sad because I don’t think it’s, I don’t think that’s the right approach to be having it.

We shouldn’t have to wait until there’s a crisis last minute in order to adapt or an order to learn from mistakes essentially. But I wanted to slightly switch gears, still stay on the same topic, but I also couldn’t help. But notice as well, I’m sure you have with trends, is that as much as COVID tends to take over headlines and has been the center central discussion for the past few months, it’s also being used essentially as a distraction or it’s being centered willingly while certain things are being conducted in the background or at least trying to get away without public interest or suspicion, so to speak.

And I want to speak specifically to the impact it’s had on the Media industry, at least umm, here in Australia, its been one of the most massively hit industries, at least in my opinion, we’ve actually had entire newsrooms shut down. So the Australian on of Buzzfeed has been closed the AAP or at least the Australian Australian arm of the associated press was about to be shut down as of June. But they’d got a last minute bailout from one of the commercial Media commercial companies here.

But even in my own workplace, we’re facing a redundancy of 250 jobs. And that’s just with the first first phase of government cuts that have essentially been coming for years now. But it’s really been put into place under COVID because of budgetary concerns are at least that’s how the government’s pushing it. And I just wanted to know or get your thoughts on that because it just seems to me that, you know, it’s easy to write this off as in economic and economic impact, so to speak, you know, everyone’s losing their jobs, you shouldn’t read into it, you know, it’s going to come, it’s going to be worse before it gets better, but I just can’t help it think that this might be governments around the world, essentially not wasting a crisis and taking that chance at trying to whittle down the fourth estate.

Speaker 2 (23m 46s): What do you think? Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a good chance of that. I mean, going back to my previous point that I made that I think we are in a moment where governments absolutely are taking advantage of the fact that there is fear or that there is kind of this moment where people are maybe more often than not willing to listen to the government because they’re trying to stay alive. You know, people are, are afraid they’re trying to stay safe there. So they’re, they’re giving a bit more leeway in terms in terms of like how much control the government has on our lives.

Right? Like, you know, we all kind of collectively came together and pretty much I’m accepting the United States I guess, but like, you know, we can’t, we’re like, yeah, okay. We should all wear a face mask. Oh yeah. We should like stay six feet apart or you know, Oh yeah, we shouldn’t go out. You know, we kind of, a lot of us in the world kind of collectively came together and abided by these rules. And I think that what we always need to be kind of conscious of is how sometimes that necessary obedience can also become unnecessary obedience. Right. Which governments will always take advantage of which goes back to again, my earlier point, which is that, you know, we, we need to be, we need to listen very carefully to the P the scientists, the doctors about what’s going on and do what we can to keep everyone safe.

But we also have to be really critically engaged with kind of like, how far will this go? Right? Like in terms of, in terms of like governments taking certain actions and having our consent because we are in a state of, of fear, right? And this is what would be called like a state of exception that, and then whatever happens in this state of exception, it becomes the new normal. And I think that’s something we have to definitely be aware of in terms of like, Media, I mean, we don’t have, we don’t have as much government involvement in our media here, but I would say, and so we have very corporate Media here.

And I do think that we, we we’ve for a very long time in the United States have had a complete crushing of, of the, the media industry in particular, the Journalism industry write. So in the last, how many year in the last, like five, six years alone, you’ve seen massive layoffs across major news companies, especially in digital news companies print in particular has suffered a lot. You’ve seen entire a newsroom shut down even right now. You know, like for example, the Atlantic let go 70 people, which was almost the entirety of their, a video, a team, right.

Which was huge because of the Atlantic was actually doing some incredible work when it came to digital video, a document documentaries and whatnot. And that was a, that was a surprise to all of us, you know, the, the fact that they completely gutted that entire department. But at the same time, it’s not surprising because I do think a lot of newsrooms are taking advantage are a lot of news companies are also taking advantage of the fact that this is a kind of uncertain moment, including economically.

And so they are taking it to maybe speed up cuts that they would have done anyways. Right. Because that’s the other thing is the people who end up getting cut, they’re not the executives. Right. They’re, they’re the people who actually make the content who do the reporting. And I do think it’s a really, it’s a weird, it’s a weird time to be a journalist more so than usual because yeah, you, you don’t know really if you’re going to have a job and the following week, like that’s, that’s, you know, in terms of all my friends who are in the industry, that’s kind of the, you know, the mindset we’re all in is, and including myself and others, right?

Like we’ll, you don’t know because there are decisions being made so quickly and unexpectedly across the industry that you don’t know if you’re going to have a job in yeah. The following week. And I think it’s a scary time whether it’s by design or not, it’s hard to say, but I think that when we emerge from this pandemic, which won’t be for a very, very long time, it’s not like 20, 21 is going to come and we’re going to be like, Whoa, everything’s normal. I mean, even if we were to get a vaccine, let’s say by some miracle by let’s say 20, 21, we have a vaccine that’s not going to be available and accessible to everyone very easily.

And that won’t necessarily right. Ensure that things are gonna quote unquote, go back to normal. It’s actually going to take a very, very long time. I mean, people may live relatively normal lives, whatever normal is. Umm, but in terms of work in the economy, those things are still gonna take a bit time to, to reset. And so I think when we ultimately emerge from this pandemic in a few years, we’re gonna see a media industry that is going to be, especially in the United States.

And that’s really the only one I can speak to. Cause obviously that’s my experience, but we’re going to emerge to an industry that is extremely different, extremely different because it was forced to be different because of The a unique situation that the pandemic presents, but also because of, you know, business decisions, quote unquote, that were made that were possibly rooted in issues well before, you know, COVID-19 even became a reality for us. Right. But I do think that from all of this, the, the media industry, the news industry is going to emerge radically different.

And it’s kind of a bit of a, I think, I think we’ve been having kind of a reckoning moment, but yeah, I think it’s gonna be interesting to see where we are in three to four years.

Speaker 3 (29m 26s): Exactly. For sure. It’s definitely a moment of reckoning here as well. And it is quite different essentially. I don’t have any corporate Media experience here in Australia, but I can at least safely say that from the perspective of public broadcasting, which I feel has a much larger importance at least here in Australia, because it’s fundamental and exists in its own charter. That is quite uncertain, not in terms of just the economic forefront.

At least there is some kind of certainty in knowing that because it’s specifically legislated and it is essentially a central tenant of Australian Media that it’s always going to be there, but as I’m sure you’ve probably seen within the last year, my work place got raided, which was fun by the Australian federal police June of last year. That was actually the day of raid I walked into. I walked, I remember walking into the office the next day and it was just absolute pandemonium because I was in legal at the time.

So the, obviously the police essentially dealt with our department the most and it was a strange kind of civil affair in which, you know, they’re, they’re buying our lawyers, coffee and sandwiches while they also asking the it guy, Hey, can you just hand over like 9,000 documents that pertain to this particular search warrant, which was just really, really odd, but the ramifications of that really at least shocked Australia of that for last year.

And it seemed like there was this momentum building to try and cement.

Speaker 5 (31m 10s): Mmm Mmm.

Speaker 3 (31m 12s): Probable defense are at least a reliable, a defense for public interest. Journalism in the, in the constitutional background of not essentially having a clear freedom of speech, right. It’s always been implied in Australia. There’s no such thing as a clear bill of rights where it says you have the right to freedom of speech, but at least as in a constitution that you’ve got a right to public and political communication. And that’s been read down very narrowly, which I think shocked a lot of people because at least, you know, in Australia for Australia or at least its perception worldwide, it always seems to contradict with the reality.

So you think of Australia and you think of laid back larrikin, doesn’t take themselves too seriously friendly, kind of just goes with the flow. But when you look at it from a legal perspective where one of the most, or at least in my experience with become a more stricter than in the UK and we essentially inherited that same common law system and that applies to every aspect of life. So it tends to be quite strict. And once people realized that there was no freedom of speech protection and that the, you know, the government are, at least the executive were able to come in and raid because it was legal to you kind of work a lot of people up.

But since the pandemic hit, they were actually able to charge one of the journalists for the stories they were trying to get them in for, which was on the potential war crimes that Australian soldiers have committed in Afghanistan, ironically enough. So they’ve just been referred to be charged. And this would be probably the first, the first time, at least I think in Media history that it’s ever happened to a journalist and they were able to speed this up because of COVID, all of these developments are happening in the background in addition to these cuts, which is quite worrying.

But then it also brings me to my next point, because if this is happening in the background here and where, you know, you and I were essentially feeling it on this particular level, it’s obviously a whole other, like a whole other discussion when it comes to the Muslim world. And in the extent to which they’re now cracking down on journalists, because they can in the background of this pandemic, because a lot of revolutionary movements, right, have just kind of came to a grinding halt, Sudan Algeria in Africa, the middle East, they just obviously shut down as soon as covert hit.

But now governments are basically taking advantage of this and arresting journalists or even people with public platforms and social media. Do you think that when it comes to the Muslim world and it’s consolidation of power, that this is going to be another permanent shift in trying to silence dissent?

Speaker 2 (34m 10s): I don’t think it’s going to be something, I don’t think it is something that’s going to be, or is unique to, you know, Muslim societies and countries. I think perfect example is here in the United States, since I believe May 27th of May 28th, we’ve had mass protests, right? We’ve had a huge movement sparked by the killing of, of George Floyd and what we’ve seen in this country. I mean, I remember those first, that first, those first two weeks, I genuinely thought that this was going to explode into something like the kind of state violence, right.

Because we all people forget that police are also like in the United States, right. And on anywhere, there are also state actors essentially, but the kind of violence that we were seeing, not only against civilians, right? Not only against protestors, peaceful protesters, but also against journalists. Right. I don’t know if you heard, but there were a lot of journalists who were arrested while literally doing their job. We had journalists who were assaulted by police. And I remember watching it and I was like, this is, this is insane to watch.

This is so crazy to watch because these are the type of things that people always think are in the history books and it’s not going to happen again. And it’s absolutely happening. And even that’s continued, right? Like we’ve seen, I don’t know how, how much you’ve been following it, but we’ve seen, you know, footage coming out of Portland, right. Portland, which I don’t know how much you know about it, but it’s basically like the whitest Citi in, in the United States, right. Portland has this, a very kind of Portland has, is a very popular reputation of being like very white and like very hippy and, and very organic.

And you know, that’s like how people think about Portland? Like, Oh, you want to go surfing, go to Oregon. And it’s very, has that kind of a, a reputation, all of a sudden, now you have these protests happening in Portland, which is still blowing my mind that they’re happening there, but in the way that they’re happening there. But you’ve had, like, these stories emerge where you have a federal officers are picking up protesters in unmarked vehicles, they’re just picking up protesters. That’s what they were doing. And it became a huge headline. Now that’s nothing new. Like we in the United States in particular, especially have a history of that, right?

Like in the early, after, after a nine 11 in New York in particular almost I believe a thousand or over a thousand Muslim men and quote unquote Muslim adjacent men AK a Sikh men or a Hindu man who were seen to be perceived to be Muslim or picked up by unmarked vehicles and, and, and, and, and tortured and interrogated for, for weeks, for months, no one knew where there were. And, you know, there was even a lawsuit as recent as 2015 that like around almost 800 of these men actually filed against the U S government.

So this is something that’s been a part of this country for a very, very long time. So I think we are actually going to see a lot more of that. And I don’t think it’s, New, I think we’re just going to see it perhaps more unabashedly. Right. And I think we are going to see if COVID worsens in other countries, especially, I think we will see a tightening of that kind of authoritarian, a government action, whether its here in the United States or its in a country like Pakistan for instance or wherever.

And I don’t think that’s, unfortunately I don’t think that’s entirely avoidable. Right? Because ultimately the government is a government. The state is the state because it has that monopoly on violence more than anyone else. So it’s it’s and that’s what I mean, I think like were in really scary times for various reasons and it doesn’t start with COVID, it’s something that start a very, very long time ago. And I think it’s just I’m some of us are maybe opening our eyes a bit more to like the fact that, Oh, this is, this has actually, this is where it’s gonna go and, and it can get really, really bad.

Have you seen the movie children of men? Yes I have. Yeah. That movie is always like, I remember when it came out in theaters, I saw it and I was like, Oh my God, this is the world we live in. And now in like 2020, I’m like, this is the world we live in. Like, the thing I love about that movie is that it is meant to be dystopian in the future. And yet it’s a very much so in the present and actually like the director of the film, Alfonzo Koran actually talks about how he very much so wanted to kind of answer the question.

What if the dystopia, we always feared as the one we live in. And I think about that question all the time in these times is that there is no, it will get worse. Right? We are in that worse constantly. And the only thing that changes ultimately is our knowledge of it really. Right. And yeah, so I, I unfortunately have a really bleak outlook on all of this and by the way, let me know if I’m, if I get too rambly or anything like I can do,

Speaker 3 (39m 23s): I can just, he, you talk, I can just listen to you talk forever. I’m just like, I’m absorbing everything. Please give me all these calls in and I guess,

Speaker 2 (39m 33s): No, I get it. But let me know. Also if you want me to rephrase anything, like make it more concise. So it’s easier for you guys when you are, when you’re editing it. Just let me know, like I know how it goes. So

Speaker 3 (39m 43s): Yeah. Well of course, but I’m sure, you know, I think we’ve all S all of a sudden got in an appetite for a longer form, more detailed content because we suddenly have at the time to digest it. So don’t self censor. Don’t try to re edit. I just I’m, I’m ready. I’m taking it.

Speaker 2 (40m 1s): So I just want to make sure that the point that I’m making is like clear for people as well. Right? Of course. Sure.

Speaker 3 (40m 7s): Yeah. Yeah. If I, if I do need any clarification, of course, I’ll prompt you, but so far everything your saying, I’m just like, yes, nodding along, this is exactly the line I’m taking. And I think this will, can actually segue into an interesting point for at least for both of us, because at least for me anyway, Muslim Representation in media specifically in Journalism, at least here is quite young, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a, a Muslim jealous to look up to as a mentor of sorts.

There’s no essential network or support I’m essentially, or, you know, like many of us here, at least in Australia, I’m essentially running in blind because there’s a lot of conversation around trying to diversify media and making sure we’ve got quote unquote accurate representation and what that entails. But I really strongly feel that once you get through the door, it’s like a giant question, Mark. It’s like, now, what now? How do I move? Where do I go?

How do I balance, how do I balance my responsibilities as a generalist? And try to reconcile that with my faith. And especially when you’re, The, when your faith is the topic of conversation, it also gets way more tricky. At least in my experience, in terms of our role,

Speaker 2 (41m 34s): I feel like there’s probably a really big difference between national and international media in time in terms of the roles that we perform and the values that we bring to those platforms in your experience, working both domestically and now internationally for algae zero. Do you feel that there is a difference in the way that you operate with this in mind with one in mind, in particular, as in trying to at least with like the role of the Muslim generalist, you know, as much as we try to a point is to inform people, to make sure that they’ve got facts that they know what’s going on, but, you know, you can’t separate the fact or at least separate that.

Absolutely you can separate when you exist. And that this is my problem. Oftentimes with like the way that Journalism is also structured, it’s very white and by white, I don’t mean that there’s like the people, but I mean, in terms of the experiences and I’m like you, when you exist in a political, when your identity in your faith is politicized, it is very hard for you for that to not play a role in the work that you do. Like simply put, it’s a very, very hard for me to not have, you know, feelings about certain things, whether it’s how stories about Muslims are told or the, even the, the, the, the experts quote, unquote, that we’ll get some Times and whatnot, you know, it’s very hard not to, it’s very hard to separate yourself.

I’m like that is a real luxury to be able to separate yourself, especially when you’re living as a minority in a country to, to separate yourself from your, your work, especially when it’s the work of like a it’s in the business of disseminating information in providing information about the world, about communities, about politics and so on and so forth to separate that from who you are and how you exist in that particular context, the world, the country that you’re in and so on and so forth. So for me, yeah, it’s always been, it’s been, I mean, the reason why I even wanted to become a journalist in the first place, right.

Was because I was very much so like, yeah, I want to, it wasn’t about Muslim Representation for me, it was about how stories are told. Right. So I never had any interest by the way, like being on camera or anything of that sort. I was just more interested in like, because my background is as a writer, so I just wanted to write good stories. And so it was very focused on the storytelling aspect of it. And, you know, having been very, like, I was, I think, 13 or 14 when nine 11 happened, and that was played a massive role in my starting to pay more attention to the way that Media narratives were constructed specifically also about Muslims.

And I, you know, it was really, really paying attention to that. And cause I’m like, I don’t recognize the most of the Islam and the Muslims they talk about on, on, on the news, like, what is this? I don’t understand this. And so I started paying attention too, a lot more. My first year of college, there was a whole Danish cartoon controversy. There were also the quote unquote riots in France that happened in 2005. And that I remember looking at the way in which those stories were being told in the Media. And I became this a lot more interested in narrative construction about communities and about the way and how that impacts, not just how we view those communities, but also how that has a direct impact on support for certain detrimental policies, whether domestic or foreign.

So for me, as like a Muslim woman journalist, I can’t separate that, that history of mine, that experience of mine, what I’ve witnessed as a news consumer, I can’t separate that from being a journalist and what my job is. And, and to your point about like even the mentorship, I agree. I think it’s really unfortunate that we don’t have, we don’t really have that. And that’s something like, I know I would like to do, because I feel unfortunately like definitely here in the United States, there is this mentality of like, there’s only room for one, you know, which is kinda of like really bizarre to me, this idea that there can only be one Muslim American who does this and, and that’s it.

And then they’re the ones that we have forever. And it’s like, what, it’s so weird to me, like, and there’s also this always this like this striving for being the first Muslim, whatever. Right. It’s a really weird dynamic to me. And I’m like, I don’t like, those are our priorities. Then we’re never actually going to have any kind of political clout and power in any material sense in this country or in the world really. But I do think it’s really unfortunate that we don’t have real systems of mentorship that, you know, take people under their wing and kind of, you know, yeah.

Like we have, we cause here in the United States, we do have a Muslim American journalists who are older, right. Who are in their late thirties, forties, even fifties because they start in the late nineties, early two thousands, you know? So we have like a, at least a generation of, of, of Muslim American journalists who can speak to it, but we don’t have those institutions in place that connect us. Right. And I wholly agree with you. Like we need that cause cause navigating journalism as a Muslim, not just as a Muslim in terms of like, this is my politicized identity, but even in terms of practice of your faith is tough because of Journalism industry.

Isn’t really built for, you know, practicing Muslims as well. Right. In terms of how we socialize in terms of how we maybe build relationships with other journalists, it’s, it’s not really built that way. And so that’s what was a struggle as well as like how do I remain or not remain, but how do I practice my faith and stay true to it and its principles while also remaining a journalist and doing my job,

Speaker 3 (47m 41s): That’s exactly it. And that is it’s that essential double bind. I feel that, especially if you’re more practicing that you tend to struggle with more because another thing that I find a bit more destabilizing or at least for me anyway, is that I’m, I’m visibly Muslim. I’m one of maybe two, possibly three Muslim journalists or workers at the ABC alarm that employees probably 4,000 people who are actually visibly Muslim with a head scarf on.

And it’s almost impossible to actually even get a conversation or that having that being brought into it because my visible Muslimness essentially is going to dictate how well I fit into the industry. And that also gets juxtaposed with say Muslims who tend to, or at least, you know, approach their, their Journalism all the way that they work with the more of a cultural lens. So they may not be as practicing or what have you.

And the way that they tell their stories might lean more towards those essential narrative constructions that we’re trying to undo at times. And I feel like if I get stuck, because it’s essentially sometimes undermining what, you know, what I’m trying to do or what I’m trying to undo in this, in this instance. And it’s definitely about trying to, you know, keep those values without essentially coming to a compromise, but it’s really, really difficult.

And I don’t know how to balance this as well, as you said, without, you know, trying to be the first quote unquote person to do this, which is like you said, totally, it’s totally detrimental because it just, for me, at least it’s just signals that we weren’t able to do anything. We had no power to do anything beforehand. And now that we’re the first just signals how late we are to the game or how many barriers were in place suggesting that we were probably regressive before we made it too.

That, and I don’t think that should be the standard that we’re trying to aim for has a community. But I also feel like it also comes down to the diversity hire or at least trying to get this quota, or at least this numerical quarter of, of this new Meredith numerical quota of making sure that there is enough people to represent and do the work, but it just falls on them in the end of the day.

And you know, when you’re dealing with Structures that are predominantly white and like you said, you know, from the executive top-down, there’s not really any change you’re going to get fallouts like from the back a black lives, matter of movement, such as what we’ve seen with Conde Nast and recently here with SPS, which is the public broadcaster that specializes for multicultural communities and it’s particularly for indigenous and multicultural communities. And recently there have been a lot of journalists who’ve come forward with their indigenous journalists who have come forward with racism that they’ve experienced, that was so debilitating that it forced them to leave the industry.

So I just wanted to know, at least from your perspective, when we’re dealing with this double bind, how do you, how do you think we should move forward are at least try to try to function and as well, trying to undo, undo this whole structure internally.

Speaker 2 (51m 21s): So the question is, has a really good question. And it’s a, it’s a tough question because I don’t know how you really undo that structure from within, because unfortunately, like I think even any kind of like rectifying that we’re seeing currently have these issues that have been brought up across various media organizations. I think a lot of them ultimately will be more bandaid in temporary versus longterm because what you’re asking for the reason why Structures also exists, like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very like circular, right?

Where it’s like these structures exist because you have a certain dominant group and that dominant group keeps Power because these Structures exist. Right. So like, cause those structures were built by the dominant group and they, and they were built specifically to keep them dominate. Like whether it’s something as like a corporate structure or its a structure of like an entire country or the economic structure or whatever. So it’s, I’m trying to think of how do you actually kind of dismantle something like that.

And I don’t, I wish I had the answer. I don’t know. I do. I know you can try to disrupt it. And I think, you know, so one of the things that I try to do in my own company in my own newsroom is like, I’ve been there for six years now. Last Friday was my six year anniversary, which is crazy. I’m like, Whoa, I’ve been here way too long.

Speaker 3 (52m 54s): Congratulations on a lifetime in Journalism. And I’m like wild.

Speaker 2 (53m 0s): It also speaks to just like I’ll <inaudible> is pretty good at like keeping you around sometimes. So, you know, I’ve been in at the company at AdrianPlus in particular for six years, I have a lot of, you know, institutional memory. Right. So I can actually speak to a lot of the history of the company and whatnot. Cause I was there from before launch, I helped launch the company as well. Like I was part of that entire team to help launch. And, and so because of that and because I know that I have a bit more of a public persona and the company and you know, I know my own worth, like that’s the other thing, I know what I brought to the company and what I continue to bring.

I kind of use that position of mine as a means of like, as like a, a launching pad for making, you know, whenever there’s particular issues, I use that position of mine to make, to bring those up. So I can’t dismantle a system. Right. But I can personally use my position of privilege and you know, some, Power not a lot of power, but at some Power both internally and externally, right. Like I, I have this sounds a little, you know, let me go brag a little bit, but like, you know, I have a little bit of this, what’s the word I’m looking for.

I have a, this kind of a presence outside of AJE plus as well, that exists, which I know it brings in some Power. And I think we have to be able to recognize our own individual power, which I think especially whether when we’re a minority communities is when we’re women, we don’t do that because we think it is kind of cocky or something of that sort, when it actuality, it’s like we’re recognizing the power that we have and that we are worth far more than oftentimes we’re told we’re worth. Right. And so, because I recognize that and as a constantly remind myself that I’m able to use that little power that I have to, you know, speak on behalf of employees, a fellow employees and coworkers who maybe don’t feel as comfortable speaking out.

Right. So I try to do that as much as I can. And I think that’s sometimes in the absence of any plan or ability to dismantle an entire structure from within, within this industry, I think that’s something we can try to do. And I’m also at a point where if there are certain repercussions, I’m willing to also take those on which I know is like not easy to say always, but, and it’s very scary to say that because especially on this, you know, in this a, a economy and the uncertain times, but I am at a place personally in my life where I’m just confident enough to say, you know, what, if there are certain repercussions for me taking in a particular standard or whatever.

So be it like, I’m willing to kind of take that on if it means like speaking up for people internally within a, within my, my company or something at to their benefit. So, so yeah, I think, I think that’s one way of doing it is, is that if we recognize that we have a certain kind of Power using that responsibly and in unity and solidarity with those who are our coworkers and especially those were on the margins.

So to speak internally in our, in our and our companies, I think that’s one way where you’re not maybe

Speaker 3 (56m 24s): Dismantling it, but you’re kind of disrupting it. That’s a good point to take. And especially because it leads me to my next point about, you know, how much we should be speaking up and advocating at least internally for some kind of change, but specifically in the, in the sphere of at least when combating mainstream reporting or how they go about reporting things that come across as Islamophobic, or at least within the narrative structure that the company is adhering to when disseminating such information that, that, you know, indirectly say, Discourse discriminates against you.

At least for me personally, that’s, what’s been jarring at a public broadcaster, which is where a lot of the flagship programs and a lot of the Walkley award winning or a lot of the hardcore investigations are essentially conducted by white Structures and white people. And you become the byproducts of that story and how much we should be, or how much of an expectation there should be on us because we’re inside given how the, how big the industry is to try and fight that.

So for example, I just, this is one of many instances, but I remember, I remember there was a huge investigations, a story about one particular ISIS fighter that came through legal. And obviously because it’s quite problematic, it had to go through, it had to go through the lawyers and I happen to be in on that story at the time. And I really just couldn’t, I couldn’t let this one particular thing slide, even though it’s really small, but it was just a detail about how they were describing that when this person left Australia and found themselves in Syria, that they adopted a quote unquote Islamic alias.

And I read this, I read the sentence and I’m just like, he didn’t do that. He just Arab defied his name. Like he just D Anglicised it. I’m like, that’s how you’d say it in Arabic. Why are we attributing something like this? And I went back and forth as to whether I should speak out because I was just like, this is just little old me. I’m really insignificant the gentlest at the jealous who wrote it is like, Journalism royalty. I’m like, should I really send this email? Should I, should I really speak out?

I was worried about the repercussions. And they’ll just like, you know what, if I’m going to get scared about something like this, what’s going to happen when something bigger comes down on my way. And it’s really going to challenge me as to whether I need to get the story out, or I need to stick with my principles. And thankfully actually worked out. They apologize so much for saying that they got such a small detail wrong, but I’m like, if this is just something that we’re willing to let go and has gone through the editing process. So many times, I really shut out to think about how much we don’t know about her.

At least I don’t know about that is being told. And I guess it speaks to the culture. But to that, to that point, because we’re on the other side of the fence, should there be an expectation that we stop it, given how a little of us there are in the industry, B, B emotional and mental toll that it takes trying to wage this internal battle.

Speaker 2 (59m 55s): I think it comes down to why you’re in it to begin with, right? Like I know I can think of some journalists, Muslim journalists who are just in it to tell those stories, and they’re not interested in taking the nitty gritty in talking about language and whatnot. You don’t even, like, that’s not their thing. They’re like, look, I’m just going to tell the stories that I tell and work on those. And, you know, if there’s anything maybe egregious, we can talk about it. But so there are people who are just in it to just do the job and that’s it. And then I think there are a lot of us who are in it, because like I said, for myself, the reason I got into the industry was to really up and the ways in which stories about not just Muslims, but about a lot of different minority communities are told, because those are oftentimes the same narratives.

Like for me, it’s not just about, you know, negative stories that are told about that, that involve Muslims, but also positive stories that involve Muslims and the way we frame those. And we talk about them and, and, and there’s always this, you know, oftentimes in a lot of these stories, whether negative or, or positive, there’s a weird, there’s still an othering of, of, of Muslims, right there, always in the way we’ve kind of made Muslims into its own like racial category, even though it’s like, you know, being a Muslim has not a race. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a religion, it’s a set of beliefs.

So, so for me, I know personally, I make a point of being that little Nick nitpicky sometimes, right? If I see a video go out that I am like a, this is problematic framing and here is why I’m. And I think like is a significant one, right? I will go and make that point to the appropriate person has said, Hey, just an FYI for future reference. You know, we said this, but I do think we need to be cognizant that this language is implying this and so on and so forth.

So I don’t do it with everything, but I think there are, there have been moments where I’ve said to myself, okay, say something now. And then my hope is that, you know, by, by my, like, by me doing this, that a and M I think I’m pretty much the only person who really does this. I can’t make, I can’t speak to like just other people. I know Muslims in, in, in my company. I don’t think they always do it. I think I spend way too much time doing it, perhaps relatively speaking.

But, but, you know, my hope is that I talked to the appropriate people, right? So I’ll talk to the copy editor, I’ll talk to the editorial lead and I’ll say, Hey, this was a problem. So I don’t go directly to the reporter or the person who worked on the video alone. I’ll actually go to someone above them who I know is making the editorial decisions. And, you know, I’ll say, Hey, this was a video we put out, we kind of framed it this way. Here’s an issue with how we framed it. I think that we can do this a, in a much more sharper way, editorially going forward.

Let’s consider that. And my hope is that when I’m speaking to someone who’s editorially in charge that at some point I don’t have to keep going to them that they actually understand like, Oh, that’s interesting. Sana brought up this bigger issue about, you know, the way we depicted these Muslim women or whatever, that’s, you know, that’s something to take into taking a consideration going forward. Right. So I, I go in with it with that kind of mentality that, let me just give you the basics. If you’re the editorial person, you’re the one making the decisions.

I’m not going to do your job for you. I’m not, you know, cause this is also unpaid labor, right? Like we also kind of forget that, unfortunately there’s a couple work that ends up being completely unpaid unrecognized labor that we’re doing. Not because we’re just because it’s our job because its not our job. We’re doing it because we’re like, Hey, can you not dehumanize us? Like that’s what it is. Right. It’s about really a human’s to Please pointing that out. Yeah. And like you wouldn’t talk about other human beings in this way. So why are you talking about us in this way?

Right. And it’s like how much, like, you know, when, when the, the massacre happened in New Zealand actually were an article for the LA Times about the language that we use in the media that even oftentimes we will, we will make victims until it will humanize them as well. And you know, I was talking about how I noticed that when, when, when the, when the news broke about the massacre, the Christchurch, a massacre, how so many headlines and tweets were about peaceful Moscow Wars.

Right. And I’m like, we don’t even stop to consider what does that word mean in front of Moscow or a w w we’re implying that there are peaceful or so there must be also violent Moscow or is right. That they’re there, they’re our congregations out there that are violent. I’m like, let’s think about what we’re doing. That, that we’ve when we talk about peaceful Muslims write or a peaceful congregations at a Mustang, what were in effect doing is we’re saying there are only two kinds of Muslim, your either peaceful or your violent. And I’m like, we don’t do that for anyone else because that’s a ridiculous statement to make about any human being about your either peaceful or your not.

And so I wrote an entire piece about this because, and to me, I did that because I, that is why I became a journalist, was the language. I became a journalist. So that the language I’m like, we shouldn’t be dehumanized when we’re alive and we shouldn’t be dehumanized when we’re being killed either. Right. And that doesn’t matter if you’re an American Muslim or you’re a, an Afghan Muslim or a Rocky Muslim, like whatever your background is. Right. So for me personally, it’s very important as a journalist that I am on top of those things that I am aware of the output of the company that I’m working with and is it complicit in the dehumanization of my community or not?

And I realize, again, that that’s not an easy position to be in because I don’t think you should be the token, you know, a Muslim editorial person, like, okay, everything goes through me because I happened to be the Muslim. Because again, it’s also unpaid labor that you’re participating in that said for me personally, I think it’s like, I can’t not do that. Right. Because that is the entire reason I became a journalist. And I also don’t have that expectation of every Muslim journalist that they should be doing that I’m like, no, I understand, like that’s actually a really hard job because it’s, again, it’s unpaid labor.

It’s not your job. You, you, you also are running the risk of like, you know, sometimes in journalism you have really tiny, fragile egos, and you’re kind of running the risk of hurting people’s feelings, even though all your doing is trying to make the job or make the output better. Right. And try and do the job. Right. And so I don’t, I don’t have that expectation of Muslim journalists, but I think that if you went into this industry to change the way stories are told about Muslims, and sometimes that means taking on a little bit of that burden, but to, to the extent that you can and if you can’t, that’s fine too.

Like we shouldn’t beat ourselves over it instead we should create the stories and write the stories and hopefully the way in which we’re writing and telling those stories will also resonate with others who are in our newsroom. Right. Oh, okay. Sana I was doing the Muslim stories like this. That’s really interesting. That’s a cool approach. I didn’t think of it that way. So on and so forth. One thing that I really, really want to do, and I always have all these projects going on and I never seem to finish them, but I really want to, and I’ve actually applied to a few conferences with this workshop, but for some reason it never goes through, which is really interesting, but I really want to do a workshop on like reading Islamophobia in, in, in the newsroom.

Right. And it’s, and, and kind of looking critically about the way we tell stories about Muslim communities and Muslim world, a quote unquote, Muslim world and all this stuff in the newsroom. And that’s something I’ve always wanted to. I mean, I wanted to provide it to my own newsroom. I want to provide it to like young journalists. Cause I used to do that like five, six years ago, I used to do that on the regular, but I’ve, you know, and I think that’s something else that we can do is for those of us who have the skills and the ability and the knowledge and the, a little bit of maybe that a power to do so in privileged to do so, to also go out and, and, and create the workshops that we are.

So we attend workshops for every other skill, you know, anti-racism workshops, whatever. We should also be creating the workshops to a four for journalists to start unlearning the language of Islamophobia that they unwittingly will apply in their reports. Right. Whether they’re good or bad stories.

Speaker 3 (1h 8m 28s): Oh, that’s that’s would be a fantastic workshop that is so needed. And I wholeheartedly agree with you about, you know, as much as it is an unpaid burden, it’s something that compels us to, to essentially act because like you, I also couldn’t stay silent. I felt strongly at the time of the massacre. And I remember, you know, cause we were just two hours behind, but I was watching it unfold in real time at work. And, you know, in the foyer, there are all these TV screens everywhere and we just switched to the New Zealand public broadcast and it was just like streaming in live.

And I was really disappointed in how the ABC approach those initial hours of reporting, because to be honest, nothing about nothing substantial about the victims really came out until after the first 12 hour period, which I’m sure, you know, that was essentially very crucial. What was dedicated to that was really humanizing, really going out of their way actually to humanize the killer because he was from Grafton new South Wales, which is a rural area in our state and they just spent the first 12 to 24 hours really trying to reason as to why someone would be compelled to do that and rightfully took on the white supremacy in Australia angle.

But I couldn’t find out anything about the victims at the only way I’ve found out about it was through social media and through those contacts that I have. And I was just really upset with how that went. And that’s what compelled me to agree to write for vice New Zealand, which is why I have that one article. And I was asked all the time, especially at work, you know, as to why I chose that medium. And whether I realized the significance of me doing that as if it was a potential consequence to put out an opinion piece so early in my career and how that would potentially have ramifications.

But at the time that’s not what I was thinking. I, my goal was to really undo what my own workplace was doing at the time. And I didn’t feel properly represented. They tried to rectify it later on, but my goal was that at the time, the New Zealand Muslim community or in shock, they’re all of their efforts and all their goals was to try and deal with this horrific event. And they just asked me to take on some of the labor and to try and articulate and put that into words because I just wanted in that moment to remind everyone that we were human and it’s really sad that I had to go to such lengths to do, but it’s essentially a burden that necessarily had to be done.

And, you know, a year on to be honest, the conversation hasn’t moved forward, unfortunately I’m sure you probably already knew that because we take pretty bleak outlooks, but there hasn’t been anything significant in terms of addressing the root causes as to why this happened or the aftereffect it’s still very much widespread and healthy in today’s Australia, but I’m going on to that as well. Another thing that, you know, that whole incident brought up for me as well, is that even though we try with as much integrity and with as much accuracy and value is possible, we also get lumped into the stories that we’re trying to tell because they unreported or misreported, umm, because of our identities as a Muslim women and any can’t be separated from our work, we essentially also become part of the political football.

You also become part of your story. And that also is a whole other tight rope to walk as well. So I was just wondering your thoughts on that and how your experience has been when you become the story or whether you’ve had any experiences on that.

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 34s): I think what’s interesting. I mean I’ve definitely been told in the past, like you’re too close to the story right. Being Muslim. And I think when ever you are part of a community that’s not white. Right. It’s always interesting how everyone else has told you’re too close to a story, but like white people are never told that, you know, like why people who cover racism, it’s like, aren’t you a little too close to white supremacy to be, you know, by virtue of, or you’re like, no, no one says that I’m like, right.

Like if you’re a beneficiary of a white supremacist system, aren’t you too close to tell that story, aren’t you? So it’s, it’s always a funny thing whenever I’ve been told, like I’m too close to a story to talk about it and I’m like, excuse, excuse me. Like, what does, is that supposed to mean? But I will say the one thing that is very interesting is like, so I four, most of my life, ah, for like 14 years were hijab and I didn’t a lot of Media work while we’re at your job and I’m, and before I joined AdrianPlus plus I had, I had taken it off.

And what was a very interesting was how, you know, that process really, that instance really changed my interaction. Not only with people in general in society, but also with this industry. Right. And I was no longer necessarily read as a Muslim woman per se. Right. And if I was, it was because of what I was saying. Right. Because that didn’t change what I was talking about. Didn’t change at all. The only thing that changed is what I looked like visibly in public.

And, and I do remember for instance, like all of a sudden it a lot harder to get when I was pitching stories about Muslims and the issues of surveillance, a national security, et cetera. It was really hard to get any editors to be interested in me anymore. Right. And I noticed that immediately. I was like, this is really interesting. All of a sudden, it’s a very hard for me to talk about the issues I’ve been talking about and I’ve been published for the last, you know, however many years, you know? And so, and so that was very interesting.

And I did find that I wasn’t being, you know, I mean, again, I worked at, I was at AJE plus in 2014. So it’s, you know, there’s an understanding there that we’re not going to necessarily, you know, tokenize you, but like, I don’t think so. I can only speak to that experience, but I, I don’t think since then I’ve been read as a Muslim journalist right. By unless people look at my Twitter account and then they see what I talk about.

And because I do focus mainly a lot on, I mean, I talk about she’s a national security foreign policy left is politics, but then you will also see oftentimes a lot of explicit conversations or like explicit discussions of, of issues that are very particular to the Muslim American community, for instance. Right. So, but I don’t think I’m read as a Muslim journalist quote unquote, when people look at me, obviously, because I’m not visibly a Muslim, I’m visibly something else.

Right. But I’m not visibly Muslim. So, and that’s also a really interesting, I mean then of course, like my colleagues, everyone knows that I’m Muslim because I’m, I don’t hide that. Like I’m like, yeah, I’m Muslim, but you know, so I think once people find out that I’m Muslim, then yes, they’re reading the, as Muslim because they’re like, Oh, she’s not just Muslim, culturally would actually practices so on and so forth. And I think then approach approaches to stories Become maybe a bit different and yeah, so I’ve so it’s yeah, it’s, it’s been kind of a, I have both experiences.

I have the experience of like being tokenized and kind of treated in a very particular way because I was visibly a Muslim woman and I didn’t realize I was kind of being treated that way until I took it off and I saw how differently I was treated. Right. And then I realized I had to really just play a different game, so to speak, like, you know, it was just a very, very different experience as a, as a, initially as a Muslim woman who was in the news talking about Muslim issues and then later, yeah.

Like not being a visibly Muslim woman in, in, in, in the media. So it’s been a really interesting experience in that regard because for me, like my, my Muslimness is very much so at the forefront of who I am, it’s like what I consider my primary identity. And so that’s always, it’s always interesting, like how, I mean, in some ways, I guess that can help me to, in terms of, you know, the fact that if I’m not being like initially being read as Muslim, but I can, it sounds terrible to say, but it is the industry we’re in.

It’s like, you can almost be seen as to an extent, a bit more palatable, so to speak, right. Like to tell us, you know what I mean? And I hate saying it, but it’s true. You know, and I also do think about it cause I always think about, you know, when I, when will I wear the hijab again and I don’t let my career be a factor in that conversation, but I do think about like, what would that impact be? Right. Because it’s very true that the way in which availed Muslim woman is being consumed by a viewer by a reader is a very different than someone who isn’t because unfortunately people will just imbue all of their biases.

I mean, no matter who you are, right? Whether even if you’re like anything with whatever, your any kind of visibly, whenever you’re visibly different quote unquote person from whatever the majority, majority Korean identity is, like people will imbue certain meanings onto who you are, what you are, what you represent. And so, I mean, even if you’re just a woman, people, people will read something about national security, get to the end and see the byline as a woman and having perhaps a very different approach to what they just read. Right. So I think, like, I think about those type of things very often as well.

Like what would that impact be? A, not that I wouldn’t even care, but like, it would just be such an interesting experience having, you know, like I said, Warren had a job and been in the Media and then not working a job and being in the media. And I also get asked the question, like, do you think that you got opportunities the way that you did because you don’t wear her job? And to an extent I think, yeah, I actually do think that, and it’s, again, not a very fun thing to say, but I do think to an extent I was able to get a particular because there’s like, I wasn’t, when I worked a job, I wasn’t like the super fashionista hijabi.

Right. Like I was just, I was super chill, like whatever. And so I don’t, you know, I don’t also, and this a whole other conversation, but I think like even the pressures that are on women, in her job who were in the public idol look a certain way, just like there are women of all kinds. We have, we have a pressure to look a certain way. And I don’t, I, I always, I’m very, I feel very blessed that I’m like, I’m glad I don’t look like anything that they expect you to look like. But I do think that like, yeah, I think maybe if I was a Muslim woman and her job who very much so fit that Instagram look, I think I could have had also different.

I could have gotten more opportunities as well if I was still wearing a job, but, but I do think that as it stands right now, there are certain opportunities that I’ve gotten as a result, as a result of. But I think that, I don’t think I would have gotten them as

Speaker 0 (1h 20m 8s): Easily where I wearing hijab. And I didn’t realize that until much later in my kind of career.

Speaker 3 (1h 20m 16s): Yep. And you know what that is, those are conversations that we ultimately have to grapple with that again is probably not on the radar for anyone else in our industry, but it’s yet another thing that we need to keep in mind as we’re trying to balance everything in moving forward. But you’ve touched on really interesting points that I also wanted to segue into. And that is, you know, speaking of Instagram and the version of palatable hijab, inevitably our work is going to intersect with how it impacts the Muslim community and especially, you know, within the past decade or so, we’ve seen a migration of sorts from it just taking place in our regions, but now Online so Muslim, Twitter Muslim, Facebook Muslim Instagram they are now, they are now interesting niches that function and self-regulate in a way in their own, in their own.

Right. And I always found it really interesting, but also really difficult in learning how to engage with the Muslim community when we’re trying to balance internal conversations that we’re trying to have, or that we’re trying to address within members of our own community, but they’re taking place on external platforms, right. It’s just this weird juxtaposition and, you know, Muslim Twitter is the perfect example of this because any time a controversy happens or, you know, there’s an event that happens or topics that circulate, I just find it really discombobulating when we’re talking about, you know, women’s decision to wear the hijab or not, or, you know, women’s place in society or how capitalism is basically destroying the role of Muslim women or, you know, actions of certain religious leaders, when that goes viral on Facebook, it doesn’t only just invite or Twitter for example, that it doesn’t just invite critique or this platform where we’re all trying to, you know, basically voice our concerns or talk about it, but it’s happening while weirdly enough, like the rest of society’s watching.

And I want to know how you grapple with it when you’re trying to engage and trying to point out or have meaningful discussions about what we need to change or problems that are facing our community. But the only way we can do that is having to risk it by going on external platforms.

Speaker 0 (1h 22m 55s): Yeah. That’s always a tough that’s is a really good question. And it’s one, I think about a lot too, because it, you know, whether it’s on Twitter, on Facebook, I talk about a lot of internal Muslim American issues of Muslim issues very openly. And in recent years, I’ve, I’ve actually made a conscious decision of also just being more open about like more, more authentic, I guess, is a way to put it about like, you know, even my own practice and a relationship with the Dean and everything.

But with regards to talking about sometimes those really ugly issues in our community, I am always very cautious of the fact that like, you know, like I’ll give you example, right? Talking about issues regarding the LGBTQ community in a row or LGBTQ issues in the United States. And when it comes to the Muslim community and attitudes and so on and so forth, you know, that’s something that that’s a conversation that requires such a, like a nuanced approach and delicacy and compassion on for everyone.

And, and I know for instance that I have a lot of people in my life who would possibly see me say certain things that are directed towards a Muslim community and they would be like, what are you saying? And it’s just like, you know, and it’s understanding that they’re all okay, communities have different languages. Right. And I think we sometimes forget that that even though we’re all maybe in the same country, we don’t all speak the same language. Like the way a community is defined is through the very particular language that it creates because communication is what builds relationships and interactions between people.

So like, I am always very cautious and sometimes worried, like I’m talking about certain things. So for instance, like whether it’s women’s issues, whether it’s LGBTQ issues or whatever, and how it’s impacting the Muslim community and vice versa. And I know that like, I, when I’m speaking to, when I’m talking to a Muslim audience, like I write it so that it is for that Muslim audience. Right. And I do that sometimes nervous because I know that there’s a non Muslim audience also reading that.

And sometimes, I mean, in the past, I feel like I’ve also, again, it goes back to I’ve, I’ve kind of built a certain public persona where even non Muslims who follow me, kind of understand what I’m doing and understand like, like they respect me hopefully enough to like, you know, not that they, they they’ll kind of be like, okay, let’s see where she’s going with this or whatever, whatever the issue is. But also I think they respect me to know that I’m, you know, that maybe there are certain beliefs that I, that I hold that, Oh, sorry.

He just blanked on what I was, where I was going with that. No worries. Let me, let me just restart that point. So I am writing these things on, on social media about like very internal conversations regarding Muslim American issues or a Muslim American interactions with a broader societal issues, whether it’s issues of foreign policy, whether it’s issues of, you know, some like CVE, countering violent, violent extremism is something I’m very vocal about in a way that a lot of Muslim Americans have engaged with the state apparatus in a really made our community so vulnerable.

And I’m very, very open and very harsh about it. And I’m harsh about it very for a very, very intentionally. When I talk about those issues, when I talk about issues regarding women, when I talk about issues regarding a LGBTQ, you know, I, I always catered that language to the Muslim community, but I also am very, at the same time aware of the fact that there is a huge non Muslim audience that is reading that. And I’ve been blessed in that. You know, I have an audience Muslim non-Muslim who are, who I think are aware of the fact that I don’t kind of only, I don’t deal in extremes, right?

Like I try to approach all issues and conversations with I’m a, a healthy dose and level of nuance and that I am very, a very strong principles that I don’t move on, but I am still open to having my own beliefs and perspectives challenged, I think, because I hope that’s how people know me. And I think if my audiences know me like that, when they see me talk about these issues in our community, that they are then a bit more, they’re interested in actually seeing where that conversation goes.

Whereas I think if I was presenting things in one extreme or the other, then they would feel the need to present their opinions and interject in the extreme as well. If that makes sense. I hope that’s answering the question if I understood it correctly. Yeah, no, that is it you’ve hit the nail on the head in regards to doing with that exposition. I do think that like, as, you know, we, if we’re having these conversations and a public sphere, then we need to be able to kind of also understand that there are people like who are non Whistler who are not part of this community who are listening and watching, like, you know, I personally on Twitter, there are so many conversations that I see developed on Jewish Twitter, so to speak.

Right. And especially like a leftist Jewish Twitter. And I see it and like, I don’t feel the need to participate, you know? And I also understand like, you know, like, Oh yeah, like this is a community. They have their own interesting interactions with certain issues and so on and so forth. And this is a very particular part of that community. That’s having this conversation. And it’s interesting for me to read and to like observe, but I don’t hold opinions on it per se. I mean, and that’s, I can only speak for myself, but like, you know, that’s how I also look at other communities and the conversations they’re having and I don’t feel the need to interject and be like, well, here’s how I feel about your issue.

Or like, actually, you know, I think you should be saying this instead of this. And so, so yeah, like I think, I think we all just have to be aware of the fact that every time we’re engaging in a public, ah, on a public platform, which has every platform we exist on that we are always inviting people into that conversation without explicitly inviting them. And that’s something we have to be aware of. And if you want to kind of cater your language in a way that’s softening the blow, then go for it.

But I do believe in being like really kind of honest and authentic and how you’re speaking and, and not really caring about what that, what that, and obviously there’s certain things that are very, very sensitive, right? When we’re talking about issues of whether it’s violence, whether it’s like sexual abuse and whatnot, like there are certain issues that we do, I think need to always mindfully like approach because a, you know, one thing I also know is there are always journalists looking for a story as well.

And sometimes your story can end up in the wrong hands and be turned into something that’s used in weaponized against your community. So I do think we need to be a little, a little cognizant, but I also don’t think we should, we should stay away from being honest and authentic about the tough conversations we need to have as a community, to, to better our community, because we don’t have town halls, right. Like, it’s not like we’re like, all right, everyone, who’s a Muslim in Virginia or in New York, we’re going to meet at this time and have a community conversation.

We don’t have that. So in, in, in, in, in lieu of that, like what do we have? We have these very public spaces. And so it’s like, alright, how do we engage with them responsibly? But authentically

Speaker 3 (1h 30m 34s): That is, that is a great point to land on because, you know, even with that, as you said, that it’s a public space, there is also a lot of repercussions that comes with the territory, especially when we’re trying to address those more, there’s more sensitive or more critical conversations that need to be hardware. You know, honesty is pretty much required, but as usual, I find that the repercussions or consequences, especially in terms of reactionary, abuse always seems to be more disproportionate towards Muslim women because we find us those in this very double-edged Oh, Condamine because we’re, you know, we’re trying to address, you know, Elise, a lot of the time with what I’ve seen and only only came up because of the public spaces that we’re trying to address this on, but we’re both trying to grapple with dealing with internalized misogyny.

And we’re trying to speak to that. But in doing that, we also risk externalized Masonic Misogyny from the rest of the public space or at least society. And there’s no break. At least I find when I’ve really gotten into it. And you know, that obviously gives or brings about its own speed of Online abuse. And I was just wondering what your experiences were on that and how do we, how do we make any meaningful segue?

Because you know, just earlier this week, I just find the same, the same conversations, just get recycled over and over again, like in this space of one day I saw a Muslim, Twitter talking about how women over 25 are expired and if they weren’t married, then something’s wrong with them. Two women who, who quote, unquote, diluted themselves into working really just sold themselves out to capitalism. And they really should just, you know, be more calm and live within their means, right?

Yes.

Speaker 0 (1h 32m 47s): Is this going to be a whole other pot because it is so frustrating to your point regarding like that internalized and externalized Misogyny I mean, yeah. Like people don’t realize how to, what extent we have to deal with. Misogyny constantly what, this is a professional massage in your, whether it’s massage to you within our community, these approaches like yeah. Like this idea that you’re 25 and then you’re expired. I’m like, okay, what, like, you know, that’s something I’m 33.

Like I just turned 33 in June. Right. And it’s, it’s funny because I was having this conversation with a friend and I was like, you know, it’s so weird. Like, I don’t feel quote unquote old. Right? Like I think age is also to an extent, your own experience and how you choose to engage with it. And I’m like, I don’t feel old at all. And you know, I’m enjoying my life having a good time, whatever. And you know, we both agreed that what makes us ultimately feel quote unquote old is our community, right?

Is that there are certain expectat expectations, but that there are certain ways in which our communities will talk about us. Our, our, our, our, our small community is not all like a greater American society because in greater American society being 33, it’s like, Oh my God, you can have a tick tock. That’s so cute. Like, you know, it’s, it’s like, it’s not considered old in the way that we talk about women sometimes in our community. Unfortunately, I’m sorry. That was like, I just wanted to, we didn’t have to include that. I just wanted to kind of throw it.

Speaker 3 (1h 34m 17s): No, but like, if we don’t address it, like, cause they’re, cause it’s, it actually really does weigh you down. I just find myself getting so exhausted about being defined by biological clocks as if, as if the men in our community don’t don’t have them. Like, they’re just, and they’re like, you know, by the time that they’re raisins, they’re still able to do the same things is when your twenties no, sir.

Speaker 0 (1h 34m 42s): And it’s is really, really, it’s very frustrating because I don’t think people realize is that when you have put that kind of a, when you have put that kind of a judgment of worth on a woman that you are not only like you are actually not only like having an impact on her mental health, but you are also actually having an impact on her material wellbeing and her growth. Right. So like when you talk about women being expired at a certain age, that has an impact, not only on her mental health, not only on, you know, the, the, the prospects of her finding a healthy partner, you know, but also on a, on her ability to grow professionally and to actually, because you think that well with work, what work does this woman have?

If she’s not married, if she’s not having kids by this certain age. Right. And it’s just like, you know, and I’m like, that’s such a dangerous idea and it absolutely goes beyond the Muslim community as well, but it’s such a sad idea. That’s persisted. And what actually really worries me is like, you know, I see a lot of young Muslims who absolutely adopted that idea, right. That they’re critical about everything in the world, but they’re not critical about the way they engage with women’s bodies about the Muslim women’s bodies age, you know, all those things.

Like there isn’t any kind of critical engagement in that. And I, I keep thinking about, you know, like, I’m sorry, would any of these same people have told who are these like that she was,

Speaker 6 (1h 36m 25s): Oh, okay.

Speaker 0 (1h 36m 26s): Absolutely not about that. I’m like, no, of course not. And I’m like, we are going around telling young girls that they’re expired and I’m like, that’s so gross. And again, it also, it reduces women’s function in the world to only reproductive, right. That, that the only thing that women are actually, ultimately their work is only ultimately in their ability to reproduce, which is so dangerous, like overall, but especially as Muslim women, when it’s like, know our work is in the same thing that men have in which is like being believers as Muslims, like our worth is in our belief, not in our ability to reproduce or not.

Right. Like it’s just such a phrase. And then you ended up creating these two, this double tier of like Muslimness, right. Which is like a Muslim woman is worth almost a woman’s worth is in her ability to reproduce. And a Muslim man’s worth is in his, you know, his obedience to a law. Right. Like Andy, and I know there’ll be certain people on the pendulum who will say like, well, you know, or on the spectrum out there, who will say, you know, marriage and reproduction is also your obedience to Allah and that’s a whole other conversation.

But I mean, I think like it’s really frustrating that we are still at this point in the conversation and that it doesn’t seem to be going away a lot of the way we talk about sometimes Muslim women within our communities and what, and how we, and what we place their worth in a way,

Speaker 3 (1h 37m 58s): Of course, I grappled with this all the time. And especially when we voiced objections to it or the thing that really, really frustrates me about Muslim Twitter, especially when we’re talking about women’s rights. Like for me personally, whenever I’m talking about that, I always came at it from the perspective of I’m trying to re ascertain my right. That was given to me in Islam by a lot. Right. It’s just, you know, write to work, right.

Our own property, right. To behave in a certain matter, right. To be treated with respect. What have you, this is all founded within our Tradition. Right. I eat nothing, nothing frustrates me more that any time we’re trying to address wrongs, like against women in our community, that their response to us even bringing that up within Tradition is that it’s too, it’s two feminists that I just came. I just came up with that

Speaker 0 (1h 38m 59s): A lot about this. It’s just so frustrating. It is very frustrating. And it’s very, very frustrating. Like, you know, the fact that, and because the word feminist is used in a pejorative way only, right. Like it’s not yet dismissed

Speaker 3 (1h 39m 16s): Is any kind of Discourse any kind of meaningful Discourse that will address the actual inconsistencies.

Speaker 0 (1h 39m 23s): It’s like, Oh, well Feminism is actually just a result of secular liberals on which I’m like, yeah, I agree with it. Okay. But it’s like, because it’s a result of secular liberalism, therefore it is antithetical to the spirit of Islam. And so, so when you label a woman in, within our community, right, like as a feminist, what are you saying? You’re saying she is antiemetic. She is anti Islam automatically when in reality it’s like, I’m high. I just want to, I just want space to pray in the mustard. Like seriously, I just want,

Speaker 3 (1h 39m 50s): I mean, five of my friends to pray, and we’re not

Speaker 0 (1h 39m 56s): A place that smells, that’s not so small. And like, you know, there’s mildew everywhere or something. It’s like, that’s not really an, like, if that is that like, you know, that seems like to me also, just me asking for like my ability to do my Eva properly. Like, that’s what I’m asking for. And I think like we have a really toxic situation. I’m actually working on an article about this, which I hope to publish in the next couple of weeks, which has actually addressing this issue head on, which is that, like, what have we become that we are allowing certain personalities in our community who are taking on explicitly misogynistic, not Islam, making any sense, our approaches to how we talk about women and women’s issues.

And we are okay with that, that we’re absolutely okay with it for some reason. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s very, very frustrating and it, and people don’t realize how it does make just existing as a Muslim woman, period. Very difficult when you can’t like, say something without someone being like, well, your just a feminist or you’re just like, you know, whining. And you’re like, I’m just, okay. Like having an opinion is what’s offensive to people now. Right? It’s like, it’s always been offensive when women have opinions, but it feels like now, especially in the Muslim community, like there’s this huge backlash, which is really interesting to me, because like, for me, again, like growing up in the two thousands, there was a massive, massive emphasis by our community on educating Muslim women on pushing Muslim women to the forefront of making us public, because the idea was, Oh, we got to fight the stereotypes.

You’ve got to fight the stereotypes. And we’ve got to prove to them that Muslim women aren’t oppressed. Right. It’s like, yeah, we’re not. And okay, we’ll show them exactly what our community is all about. And now I feel like this is especially in the case. Well, a lot of younger Muslims, unfortunately, younger Muslim men, especially there has been this weird, like backlash to the fact that Muslim women have opinions and have, you know, economic, you know, independence and like that we want that. And we’re okay with that. And I do think that there are certain things that we need to be maybe as a Muslim community, more critically engaged with when it comes to certain trends among Muslim women.

Right. And then I think like their is a, there is definitely a space to have those critical conversations, but what we’re seeing right now, isn’t that what we’re seeing is really a much more of this kind of misogynistic attack on, on, on Muslim women who dare to say something, anything.

Speaker 3 (1h 42m 34s): Oh, for sure. And the thing that really puzzles me as well is, you know, that none of these, none of these things that we’re talking about are unfounded in Tradition that there’s this really large disconnect between what we’re asking for that has already been there. And I think the issue really arises, especially when I think back to the fifties and sixties, when a lot of Muslim countries were, you know, conducting their own revolutions and women with some women who were trying to assert themselves back home.

And I just find it really fascinating that it was essentially dismissed as a feminist movement, but what they didn’t realize is that they really needed the epistemology to re ascertain rights that already existed in Islam. And I always counted the counter, the fact with, well, if we were already given those rights, where are we? You shouldn’t, we shouldn’t need to be worried about any repercussions or sometimes fear for our lives or be so silenced that we need to create secret groups on Facebook and WhatsApp to even carve out spaces for ourselves to really unpack our, our trauma and, you know, trying, trying to move away forward and reconcile with what we know is in our Tradition.

And that’s what we wholeheartedly believe in versus what’s being translated into reality. And I don’t think, I don’t think men understand that, or at least they’re very much aware of it and it’s either they don’t understand it, or they’re essentially exploiting that for their own gain. And that’s really hard to navigate at least for me anyway. So it repeats

Speaker 0 (1h 44m 16s): That’s part of what you said. I just want to make sure I understood it.

Speaker 3 (1h 44m 19s): Oh yeah. I said the last thing is that I don’t know whether Muslim Muslim men when approaching, or, you know, being in these conversations are either aware that this is, this is happening or that we’re dealing with this kind of trauma or that they are aware of it. And that they’re exploiting it a power imbalance.

Speaker 0 (1h 44m 40s): I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know if Muslim men are IX. I wouldn’t say like all Muslim men, obviously. I think there are certainly certain,

Speaker 3 (1h 44m 46s): Oh, well of course, no hashtag not all men. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (1h 44m 49s): Is there in people who like found a pulpit and then found a vacuum and try to fill, like, fill that vacuum with, you know, what they see as the, like, basically bottom of the barrel analysis of a lot of issues regarding a Muslim women and gender and the Muslim community. So I think like we do have people who absolutely are taking advantage of it in the most grotesque way and not realizing how they’re really inflicting a lot of a mental and possibly at some point like physical violence against women without, you know, any kind of consideration and how they’re actually like really bastardizing religion to do that.

Right. And that’s, and that’s something I have a huge problem with because I’m like that is religious illiteracy, right. Just because you can speak a little Arabic and, you know, a few verses in the Koran and you can reference a few scholars does not mean that you are religiously literate when you are actually, you know, actually participating in essentially like in the dehumanization and of, of, of, of women and especially Muslim women and your own community that you’re participating in.

Doesn’t mean you’re religiously literate. I do think like one of the things that I’m also really interested in exploring, and I don’t think it’s, it hasn’t actually really been done. It was also the impact of like Islamophobia on Muslim male masculinity in these countries, right? Like that’s something I haven’t really seen explored, and that’s something I’m really interested. I have some ideas about, and I really want to explore this topic, but I don’t think we think about, you know, the way in which a lot of, and that’s, and that’s one of my own frustrations is sometimes the way that, and we’ll some women circles and groups.

We talk about Muslim men where I don’t think I’m and I, and I have plenty of my own gripes, but I don’t think we also consider the fact that Muslim men in the last 20 years, especially a young Muslim men in particular have had to grow up and even older ones who had to really kind of, you know, rethink who they were, what they are, how they’re interacting with society. So on and so forth. Like what impact did you know, The the national security state apparatus have on Muslim men and their masculinity, right?

Because Muslim masculinity was absolutely criminalized, right. It was made to be dangerous and scary. So what impact has that had on the way Muslim men are our viewing and understanding their masculinity and then, because that has an impact on how that masculinity treats us, right. And has an impact on how that masculinity interacts with us as Muslim women. And so that’s also something I think about is I think there are a lot of Muslim men who are possibly in this kind of when, when you have, when you exist in a, especially in a space where you feel that you have, this is not to discount the fact that we have like every community where there are men, that there is organically a problem of massages.

It’s not to discount that, but I do think there’s possibly something to be said about what happens in a community where men have been emasculated quote unquote, through a security apparatus, right through systemic discrimination, through an entire, in our case, a war on terror that they have that their manhood, so to speak has been criminalized. And therefore they hold no real material or, or a real power in the way that is defined for men.

What impact does that have then on the way they interact with women who seek equal status, but is seen as though they’re seeking Power I know it’s, it’s, it’s like kind of philosophical, but it’s something that I think about a lot. And it’s like, I really, really want to kind of pursue this further because I’m like, we haven’t thought about that. We haven’t thought about like, when we look at the war on terror, right. It’s like Muslim women absolutely bear the burden of like racist attacks and, and, you know, and, and that kind of like that kind of the way in which we’ve been also, especially a visible Muslim women, I’ve been kind of criminalized and humanized in the public sphere, but the actual security apparatus of the war on terror of the narrative of terrorism, it actually targets Muslim men.

Right. And we haven’t actually engaged with that. The impact of not Islamophobia, but of an actual violent system of security, how has that impacted Muslim men in our community? And because that then impacts the way they interact with us as Muslim women, the way they interact with their faith, the interpretations of their faith that they choose to also engage with. So I think like, again, going back to, I think with all these conversations, there needs to be this like level of nuance. And I, I, you know, I wrote a little while ago in this piece on, on, on my medium blog about how, you know, I think we do need to have more compassion overall and the way we talk about these issues, and especially when it comes to like the way in which sometimes Muslim women react to certain things.

And it’s because we have been let down time and time again by our institutions, but we still hold onto those institutions. Right. We still are the ones who at the forefront upholding them in defending them in the face of any kind of, you know, outside attack, especially. But like, you know, and I think sometimes Muslim men don’t really recognize the extent to which our experiences with those same institutions within our community that we’ve built are so vastly different.

They’re just so different. Like we don’t, yes, we pray the same way, but we don’t experience prayer always the same way. Right. Because that also has, because the space that we inhabit in a Mustang in a masala impacts the way we’re experiencing that prayer. And it shouldn’t like, ideally it shouldn’t right where, you know, you’re trying to achieve Holzschuh in prayer. So it shouldn’t matter where you are, but it does because we’re human beings. Right. And so it’s like, oftentimes there isn’t that kind of recognition of we can exist in the same spaces doesn’t mean where we’re experiencing those spaces the same exact way.

And that has a real spiritual impact on, on, on, on us. Right. Which is why you see so many Muslim American women really also starting to kind of move away from the faith and find their meaning in something else.

Speaker 3 (1h 51m 29s): That is so true. I was going to say that I think it has because of his, because of that positioning, we’re also essentially afforded, well, it’s not really a luxury, but because we occupy has such a, such a strange space in terms of that, we essentially are also at times, you know, by a secular liberal society, you know, and I think we also forget about this as women is that we are essentially weaponized against Muslim men as well.

And when we’re, when we’re dealing with these internal internal conversations and it’s just so at a stalemate, it’s a very easy for us to go and flip to the, you know, to the external side, to the outside and just be like, well, I can’t deal with this space anymore. I’m just going to go. And you know that you, you have a movability, there’s a palatability to you because at the end of the day, we are essentially, or at least reduced to a token against the violent, evil, Muslim man caricature, all of that is built within this narrative.

Structures

Speaker 0 (1h 52m 36s): And that’s, and that’s the other thing is why I kind of wish sometimes. And I understand like the anger that comes from a lot of Muslim and I, cause I feel it too. I’m like, girl, I get you. Like I know, right? Like it’s not easy being a Muslim woman in this community sometimes, but I’m also very cognizant of the fact that we are oftentimes used exactly for that, that we are weaponized and kind of used as native informants as well. Right. Against our own community in particularly our met. And to make that point about like, look, Muslim men are our, our, our awful to their women.

And I think the, and that, and that’s a, that’s a really tough, you know, and I think because of that, like knowing that also Muslim men are also, I don’t like using the word victims, but that they are also victims of a, of, of a system, of, of a structure of violence. I think it’s something I have to remind myself constantly so that I can also be a bit more merciful in a way our approach, these questions right. About, and it’s funny because it’s also a women who always have to do this, right.

It’s like, okay, we have to do this. But it’s like, for me personally, intellectually, I’m like, I can’t, for me to be intellectually honest, that’s what I need to do. It’s not even just about me as a woman being like, alright, I’ll compromise, but really intellectually, to be honest with a fact that like the men in our community, like, I mean, forget even just like the post nine 11 security apparatus that targets Muslim men. We have histories of colonialism in our country, in our communities that we haven’t, we’ve never actually confronted.

Right. The process of decolonization never finished. We are, cause we’re still in kind of a more neo-colonial state, all are all of the countries that a Muslim, most of the Muslim American countries are in some, some state of, of a neocolonialism like rule, right? Whether it’s economic systems, whether it’s the dependence on the United States or other countries for a security or whatever, we’re not even our communities back home. So to speak don’t exist independently. So we have like layers upon layers of really generational trauma and experience that we haven’t confronted.

And I know that’s like a lot to think about when you’re like, but I just want to hate on someone right now, but it’s something that I do try to be aware of when I’m talking about these issues. And I don’t necessarily always have to be explicit about it, but I do think about the way in which I talk about Muslim men as a group and how, you know, and that’s why I’ve been trying to even complicate my own interaction with that question. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about, like I said, like, what does Muslim, what does Muslim quote unquote, Muslim male masculinity look like?

And how has it been impacted by the, you know, security state, a apparatus, right. And that’s something like when I think about it, and the only reason I started actually thinking about it was really when I started delving into more, everything that was happening post nine 11 with regards to everything from Guantanamo I’m in Guantanamo is a perfect example from Guantanamo to the ways in which Muslim men have been continued to be targeted by, you know, for entrapment purposes, by the FBI, the way Muslim men are the target of all kinds of foreign Wars as well.

And so I have to think about this because we oftentimes will think about men as disposable in situations of war as well. And that’s something I’ve tried to unlearn myself because we always say you gotta protect the women and children and the elders. Right. Which is yeah, true, because there are vulnerable in our society. But then I also think about how sometimes that approach can make men a lot more disposable. And, and obviously like I’m not here to be like defend all men, but I’m, I am here to think like, you know, kind of bring a bit more of a compassionate approach to the critiques that maybe we put forward and how we can couch them.

Speaker 1 (1h 56m 30s): That is actually, I’m sorry. I’ve not because it was interesting and much less, this was a really insightful conversation. So in terms of like, you know, Feminism and masculinity, like, I guess it’s really interesting, you talking about being a merciful, compassionate, cause even as a guy, I don’t really like what you just articulated, to be honest, I don’t really think from that perspective at all. Like when I think about, I guess the Muslim community and what they go through, I tend to more think about what the Muslim women are more vulnerable in the sense of, in, in accordance with like, Islamophobia, I feel that Muslim women are more tend to cop the most set R and R more vulnerable in that sense.

So from my guests, from a Muslim male perspective, I don’t think too deeply about being disposable in war. Like for example, Oh, this feels really weird. I feel like I’m refuting you, but I’m not really, but we are going to different a point of view anyways, like I’m just saying like, cause I guess like right now it’s like Wars and a really a thing. So it’s like a, it’s not the first thing that popped in my mind by definitely understanding, I guess, your sentiments where you come through, where you come from. But I guess, cause I, I rant about Feminism all the time in, in terms of like on Twitter where I see some person writes some dumb thing in base Feminism is contradictory to our principles of the, of for example, I’m just like, ah, it’s a scam and then I just have to reply, but I can’t stop myself.

It’s just like, I guess at the end of the day, it’s like for responsibility for a man is that they have to understand that there are just certain privileges you do have, like, I guess just like for example, in the messages, no, if a woman who doesn’t wear her job has to work 50 times harder to be a part of like have to sort of work harder to be in the community, right. Compared to a guy who may rock up to the messages with shorts. And I know there’s the Maliki opinion and stuff. That’s a different side point, but let’s just say he had tats as well.

He doesn’t have to work nearly as hard as a Muslim woman who doesn’t, whether your job who goes into Michigan for a minute. So I guess these conversations on really happen in the manner that I think we would all like a tapping on, on Twitter on Twitter, which is our Feminism, who is contradictory to some in the conversation ends there. But you know, like, like from my sort of readings I’ve understood like within the field of Feminism as well with there are like, for example, you know, you have in India, those are kind of the delivery rape situation and a lot of workshops and a lot of activism happened on that front in India.

And this is a result of Feminism, which is very much Islamic right by it’s like when we sort of have the conversation on a very superficial level, it’s like, it’s so pointless. Like we have to understand like the deeper level and then understand that look, these kinds of things that are happening on the activism on the ground is actually a result of feminine, which is very much Islamic and we should be a part of about four sham community probably doesn’t even do it to the degree or have done the research as much as people who are normal seminary in the field of Feminism is actually doing activism or on the ground. If that makes sense.

So I guess like these conversations are a really hard, it’s more just on a very superficial, basic level and just the conversation ends there. So I dunno like a, sorry, I just want on a bit of our out of school at that front, a male perspective is all by her

Speaker 0 (1h 59m 36s): Just to respond to your point about like the war issue. I mean, I was using that as an example in terms of my point is more about, I think that there is generally like the idea that like men don’t have to think about also their position in society and kind of how they’re being impacted by certain things is obviously a point to like male privilege, right? Like that oftentimes men don’t actually have to think about these things, but my point about the disposability, I was just making a point about how we don’t think about and yeah, there’s no, there’s no, you know, maybe boots on the ground, people all they’re our boots on the ground Wars is happening.

But what I mean by that is in terms of men being disposable is that I don’t think when we look about, when we think about Islamophobia in the United States, oftentimes we think about how the victims of Islamophobia our Muslim women, which they absolutely are. And, and what I mean to say is that I think that mentally, right, because there is this kind of idea that in a state of war, whatever war it is that men are made disposable. And like I would say, the men are like men go to war to die, right?

And you protect the women and children and so on and so forth. And, and I think that in our minds, right, it’s something that’s kind of really deeply embedded. It’s not something we consciously consciously think of, but that men in many ways end up becoming disposable in a way that we don’t always consider. And especially minority men, right? Like men who are minorities in particular countries, they end, especially if they have an entire state apparatus that is working against them, that they especially become a certain kind of a disposable and only set up.

For instance, also in the United States, you see that with black Americans with black, you know, Malcolm X said a very long time ago that the most oppressed woman in the world are the most oppressed women in America has a black woman. Right. And the, and, and part of that is also goes that a question of who is seen as disposable and who isn’t. And so my point about Muslim men being seen as disposable was that we don’t talk, we don’t talk about the impact that these, all of this, like this situation that we have, LA like in America, in particular, right.

That we have lived under a certain kind of security apparatus that specifically targets Muslim men. Right. When we think about something like Guantanamo while in Toronto is a prison that exists exclusively four Muslim men write, which is illegal under international law still, but you know, it still exists. So it is. So when we, when we actually think about that, it’s interesting that we just don’t talk about, well, has that had an impact on Muslim masculinity and not in a way that you’re thinking about it, right?

Because even women, when whatever has anything that has an impact on our femininity or the way we engage with being a woman, we’re not always thinking about that in a cognizant way. Right? It’s not like I sit here and I think, well, what does it mean to be a woman? And I’m going to do this now or do that. But these are things that end up being conditioned into us because, and this is how Power Structures work, right? Like certain things happen. And maybe you, you react a certain way because the, the, the society or the culture around you has changes. So you need to like be a certain way now to protect yourself and to survive.

That’s a very human reaction. So my point about that was more about the way in which we don’t really engage with the impact of Islamophobia or this anti Muslim violence security apparatus that we do have in the world. And especially in the United States. I’m, and also you have it in the UK, you have it in Canada that we don’t engage with how that impacts and has impacted the evolution of Muslim masculinity, a and S because that has an impact on how women are impacted as well.

So that was just my point with regards to that.

Speaker 1 (2h 3m 23s): Fair enough. I can’t really disappear. That’s a, that’s a very interesting take. Yeah. I didn’t really see it from that perspective before, but yeah, like it’s interesting. You brought them Malcolm X, like it, it just reminded me of a statement. I was reading like, cause locally, I guess, in, in this, cause we’re based in Australia where the Aboriginal community have had to struggle a lot to gain, I guess, basic rights in a flowing from the colonialization to, you know, to now. And essentially you just reminded me because those, those, the Aboriginal feminist writer who is talking about, I guess the Aboriginal woman is pretty much at the lowest tier of society.

And the Aboriginal man is above that and so forth. And the highest would be the white man. So it’s interesting that you brought the, you made you, you mentioned the quote by Malcolm X, cause it’s kind of reminiscent of, I was going back to my point earlier about a Feminism where it’s like, are you going to say all Malcolm X is now a feminist and he’s contradicting sure. Your principal, it’s not like that. It’s kind of a superficial reading, right? Like we should be having a lot more deeper conversation in terms of these sort of, especially on line.

Like, well, what I see, that’s what always triggers me, but it’s unfortunate, but yeah, sorry, that was, is kind of my, my sort of point I wanted to add, but is there anything you wanted to add in, in terms of this amount of us The on the use of stuff now, but if you have any other questions, Ryma

Speaker 0 (2h 4m 50s): No. Cause we can go on forever. But the issue is, is that she’s got at 15 minutes left, so you go ahead.

Speaker 1 (2h 4m 56s): I can always inshallah. So I guess I’m, this will be a really big dramatic kind of switching topics, but essentially like why I wanted to touch on this is cause on the show talked about like, I guess I want to talk about, I guess your sort of article on Check has a use of the happened a while ago and why I wanted to bring it up is cause like, I guess we all have respectful shake on the use of, in terms of the stuff that he’s done in the community. Have you actually alluded to, you know, I think as they tune now playing a big role in the community and stuff that day in, in America, and I think, however, you did write an article where you were, you were when Tuesday 200 to do a talk on here is a panel talk with ’em share comes on and another person, the person Chris hedges, that’s it.

Yeah. And essentially it was talking about it. The discussion was revolving around our oppression and why I wanted to bring it.

Speaker 0 (2h 5m 47s): It was revolving around what does resistance to O to a oppression look like it was specifically on resistance

Speaker 1 (2h 5m 55s): And the best resist. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I guess what share comes a was when he was giving his, when he was talking, he was basically alluding to the point where the best resistance is essentially nonviolent resistance. And I guess you came from a different angle as well. Maybe if you could just touch on your experience doing that talk and then maybe we can elaborate or so like what was your experiences doing that talk in general and going to the tune and stuff?

Speaker 0 (2h 6m 21s): So this was when I had just moved to California and it was, I think my first or second or third I can remember. I was like one of my first events that at a Zaytuna, which I was very excited to attend. I absolutely loved, I used to love Zaytuna as an institution. I was very interested, like just the entire idea of it was very interesting to me and it, and, and, you know, there were people associated with it. Like I’m a mom is a shocker Hudson buzzy on who I absolutely loved and adored. And so I was very, very excited and I went there with a couple of friends and we were seeing Chris hedges and Chicago use of speak on the question of resistance and a, what is the best resistance kind of look like?

And Chris hedges was great. I mean, it was nothing surprising from him because if you follow in his work, it was very much so in line with kind of what he’s experienced and whatnot. And she comes to started talking about, you know, essentially, umm, and this isn’t really surprising now, given this was, this was back in 2014. So this is not surprising. Now when we’ve seen check on him to speak on certain, certain issues and especially given his relationship with, with, with certain certain countries, but he was talking about the best resistance is essentially incremental change, right?

Like that’s how you change our country is through incremental change in. And I, I found it just very interesting. I was like, okay, like I don’t agree with that, but that is all right. I’ll listen to all consider your perspective. And so I just had a question for him and you know, the question answer a period started. And I think I was the last person asked a question. I can’t remember. And I was like, I was nervous. Like I would never actually directly spoken to <inaudible> I’d seen him speak before I hadn’t spoken to him.

And I, I asked him, I’m like, you know, she comes, I’m gonna, and I started off at this way. I said, I’m going to challenge you a little bit on what you said. And I think that he, I was trying to be all like T he cute or like, you know, like kind of like very, I thought it was being a little disarming, which apparently I wasn’t when I said that. So I was like, Oh, okay, well, and so I said, you know, she comes, I’m gonna, I’m just going to challenge you a little bit on what you said. And a, and I, my memory is a little foggy right now.

I wrote it and I remembered exactly what I said, cause I had documented it. So I’m probably not going to give the best a real of exactly what happened in the order anyways, chronologically. But basically I started asking the question, the question I wanted to ask was how do we support nonviolent resistance without, without a what’s the word I’m looking for? Okay. So yeah, my question was my question to him was, you know, how do we support nonviolent resistance without demonizing causes?

Which have, which are, which are further through violent resistance. Right? And in my head I was thinking about the Palestinian cause, right? Like I was thinking about how, you know, the Palestinian cause is something, I think almost every Muslim, well, as we know, maybe not every Muslim, but many, most Muslims in the world would absolutely get behind a and obviously been violent resistance has absolutely a part of Palestinian resistance and that is not something we can, we can overlook and not to mention, like let’s not forget that like violent resistance was inherent to the decolonization process, right? Like Algeria would not have been possible without violent resistance.

So in my head I’m like, you know, so I start off by saying, cause he had used the example of the civil rights movement. And I said, you know, you talk about the civil rights movement and how the nonviolence in the United States, the nonviolence was a piece of the, a civil rights movement, you know, ended up getting black Americans voting rights and so on and so forth. But I’m like, that’s a really rosy picture of the civil rights movement because in actuality it was very violent in terms of what was happening. The country was burning right before those The those, you know, civil rights act was signed.

The country was absolutely burning alongside also a nonviolent resistance. And so this is before I even got to my question and he interrupted me and he said, I’m going to stop you right there. And, and then he kind of, he said a few things about it was basically, it was really, it was really unfortunate because he kind of went off on a thing about ISIS. And this is in 2014. This is when ISIS was red hot. This is when he himself had been threatened by ISIS and had security everywhere, any kind of made this implication that I had that he’s like, I know where you’re going with your question.

And you kind of made the implication that the perspective I was bringing forth was an ISIS adjacent perspective. And I will never forget that moment because I went red and I felt my cheeks burn and everyone who was because I was sitting in the back and everyone turned around to look at me when he said that.

Speaker 6 (2h 11m 12s): And I was like, Oh my God, okay.

Speaker 0 (2h 11m 16s): I just called ISIS. Like, and you know, and that’s terrifying because here I am a Canadian on a visa working in the United States. I just moved here and moved back here and to be accused publicly of having those perspectives. Right. Like that has, that has implications beyond like people being like, that’s a bad, that’s a really bad, it has. It actually has like implications on my physical safety. And so I was immediately like, Oh my God. And then he kinda went on about this for a while. And then he’s like, you know what, sorry, I didn’t let you finish your question.

Please finish your question. And I was so nervous at this point, I just kind of gave my questions, gave it to him. And a, and then he kinda went on. I don’t even read at this point. I can’t even remember exactly what he said, but I was, but I couldn’t hear it. Like whatever he was saying, I was numb to it because I was so taken aback by his approach to me and to that question and how he just accused me of having essentially ISIS perspectives, because all I said all at all, you heard really initially right from me was the civil rights movement was not necessarily all a what’s the word that it wasn’t entirely what was happening in the country during the civil rights movement.

During that period of time was not peaceful, that there was so much violence and that violence absolutely played a role in the, the civil rights act also being passed. It wasn’t just people sitting on buses in protest in sitting on lunch counters, that violence was absolutely a part of it. And we do a disservice to the history of this country and to what resistance looks like. If we, you know, we take away the, the, the, the, the role that violence plays, that’s all he kind of heard. And immediately I was like, deemed ISIS.

And I was like, Whoa, this is, this is kinda in Texas. I’m like, this is kinda for me, like, you know, how was it? I was like 26 at the time or 27. And I was like, is this, and this is someone I really respected as well. And I, and the thing is like, okay, I was kinda able to move on from him saying that, but the point, and this, this is what I wrote in my article is what got me where the people who came to his defense. Right. And I think that is something that leads to a bigger, because look okay.

I

Speaker 2 (2h 13m 32s): I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m like, okay. He misspoke, even though I think like, if you are such a powerful figure, I mean, he’s probably the most powerful Muslim in the, in the country. Absolutely. Everyone knows. And even if your not a very religious Muslim, you know how to use it. And I do think that that comes with responsibility with how you’re speaking, especially to speaking to young women. And especially with the way you’re speaking to people who don’t have anywhere near the power that you have. I think for anyone in a position of power, you always need to be really responsible with the way you speak with people and what you’re implying, but I could still give them the benefit of the doubt and say, you know what, maybe I misunderstood.

Maybe, you know? Yeah. He’s under pressure because he’s also getting threats from ISIS. Okay. And that, you know, I can move on from, but the article that I wrote, what it really touches on isn’t Oh, has a use of it has a problem. No, it’s not about that. The article that I touch that I wrote, that I wrote touches on the issue of how we create what we do a great disservice to people in power. And especially in our own community, whether they’re show you or whoever they are is when we create this cult of like yes, men and women around them who are always there to constantly defend this individual.

And never actually to say here’s some critical feedback and here’s maybe something here’s a way for you to improve yourself. And here’s something that, you know, I disagreed with or what, like, there’s this fear of sometimes in our community to do that. And it’s like, we forget that, you know, being critical of someone’s actions doesn’t mean being mean, right. It means like, to me, like being critical of not critical of someone, but being critical of someone’s actions is showing them that you love them enough to let them know that, like, you kinda made a mistake here, buddy. Like, let’s talk about this.

And so that article that I talked in, the article that I wrote that’s about this experience with Schiff has a use of, is actually about the way in which we kind of create these. I mean, for lack of a better word, or maybe it’s the best word to use these cults around personalities and in which we make them infallible, which is very, very, very dangerous for many reasons.

Speaker 1 (2h 15m 34s): Yeah. Like I can only imagine like that, that sort of experience from, from your perspective, that would have been like really intense, I guess like at the end of the day, I guess what you were trying to do is just a propos, a, a different perspective, a different opinion. And I guess you mentioned like kind of nonviolent resistance, like, you know, I guess from, from my sort of readings as well, essentially, like for example, in the West, like Gandhi gets propped up a lot because of quote unquote, like nonviolent resistance. But in actuality, essentially the presses like nonviolent resistance, cause they’re still in power.

Like, like what’s actually, how’s it hurting them anyway. Like it, it doesn’t make any sense you get her. I mean, like, so I guess these conversations need to be had, and I guess that’s what you were trying to do. And unfortunately kind of Panda in a, in a way that I guess his is not conducive to kind of discussion and being labeled ISIS a in, in some ways, not ideal in any standards. Right. So I guess I wanted to ask like one counter, I know we will be a short on time, but cause like we have a WhatsApp group Boys In, The, Cave a WhatsApp group and a brother actually us an interesting point where like, to hear thoughts, like I guess the timing of the article that you wrote was that it was during the time when Check comes a essentially made a series of comments.

So would you say that, ah, what’s your take on the timing of it because there’ll be like, look, you know, that was not the right time to do that. If that happened a while ago, why not just write an article then? Are you just doing it to, you know, get some, I don’t know, cloud for example, so that that’s just some questions or some accusations you may have had

Speaker 0 (2h 17m 10s): Eric like, no, you know, it’s funny because I got that a lot and I was like, and it was just really funny to me because I’m like, well, okay, if anyone’s ever followed my work, they know I’m not doing anything for cloud. Like I don’t need cloud my interested in cloud to me what it was was yes, that conversation was happening. But the conversation that I was seeing was more about not these specific comments, but just about like shake Hamza himself. Right. Because there are a lot of American Muslims are a lot of us, a, like a really are kind of fed up with a lot of things that s**t comes as says politically because we do find them very detrimental to, I would say the political health and safety have a lot of Muslims and, and, and, and into an intellectually kind of dangerous as well.

And so the conversation that I was seeing was really about that and then what it means to be, you know, to kind of like, how do we defend people? How do we understand? Like what they’re saying? And, and so it kind of evolved. It wasn’t even about the Syria comments anymore. It was about the discussion about the Syria comments. Right. And so for me, I never wrote this article initially because I mean, I’ll be real. It was 2014 and I was scared. Right. Like I actually talk about this in my article, like that the amount of people who went to bat for Shay comes up right.

And how I got really, you know, like I had people essentially gaslighting me and these were men and actually one of them read my article and you reached out to me and apologized because he’s like, I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time. And I’m sorry for that. Wow. Yeah. And it’s funny because like, yeah. He’s like, I think I was one of those men. Right. And I’m like, yeah, you were, you were one of those people who actually, Andy and I had so many of these young guys, especially who were very attached to Chicago, who reached out to me, who, who basically told me, sorry, a girl, you did everything wrong.

She comes out was fine. Right. And at the time I just, because like, when you get that, like you’re not going to really want to be like, well, guess what I’m going after s**t comes on out. Like, no, or I’m going after his like cultural followers. Like, no, like I’m not going to do that. Not to mention that was 2014 was the same time that I was actually getting a, this is at the same time that this happened. I getting a lot of flack from the American Muslim community because I had written the article about the Muslim leadership initiative, which was about a bunch of Muslim Americans had gone to Israel on this trip and kind of how it was like this anti BDS thing, so on and so forth.

And that actually ended up really showing me at that time, how alone I was, because I had friends ditch me. I had, I lost like a lot of community members who I thought I was very close to in the, or at least that I had some sort of relationship with kind of disappeared overnight. And it was emotionally very tough because I was getting hate mail all the time from, from Biley really well-respected Muslims in our community here in the United States. You know, people telling me that I was a fitness creator, that I was this and that.

And so for me to write this article at that time, a I wasn’t in a head space to do it B I was not looking to get harassed again, because again, this goes back to the experience that women have when your public, and especially as a Muslim woman, it’s very different, right? Like I can go through my email right now and I can show you the emails I’ve gotten from a Muslim man who I know and who, I don’t know who, the type of frankness they feel they can have with me with regards to their presumptions about who I am and what I do and why I do it is incredible.

Right. And how they feel like they can tell me how to think as well. And so I didn’t write this article because I was like, New, it’s an opportune moment to get, you know, cause my, if you look at my medium, a blog, right, it’s just, I just right there, when I feel like writing something, when I want to have a perspective to share, it’s not something that I posted regularly at all, because it’s not my primary job. It’s not also how I build my audience or anything of that sort, that blog is specifically because I don’t want to, I don’t want to, if I want to talk about Muslim American issues, I don’t want to be writing on like Muslim matters for instance.

Right. Not because I’m like, Oh, what’s a bad a platform. Not at all. I just did a podcast with them, but rather it’s more, I’m like, that’s not the, that’s not the platform I wanted on the particular stuff that I want to do. So for me, I was like, all right, I really don’t have a writing platform anywhere else. I’m going to do it on my, on my, on a medium, a blog. And this article was already something I had been working on in terms of like, I had all these ideas already out there and I’d had all these conversations with people. And then when the Syria thing happened with a comment that she comes a maid, I actually, you know, I was like, Oh, this is actually an opera because I saw people talking about, you know, the way in which people were trying to, the extent to which people were going to differentiate comes up.

And so I saw people talking about that phenomenon and I’m like, Oh, it’s actually a good opportunity to maybe elevate the conversation beyond these comments and actually talk about like that again, that kind of cult of that’s created and the way in which we treat leaders and <inaudible> as invaluable in our communities. And so it was, and it actually plays into the piece that I published right after, which is about the accusations that were made against a, a silo Osama Canon of tea leaf also in California.

Right? So both those articles to me are actually very similar in terms of they’re talking about not the individual, but they use the individual as like a springboard to talk about the bigger issues of institutions and the way in which we kind of treat spiritual leaders as untouchable as perfect and how dangerous that is to our overall spiritual health.

Speaker 1 (2h 23m 10s): The like, I think small, like just struck me. The essentially, there’s so much that I guess you personally have to do with like, I guess when it comes to the Muslim community, I guess Check homes has followers, my golf buddy, and then our elders listening to you on the podcast with him on the Kashmir issue, you had trolls bombarding you, and then you in remote talking about you get that from, you know, doing Journalism and all that. So it’s like, you know, small, I guess you have to deal with this from all angles, even within community. And that’s unfortunate. And I guess in Shalla like, you know, we, we empathize, we try to empathize with what you’re going to mail a Raj for your sort of work that you’re doing in the community.

And I think the whole share comes a conversation about his political views and, you know, nonviolence and violence and all that. I think that’s a long drawn out conversation that can probably go for now are a few hours. But yeah. So in shallow, like I guess, cause we’re nearing the end of the Episode. I do want to ask you one final question. We asked this question to two, all our guests come on, boys in a capsule. If you had to chew with three people in the Cave cause Boys In The Cave who would they be? They can be anyone from the past. They can be anyone, you know, present living now that you’d wanna hang with or chew with in, in general.

And it would be good to kind of get it from like, I guess the Journalism world, I guess, who may have influenced you just to get more insight into me who may have shaped your sort of writings and this sort of stuff that you do I’m in the community.

Speaker 0 (2h 24m 31s): So who would I, I think if there was anyone from the past that I would love to meet, to be honest, it would be my late grandfather, my, my paternal grandfather, I never got to meet him. He died when he was 51 years old, but the more I learn about his life, the more I find myself in it. And it’s kind of amazing how sometimes we don’t realize how we inherit so much of who we are from people we’ve never met. And I would love to meet my grandfather who has, who has no idea, or maybe he does, but of how much of him is actually alive in the work that I do, because he was also someone, very politically minded, someone who is very passionate about these types of things.

My other grandfather, my maternal grandfather was still alive as writer I’m so a humble I’ve been able to spend some time with him, but my paternal grandfather would be someone I would love to spend time with. And that would be someone I’d love to meet because he’s had an influence on me directly and indirectly directly in the sense that, I mean, thanks to him. I was eventually born, but like, but you know, through, through who he was, I inherited a lot of his, his, a lot of his character and a lot of his passions in life and approach to life and sometimes good and sometimes bad.

And so, yeah, that would be my, my boy in the Cave I like to hang out with

Speaker 1 (2h 26m 0s): Mashallah. I think I, I guess it’s a blessing in of itself that you have like family sort of roots in, in sort of writing and activism and all that. So that’s great to hear Marshall, I guess essentially. Well, I’ve, I’ve essentially exhausted the questions I wanted to ask you. So I guess it is Aqua at Sana for coming on Boys In The Cave it was really a wonderful conversation, was a, you know, like we are, we’re big fans of, of what your doing in the, in the community. As I mentioned early in the episode is that essentially we don’t have someone that can kind of represent us in a, I know you said you don’t want to, you know, you’re not looking to represent people by guest speak in, in a way that Muslims want to be spoken about if that makes sense.

So I guess we know that you’re doing there in the community, so in a mellow Woodward year and a best Senior a future works in shallow. So we’re glad to have this conversation. And for me personally, just taking a back seat for this particular episode is definitely a, a really good thing. Cause like, it was good to have someone like Ryma who’s in the media in, in, in, in journalism as well, you know, having that conversation, which has much near, so thank you for coming on now. Boys In The Cave

Speaker 0 (2h 27m 2s): Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was a really great conversation and it’s like, you know, you guys definitely ask questions that I hadn’t really always considered. So I was kind of, you know, thinking about them as I was answering them. So I’m going to be thinking about them a lot more after this conversation, for sure.

Speaker 1 (2h 27m 17s): A little, a humble and a small thing, but can he follow me and remind me Twitter in Charlotte.

Speaker 0 (2h 27m 24s): Okay.

Speaker 1 (2h 27m 25s): That’s a dope. That’s dope. Alright. In a shallow I’ll probably wrap out there and shallow for our listeners. Thank you for giving us your attention. If you have any questions or queries, feel free to email us@infoboysinthecave.com. We’ll find us on Facebook, any confide journey through Instagram and we’ll pull our links. A son has links to all the socials in our show notes in Charlotte. So on until our very special co-host today at Ryma and Sana as well as special guests and myself, we show the best. This is Adam

Speaker 0 (2h 27m 56s): <inaudible>.