A collaboration between Inclusive Mosque Initiative and Migrants’ Rights Network for Islamophobia Awareness Month
You might have heard about the recent criticism of Stonewall, which is an LGBTQ+ rights organisation. Stonewall is working with weapons manufacturers on LGBTQ+ inclusion, and this is being challenged by their staff and ex-staffers. They criticise Stonewall for helping violent organisations to look pro-LGBTQ+, while these companies’ weapons kill and displace communities, including Queer and Trans people, across the Global South. Stonewall is also ignoring how this work impacts Black and Brown people. This is an example of homonationalism. In this blog post, we will explain how homonationalism influences negative, Islamophobic and anti-migrant ideas and policies.
But first, what is homonationalism?
Homonationalism¹ is the use of LGBTQ+ rights campaigns to justify harming Black and Brown communities and migrants, including people migrating from the Global South to the Global North. It’s about corporations and governments using LGBTQ+ rights to distract people from the violence that they are committing against Muslim, Black, Brown and migrant communities around the world. Other examples include times when the military, the government, and the police attend Pride events or advertise their own LGBTQ+ networks. They do this to distract from the violence that is at the core of their work. Violence that includes war, immigration laws, and prisons.
What’s this got to do with Muslims and migrants in the UK?
A lot! Homonationalism makes us believe that queer communities in the UK cannot exist safely alongside migrants (including undocumented migrants, refugees, asylum seekers) and Muslim communities – which is untrue. It wants us to believe the lie that all Black, Brown and Muslim migrants are anti-LGBTQ+. Putting LGBTQ+ people and migrants into two separate groups does two things.
Firstly, it makes us believe that Queer and Trans people do not exist in migrant, racialised and Muslim communities, and that someone can only be Queer and/or Trans if we leave behind our Black, Brown and Muslim communities and cultures. For instance, Queer and Trans Muslim migrants seeking safety in the UK are used as symbols of Muslim “intolerance”, to encourage the myth that Muslims are more intolerant and violent towards LGBTQ+ people than non-Muslims. Secondly, homonationalism is used to distract people. The Government wants marginalised communities to blame each other, instead of blaming the systems that oppress us all. The British Government wants people to blame Muslims, racialised and migrant groups for queerphobia. This stops us from finding other ways to have accountability, solidarity and healing, while keeping Queer and Trans Muslims marginalised. Importantly, it allows the Government to justify increased racist, Islamophobic, and anti-migrant rhetoric and policies, e.g. deportations, “counter-terrorism”, border violence and surveillance. And despite the UK pretending to be a champion of LGBT+ rights, it constantly treats Queer and Trans people across society, but especially in the immigration system, with suspicion and violence.
British values: homonationalism and racism in action
The UK’s idea of “British values”² treats Muslims as outsiders who do not belong. It is also a really good example of homonationalism in practice. The term “British values” was used by the Government in their 2011 PREVENT strategy, which many people view as Islamophobic, as well as their 2014 guidance on promoting “British values” in schools.
In 2014, Andrew Moffat – a teacher at Parkfield Community School – created the “No Outsiders”³ programme. People were told that this programme was inclusive, as it included education on diverse families in a way that was suitable for children, including information on LGBTQ+ parents. However, it is clear that the programme was homonationalistic: it used Queer rights to justify racism against Muslim communities. As SOAS’s Centre for Gender Studies writes, the programme, as stated on the Parkfield Community School’s website, “was introduced to “reduce radicalisation” in the predominantly Muslim school children, as part of the Prevent duty”.
In 2019, parents began protesting outside Parkfield and other schools in Birmingham, because they were against this programme being added to school curriculums. The news media used these protests to prove that Muslims don’t fit in with “British Values”. The media portrayed homophobia as something “external” to the UK and its “values”, but also as a core part of Islam. The media coverage did not say that Queer Muslims exist or that homophobia is also a problem in non-Muslim communities. It also didn’t say that non-Muslims took part in the protests, or that the Government introduced the “No Outsiders” programme as part of the Islamophobic Prevent duty, which portrays Muslims as being at odds with “British values”.
This year we’re looking at the work that many pro-LGBTQ+ people and organisations, including the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, did in 2019 about why the idea of “British Values” is Islamophobic. We want to see more organisations in the LGBTQ+ and Migration sectors speak up when we see the Government and the media pit communities against each other. We believe that Islamophobia and queerphobia must be addressed together, as all oppression is connected. We must take the voices of Queer Muslims seriously if we really want Queer liberation, and a world free from all systems of oppression, e.g. racism, bordering and Islamophobia.
An open-letter that supports LGBTQ+ inclusive education in schools said:
“We reject the ways in which LGBT+ issues are being deployed in the government’s discourse about the requirement to teach “Fundamental British Values” as part of their “Prevent” counter-extremism and counterterrorism strategies…The way that “No Outsiders” has been implemented and the wider embrace of LGBT+-inclusive RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) as the poster-child for the implementation of “Fundamental British Values” suggests a colonial “civilising” attitude towards Muslim communities, and contributes to a harmful and inaccurate stereotype of an uncivilised and intolerant Muslim culture…As LGBT+ people, we condemn the cynical use of our identities as a form of dog-whistle racism, which is being mobilised to justify harmful policies of state surveillance and the criminalisation of Muslim communities”.
What this means:
We are against the way the government is using LGBT+ issues to justify the Islamophobic ‘Prevent’ strategy. The way ‘No Outsiders’ and LGBT+ inclusive education are being used makes it seem like Muslim communities are intolerant and need to be ‘civilised’, which are racist and Islamophobic ideas. As LGBT+ people, we do not want our identities being used to spread racism and support policies that harm Muslim communities.
What next?
At both the Migrants’ Rights Network and the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, we’re campaigning against the idea that anti-migrant racism and Islamophobia are necessary in the fight for Queer justice.
We are against homonationalist stereotypes that blame Muslims, migrants and other racialised communities for queerphobia, and ignore how White supremacy and colonialism create anti-Queer laws and language. We want to dismantle the idea that we need policing, surveillance and “counter-terrorism” to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people. If we focus on tackling the root causes of homophobia, transphobia and Islamophobia, we can work towards a safer world for Queer and Trans people everywhere, including Queer and Trans Muslims and migrants.
References
¹Homocapitalism, or rainbow capitalism, is linked to homonationalism: it is when companies use LGBTQ+ rights for profit, to distract from the ongoing exploitation of migrant workers, or to distract from the fact that their products (weapons) are being used to kill, displace and carry out genocides.
²The “British Values” framework is also used to explain any instability in the Global South. Instability in the Global South is framed through a “cultural deficit”, and Global South communities are blamed for “lacking” values of civility. The reality is that where we do see instability anywhere in the world, it’s down to larger geopolitical forces.
³The “No Outsiders” programme was created in the aftermath of the introduction of the Prevent strategy, as well as the hugely Islamophobic 2014 Trojan Horse scandal.
To see more of MRN’s work on Islamophobia and migration, visit our Who Is Welcome campaign.