Media Watch

In the past week, Queen’s has been hit with multiple reported incidents of anti-Islamic crimes. Within the span of two days, the Queen’s University Muslim Students Association (QUMSA) has been the target of a break-in to their club space and a vandalized poster in the JDUC.

UMSA Co-Chair Isra Rafiq, ArtSci ’09, said the break in occurred between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 20. “That was also the time QUMSAarranged for a bus to go to the mosque in Kingston. Once the bus returned, Saad [Baig, QUMSA co-chair] found the door was broken,” she said. “It was basically a wooden panel on the door because the whole door is made out of wood. It also happened to be the same panel that was replaced in the last break-in. This isn’t the only time we’ve had a break-in. I believe the last one was a year and a half ago. The JDUC had replaced it, so it might have been someone recognized that the panel was different.”

The next day, between the hours of 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 21 and 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 22, a poster indicating the location of QUMSA’s club space was vandalized in the JDUC. “There’s a little bulletin board, and we had made signs earlier that said ‘Queen’s University Muslim Students Association, room 232, JDUC,’ and then an arrow,” QUMSA External Liasion Safiah Chowdhury said. “Someone had come along and written ‘should die’ beside ‘Muslim.’ The sign after that read ‘Queen’s University Muslims should die.’” Chowdhury, ArtSci ’11, said this isn’t the first time she’s been subjected to anti-Islamic comments. Chowdhury said she and Rafiq have both been targeted with derogatory comments within the last week. Read Full story here

Recent incidents of Islamophobia deserve discussion, demonstrate there is work to be done. Within a week of this new school year, fellow Muslim friends and I had already experienced a couple instances of Islamophobia. Both were derogatory slurs yelled from a moving vehicle, ensuring anonymity and suggesting cowardice.

support from the Queen’s community has been subpar, largely due to the problem of Islamophobia, which is prejudice or discrimination against Muslims and Islam. Many of my Muslim friends can relay stories of name-calling and crude looks—and from fellow members of the Queen’s community too. Yet there is a Muslim ethos of making excuses, so these stories rarely make it out of friend circles. And although most of the cases of Islamophobia on campus have been petty, it’s important these things are acknowledged and discussed, especially if it’s going to persist.

We can pretend discrimination doesn’t exist, especially at an institution of higher learning. Surely everyone knows better than to associate anyone who wears a headscarf with the Taliban. Islamophobia, just like all other types of discrimination, is a thing of the past, at least for the more civilized amongst us. Unfortunate as it is though, these are real views that a minority of people on campus do indeed hold.

Take for example last year’s Islamic Awareness Week. A table was set up asking people to write their immediate thoughts about Islam. While the exercise yielded many encouraging comments, it was eventually annexed by anti-Islamic propaganda. Fortunately, the setup of the table allowed for some quasi-discussion to occur as people were able to write responses to the anti-Islamic sentiments. Read Full story here.

Listen to the interview here Choose: 2008 – September – 23 – 23:00. The interview starts at minute 27:00.