I cannot say I fundamentally disagree with Riz Ahmed on the politics of representation of Muslims in the Western world, but I am quite confident when I say that our arguments intermingle like two planets that, perhaps, are not even in the proximity of each other’s galaxies.
Given that my background and field of research is forced migration and integration of immigrants, I will first try to peel off layers of my own planet, followed by a more constructivist approach to the politics of identity and representation that Riz and I (I cannot believe I am putting us in the same sentence) fundamentally disagree on.
***
Our Skype session with Riz Ahmed was as baffling as it was inspiring for me as a young scholar of migration and integration who identifies as a Muslim. Understanding and paying tribute to the fact that many Muslims are perpetually discriminated against in the Western world, I also want to base the grounds of my argument on one peculiar moment.
As an answer to my question regarding the politics of representation of jihad in “Four Lions”, Riz stated that the film depicts a mere extreme of a pre-established median of Islam in the West. Commending him for his breakdown of the meaning behind the film’s dark satire, what I found problematic with that statement was the fact that the median line of a portrayal of ordinary Muslims, unless it is heavily loaded with violence and the presence of evil and negative connotations, has not been established in the West – the exact place where the film was shot and the exact audience the film was appeasing to. In other words, instead of “Four Lions” being one extreme aspect, it becomes the median.
A scene from “Four Lions”
Let us for a moment imagine Islamic beliefs as a graph with many dots that belong to many denominations across the world. To continue with my argument, I firmly believe that the median or the line of best fit of this hypothetical graph has not been established in the West (yet). Perhaps differing cultures and histories of Islam across the two sides of the Atlantic (and the baggage they cary into our contemporary reality) feed into the lack of such an establishment. However, the starting point of the “Four Lions” film was to depict one side that belonged to an extreme without a-priori constructing a line of best fit that would define the film exactly as Riz described it to me and all of us in the Skype session – a mere extreme point on the line. One might argue that this is not what the film should be doing in the first place as it is not the job of the producers to perpetuate the line of best fit for Islam in the West, but rather to make art as they see it. This is very much true; however, it should also then be stated that the film does not contribute to attempting to construct a more neutral narrative of Islam in the West (that line of best fit) either, given that its audience is primarily the Western one. And sure, Riz alluded to the fact that the film demands a more educated audience than the average Western Joe, but how do we get the audience educated and exposed to true values of Islam if not through movies such as this one?
To be fair and possibly objective, an attempt to advocate for further dialogue and a potential establishment of such a line has been discussed in the film.
In no way am I arguing that Muslim immigrants in countries such as the US or the UK have not undergone perpetual stereotyping and abuse by the domicile communities, however I do need to acknowledge two things. One, stereotyping walks a dangerously flirtatious line between race and religion, not to further complicate it by adding the spice of culture. In other words, the stereotyping that we are referring to in class is intimately intertwined with race and the historical background of colonialism, rather than pure religion. I, as a Muslim who comes from Eastern Europe, might not undergo the same stereotyping, even though I am a Muslim as well. However, I might face negative comments in regards to being a woman from Eastern Europe with a particular agenda – the same agenda Melania Trump had when she decided to marry Trump, for example. The breaking down of types of stereotyping that are based on race as much as they are based on religion is a key component that is missing and needs to be further stressed on. Phenotypes of typical Muslims who come from particular parts of the world and whose country histories have specific representations in the West add to the complexity of Riz’s situation. This is where it gets more complex for him and less complex for me, given that my phenotype, speaking in sociological terms, is more similar to the mainstream culture of the Western civilization. Perhaps this is the peculiar point which junctures our struggles as separate and distinct from one another.
Two, the film does not depict stereotyping as a starting point and the emergence of jihad as a response to it among the group of young Muslim men in the film. What it does is the dumbing-down and perverting of the meaning of jihad as the ultimate goal of a group of unemployed men who have not been harmed in any real way, at least in the film. This stands opposite to the raid that happens at the house of Riz’s brother by the British police – an act clearly based on racist and religious stereotyping of a guy with a long beard and a to-the-beat accurate praying schedule. This adds a dose of reality to the absurdity of the film and points to problems that might help establish the line of best fit of Islam in the West that are simply not tackled during the rich narrative of the “Four Lions”. This is, perhaps, what troubled me the most.
My point, in short, is the highlight that I am not denying or overlooking racial targeting that has elements of religion and culture in it. I am merely pointing out to the fact that there is no median line for the portrayal of Islam, as such, in the West, and that the narrative of “Four Lions” does not contribute to making one (even among the educated audience that Riz counts on).
Finally, I want to briefly touch upon Riz’s article in The Guardian regarding him being typecast as a terrorist. Much of his personal struggle is associated to racial stereotyping as it is to being Muslim and a very poor job was done in defining the line between the two. A clearer religious stereotyping and targeting would have been a situation in which he was a woman in a hijab or a man with a long beard and trousers that go above the ankles, in Prophet’s style. I, most certainly, am not doing his article justice. However, I wanted to give my opinion of how blurred the lines of clear stereotyping and targeting based along religious lines are. This is where my depiction of the importance of phenotypes within the mainstream culture ties into the complex nature of stereotyping that Riz has undergone. To bring my sociological viewpoint into this, he is phenotypically and religiously and culturally far away from the mainstream Western culture, which further perpetuates the difficult situations he gets into when he travels. Religion alone and him being a typical representative of violent, Muslim men does not do justice to the reasons why he is being stopped. I am keeping colonial narratives out of this for the purpose of simplification.
***
Opposite to the existence of stereotyping and targeting Riz has experienced during his travels, his “Post-9/11 Blues” song points to something that I found peculiar and relatable to our discussion on commercializing one’s struggle and a greater cause, as mentioned in Ch. 4 of “Rebel Music” with Junoon’s example. The verse goes as follows:
Post 9/11 I been getting paid
Playing terrorists on telly, getting songs made
‘But will it get airplay geeza?’
Well, if BBC don’t want it I’ll send it to Al-Jazeera
(an excerpt from Riz Ahmed’s “Post 9/11 blues“)
How does one make a conclusion out of the following verse? If all art is political, would this one mean that he chose to financially benefit from being targeted on the basis of his race and religion? To connect this debate back to my previous point, there are many shades of Islam in the world today, many of them developed in exile and in diasporas across the globe. It is important to acknowledge that the West is yet to develop a comprehensive and holistic narrative of Islam that would enable an average viewer to place “Four Lions” on a spectrum and commend it for its artistic politics and dark satire.
***
I also want to take this chance to thank you for enabling us to discuss the film and the narratives of representation and identity with Riz who is as witty as he is passionate about the topic. I learned volumes.
References:
Ahmed, Riz; “Typecast as a Terrorist” (The Guardian)
Ahmed, Riz; “Post-9/11 Blues”
Aidi, Hisham; “Rebel Music: Chapter 4”
February 27, 2017 at 12:20 pm
interesting reading….one question i have: arent religion and race conflated in western societies where its difficult to cleanly separate the two? Surely not all Muslims are recognizable only through the garb they wear–esp if they are brown or black and choose not to dress in what might be regarded as “islamic” clothing? And surely the verse you quote from Post 9/11 Blues can also be read as self critical/acknowledging the lack of “pure” spaces for resistance to a norm to inhabit?
Keep going!