NCCM

• The NDP’s disciplinary response and the removal of her from caucus cannot be separated from the current climate.
• It is right in the middle of a nationwide Islamophobic backlash, where scores of others are also experiencing a wide range of institutional discipline.
• But this wasn’t enough for the Progressive Conservative government, who put forward a motion the next week to censure her.

Controversy is nothing new

• For Jama, a Black disabled Muslim woman of Somali heritage, controversy is nothing new.
• As Jama has said: “Mak[ing] people feel uncomfortable” has always been part of her work.

Climate of Islamophobia

• To understand this surge, it’s crucial to recognize the influence of the “Islamophobia Industry” in Canada.
• Sociologist Jasmin Zine, a noted authority on Islamophobia, delineates this industry as a conglomerate of media outlets, political figures, far-right, white nationalist groups and Islamophobia influencers and ideologues, among others, fostering an environment where harmful stereotypes of Muslims as innately provocative and violent become commonplace.
• Read more:
  How Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation

  This racialization lumps more than a billion Muslims into an undifferentiated mass, exploited by public discourse that sensationalizes violent narratives, devoid of geopolitical context or history.

Examples of anti-Black Islamophobia

Navigating the multiple forms of jeopardy faced by Black Muslim women means simultaneously surviving both interpersonal and structural anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. Anti-Black, hate-motivated Islamophobia is often directed at women. Here are some examples:
Feminist geographer Délice Mugabo explains: “anti-Black Islamophobia” is the exclusion of Black people from the category of the human and Muslims from the category of the citizen. Consequently, fidelity to the nation, and constitution as a person is readily up for interrogation.

Read more:
CSIS targeting of Canadian Muslims reveals the importance of addressing institutional Islamophobia

The trouble ‘they’ cause

• In practice, this double jeopardy leaves Black Muslim communities suspended, saddled with heightened vulnerabilities, and often erased from dominant discourses surrounding both anti-Blackness and Islamophobia.
• There are few grounds available to provoke so called “trouble.” Trouble is disorder, disturbance, violation of expectations, norms and values.
• As a Black Muslim, you’re already seen as trouble incarnated.

Interconnected liberation

• However, just as oppression is interconnected, so is liberation.
• Jama made her first public appearance at a peace protest this past weekend in Toronto.

Nadiya Nur Ali has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She is also affiliated with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).