THE report of the inquiry into Islamophobia in Scotland by Professor Peter Hopkins will be a shock to many. Over 80% of respondents to the first public inquiry said they experienced Islamophobic abuse directly. The chair of the cross party group on Islamophobia, Anas Sarwar MSP, highlighted the far-reaching impact across education, employment, health, wellbeing and housing.
I love Scotland but the perception that as a nation we are immune to social ills like racism and Islamophobia is a pipe dream we need to awake from. The report states that there is a strong tendency to adopt an approach of "Scottish exceptionalism" that has resulted in a lack of attention for these issues within Scottish political and policy discourse. However, these findings have not come as a surprise to many within the Muslim community living in Scotland.
No doubt Scotland is a fantastic place to live that is welcoming of minority groups around the world, but that does not negate the fact that most of my Scottish Muslim friends and colleagues have a bad story to tell. Whether it is a lack of support from their university to have a place to pray, to verbal abuse on the street for wearing a headscarf or even physical abuse at their place of work. Many of these scenarios are every day fears and occurrences for Muslims living in Scotland and there is quite often the feeling very little can be done to change the status quo.
READ MORE: Four-fifths of Muslims in Scotland have directly suffered Islamophobia, report finds
My first overt experience of Islamophobia was at the age of 14 in Glasgow. I was on a bus with my cousins and for half an hour this older teenager verbally abused us with names like “terrorist” and a whole host of threats for “having come to his country”. On the bus with us were eight adults who did not intervene whilst this person yelled at us on our journey running up and down the bus, when he eventually spat at us and ran off.
On that day we tried to report the incident, but after an hour the police had not shown up to take a statement and we were not followed up. The report reflects our experience where only 22% of all Islamophobic incidents are reported to the police and in almost all cases the complainants do not feel that their case is taken seriously. Claims that individuals who do not live within diverse communities are the cause of situations like this are not reflected within evidence. The report of the inquiry stated that 78% of Muslim respondents say that Islamophobia is getting worse, and this rises to 82% of Muslim respondents with a Glasgow postcode.
READ MORE: Muslim SNP councillor worries Boris Johnson government will make racism worse
What we need within Scotland is an open and frank discussion about how we take the next steps to tackle Islamophobia. What we do not need is for politicians to deny that there is a problem as we explore solutions to improving our country. Silence, deflection and denial are not what is needed on the path to resolving the issues found within the public inquiry. It has quite often become the trend within Scottish politics in issues relating to all forms of equality work to compare ourselves to our neighbours.
The aspiration for how welcoming and inclusive Scotland strives to be should be an ongoing process of improvement. When 75% of Muslim respondents say that Islamophobia is a regular or everyday issue in Scottish society, clearly we still have a long way to go.
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