Page - 101 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

Images of the Muslim Woman | 101www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 91–110 the survival of racism and white supremacy? How horrible would this argument have sounded? But this expectation is hardly true, right? People are not born racists. They are made racists. They are made racists by a whole range of institutions, including religion, science, the media, and education. These institutions and their discourses supported and maintained the Jim Crow system of racial discrimination. I mentioned these institutions deliberately, because cultures do not function in a void. They may be sustained or altered depending on the contexts in which they are operating and the systems that maintain them. Therefore, it was no coincidence that once men and women, black and white, from the South as well as the North, started to tackle and oppose the intellectual foundations of discrimination, the culture of the caste system began to fall apart and with it the norms that sustained it. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MUSLIM IDENTITY: THE BRITISH CASE What holds true for the “hegemonic” culture applies also to the “minority” culture: neither functions in a void or remains unchanged.35 Each can be sustained or altered by the context it is operating within and the systems that maintain it. This idea is evident in my research as I show how and why perceptions of Pakistani and Bangla- deshi communities in the United Kingdom changed. From the 1950s to the 1970s their members were seen as representatives of diverse South Asian nations, but since the 1980s they have been perceived as faceless members of the Muslim community.36 Moreover, a minority group is not homogenous. It does not represent one cultural block with similar and standardised features and traits. Diversity within a minority group is expressed in different forms, on an individual level as well as the group level. Consider the example of a young woman I met in London in January 2013 during a meeting with members of a small LGBT Muslim support group called Imaan, which means “faith” in Arabic.37 I will call her Leila. She is British, of South Asian heritage, an atheist and a lesbian. Leila wears a headscarf because of community pressure in her neighbourhood in Birmingham. She does not want to wear it, but she lives in a closed community where breaking the imposed rules would bring harm to her and her family; hence, wearing the headscarf allows her to sidestep that risk. However, wearing the headscarf immediately puts her into a religious box. Her appearance as a woman with a headscarf transforms her from a woman into a Muslim Woman, and a Muslim Woman is usually a religious person. But Leila is an atheist. The larger society 35 This part is based on Manea, forthcoming 2016: chapter 2. 36 Manea, forthcoming 2016. 37 Imaan supports the efforts of LGBT Muslim people and their families and friends to address questions of sexual orientation within Islam. It provides a safe space and support network where people can deal with issues of common concern through sharing individual experiences and institutional resources. For more information see their website, http://www.imaan.org.uk/about/about.htm.