the times | Saturday June 11 2022 15
News
Walking into a Nike store in the UK, a
Muslim woman can shop for modest
swimwear and burkinis. She can then
pick up a halal piri piri sandwich in
Sainsbury’s and get a water-permeable
manicure from a nail salon so as not to
interfere with her Wudhu, the pre-
prayer bathing ritual.
In recent years it seems British
society has begun to open up to a com-
munity it ignored and excluded. A sur-
vey this week suggests a majority of
Muslims in the UK believe “life overall”
is better than it was five years ago.
The poll, carried out by Savanta
ComRes and commissioned by Hy-
phen, a new online publication that
“aims to create a meeting place for
Muslims and non-Muslims”, found that
life had improved for British Muslims
since 2017 in 10 out of 12 categories.
It included questions about opportu-
nities for success, the community’s con-
tribution to the economy, the number
of role models for young Muslims, ac-
cess to higher-paying jobs, and the level
of Islamophobia in the job market.
I am a 26-year-old Muslim woman
living in London and I cannot say with
certainty that life has improved, despite
some superficial changes.
When I speak to members of my
community from across the UK, all say
that deep-rooted issues of day-to-day
discrimination and erasure are still
very much felt, casting a shadow over
the wider progress being made.
Lamisa Khan, 26, is the co-founder of
Muslim Sisterhood, a voluntary collec-
tive set up in 2017 in response to Muslim
women’s lack of visibility in the media.
The team uses photography, publish-
ing and events to address misrepresen-
tation in fashion and provide a safe en-
vironment — with prayer spaces and an
Zoha Rahman, a
British-Pakistani ac-
tress credited with
playing the first Mus-
lim character in the
Marvel universe, in
Spider-Man: Far
From Home, said
she still feels limited by
what other people think of her.ROBERT PERRY FOR THE TIMESTories step away from donor’s ‘unacceptable’ sharia comments
The Muslim
sisterhood are
doing it for
themselves
all-female team — to allow Muslims to
take part in an exclusive industry. It has
collaborated with Nike and Converse,
and been featured in Vogue Arabia.
“There has been a shift of opportuni-
ties for Muslim people within all sectors
of British society but I don’t think that’s
because society has become more ac-
cepting or open,” Khan says. “It’s more
the first and second-generation Mus-
lim diaspora entering the workforce
and creating space for themselves.
“Muslims are the poorest faith group
within the UK. It means we still have a
lack of accessibility to resources, edu-
cation and opportunities throughout
all industries and sectors.”
The Muslim Census, a research
body focusing on data, found that
British Muslims were falling into
poverty ten times more than the
national average during the pan-
demic, and were six times more
likely to have lost their job.
While Hyphen’s study
showed that some Muslims
noted improvements in access-
ing higher-paid jobs, 40 per
cent said they were unlikely to
be given a promotion com-
pared with colleagues of other
faiths, and 42 per cent said
they were more likely to expe-
rience Islamophobia at a
work event.
Khan adds that the educa-
tion sector feels unchanged,
with “Prevent still scrutinis-
ing our community”. The
government’s anti-terro-
rism programme has
been criticised for target-
ing British Muslims, with
children as young as four
being referred for playing
video games.
Seven in ten Muslims
told the Hyphen poll they
have more role models to-
day compared with five
years ago, including the
chef Nadiya Hussain,
Olympian Sir Mo Farah
and London mayor Sad-
iq Khan.A poll suggests Britain
has opened the door to
my community. In fact,
we had to kick it down,
writes Shayma Bakht
The Conservative Party has distanced
itself from “anti-Muslim” comments
made by one of its major donors.
Maurizio Bragagni, the Republic of
San Marino’s consul to the UK, has
given £650,000 to the party. He lives in
London and regularly rubs shoulders
with senior Tories, including the prime
minister and members of the cabinet.
In an article for the news website Sat-
urno Notizie, Bragagni said sharia was
the “de facto law” in some English
towns and cities, and described London
as “worse than any African metropolis”.
He also criticised the Labour Party
for having an “anti-Judeo-Christian
identity, which allows Islamic groups to
feel at home, where they can find free
space for their true political ideology”.
A Conservative Party spokesman
said: “We were unaware of this recent
article and in no way whatsoever con-
done these unacceptable comments.”
Tell MAMA UK, which keeps a
record of Islamophobic and anti-
Muslim incidents, said Bragagni had
made “outrageous anti-Muslim com-
ments and racialised conspiracies” that
“have no place in politics”.
Bragagni said he had “never know-
ingly offended anyone”, adding: “I apol-
ogise that my article originally written
in Italian caused unnecessary contro-
versy when translated.”On his Twitter account, Bragagni
heaps praise on Conservative MPs. He
congratulated Liam Fox yesterday for
giving a “great talk” to the consulate,
a day after announcing his support for
a dyslexia screening bill backed by Matt
Hancock, the former health secretary.
On Tuesday he posted a picture of
himself with Boris Johnson and praised
the improvement of “the social services
for vulnerable groups”.
In Bragagni’s article, which was pub-
lished last month but has now been de-
leted, the BBC reported he said: “A sub-
sidy state which supports large families,
which gives houses to migrants who are
themselves the majority, in short de-
stroys western capitalism and individu-al freedom. The line between the
Christian English majority rural areas
and the foreign Muslim-run urban
areas is becoming more marked. There
are places in which sharia law is de facto
law. The English integration system has
run aground.
“Why? After Brexit, migrants who
continue to arrive in the UK are illegal
migrants from Africa, European influx-
es have stopped. When these two in-
fluxes (European and non-European)
used to be consistent, they allowed for a
balance of diversity which made locals
tolerant and therefore traditions
weren’t at risk.”
London was a “reduced” city “worse
than any African metropolis”, Bragagniadded, “with rising criminality and
daily disruption on the Tube, chaotic
traffic, sprawling confusion”.
He continued by arguing that
support for the Labour Party had been
growing in the city because “Muslims
vote Labour” and were a majority in
many of its boroughs.
The Italian-born businessman is now
a British citizen.
Bragagni was invited in 2020 to serve
as a member of the Department for
International Trade’s advisory group
on manufactured and consumer goods.
This week Bragagni wrote about his
“innate passion for journalism”, stating
that it was “what fulfils my desire for
driving positive changes in our society”.Charlie Parker
It is a pervasive societal igno-
rance. “I am still seeing or get-
ting auditions for oppressed
Muslim women,” Rahman
says. “I’ve experienced com-
ments like, ‘Oh your English is
so good’ and ‘What does it feel
like wearing jeans?’
“As a first-generation immi-
grant, seeing comments about
immigration and policies from
[the home secretary] Priti Patel
and other politicians, it’s heart-
breaking. I would like to imag-
ine that I have contributed to
this community, but that’s not
how they see me.”
In its 2021 poll, the Muslim
Census found that 42 per cent of
British Muslims were “very dissatis-
fied” with the government. Yet 50 per
cent surveyed by Hyphen said they also
feel more accepted in British society.
“On the surface, some things have
changed for the better,” says martial
artist Nesrine Dally, a hijab-wearing
Muay Thai champion based in London.
“There’s more visibility... but women
like me are always underestimated.”
Dally, who has worked on inter-
national sports campaigns, says she still
experiences microaggressions “hidden
as banter” at work and on shoots, and
just a few months ago was verbally
attacked on the street with “Islamopho-
bic and racist slurs”.Tell MAMA, a national recording
project, logged 1,282 anti-Muslim or Is-
lamophobic reports, including more
than 700 offline assaults, in 2018.
Women who are “visibly Muslim” are
the biggest targets of abuse. In 2017, Tell
MAMA recorded that those wearing a
veil made up 22 of the 38 in-person,
anti-Muslim hate incidences that oc-
curred the week after Boris Johnson
used the terms “letterboxes” and
“bank-robbers” in a column.
Dally says she still has to explain that
she needs to wear long sleeves, and feels
she had to justify not exposing her skin
on photoshoots. She recalls a recent or-
deal when a British magazine dropped
her from the cover because a hijab-
wearing woman was “not their vibe...
in an industry where sex sells”.
While hijab-wearing models now
appear in adverts and halal meat can be
found stocked at most supermarkets, a
lot of this progress often appears linked
to corporations attempting to expand
their markets. There is still some way to
go to undo the exclusionary and dis-
criminatory obstacles that still exist,
from workplace intimidation to better
representation in positions of power.
But, as a woman whose own father
once sheltered his children from the
news because he thought negative por-
trayals of Muslims would damage their
self-worth, my place at a national paper
is proof the tide is turning.It
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Actress Zoha Rahman, British
left, and martial arts
champion Nesrine Dally.
Top, Shayma Bakht, and
how The Times first
reported the poll