Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project

Rethinking The Boundaries Of Sunni Islam In Indonesia & Malaysia

11.14.2019| 6:00 - 7:30 PM |  Northgate 105

Mohamed Nawab Bin Mohamed Osman, Fulbright Visiting Fellow, Center for Race & Gender

This lecture seeks to examine the contemporary Sunni Muslim identity in Malaysia and Indonesia. It seeks to de-construct previously held typologies of Sunni Islam in both countries such as the tradtionalist-reformist divide and the Middle Eastern-Localised Islam divide. Instead the seminar seeks to show that, throughout the past four decades, Sunni Muslim identity in Malaysia and Indonesia underwent severe transformative processes. As a result of the relatively independent influence of cultural dynamics and of national, regional and international structural factors, new Sunni Muslim identities have emerged. WIth a comparative focus on Salafism, Sufism and Traditionalists, the paper explores the processes of emergence and transformation of Sunni identity in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Mohamed Nawab Osman is a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at the Center for Race & Gender. He is also Assistant Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Nawab is the author of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia: Identity, Ideology and Religo-Political Mobilization (Oxfon: Routledge, 2018) and the editors of Contesting Muslim Identities: The Political of Islam in South and Southeast Asia (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 20202) (forthcoming), Malaysia’s 14th General Election and UMNO’s Fall: Intra-Elite Feuding in the Pursuit of Power (Oxbridge: Routledge, 2019) (with Edmund Terence Gomez), and Pathways to Contemporary Islam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019). His research interests include Islam and Political in South and Southeast Asia, Islamophobia in Asia and Religion in the International Relations of Asia. At UC Berkeley, he is working on a book manuscript examining the confluence between Islamophobia and that Nation-Building process in Myanmar, Malaysia and India.

Event hosted by CRG's Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP).

Islamophobia Series: “Islamophobia & Bullying In K-12”

03.19.2019 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM  | 691 Barrows Hall

Amna Salameh has a background in education, she serves on both the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) committee and the Office of Educational Equity (OEE) committee at the Elk Grove Unified School District. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Louisiana State University, and finished her Master of Arts in Education, with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction, from California State University of Sacramento. Her master’s project was titled, “Professional Development on Islamophobia: A Multicultural Framework For Secondary Public School Educators.” Amna is a frequent presenter and lecturer on topics surrounding Islam and islamophobia in the College of Education at California State University of Sacramento, where she is a part-time professor in the Humanities and Religious Studies Department.

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This talk is produced by the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project, an initiative of the Center for Race & Gender, focuses on a systematic and empirical approach to the study of Islamophobia and its impact on the American Muslim community. Co-Sponsored by the Islamophobia Studies Center.

The Road Traveled -- The 9th Annual International Islamophobia Conference

04.27.2018 | 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM |  Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

04.28.2018 | 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM |  370 Dwinelle Hall 

04.29.2018 | 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM |  370 Dwinelle Hall 

The UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP);  Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds, UK; Islamophobia Studies Journal & Re-Orient Journal;  Islamophobia Studies Center, Center for Islamic Studies at GTU; and Zaytuna College present: 

The Road Traveled -- The 9th Annual International Islamophobia Conference

PROGRAM:

FRIDAY, APRIL 27

8:30am – 8:45am: City of Berkeley Proclamation

Presented by Councilwoman Cheryl Davila

8:45-9:10am:  Welcome & Conference Opening

Hatem Bazian, Director, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

9:15am – 9:45am: Conference Theme – Keynote: The Road Travelled: Looking at the Field 20 Years After the Runnymede Trust Report

Salman Sayyid, Director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds

10:15am – 11:45am: Panel 1 - From “Race Matters” to Racializing Muslims and Shari’a

Mark Fathi Massoud, UC Santa Barbara
Kathleen M. Moore, UC Santa BarbaraShari’a Matters: Race, Law, and Religion Among American Muslims

Marwa Abdalla, Department of Communication at San Diego State University
The Rhetorical Functions of Hijab in Discourses on Islam, Muslims, and Islamophobia

Chair:  Victoria E. Robinson, Director of American Cultures Program and Comparative Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

12:00 noon – 2:30pm Lunch Break 

For those observing Friday prayers, Juma’ Prayers are held on campus at 1:15PM at Hearst Gymnasium, a short walking distance from Boalt Hall School of Law and volunteers can provide direction.

2:30pm – 4:15pm: Panel 2 - Securing the “Nation” and Surveilling the Muslim Subject

Saul Takahashi, Japan Representative of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Waseda University
Blanket police surveillance of Muslims in Japan: Muslims as a ‘security risk’

Paula Thompson, Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union
Cyber (in)Security: Islamophobia, Networks and Cyberspace

Hagar Elsayed, University of Windsor Law School in Canada
On the Path of Radicalization: Policing of Muslim Americans Post 9/11

Baptiste Brodard, Swiss Centre for Islam and Society, University of Fribourg in Switzerland
Institutional Islamophobia in Switzerland: the case of the prison system and statutory social services

Chair:  Stephen Small, UC Berkeley, Department of African American Studies

4:30pm – 5:15pm: Book Release 

Khaled Beydoun, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and IRDP Affiliated Faculty
American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear

Chair: Hatem Bazian, Director, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

5:15pm – 6:30pm: Documentary-Special Screening  

SATURDAY 28TH, 2018

9:00am – 10:45am: Panel 3 - Media Discourses: The Muslim Elephant that Never Leaves the Screen

Nawroos Shibli, Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo
“They hate us for our freedom:” [Mis]Representations of Islam in American Media, A Discourse Analysis”

Mariusz Bogacki, Tilburg University, Netherlands
Defining Islamophobia and its socio-political applications in the light of Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

Diba Ataie, Department of International & Multicultural Education, Human Rights Education Program, University of San Francisco
Reconciling Hyphenated Identities: Muslim American Youth Reflection on College Life in the Midst of Islamophobia

Chair: Kristin George, Sociology Department, UC Berkeley.

10:45AM – 11:15AM: Second Keynote on the Conference Theme –What’s in a Name? Islamophobia, Anti- Muslim Racism, and the Weaponizing of Free Speech

Jasmin Zine, Wilfrid Laurier University

11:30am – 1:00pm: Panel 4 - Understanding Islamophobia in the Asian Context

Prashant Waikar, S. Rajarantnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
The Genealogy of Anti-Malay/Muslim Racism in Singapore: Studying Racism Through Racist Language

Junaid Ahmad, Director for the Center for Global Dialogue at the University of Management of Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Native Islamophobia in Contemporary Pakistan

Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, A Graduate School of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Islamophobia in the Discourse of Indonesian Right Wing Christian Movements

Chair:  Maxwell Leung, CA College of the Arts

1:00pm – 2:30 pm Lunch Break 

2:30pm – 4:00pm: Panel 5 - Re-Visiting and Re-Producing the Orientalist Subject

Mattias Gardell, Director of Research at the Centre for the Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Islamophobia and the Origins of Race and Racism

Maryyum Mehmood, Department of War Studies, King’s College London
Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism & Racism: Understanding Racialization of Muslim & Jewish Identities

Omar Salha, Centre for Islamic Studies and Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London
Power, Empire and Colonial Rule: Re-Orientalism of the Muslim Object

Chair: Marianne Farina, CSC, Dominican School of Philosophy and the Theology

4:15pm – 6:00pm: Panel 6 - Learning and Unlearning Islamophobia

May Kosba, Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union
Hermeneutics of Civilizing Islam

Amna Salameh, Sacramento State University and IRDP
Naved Bakali, Tabah’s Futures Initiative, UAE
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project Report on Countering Islamophobia in Public Schools

Robert Beshara, University of West Georgia
Towards Critical Islamophobia Studies

Ayse Kok, Graduate of Oxford University
Technology or Ideology? The (Mis-) Assumption of Neutrality of Technology

Chair: Khalid Kadir, International & Area Studies, UC Berkeley

SUNDAY APRIL 29TH, 2018

9:30am – 11:00am: Panel 7 - Islamophobia and the Re-Rise of the Far Right in Europe!

Enes Bayraklı, Türk Alman Üniversitesi, Türkisch-Deutsche Universitaet, Turkish German University
Farid Hafez, Salzburg University, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Senior Research Fellow, Georgetown University, The Bridge Initiative and IRDP Affiliated Scholar
Islamophobia in the European Context: 27 Country Assessment

Kawtar Najib, School of Geography, Sociology and Politics, Newcastle University
The Fear of Islamophobia and Terrorism: Impact on the Mobility and Behaviours of French and British Muslims

Seyda Karaoglu, Department of Religion at the George Washington University in Washington
Islamophobia à la Française: A Typology in Étienne Dinet’s Hajj Travelogue

Chair: Elsadig Elsheikh, Global Justice Program, Haas Institute for Fair and Inclusive Society

11:15am – 1:00pm: Panel 8 - Modes of Islamophobia: From Polite Islamophobia to Trump

Hinasahar Muneeruddin, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Hate and Fear of “Trump” Politics: Navigation of Affective Politics by Muslim-Americans in a Post-9/11 Era

Jaideep Singh, Held the Ranjit Singh Sabharwal Chair in Sikh and Punjabi Studies at CSU East Bay, and co-founded the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF)
The Rising Specter of Contemporary Christian Supremacy

Reem Bahdi, The University of Windsor, Canada
Globalized Islamophobia at The Supreme Court of Canada

Shelina Kassam, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto
Cloaking Whiteness: The Acceptable Muslim and Racialized Boundaries of Inclusion

Chair: Munir Jiwa, Director, Center for Islamic Studies, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

1:00pm – 2:30pm Lunch Break

2:30pm – 4:00pm: Panel 9 - Foreign Policy, Israel and Islamophobia, a Strategic Orientation

Paul Larudee, Ph.D. Applied Linguistics, Georgetown University
The Israeli government role in promoting Islamophobia internationally

Richard Silverstein, Independent Journalist and Contributor to Tikun Olam
Global Islamophobia: the Israel Connection

Hatem Bazian, Director, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College
Islamophobia as Foreign Policy: The Domestic/Foreign Nature of the Islamophobia Industry

Chair: Salman Sayyid, Director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds

4:00pm – 4:30pm: Third Keynote: Liberal Proselytizing and Conversion, and the Politics of Self-Policing in Academia

Munir Jiwa, Director, Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union

Closing Remarks: Hatem Bazian, IRDP, UC Berkeley and Zaytuna College

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Conference co-sponsors: Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Ethnic Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, SFSU School of Ethnic Studies, Council on American Islamic Relations, Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds, UK, Islamophobia Studies Journal & Re-Orient Journal, Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, Islamic Scholarship Fund, Islamophobia Studies Center, Muslim Student Association, Northern California Islamic Council, and Zaytuna College.

Islamophobia and the End of Liberalism? -- The 8th Annual International Islamophobia Conference

04.21 - 23.2017 |  Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law

Islamophobia and the End of Liberalism? -- The 8th Annual International Islamophobia Conference

Islamophobia is most commonly understood to be a problem that impacts adversely on Muslim minorities living in Western countries.   The growing literature on Islamophobia has contributed to this understanding by focusing on the role of media in spreading of negative views about Muslims and Islam, the implication being that the problem of Islamophobia could largely be resolved by fairer media treatment.  It is not clear, however, that Islamophobia is simply about how Muslims are portrayed.   As recent events demonstrate, Islamophobia is implicated in the broader crisis of post-Cold War liberal order.

The electoral triumph of Trump has been hailed as a clear sign that the post-Cold war liberal order is unravelling.  The crisis of post-Cold War liberal order has been read in myriad of ways, including the failure of neo-liberal globalization, the fall-out from the financial crisis of 2008, the advance of technology.  Throughout the Western plutocracies, politicians and parties who would until recently be considered beyond the pale of political respectability are making electoral gains and reshaping the national conversation.  One of the central themes of these challengers to post-Cold war settlement is the desire to ‘take back their country’.  Despite the variety of national and regional contexts in which these narratives of national recovery and restoration are situated, the Muslim presence looms large as an obstacle and a threat.

The Muslim threat enables assertions of national security, cultural integrity and social cohesion to trump demands for diversity, liberty and equality.  Islamophobia is not just  about the fate of Muslims but about the possibility of an inclusive and sustainable future for all.   Not only because the systems of surveillance and restriction deployed to discipline Muslims can be easily redeployed and redirected at other targets, but also because such interventions and controls threaten to reverse the gains in civil rights and multiculturalism that have to come characterize Western plutocracies in the last fifty years.

There is a need for an approach to the study of Islamophobia which explores the way in which it is being institutionalized by policies that promote and police a conception of Western societies that appears to be becoming increasingly exclusive and exclusionary.  This conference provides an inter-disciplinary platform to reflect and respond to the crisis of post-Cold war liberal order by exploring the relationship between Islamophobia and the reshaping of Western societies.

The conference addresses question of the relationship between liberalism (and neo-liberalism) and Islamophobia. We particularly welcome presentations that respond to the following themes:

*  What is the relation between the discourse of ‘take our country back’ and the post-Cold war liberal political order?

*  What intellectual and political resources and possibilities now exist for imagining the West in contravention of Islamophobia?

*  Is the presence of the non-white, culturally unassimilable, rights bearing subject a political problem for western liberalism?

*  What is the relationship between neo-liberal economic policies and rise of Islamophobia?

Presented by the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, University of California, Berkeley, Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds, UK, & Islamophobia Studies Journal & ReOrient.