Lately, throughout the many nauseatingly similar conversations about Muslims and terrorism and immigration, I’ve been hearing commentators on all sides of the debate talk about whether Muslims are “welcome” or not.
Often the phrase – though well-meaning – asks for the broader Australian community to make sure Muslims “feel welcome” in Australia.
You don’t need to welcome me. I was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital Private, in East Melbourne. And to be honest, that journey through the birth canal was pretty full on, but I’m pretty sure the nurses that caught me made me feel welcome. It was a while ago though so I don’t really recall those finer details. From kindergarten to Year 12 I went to school in Essendon. I completed all my tertiary education, even post-grad, at the University of Melbourne. I have never lived anywhere else. I am here. I welcome new immigrants, I don’t need to be welcomed, except by the Indigenous owners and custodians of the land.
It’s so jarring to hear over and over again, even by anti-racism supporters, that as a nation we need to make sure Muslims feel safe and welcome. Every Friday night you can find me on the couch watching the footy (AFL of course). You will see me on a Sunday morning in Brunch-wick downing flat whites and poached eggs. You saw me on Election Day at the local primary school exercising my democratic right. You will see me on any given public holiday, in the park or at my parents’ home sharing a meal with my family. I watch the Bachelor and Q&A and Offspring (even though the latter has come back way less awesome). I Snapchat, Tweet, Facebook, Instagram – I do not Pokémon-Go mainly because I know I would walk into oncoming traffic while doing it. I get annoyed by slow elevators and pop-up ads like everyone else. I don’t really understand what a hung parliament is, and I get even less about global politics. I’m more excited about Gilmore Girls finally arriving on Australian Netflix.
I am no different to anyone else really. I wish I were, I wish I were more thinking and articulate and sophisticated. But I am so average, and in substance no different to the “average Aussie” and whoever it is that those words conjure. I am the stereotype.
However when I’m walking down the street my brown, Indian skin, (inherited by my parents who migrated in the early 1970s) and the headscarf on my head, because, yes I follow the religion of Islam, silence my voice and take over the speaking for me. And what they are shouting is “She’s the other! She might be a terrorist! And even though she looks pretty harmless she still looks like those other people who are the problem so, run!”
Purely because of my aesthetic, I have had hate thrown at me, eggs thrown at me (so gross), and terrible words shouted at me (equally gross). I have also had well-meaning people welcome me to the country and offer to help me navigate our culture and give me a leg up. Both are alienating experiences.
Sometimes I wish I could peel back the brown and show them the bogan on the inside. I am everything people want from Muslims these days. I contribute to society economically and socially. I think and act like the white majority (at times to the detriment of the richness that comes with being Muslim and Indian). I denounce violence, and ask for an end to misogyny and homophobia within my own ethnic communities and elsewhere.
I often feel like I have to take my scarf off to be seen as an individual with agency and a brain. I have to let go of outwardly identifying with a religion to be taken seriously, without being suspicious, alien or exotic in our country. Does that not sound crazy and eerily familiar to anyone? As for my brown skin, I spend too much time indoors watching television, trust me, it doesn’t go away.
Forget about the real sensitivity that is required to understand these issues of culture, politics and identity – the lived experience comes down to aesthetics.
There’s not time to explain to the cashier who speaks that bit more loudly to you assuming English is your second language that it’s not that bizarre a brown woman with a headscarf might actually have been born here. There’s not time to explain to the driver laying into their horn that you took that extra second longer to drive after the light went green not because you’re a “stupid immigrant” who needs to “learn to drive” but because you were distracted by the Nutella doughnut sign in the shop window next to you. There’s not even time to explain to the woman who asks you about the location of (insert random Indian city she visited years ago here), that even though your parents are from India, you really are not and that you’ve spent more time thinking about why Jersey Shore was a thing than examining the map of India.
There’s not time for rational thought in the millisecond day-to-day interactions you have. Though it’s these interactions that either bolster us up as individuals and communities, or completely break our hearts.
I would venture to say that a brown skinned Muslim named Waleed Aly has done more for me personally than think pieces, written opinions like this, or any politician for that matter. When there’s no time or patience for much else, and my aesthetic is what counts on the ground, then I cling to Waleed Aly and every other brown face in mainstream media.
At the moment Waleed Aly, an Aussie accent, a participation in traditional Aussie pastimes and a working knowledge of colloquialisms act as passports to legitimacy and acceptance in the workplace, at mother group, at the shops, and at times even provides a modicum of safety on the streets.
Until the system changes and we have a society where first and foremost Indigenous communities are treated equitably, and then those of us who are marginalised are systemically considered Australian, and are also treated equitably both in policy and on the streets, until all that happens, I would love to have more passports to acceptance and understanding in my pocket. I want to see more diversity in our mainstream media. It’s superficial, but aren’t we all? That’s what’s working. The day I realised these issues meant something to me was the day my daughter was born and I felt a little relieved to see she more resembled her Anglo-Celtic father, than me.
So is a brown woman on mainstream television asking too much?