In an age of hyper politics, the female vote and minority inclusion are topics the media and political class will pay lip service to when it suits them, but which, in practice, cause discomfort and political histrionics.
When this dissonance converges on the Muslim woman herself, we become subject to a through-the-looking-glass political theatre at its most perverse. This much was clear in the fiercely contested Gorton and Denton by-election.
What began as a loaded statement by Sky News reporter Sam Coates directly after The Green’s win was announced has ricocheted through the media and social media.
Coates’ mention of a throwaway comment made by one Muslim woman he doorstepped, evokes a cultural phenomenon of the nefarious Muslim man and submissive Muslim woman – two well-worn tropes in the country.
Coates’ incendiary commentary was only one dog whistle in a cacophony of Islamophobic foghorns, culminating in the high priest of democratic integrity, Nigel Farage, calling into question democratic processes in ‘predominantly Muslim areas’. He stated that he reported cases of ‘family voting’ to Greater Manchester police. These speculative cases – which by Reform's own analysis were still not enough to make a dent in Hannah Spencer’s 40% majority – are part of a tradition of political grandstanding at the expense of the voting Muslim.
While the Overton Window shifts towards the entire concept of a Muslim casting their vote in a ballot box being potentially criminal, we are subject to continued hysterics centred on Muslims engaging in the democratic process.
There is no way a Muslim casting their vote is deemed acceptable to a political class which is obsessed with deporting this fragment of society, but which also wants a cross in their box on the way out. Because voting for a party which prioritises real, local issues, and which is morally consistent in its foreign policy, particularly concerning Palestine – a humanitarian and increasingly populist concern – is deemed sectarian when a Muslim does it.
And a community with shared interests, voting in a similar pattern, is cause for police investigation when their religion is Islam.
While the broader picture of Muslims existing politically is called into question, the finer details of our inherent criminality are sketched out according to narratives that are deemed most convenient. This is why the idea of a Muslim woman being forced against her own will to vote against right-wing parties that do not represent her interests is being echoed across media channels, despite its inherent contradictions.
The oppressive Muslim man and subjugated Muslim woman are the laziest assumptions concerning Muslims in popular imagination, and therefore the easiest to propagate. As with all forms of racism, it is starkly prescient of those who hold these racist reviews.
For Reform to believe a Muslim woman might vote for a Party which expressly states its intention against her and her community, negates both her intelligence and humanity and exposes their lack thereof. The political and media pundits who claim Muslim support for the Greens is purely tactical, or a form of entryism, and not, for example, a concern for their living conditions, are unable to see Muslims as humans, and therefore expose a gaping cavity in their own humanity.
Evidently, they do not see them as average citizens, with the volition and right to vote for any party they deem fit and consequently do not honour the democratic systems and processes they claim to defend. Muslim political interest, uniquely, must negate itself.
Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates women hold progressive, left-leaning political views, while men are shifting rightward. Research into the Muslim community’s voting intention also demonstrates their willingness to embrace independent politics, particularly as mainstream parties continue to converge on right-wing lines, and to ignore Muslim concerns.
This simple reality of contemporary political sentiment is lost on a party with a dogged obsession with vilifying minorities, and which will therefore pick up any discarded trope in their disillusioned attempt to represent a country they are out of touch with.
The same voices that claim in this fleeting instance to care for the Muslim woman’s agency, and purport to fight for her political liberation, are themselves shrewdly employing her image for their own ends.
This narrative is also inconsistent in how it attributes so much weight to the Muslim woman but diminishes her at the same time. Within her suppressed potential lies the keys to democracy, freedom and liberation in how it is narrowly defined by an establishment consisting of media oligarchs peddling false truths to keep their billionaire classes intact.
As the Muslim woman is hyper-victimised, the Muslim man is naturally hypervillainised. In the same way, electoral politics claims it wants to unshackle Muslim women from the ‘male community leaders’ that dictate their political decisions, it also vows to emasculate the Muslim man who carries all the brooding threats of hypermasculinity.
Muslim men’s perceived hypersexuality is frequently referenced in right-wing propaganda as a threat to British women, despite statistical evidence to the contrary. It is the Muslim man who creates cause for Reform to rise, and it is his fault when they lose in by-elections to people far more qualified and credentialed.
Spencer’s campaign, which was fought on robust policies which put people first - addressing the cost of living by insulating homes to reduce fuel poverty, rent control, litter and fly tipping – by a candidate who has greater class proximity to her constituencies, was an inevitable win.
The Green Party also holds a principled stance on Palestine – it was the first party to recognise the genocide in Gaza, and continues to call for an end to all arms sales to Israel, and supports the BDS movement. This kind of local relevance and global moral integrity is both rare and a threat to a political establishment which benefits from reduced government spending, division at home and chaos abroad.
Because of this, we will continue to see desperate attempts to sully both The Green Party and the Muslim from the mouths of politics and mainstream media. Thankfully, it seems like fewer people will be buying it this time.
Mariya is a writer from London, with a background in Policy and Research and Development in the voluntary sector. Her book The Muslim (M)Other features a series of essays thar interrogate the political, digital and cultural environment of Muslim women and is available internationally.
Follow her on Twitter: @ummkhadijah13
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