Does anyone else feel like the Islamophobia on Mumsnet has ramped up in recent days?

[ForestFawn]

There have been several faux innocent threads started which have given posters the opportunity to be open in their Islamophobia. It’s truly depressing to read.

Overnight there were a lot of problematic, ill-informed posts. I reported the ones which were making serious allegations about Muslim men. This is the response I got at 9am:

Thanks for your reports. We will have a look at these reports to see if they are part of a wider, challenging and challenged thread, and will have a look into the background of the posters. In general, as you know, we strive for a light touch moderation that seeks to promote conversation and avoid censoriousness for the reason that first and foremost we are a discussion site.

So what changed between then and when the the thread was finally pulled? There was hate speech in the early hours of the morning, and hate speech all through the day. It was a ‘challenging and challenged thread’ throughout.

The thread deletion message says they’re taking it down ‘whilst’ they go through the reports. The use of the word ‘whilst’ is disingenuous; that thread is not getting reinstated.

I’m disappointed by @anotherlevel’s post earlier in this thread where she copied MN’s response to her post asking her to clarify what she found Islamophobic about the post she’d reported.

I’ve been lurking here since the AIBU thread was pulled. I reported a post here from a non-Muslim and made the suggested that MN might want to jump in to remind people that this board is for Muslim MNers. The response I got was that ‘it might be a case of contacting some posters off the board’.

I guess I don’t expect much from MN posters, but I do feel really let down by MN itself.

On a side note, I read the MN talk guidelines for the first time in 16 years here. I think i definitely broke quite a few of them today: deliberately inflammatory is the most obvious. I also did a dodgy edit when I went back to a post of mine that I really regretted.

Im sorry you all had to read those posts today.

We had someone come on this thread to say Islam's 'reprehensible' and evil. There are some lovely people in the world.

@LawrieForShepherdsBoy thank you - it really means a lot that people care and try to help challenge prejudice. There's no reason why people can't have respectful discussions, even about contentious issues, other than that people don't want to. Hatred, and acting upon hatred, is a choice. It's really disappointing that moderation isn't more consistent about hate speech.

Thank you for your support, it's very appreciated.

I reported the thread as the OP not long before it was taken down to ask it to be removed. I said I was trying to answer everyone in a level way and respectfully but I felt posts were becoming alarmingly hateful and hysterical.

This was the response at 18.14
"Thanks for getting in touch.
We're happy to hide the thread and take a good look through and deal with anything that breaks talk guidelines - we'[ll do that now.
Please bear with us as it's quite a long thread, but we can assure you that anything breaking talk guidelines will be followed up."

I think that's a fair response.

What floored me was how alien Islam was to so many posters. It caught me so off guard. All those ‘supportive’ posts with people telling you about nice Muslims they know. It’s so at odds with my day to day life, with my experience of being British. It’s opened my eyes. They probably needed opening. There is not a single corner of my life in which people would not be shocked by the content of that thread.

@LawrieForShepherdsBoy it is very kind of you to go out of your way to try and report and stop the hate speech against Muslims. I stopped reading the thread as it just puts me in a sour mood and I'm trying to prioritise protecting my peace and mind.
It's a shame it took so long for mumsnet to take it down but I can't say I am entirely surprised by their response.

I missed the whole thread due to burgers, delivery drivers and DC wanting pizza for dinner.

(DC forgot that they don't actually like pizza at the moment. They only like 'fake pizza', which is different from pizza... But no, they insisted they wanted pizza. Then didn't like it.)

@Peonii thanks for sharing MN’s response to your deletion request. My instinct is that they got cold feet as the day wore on; your request allowed them to do a U-turn on keeping it up.

I wonder if they will follow up with people who broke talk guidelines. And if they do, how they square that with letting the content stand for so long.

My teenagers would be so proud of me if i got banned from MN 😁

I'm so curious - what is fake pizza?!

Did you do something that might get you banned?
I read you broke guidelines but I can't recall what you had said.

That thread was a disgrace and it's a disgrace it took so long and so many complaints before it got taken down. I notice there have been some posters on here challenging you and making inappropriate comments. On the top of the Jewish mumsnetter board the following message is at the top.
Only those who have been a registered user of Mumsnet for at least 7 days can post in this topic. This board exists primarily for the use of Jewish Mumsnetters. Others are welcome to post but please be respectful.

this is a lot stronger than the message at the top of your board so maybe request Mumsnet change it to the above

Thank you @LawrieForShepherdsBoy and @Delawear it is really appreciated by us all

FYI, I'm Asain came to England when i was a baby in the very early 60's! I'm not Muslim but have had racist abuse thrown at me.

I have not noted any increase on this site!!

No, I’m genuinely not. The thread was vile and there were countless posts explaining why they don’t like Muslims.

Mumsnet kept it up all night and day for a reason, and I have no idea what that could be.

You’re right, I shouldn’t have compared it to anti semitism. I can see why that might seem divisive or suggest that Jews get special treatment, and none of that was my intention. Apologies.

I meant that generally speaking, people know anti-semitism is wrong and accept it should be avoided, so I was trying to suggest that Islamophobia is exactly the same. As I write that sentence, I realise I am being extremely naive in saying that and Jews have been on the receiving end of similar hatred as well as denials of the existence of anti-semitism.

Perhaps we should join forces to do a joint AMA…!

@Peonii I didn’t see any specific posts of mine that were deleted but i quoted and replied to one post in a very inappropriate way then edited it when the hot shame took over. My edited version in no way resembled my first response.

We definitely have a lot more in common than we have differences 🙂 A few of us on the Jewish board were saying earlier this evening that we should just combine boards as we often have such similar experiences with blatant Islamophobia/antisemitism. We recognised ourselves in what a lot of you were saying on the threads on AIBU.

It's hard belonging to a religious minority in a largely secular society. The sense of not quite belonging is one that I think a lot of us have felt. The fact that others so often assume we identify more strongly as our religion than our nationality, which becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy as we turn to our religious community more as at least there we know we'll be welcome. Or maybe that's just me in my constantly sleep-deprived state 🙂

I'm open to some kind of AMA if you are, just not sure how it would work!

And just to add @Peonii I'm sorry for how your thread went. I really was absolutely horrified at so many of the comments you received. You did a good job at standing up for yourself though, you were definitely a lot calmer than I would have been.

I'll leave you guys in peace now though, I know I don't belong on this board. I only came on here because I figured you'd all have seen the two threads from last night and thought I'd offer solidarity. I know how utterly depressing it must have been to see so much hatred aimed at your religion. It was simply not ok.

Flatbread with red or green pesto and veg on it and black pepper. Occasionally with dairylea for dunking it in.

@ForestFawn No I believe you. It was just shocking that it was so blatant. I'm sorry you all had to read that.

@Humdingerydoo thank you for your solidarity in this, it is appreciated. I am sorry that you have to experience the same thing, it really isn't on.

@LawrieForShepherdsBoy Thank you for challenging Islamaphobic posts. I am too disappointed in MN for allowing posts to stand and then when you point it out to them, they ask what it was that I found to be Islamaphobic. I didn't bother replying to explain it to them when it was already in plain sight.

@Scirocco

"Iranian law is pretty sh*t on women's rights and many other things. It isn't a shining example of Islamic jurisprudence. Many elements of it are rather contradictory to Islamic guidance as understood by non-Iranian-Shiism scholars."

LOL

Wahabi/Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Libya and other predominantly Sunni countries are equally dire, if not more so, for womens rights.

As for contradictions on Islamic guidance, Sunni, Sufi, Wahabi sects are also equally if not more guilty of portraying and exacerbating actions that are not conforming to Islamic guidance.

Your comment appears to be vehemently anti-Iran/Shia. Not sure why? Ah well.

My comment was in response to someone using Iranian law as an example of how Islam is oppressing women's rights. There are many countries around the world that are pretty bad at women's rights. If the poster had mentioned one of those, I would have responded with my thoughts on that country.

I'm aware of Shia scholars from around the world who disagree with how the Iranian legal system interprets and applies Islamic guidance. That was what I was attempting to indicate by trying to show a difference between the Iranian legal system's interpretation of Shiism and the interpretation of others outside that system.

If you have the impression that I'm opposed to the treatment of women under the current Iranian system, well, you'd be right. There is a substantial body of evidence of human rights abuses targeting women. But I am not anti- Iranian people or culture or anything like that. I think the legal system and leadership oppresses women and that a particular pattern of interpretation of Islamic guidance contributes to that. I also think similarly about several other countries' legal systems, about which, if the previous poster had mentioned them, I would have been similarly critical.

"If you have the impression that I'm opposed to the treatment of women under the current Iranian system, well, you'd be right. There is a substantial body of evidence of human rights abuses targeting women. But I am not anti- Iranian people or culture or anything like that. I think the legal system and leadership oppresses women and that a particular pattern of interpretation of Islamic guidance contributes to that. I also think similarly about several other countries' legal systems, about which, if the previous poster had mentioned them, I would have been similarly critical."

I named several, yet your response to me did not show you being "similarly critical".

Is it because the countries I named, are like you, predominantly Sunni (ergo exempt from explicit criticism)?

Genuine question. Thanks.

No, it was because my response to the other poster was in the context of that discussion. When I was responding to your post I was explaining my response to the other poster and why my response to their assertions about Iranian laws included criticism of Iranian laws.

There are a number of majority Sunni countries which have similarly sh*t records on a number of human rights issues. This might not be the most appropriate thread for a wider discussion about it, but I can start a new thread for discussion about this - it could be a good topic for discussion on this board, where we can discuss things hopefully without people jumping on to spread their hate or assumptions. Give me a minute and I'll start one up.

Thread started @HelplessSoul

Hi I am not a Muslim but wanted to pop over and say yes - I have seen this and have been reporting it. At first this seemed ignored but then suddenly moderators have woken up a bit just now. I think it very important to flag this whenever possible. Sorry you are experiencing this - many of us support you.