Understanding Muslims: Islamophobia and Turning Villains into Heroes

Wajahat Ali used humor to bring light to anti-Islamic bigotry in America during his Understanding Muslims: Islamophobia and Turning Villains into Heroes event. His colloquial banter and sarcastic jokes helped make this event about a touchy subject interactive.

Ali is of Pakistani decent, and he sarcastically acknowledges that, “In 2015 America, nothing says popularity like an American Muslim of Pakistani decent.” He then adds that if things were better, he would tell people he was a pre-partition Indian, who is spiritual but not religious. When the audience offered only a titter of a laugh, Ali said, “That’s a clever joke by the way, you should Google it.” Which was met with more laughter.

Since 9/11, Ali said Islamophobia has been on the rise in America and Ali pointed to the two reasons why this is happening. One of them is ignorance because not many people are friends with, or even know, a Muslim, and the second reason is media misrepresentation. As the presentation went on, he increasingly made the point that the ignorance seems to stem from the media almost entirely. For example, due to the overwhelmingly negative news stories about Muslims, people get negatives views of Muslims or even people who just looked “Muslim-y.” To this, he said in reference to the show Duck Dynasty, “If you want to do racial profiling, who looks like ISIS? Just saying.”

Ali added, “Speaking about not knowing anything, potential Republican presidential candidates-“ and the room burst into laughter. “Did you like that transition?” This led into an overview of some of the GOP candidates’ anti-Muslim views, according to Ali. Such as Donald Trump who Ali described as “a humble man, with a generous spirit and wavy hair” and how he agreed with a supporter that Muslims were a problem in this country . He also brought up how Ben Carson thinks that a Muslim could only become president of the United States if he denounced Sharia, thereby denouncing Islam.

“So he’s fine with Muslims as long as they’re not Muslims,” Ali said. He then immediately went on to say after that, “We already have a Muslim president, Barrack Hussein Obama, yeah baby.” This comment was met with groans as well as laughter. He also quoted Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal saying some unflattering comments about “non-assimilationist Muslims” to which Ali followed with, “On behalf of South Asians, I apologize for Bobby Jindal.”

When describing taqiya to the crowd, which is the practice of Jews or Muslims being able to deny their religion if their lives are threatened, he said that when he brings up taqiya, most people think it’s a new Taco Bell taco that was just released.

He spoke of how in the last 15 years, Muslim students have been getting bullied more at school. Ali recounted the only time he remembered being bullied in school in the 80s was when someone called him “Gandhi” which he considered a compliment.

He also mentioned the story of Ahmed Mohamed from Texas who was arrested for bringing a digital clock that he built to school. “In a perfect world, this dude is like the Sudanese Tony Stark, this guy’s dope, this guy is like the Muslim Edison,” Ali said about Mohamed.

He then offered a crash-course of Islamophobia dating back to the Crusades. He mentioned a poem in which Muslims were misrepresented called Song of Roland, which he said is a staple in any English or literature class. He then asked the audience, “Anyone an English major?” A few hands went up. “Sorry, I was too. Hopefully you get jobs.” Laughter.

Ali mentioned how in 1979, when the Iranian Revolution happened, one of the most villainous characters in pro-wrestling was the Iron Sheik. “Hulk Hogan was the good guy; I’m not making this shit up. Iron Sheik was the bad guy. That’s his name; he used to walk in with a turban.” The Iron Sheik’s finishing move? The Camel Clutch.

Ali even mentions more modern instances such as some offensive lyrics at the beginning of the 1992 Disney movie Aladdin, where they claim that they will “cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” Also how when the movie American Sniper was released there was a large spike of anti-Muslim venom online and against anyone who looks, as Ali put it again, “Muslim-y.”

Things remained rather lighthearted in the Q&A section of the event when freshman Ahmed Chattha asked Ali, “Where do you plan on moving if Donald Trump is elected president?”

“Nowhere,” Ali replied. “America is my country, born and raised, why would I move anywhere?” Ali went on to say that it would be interesting, “I would like to give him some solutions, if indeed I am a problem.”