Contemporary Issues

In the contemporary context it is important to account for the various shifts and transformations which have shaped the contours of Sikh-Muslim relations across the global Sikh diaspora. As historical conflicts have been transported into new times and spaces we see the reworking of Sikh-Muslim tensions being projected onto the ‘forced’ conversions narrative.

Global events have also impacted upon Sikh-Muslim relations, particularly post-9/11, where many Sikhs have found themselves being confused for being Muslim. As processes of racialization generated by the war on terror continue to accelerate, Islamophobia has come to condition the lives of both Sikhs and Muslims, as well as racialized communities more generally. In this new cultural landscape these communities have had to negotiate and navigate a series of complex tensions.

Forced Conversions

In the contemporary diasporic landscape a key issue of contention for the Sikh community concerning the Muslim community appears to lie in the phenomenon of ‘forced’ conversions. This Islamophobic narrative has a specific diasporic context in which previous historical conflicts have been re-articulated to crystallise the notion of the Muslim ‘enemy’. The ‘forced’ conversions narrative […]

 

War on Terror: Islamophobia, Mistaken Identity, and Flying-While-Brown

Post 9/11 has seen the increased exercise of surveillance across Western nations in the new moral panic around security. Sikhs, Muslims, and other brown bodies, have become problematized within this landscape of tougher profiling measures directed at racialized communities. In the context of the war on terror Islamophobia has intensified in political and public discourse […]