The
ideal
vacation,
Paris,
remains a special place for many
aching for a life of romance, buttery
croissants and artful architecture.
The French language seen as poet-
ry, the streets of France idealized
and the air romanticized as every-
one hopes to become entranced by
Paris and France’s overall allure.
Emily in Paris is the embodiment
of that glamorization as Netflix’s
carefree dramatic comedy stars Lily
Collins as an American who has
difficulty assimilating to French
society. Having not studied the
language prior to her arrival, her
misunderstandings of the language
are running jokes as she flaunts her
Parisian influenced style and dis-
covers France. A sucker for guilty
pleasures like this show, I eagerly
binged all the episodes in two days.
As I finished the show, I couldn’t
help but think about how my expe-
rience in Paris could never look like
Emily’s.
Like Emily, my mouth waters
just thinking about French pas-
tries — chocolate croissants in
particular — and decadent meals
cooked with rich meats and fancy,
unpronounceable glazes. Roaming
the cobblestone streets in wander-
lust, purchasing groceries from
an aesthetically pleasing French
market and finally utilizing the
French language I worked so hard
to acquire were daydreams that
kept me sane throughout stringent
French courses. However, France
has made it illegal for people like
me to see these dreams through,
unlike Emily, with their current
ban on hijab.
Attempting to stay true to an
ideal of secularism, the country has
made it illegal for Jews to dress in
yamakas, Christians to wear cross
necklaces, Sikhs to cover in dastars
and Muslim women, like myself, to
drape our hair in hijabs. Though the
ban prohibits all religious apparel,
the ban is rooted in the mainstream
misconception that Muslim women
who dress in hijabs are oppressed,
that the hijab is an oppressive tool
and that France, a republic built
on liberty, equality and fraternity,
cannot condone the oppression of
women. Seemingly a contradiction
as founding womens’ ideals on their
clothing and reducing women to
their appearance is oppressive and
sexist in and of itself, the country
does not care for promoting unity
as their goal is to villify Islam to
the French public. Due to the hijab
being a physical embodiment of
Islam and Europe’s overwhelming
belief that Muslims are behind all
of their political and social pitfalls,
it is evident that this ban is moti-
vated by anti-Muslim convictions.
Anti-Muslim rheotric is the
mainstream in France, as demon-
izing and disrespecting Islam is a
social norm. Charlie Hebdo, a pop-
ular French satirical magazine, is
no stranger to this phenomenon as
its existence is a ruthless reminder
of fervent French anti-Muslim big-
otry. Known for angering Muslims
worldwide because of its purpose-
fully intolerant depiction of our
last Messenger, its content is heav-
ily baked in this notion that Mus-
lims are either stupefying fools or
threatening terrorists. Just scroll-
ing through its website makes me
regret the years of French schooling
I endured; the organization takes
every possible opportunity to profit
off of common anti-Muslim speech.
Its top five most popular articles
listed on its website, as I write this
article, are centered on crude and
derogatory jokes of Muslim figures
and Muslim culture, even attacking
Arabic; the language of the Quran
and coincidentally the language
that gave the French its numerals,
as horsetalk. Sports is not a cul-
tural medium immune from anti-
Muslim bigotry. Despite a majority
of France’s soccer players coming
from Africa and the Arab world
and identifying as Muslim, its play-
ers are categorized as French when
they win and Arabs or Africans
when they lose. Zidane, arguably
the most successful French soccer
player, is of Algerian and Muslim
descent and even his prestige could
not save him from France’s ram-
pant anti-Muslim bigotry. If a man
that has delivered the French a
world cup and multiple champion-
ships continues to be the at the end
of anti-Muslim rhetoric, is there
any Muslim that can be immune
from French sponsered anti-Mus-
lim hatred? As the country contin-
ues to capitalize on anti-Muslim
sentiments, France and some of its
inhabitants remain keen on harm-
ing their Muslim neighbors in a
country that just so happens to hold
the most Muslims in the Western
world.
The culmination of brewing
anti-Muslim beliefs and a disen-
franchised
Muslim
population,
France has been the setting for a
petrifying exemplification of the
domino effect. About two weeks
ago, a teacher who chose to depict
offensive Charlie Hebdo comics
was beheaded by a terrorist. In
response to the terror attack, Presi-
dent Macron, a man who identifies
as politically centerist, stated that
Islam was a religion “in crisis all
over the world” and a threat to the
West. I find it important to note
that this was a man that claimed
he wanted to save Lebanon fol-
lowing the disastrous earthquake
and finds Muslim countries very
appealing to his country’s dan-
gerous and exploitive infatuation
with globalism. Angered by the
anti-Muslim comments made by
Macron, Muslim majority country
leaders like Imran Khan of Pakistan
and Erdogan of Turkey called for a
boycott of French products. Fol-
lowing the horrific incident, anoth-
er terror attack occured when two
Algerian women donned in heads-
carves were beaten and stabbed by
two French women ironically near
the symbol of France, the Eiffel
tower. The women were harassed
and called “Dirty Arabs,” a result
of widespread anti Arab senti-
ments in the nation. In a horrifying
retaliation to French enabled anti-
Muslim sentiments, a man iden-
tifying as Muslim stabbed three
people at Notre Dame, all of whom
died due to his cruelty. This led to
an anti-Muslim man attempting to
set a mosque ablaze as he poured
gasoline onto its walls, arson he for-
tunately was not able to fully com-
plete, but an assault on the religion
nonetheless.
All of these terror attacks stem
from a festering anti-Muslim gov-
ernance and culture. Prejudice,
like Muslim and French blood,
spills into the streets of France as
rhetoric is spewed and legislation
is drafted to antagonize the sec-
ond most followed religion in the
world and those who follow it. As
France continues to play victim,
I can’t help but think about the
countries France attacked over
the past few centuries and its con-
tinued obsession with Islam and
the Muslim veil. Having colonized
countries like Tunisia, Lebanon,
Egypt, Morocco and Algeria, it
seems ironic that the French gov-
ernment claims that Islam is a “ter-
ror” when France has terrorized
Muslim majority nations. To list all
the cruelties committed by France
to Muslim majority nations is vir-
tually impossible, cementing that
France is the true opressor. Despite
its beautiful appearance, its core is
ugly, operating on the premise that
Emily can be in Paris, but Eman
cannot.
Wednesday, November 4, 2020 — 5
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan In Color
Emily can be in Paris, but Eman cannot
Thank God, I thought, as the
aromatic plate made its way
closer and closer to my table. I
tore off the mask I’d been wear-
ing since entering the dimly lit
restaurant, noting the lip gloss
imprint on the inside. Yup,
that’s going in the trash once I
get home.
The double-masked waitress
placed our dishes in the middle
of the table as my friends and
I whipped out our cameras for
the classic brunch Snapchat. As
I navigated my phone, a notifi-
cation popped up: “1,500 new
cases of COVID-19 today, the
third consecutive day of rising
cases in the state of Michigan.”
I stared at it until the notifi-
cation disappeared from my
screen, then looked around me.
One couple 10 feet away, anoth-
er a little closer — man, why
couldn’t they seat us outside?
The pandemic made dis-
persed and speedy features in
our discussion — the “when’s
that vaccine coming,” the go-to
“this is all so crazy”, the slight-
ly bitter “at colleges they’re
completely business as usual.”
Just like the weather, COVID-
19 has become the automatic
default for any awkward silenc-
es — “the nasal swab barely
hurt” joining “it’s cold outside”
in the reservoir of small talk
go-tos. As America sees little to
no veritable progress in stifling
the virus, those of us privileged
enough to do so have mentally
conquered COVID-19: all by the
process of externalization. To
an extent, this process definite-
ly makes sense — our local, state
and federal government make
or break community responses
to the virus, with implementa-
tions (or lack thereof) of vari-
ous regulations and mandates.
However, at the same time,
the actions of an individual
quite literally initiate a domino
effect. We all know COVID-19
spreads like wildfire, with no
definitive rhyme or reason —
arguably every single time we
go outside, there is a risk. Yet
still, we’ve created parameters
for our own peace of mind: out-
side or bust, gatherings of 25 or
less (because the virus makes
a U-turn once there’s no 26th),
and intermittent hand sanitiz-
ing.
These measures are valuable,
and without them we would
definitely have less public safe-
ty than we do now, but this mid-
dle-ground approach has left us
to dwell in an indefinite sort of
purgatory with no visible end
in sight. While New Zealand
and Taiwan are essentially
‘back to normal,’ we look to
them with envy without realiz-
ing the stringent measures they
mandated to get to that place.
For some, mask wearing is
viewed as a form of groupthink,
another way the government is
trying to demand conformity.
As such, mesh net masks have
popped up to stick it to the man
(yeah!) and let onlookers know
that you may have been duped,
but they haven’t. If beating the
pandemic is striving for a light
at the end of a tunnel, we’re
currently navigating the same
tunnel instead with random,
small flickers of a candle, the
extinguishing of which brings
us all the way back to the tun-
nel’s entrance.
Was this just the luck of the
draw for Americans? Is it just
the vastness of our country that
made the pandemic more wide-
spread here? As a nation con-
sistently purported as the ‘best
in the world,’ our response to
COVID was anything but. And
interestingly enough, that may
have to do with the ego we all
carry as Americans- individu-
alism at all costs. According
to a recent study published by
the Social Science Research
Network, higher rates of local
individualism reduced adher-
ence to state lockdown orders
by 41 percent and pandemic-
based fundraising by 48 per-
cent. Interestingly, areas of
the country that have higher
historical exposure to frontier
conditions
have
empirically
been proven to partake less in
mask-use, social distancing and
trust of science. This mindset
is ingrained as an American
value from our earliest les-
sons in elementary school and
clearly display long-term impli-
cations: On one end, individu-
alism encourages innovation
and entrepreneurship, but on
the other, it stifles any sense of
social responsibility and col-
lective action, characteristics
needed in a pandemic-stricken
country.
As such, here we are today
— amid the indefinite slug of
COVID purgatory. Ironically
enough, many students have
been forced to think collec-
tively in light of universities’
individualistic approaches. I’ve
heard stories of some having
to exaggerate symptoms just
to get tested, others renting
AirBNBs so they can quaran-
tine from their roommates, and
many like myself, opting to stay
home this semester to — among
other things — avoid getting
roped into an unused lease.
When everything in our coun-
try seemingly operates like a
business, the aforementioned
mindset has permeated into a
lot of our institutions, putting
individual (oftentimes profit-
based) interests over serv-
ing communities. As we head
towards what may very well be
the second spike of COVID-19,
I propose a reframing of the
Great American Individualism:
Instead of considering it as the
pursuit of singular enjoyment
at all costs, we pursue our sin-
gular safety in the face of an
unending pandemic. To this
end, be self-interested enough
to say no if you’re not comfort-
able attending an event, eat-
ing indoors or even entering
maskless settings simply and
only because you’re protect-
ing yourself from the virus’s
reach. When our government,
our schools, and even ourselves
may not immediately perceive
those as primary concerns,
consideration of the virus must
be ingrained in our individual
mindsets: we — myself and my
homegirls at brunch included
— need to confront the cogni-
tive dissonance of dissociating
our responsibility in the fight
against the coronavirus when
quite literally we are potential
vectors.
ELIYA IMTIAZ
MiC Columnist
The evident ‘I’ in pandemic
Jon Tyson via Unsplash
Disclaimer: Islamophobia is a phrase that doesn’t truly embody anti-
Muslim rhetoric and actions. The word, literally meaning a fear of
Islam, legitimizes fear of Muslims, as if we are a people to fear or
operate like regular and logical horrors of spiders and heights. I do
not condone nor do I use that phrase in my daily life as I attempt to
distance myself from the misleading caricature of a term. In its place,
I will use the phrase anti-Muslim and urge you to do the same as your
refer to anti-Muslim bigotry.
EMAN NAGA
MiC Columnist
Eman can be reached
at: enaga@umich.edu.
Photo via Unsplash