According to Houda Asal, a postdoctoral fellow at the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, “The time is right for us to talk about [Islamophobia] both sociologically and politically, whilst examining its origins in literature.” Asal presented a talk at the Institute on October 19 entitled “Islamophobia: the making of a new concept,” where she examined the current state of research on the social phenomenon in English and French academic literature. As she points out, “It is not easy to give a definition to Islamophobia.” Asal, whose current research focuses on the construction of the notion of Islamophobia and the anti-racist movement in France and Canada, says that the debates on Islamophobia are more pertinent now than they ever were before with discussions surrounding Quebec’s proposed Charter of Values.

In Asal’s words, “We are witnessing a process of racialization in how Islam and Muslims are constructed as homogeneous, static, unchanging, and that is a problem [and] danger.”

First, it is incorrect to link “Islam” and “phobia,” as this implies a sense of moral panic that creates a dimension of fear that has been consequentially used by both the media and politicians to negatively affect those who identify themselves as Muslim in France and Quebec. The fact that there is no widely accepted definition of the term poses challenges to its systematic comparative and causal analysis.

The origin of the word has remained ambiguous for much of the current century. However, mainstream media has been able to use this religious phenomenon to create the misconception that this idea was invented in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. This renders the fight against Islamophobia an uphill battle as it diminishes the magnitude of the discrimination and attacks associated with the phenomenon.

Second, little do people know that the concept was originally developed in the early 20th century by academics, political activists, non-governmental organizations, and public commenters in France. These individuals drew attention toward the harmful rhetoric and actions directed at Muslims and Islam during the French colonial period. This was meant as a wake-up call to French authorities. These authorities need to prevent all sorts of discrimination against Muslims whose history in France has been correlated with working class immigrants.

About a decade later, in the post 9/11 era, Islamophobia has taken a form of its own and has extensively infiltrated the social and political spheres of Western liberal democracies. Has the need to study the issue decreased as French anti-Islamophobic laws increased over the years? This is the question Asal seeks to answer.

Third, criticizing religion as a means of freedom of speech in a secular country such as France is a sensitive issue. As Asal alludes, “The context of this issue in each country is different as their relationship with Islam is different. In Canada, the colonial and post-colonial relationship with the Muslim population is not the same as that of France, which is a big difference in the construction of the national imagery.” This is due to Canada’s policy of multiculturalism that supposedly recognizes differences and inheritance.

Fourth, the international dimension of Islamophobia, which has implications ranging from anti-terrorism laws to immigration and citizenship, has a trickle-down effect that reaches the local dimension. In France, a lack of statistics on Islamophobic attacks and discrimination leaves this issue hanging on a cliff where victims have to struggle to prove the discrimination.

In Asal’s words, “We are witnessing a process of racialization in how Islam and Muslims are constructed as homogeneous, static, unchanging, and that is a problem [and] danger.”

There is no doubt that “Islamophobia and associated social phenomena include an important field of research and will remain a political struggle in the years to come,” as Asal put it. Thus, in this case, one size of Islamophobia does not fit all, no matter how ‘French’ Quebec claims to be.

The post Misconstruing Islamophobia appeared first on The McGill Daily.

If medicine and human rights could be merged into a genre of its own, Dr. Alaei’s story would fit into such a category. Kamiar and his brother Dr. Arash Alaei are not merely doctors; their passion for Iranian public health pushed them to establish an HIV/AIDS clinic, and persisted throughout their subsequent arrest and term of solitary imprisonment, allowing them to continue to strive in prison to create an integrated model of care in Iran.

The first case of HIV/AIDS in Iran was diagnosed in 1987 after the blood examination of a hemophilic patient. Policy makers at the time denied its existence and its link to drug use – it was not until 1995 that conservative policy makers took into account the various modes of transmission of HIV.  In 1996, a pilot study in three large prisons revealed a high rate of HIV-infected patients (5 to 8 per cent). The social stigma and the lack of HIV/AIDS knowledge at the time resulted in cases of loss of employment, denial of medical services, forced divorces, and the abandonment of family members.

In 1997, understanding the sensitive nature of the disease within Iranian culture, the brothers began running harm reduction and HIV/AIDS prevention care centres with a focus on intravenous drug users and prisoners. They established the first ‘triangular clinic’ in their hometown of Kermanshah in the west of Iran. These triangular clinics treated three different groups of patients: HIV-positive patients, drug users, and those who suffered from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), offering patients clean needles, condoms, antiretroviral therapy, and other medical services. The two brothers faced opposition from community and religious leaders, who implied that the citizens had failed morally in succumbing to these diseases.

Realizing that their approach needed to be multifaceted in order to create social change for those infected with and at high risk of HIV, they sought the support of NGOs, government organizations and religious leaders. This led to the establishment of unlabelled mobile clinics that tackled the barriers of stigma associated with patients visiting an HIV-specific clinic. Cultural sensitivity and education, together with the principle of societal inclusion and the prevention of isolation, combined to form a potent method of treating patients.

Eventually, their program grew to a network of clinics in 67 Iranian cities and 57 prisons. The brothers broadened their horizons by expanding the program to a regional level, including the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. They continued their efforts through international health advocacy and global information exchange. For example, Kamiar’s “Health Diplomacy” project, an exchange program for American medical students, brought U.S. medical students to Iran to work with their Iranian counterparts and continue post-visit collaboration via the Internet.

In 2008, their relationship with American institutions led these doctors to prison. The pair were suddenly arrested and kept in isolation from each other for eight months, and on December 31, 2008, the doctors were tried before Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. They were charged with “communications with an enemy government” and a number of secret charges, leading to an incarceration in Iran’s notorious Evin prison.

Dr. Alaei’s narrative of his experience in prison was reminiscent of the strife of great political prisoners, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela, and more recently Aung Sang Suu Kyi; individuals whose dedication to their causes didn’t stop at the boundaries of their cells. As unfathomable as it sounds, these two brothers were delighted about one thing: they had landed in their exact target population – past drug users and sex workers. By expanding the prison library – thus expanding the knowledge of these prisoners – these two medical practitioners made the best of their situation.

Their story resonated beyond the walls of the prisons, and the world started to care. Before long, there was an outcry for their release via a collective coalition of scientists, human rights activists, and medical practitioners. Kamiar and Arash were released in December 2010 and August 2011, respectively.

Together, the doctors co-authored “Iran’s National and International Strategic Plans for the Control of HIV/IDU/TB,” and they helped develop Iran’s proposal to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS/TB/Malaria, which was awarded $16 million USD. The triangular clinic concept designed by the Alaeis was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the best-practice model for the Middle East and North Africa. The brothers have been celebrated on many  occasions for their outstanding contribution to the field of medicine in the presence of their dire circumstances, and were most recently awarded the WHO’s first Human Rights Award in 2011.

To quote Kamiar on the path of their journey he said, “We learn from nature. No river goes straight. The river changes its directions but not its goal.” They have proven that NGOs, government organizations, medical practitioners, and community and religious leaders have a collective responsibility to work together to create a social-cocktail of preventive care which will serve as the first lines of defence in the face of this health pandemic. It is only then that we even have a shot at facing the real enemy in the situation: the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

These two brothers have paved the way of social medicine to impersonate the lyrics of that Elton John song, and have touched the lives of those both inside and outside prison, and with and without HIV. They have made these words come alive in people’s lives.

The post Thinking positive in Iran appeared first on The McGill Daily.

An externship refers to a job-shadowing during summer/spring break where one is taken through the day-to-day routines of a medical institution, company, or an organization. When I applied as an extern to the McGill Summer Clinic for Adolescents and Disabled Patients, I was expecting an experience similar to what I had witnessed during my previous three summers of volunteering back home in Sri Lanka with the Sri Lanka Dental Association (SLDA). I had worked previously with a variety of cases – from children effected by dental fluorosis in rural parts of the country to children who suffered from cleft lip or palette disabilities. But I realized that although the dentistry practiced in this case was more or less similar in its clinical approach, many things were different in my experience.

The McGill Summer Dental Clinic for Adolescents and Disabled Patients is part of McGill Dentistry’s groundbreaking effort to work directly with the Montreal community to provide free basic dental care to people who cannot access private care due to financial hardship. Held during July, the clinic runs at the Montreal General Hospital and offers free dental treatment to children aged 10 to 17, and to physically or intellectually disabled patients who are 10 or older. The treatment is provided by fourth-year dental students under the supervision of General Dental Practitioners.
Working with disabled patients who needed a varied spectrum of care and attention was a challenge. From holding the suction tube in varying angles to assisting them off their wheelchair support, I realized that every patient was unique not merely in terms of clinical manifestations but also in terms of their social needs.

The young kids I worked with were a different milieu altogether. I was fascinated by the type of patience and reassurance that went into keeping a six-year-old steady on a dental chair without an emotional outpour was something.

Before long, I connected the dots from my past experiences where I had seen my dad, who was a dental surgeon, act like a six-year old just to reassure the kid that they were on the same emotional level and that all was well. Thus, this rule of reassurance was indeed universal in nature.

The hours were long and rigorous. It required one to keep a perpetual smile which would dull the sound of drills and burs. Although undoubtedly exhausting, the look of satisfaction at the end of a treatment session when the patient looks into the mirror and sees the difference in those pearly whites is unparalleled. While I had done technically nothing to bring that smile across the patient’s face – I had only assisted the dentist to ensure the procedure went as smoothly as planned – my experience had led me to an epiphany. I realized that I wouldn’t mind doing this not just for a month in the summer, but in reality, for the rest of my life.

At the end of this physically tedious and emotionally draining month, I had shared with the dental students the feeling of looking into the mouths of children who had access to care only once a year through this clinic. Because of this, I learned to keep a straight face and make sure the patient knew that they were in safe hands.

I was eventually unofficially named as “the babysitter” by some of the dental students I shadowed. The moniker came the day that I was given the task of babysitting the child of a patient who was in great distress due to being detached from his mother, coupled with the disruption of his afternoon nap. That day I was thrown into the deep with a test of interpersonal skills I had never before experienced. I took the baby in a stroller for three hours around the clinic in sheer desperation to put him to sleep, and eventually, he did.

There are many inexpungible memories in my head from that month at the Montreal General Hospital. The other volunteers I worked with became my summer friends, and the dental students I shadowed, my mentors. But when all came to an end and we celebrated with a scrumptious dinner at La Caverne Grecque, one thing was certain: I was going to do this again next summer. I felt humbled to be part of a great institution that pioneered in providing access to dental care through summer clinics such as this one, to the underprivileged sectors of society that often remain forgotten.

This fascinating new word I had discovered, – ‘externship’, showed me what I wanted to do in life – be part of changing the world, one smile at a time.

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