I am done shapeshifting into a form of Muslim palatable for people I don’t know

Photograph by Alex Kwong Photography of artwork by Haneen Martin.

“As a half Malay, half Saudi woman, I have always been aware of how I look and the questions that my appearance incites.”

Originally posted on The Guardian, 20 March 2019.

The day after the Christchurch attacks, I dove headfirst into a string of anxiety attacks and tears after pulling up near an ATM and making brief eye contact with a white woman sitting against the bank, who was wearing a strapless dress made from the Australian flag.

I was not dressed like a pious person, but I know how I look and I know my skin is brown – I ran to the ATM across the road and avoided her. She didn’t say a word to me, I am not even sure she knew I was there, but I was so very afraid. Everything I have learned in my life; every way of hiding was impossible in that moment.

As a half Malay, half Saudi woman, I have always been aware of how I look and the questions that my appearance incites. When my parents were divorcing, we spent significant amounts of time in Sharia courts where, as children we were not only fighting to stay with our mother, but we began to divorce ourselves from our Arab identity. This is also where I learned that the religion I was barely aware of, that makes up so much of who I am, could torture me.

I was eight years old when I realised that I was different, eight years old when we migrated to Australia from a comfortable life in Malaysia. We learned quickly that brown people who migrated were too different to be completely accepted and we dropped the Malay language entirely despite our perfect English in an attempt to assimilate.

It was the first time I understood the only way to be truly accepted here was to change who we were and the first time I realised that hiding parts of ourselves do not leave us feeling whole, nor does it make us accepted.

When the September 11 attacks happened, I was nine years old and my mother, brother and I had been living in Australia for nearly 10 months. Ten difficult months away from family and friends and Kuala Lumpur where I struggled to make new friends and I was painfully aware that there was nobody that looked like us on this side of town.

I don’t remember much more than knowing deep in my gut that our lives would change, and that I would begin to resent my middle name, my grandfather’s name, because it was too much of a suggestion of who we were and it could cause trouble. At nine years old, without fully comprehending what had started to happen around the world, I had realised that if I wanted a chance at being happy then I had to hide parts of me that amounted to a Muslim identity.

My mother and my stepfather were contacted by our primary school almost immediately to inform them that as they knew we were Muslim they would do their best to protect my brother and I against any racial abuse.

I didn’t know this until recently because our parents went to great lengths to ensure we were sheltered from racial bias, unlike my mother who, as a GP in one of the whitest parts of Adelaide, was regularly overlooked by potential patients as a legitimate option of care.

Through these experiences there was one lesson that I would take away that would take two decades to recover from: Don’t tell anybody that you are Arab. It remains to this day the most valuable advice my mother taught me, and the most traumatic. Back then, nobody really knew what Arab people looked like, so I told them that I was Malay.

I had lived in Malaysia, with my Malay family for most of my life. Being Malay and Malaysian failed us when the family court, the Sharia court, failed us by choosing our Arab father over our Malay mother.

I don’t remember the attacks so much as I do knowing deep in my gut that things had changed eternally.

Through my school years, I didn’t experience the abject discrimination but I was aware that I was treated was differently to other people. It was never obvious, or was quiet and insidious as racism often is.

It is stares, avoiding eye contact, holding a handbag close, careful language and indirect questioning, rarely ever direct hate. It is this strange, inexplicable, rarely discussed disgust that forms a finely tuned awareness and a thick skin.

It is the disappointment in my grandmother’s voice when she told me I’ve been pronouncing my name incorrectly, making it sound like less of an Arab word and simultaneously making it easier to roll off a Western tongue and forget.

It was years of silence, looks and awkward politeness before the hatred fostered within the homes of the kids I knew and turned into “hey, terrorist.”

Just as we were let down by the court systems in Malaysia, we were let down by the silence of Australian leadership and complacency of the Australian people to actively work against this incredibly specific, directed vitriol.

Now Australian, until I was in my mid-twenties I would continue to hide being Arab unless I completely trusted someone. It wouldn’t be until later in my life that I would realise that hiding being Arab was a convenient way of hiding being Muslim.

At that time, there weren’t many people who would cover their hair and only the men in our family would go to the mosque on Fridays, sometimes. If we had a prayer to say, it would be silent and recited in our own time.

This quiet worship often meant that people would not realise that we were Muslim and being aware of this made me feel safe, but it also meant we never had much of a community. Again, it wouldn’t be until my mid-twenties, about 15 years living in Australia, when I would decide to wear headwraps because I stopped hiding my identity but I would still come to run away from harmless women sitting by the ATM.

As an adult in the workforce, I realised quickly that having taken my stepfather’s name was as much a blessing as it was an honour. On paper, I have some hope of being generic, being accessible, not being feared.

I also realised that the people that come up to me in the street, that I’ve served in shops and bars, or talked to at pubs don’t know my last name. They just know what is in front of them and they know it’s not right. My safety net failed me and I began to shift away from my desperate need to hide.

At this point, hiding is still the safest. You have no idea who you are talking to, who is around the corner waiting for you and there is still no indication by the Australian government that anyone of a Muslim or migrant background is welcome or safe in this country.

This time I am done hiding, done shapeshifting into a form of Muslim palatable for people I don’t know. My religion and my identity are not fluid. I have learned to come to terms with who I am and all the experiences that have formed me as a migrant, a Muslim, a woman and an Australian.