Over the course of the past week, I’ve gotten reports from a number of people whose personal Facebook pages have been removed or deleted from the Facebook platform. At first, it was a male friend in Morocco. Then a female, Moroccan friend in Boston. Then an Indian woman in the UK. And then even more.

Once I investigated a bit further and spoke to each of them, I discovered what each of them have in common: All of them are critical of Islam (some are atheists, others ex-Muslims, still others reformers) and post frequently articles and status updates about the religion.

And then someone told me that a group was created on Facebook (in Arabic) for the sole purpose of reporting, and thus having removed, Facebook profiles of atheist Arabs. The group, which appears to have also been removed, was entitled “Facebook pesticide” and its sole purpose was to “identity Atheists / Agnostic / anti-religion in the Arab world and specifically in Tunisia …” Once identified, the group members would then attempt to report such users.

Of course it’s problematic that there’s a group of people seeking to destroy the online identities of users of a certain group, but that’s not the issue I’m going to address in this blog post. Instead, I will address why Facebook’s strategy toward dealing with situations like this is so problematic:

1. The Facebook platform makes it all too easy for users to get other users’ accounts removed. Any user can report another user by the simple click of a button.  Facebook has not spoken publicly about how this process works, but my suspicion is that when a number of users report the same user, their profile is automatically disabled.  What happens next I can only speculate about, but from accounts I’ve received, Facebook does not contact users, rather, users may write to “disabled@facebook.com” to request their account be reinstated.  Sometimes it happens, other times it doesn’t.


A screenshot of Facebook's "report" function

2. Facebook’s Terms of Service (TOS) require users to use a real name for their profile.  This gives would-be attackers a simple way to report a person’s profile.  In the case of Arab activists in particular, many tend to use pseudonyms because of the risks they encounter in their home countries.  Therefore, it is simple to effectively report and have someone’s profile removed if that’s the case.
3. Facebook does not inform users that their profile has been removed, nor does it tell them why. Unlike YouTube, Flickr, and other social media platforms, Facebook does not inform users that their profile has been removed (or why); it simply deletes them.  The only method of recourse (sending an email to “disabled@facebook.com”) does not guarantee a response, and in many cases, users report never receiving one.  Sabina England, whose profile was recently deactivated, says she was never given a reason, nor has she received a response to her many emails to Facebook.
4. Facebook requires people to show government identification to prove they are who they say they are. Recently, my friend, activist Najat Kessler, had her Facebook profile deactivated.  She wrote to “disabled@facebook.com” and received a prompt reply, the text of which read:
   

   On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 5:23 PM, The Facebook Team <appeals+0pmdmcp@support.facebook.com> wrote:
   Hi,

   At this time, we cannot verify the ownership of the account under this address. Please reply to this email with a scanned image of a government-issued photo ID (e.g., driver’s license) in order to confirm your ownership of the account. Please black out any personal information that is not needed to verify your identity (e.g., social security number). Rest assured that we will permanently delete your ID from our servers once we have used it to verify the authenticity of your account.

   Please keep in mind that fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited.

   In addition to your photo ID, please include all of our previous correspondence in your response so that we can refer to your original email. Once we have received this information, we will reevaluate the status of the account. Please note that we will not be able to process your request unless you send in proper identification. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

   Thanks,

   Dominique
   User Operations
   Facebook

   So basically, we’re supposed to trust Facebook to handle our identities with care?  Facebook, of the notoriously sketchy Privacy Policy?  No thanks!

The rest of this I’ve written about here.  Effectively, the problem is this: For activists, Facebook’s terms of service are simply not clear enough, and its methods for profile removal and reinstatement not transparent.

My recommendations to Facebook?

• First and foremost, offer transparency to your users.  Yes, Facebook is a private, free platform, but users expect to be able to use it.  It is your right to create whatever Terms of Service you want, but be clear, consistent, and transparent when enforcing them.
• Be consistent…There are multiple profiles for Jesus Christ on Facebook that have been allowed to remain, yet “Sabina England” (a very public pseudonym representing a real person) is not allowed to stay?  Furthermore, why is it so important that users use their real names, anyway?  Don’t you realize the risks people must take in certain countries?
• Change your TOS.  Telling us that we must not use Facebook in manner that “infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law” is too vague–are you referring to United States law?  If yes, then say so.  If not, then which law?  Saudi Arabian law, for example, would require that women cover their hair.  German law would ban Holocaust denial (which Facebook famously allows to remain on the site).  Be clear with your users.

Any other recommendations you’d make to Facebook?

*****

Last week, a few days after the horrific events of Fort Hood, a Marine reservist in Florida mistook a visiting Greek Orthodox priest for a “terrorist” and beat him with a tire iron.  The reservist (who was indeed white) made all sorts of wild claims — that the priest yelled “Allahu Akbar,” that he made a lewd hand gesture. . . claims that have been widely refuted.

I don’t know exactly what it is about white Americans. . . I can say, from anecdotal personal experience, that Europeans and other white people traveling throughout the Middle East and North Africa often make silly orientalist comments, and I’m fully aware of the idiotic British BNP (and other European right-wing parties) that would happily rid Europe of all Muslims. However, there seems to be a special kind of ignorance amongst white Americans when it comes to Muslims and Arabs.  It goes something like this:

1. They don’t know the difference between “Muslim” and “Arab.” Remember last year during one of McCain’s town hall meetings when a middle-aged white woman objected to Obama by saying, “but he’s-he’s-an ARAB!”?  It was obvious to many of us that what she really meant to object to was his religion — after all, it was part of the zany right-wing public debate at the time — but instead she just somehow got confused and cried “Arab.”  You know, because it doesn’t really matter right?  Which brings us to McCain’s response . . . “No, he’s not, ma’am, he’s a DECENT family man.” As if being an “Arab” disqualifies a man from being a decent family man.  Which leads to:

2.  They think “Muslim” and “good person” are mutually exclusive. McCain was quite aware that the woman meant to say “Muslim” and yet chose to defend Obama not just by saying “No, ma’am he’s not,” but also by feeling compelled to add “he’s a decent family man.”  The implication?  That one cannot be both an Arab (or Muslim, since that’s what we all know the woman meant) and a good man. I often hear comments about how obesity is the last acceptable prejudice in this country, but I’d like to argue that Islamophobia is far more widespread and accepted. Can you imagine if white people blatantly still said such horrible things about Black people? It’s completely unheard of in many parts of the United States for someone to say “nigger,” but “sandnigger”?  In many places in this country, that’s totally okay.

3. They don’t realize that most Muslims aren’t Arab. Going back to point #1, the imagery of what it means to be Muslim in the United States is so tied in with our images of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf (not even the Arab world on the whole!) that even on progressive blogs, you will often see people refer in blanket terms to Muslim women’s dress as “the burqa.”  What they don’t seem to realize is that the countries with the largest Muslim population are all in Asia (where, mind you, women don’t even wear the burqa), and not Arab at all!

4. They mistake non-Muslims and non-Arabs for Muslims and Arabs.  In the years since 9/11 (though before as well), many groups have become collateral damage in racist attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the U.S.  Iranians, Greeks, Sikhs, Hindus, and sometimes, anyone with a beard seems to be a target. 6 years ago, a Hindu was mistaken for a Muslim in Boston and beaten. . .and just last week, as noted above, it happened to a Greek priest.

5. They think “Middle Eastern” is a race.  Except on the census. While the region also known as the Middle East and North Africa is often referred to as “the Arab world,” the latter is somewhat of a misnomer and more accurately refers to a shared language (kind of like the way Latino is often used).  From Morocco to Saudi Arabia, there are Arabs, but there are also Amazigh (Berbers), Moors, Bedouins, and plenty of other native groups that prefer not to be referred to as “Arab.”  But when they come to the United States, it doesn’t matter anyway, as they’re expected to check the “White” box. . . imagine arriving from Mauritania, on the continent of Africa, and being told you can’t check the “African-American” box.  True story.

6. They assume that all Arabs are Muslim. I love this one. . . It never ceases to amaze me the blanket statements made about “that part of the world,” and “their practices.”  Nevermind the native Coptic, Maronite, and Orthodox Christian populations, the converts, the Jews, the Druze, the Zoroastrians, the Baha’i.  And if on the off chance you do meet someone who is aware of those other populations, they’re still likely to try to convince you that they’re those populations are all oppressed by the Muslims, anyway.  Which brings me to my last and most important point. . .

7. They pretend it’s not racism.  So, Islam is not a race, and to many, “Arab” isn’t either. . . It doesn’t matter: there is plenty of evidence of racism against all of the aforementioned groups. In fact, there’s significant evidence to suggest that systematic racism is practiced against Muslims and those with Muslim or Arab-sounding names (regardless of actual faith) in a number of places.  This BBC article discusses the racist practice of not hiring Arabs and Muslims based on name alone (in France). Though I’m not aware of any study, I’ve seen the same happen in the U.S. And the exclusion of North Africans from being qualified as “African-American” on the census and on scholarship applications (again, they’re supposed to check the “white” box) means they’re doubly discriminated against: Not really white, but not non-white enough to benefit from certain programs.

And that’s only the beginning — as we saw in a video Macon posted last week, Muslims (especially Muslim women who wear hijab) are often assumed not to be American, even when they were born here.  Arabs are pulled to the side for “random checks” nearly every time they fly.  And more often than not, when an Arab or Muslim does commit a crime, the entire Arab and Muslim communities are expected to speak out against it (ask yourself: would we expect the same every time a Christian or white person committed a crime?).

Here’s a thought: Perhaps if people, and the media, made more of an effort to know the difference between a Muslim, an Arab, a Persian, a Hindu. . . or better yet, a Moroccan, a Syrian, a Saudi, a Kuwaiti. . . Perhaps if everyone made more of an effort to see people as unique peoples from particular countries and cultures, or better yet — as individuals! — they would be less likely to commit atrocious acts against them based on assumptions.  Perhaps they would be less likely to expect Muslims as a group to speak for one individual Muslim, and perhaps they’d be more likely to understand that an entire mass of 325 million people who just happen to share a common language most certainly do not share a common perspective.

The article, which you ought to go read before continuing here, basically outlines how western* women are treated in Muslim countries – according to Bacharach, we are forced into marriages, or if we choose to marry, our husbands will turn on us Not Without My Daughter style, or if we don’t marry, we’ll be branded as loose women. Real thoughtful stuff.

Okay – let’s get the truths out of the way first. Yes, there have been cases of women moving to certain Muslim countries with laws on the books that take away former nationality upon marriage (Iran has done this, whether you’re a believer of Betty Mahmoody’s story or not). Yes, there have been some highly publicized cases of forced marriage in Egypt. And yes, there is a prevailing attitude among some young men in some countries (including non-Muslim ones – anyone been groped in Italy?) that western – especially American – women are loose. Acknowledged, moving on.

That said, the first rule when writing about Muslim countries is to lump all Muslims together, as if they are one brainless homogeneous blob. The second rule, of course, is to ignore all of the happy, positive, and successful marriages between western women and Muslim men (or, assume that if there is a divorce, that it must have been because the man was Muslim…because, you know, no two people from the same culture ever divorce!) And while you’re at it, simply ignore any positive experiences in general from women in the Middle East and North Africa that don’t fit your agenda. The third rule is that you must never, ever, place blame on the poor western woman who went to a chatroom, met her husband-to-be, fell in love without ever hearing his voice or seeing his face, then flew a thousand miles to marry him and then – oh noes! – found that he wasn’t who he said he was. The fourth is that you must only trust the viewpoints of “Muslim reformers” and apostates: Muslim women are never to be trusted. And of course, never forget the most important rule of writing about Muslim countries – you must, must take every anecdotal incident as gospel.

Let’s go through these again, with examples.

Rule #1: All Muslims Are the Same.

Because of her experience, the occasional young American woman who is thinking of marrying a Muslim with an urge to return to his own country visits Chesler for advice. And she tells them what she knows: “This man you love will change overnight before your eyes. You will live but you will wish you were dead.”

Oh yes, Phyllis Chesler. The same Phyllis Chesler who says things like:

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families.

Ahhh yes, the ol’ argument that Muslim women are forced to wear hijab. Exempting Iran and KSA, which both have laws on the books, I fail to see how Chesler could arrive at the conclusion that “most” Muslim women aren’t given the choice. Is she privy to some information that I’m not? Has she entered the households of Muslim men and women to determine who is, and is not, forced by their families? Even if she had, would she listen?

But let’s move on, to Rule #2: Ignore Positive Examples

My friend Nasser says that he was told by “a leading female American journalist” that the press is “not interested by success stories of western women.” I don’t disagree. Take this lovely story in Saudi Aramco World: Nancy Abeiderrahmane is a British woman who has lived in Mauritania with her husband for 30 years and is responsible for commercializing camel milk in the country. Of course, the story doesn’t even touch on Nancy’s marriage (why would it?), making it totally uninteresting to western feminist journalists. Even if they were to pay attention, Nancy’s success in Mauritania would be treated as an anomaly.

In other words, nobody hears about the tons of western women who have successful marriages with Muslim men. No one hears statistics at all, let alone personal stories. That would simply blow their minds, and screw up their perspective that allows them to keep their hate nice and fresh.

Rule #3: It Is Always the Muslim’s Fault

There are lots of horror stories – some of which I’m sure are true – of western women marrying Muslim men, going to live in their country of origin, and finding out that things were not as they previously seemed. As much as I can’t stand Phyllis Chesler, I don’t doubt her life story (she married an Afghan peer in the U.S., moved to Afghanistan with him, and was mistreated by him and his family). And yet, I can’t doubt her naiveté: Who moves to a foreign country on a lark without doing their research? Same goes for Betty Mahmoody, who was blissfully unaware that Iranian law would consider her an Iranian, not an American. I feel sympathy for these women and how they were treated, but I also question the lack of blame placed on them – and the surely hundreds of women since – who have gone to a country with their husband or to marry someone, not learned the language, not studied the culture, then placed all of the blame on Islam, capitalizing on their stories in the process.

As one commenter on Bint Battuta’s post remarks:

The women I have tried to help in Jordan had no clue what they were getting into. Some of them were just plain uneducated and not smart. Some were mentally imbalanced or so thoroughly victims their marriages never would have made it in the US.

I’ve seen plenty of this myself, too. It’s becoming very common for Canadian and American women to meet Moroccan men online then travel there to live for a time, get married, and return home with their new husbands. Some of these marriages are successful – typically when the woman lives in Morocco for awhile before the wedding – but plenty of others fail precisely because the woman goes into it without bothering to understand her husband’s culture, or find out what he believes about things like religion and children, or assumes that she can change him.

Rule #4: Only Trust Muslim “Reformists.”

When was the last time you heard the opinion of a woman wearing hijab cited in popular media? Never? Exactly. That’s because all women are forced to wear hijab, of course!

What I find particularly funny is how these criticists (what else can you call them?) frequently remark upon how Muslim women are oppressed and silenced by Muslim men, then continue to oppress and silence them by not considering their voices in the media.

The rule, of course, is that you can only consider the voices of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, Wafa Sultan, and Mona Eltahawy. Theirs are the only valid voices of Muslim women, because they’ve realized the error of their ways.** Never trust a woman wearing hijab – obviously someone put her up to it. Which brings me to the last rule…

Rule #5: Take Every Anecdote As Gospel

In her piece, Bachrach shares an anecdote about being told she should take her hamburger to her room rather than eat it in the hotel’s restaurant as if it were gospel. Chesler, in a recent piece, uses sweeping generalizations like “It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves” and “A fully ‘covered’ girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.”

It’s important, of course, that whenever you have a negative experience in a Muslim country, you make general, sweeping statements about how that experience is the norm. Nevermind the thousands of Muslim women who are waiting until they finish their educations to get married. Nevermind the legal reforms. Obviously, only negative experiences count. Because…

Remember: All Muslims Are The Same

And don’t forget – all Muslims are exactly the same. If one forces his daughter to wear hijab, they all must. If one beats his wife, it must be because the Qur’an told him to do it. And if one young Muslim woman gets a PhD and then chooses a husband…oh wait, no…that would obviously never happen.

*I hate the term “western” but until somebody finds a better way to reference a population, I will continue to use it. But let it be known…I think it sucks.

**I totally respect all four of these women, but that does not make their opinions more correct or valid than the opinions of women who disagree with them.

I’ve actually heard people express surprise at such racist outbursts. As Ta-Nehisi Coates puts it, “Blacks aren’t supposed to be serial killers, in much the way Jews aren’t supposed to be racist.”  Having heard plenty of American Jews go on racist diatribes against Arabs, I’m not surprised in the least that such hatred could be extended to black people. Neither is Coates, who says:

It’s true that you may expect certain classes of people to be less direct, but you don’t have to say “nigger” to make a man feel like one. You don’t have to say “white power” to exercise it. We don’t need videos to tell us this. It’s all out there.

I’m not surprised.  Not in the least.  After my SUNY educational experience, I’ve heard people of every demographic insult people of every other demographic.  I’ve heard white people look down on Asians,  Asians look down on Latinos, and Latinos look down on black people.

And I’ve been in a sociology course where I heard a group of Jews call the professor a “nigger” after she expressed support for Palestine.  But that was an isolated incident, just like the one in the video, right?  Sure, they both were.  Just as all incidents of racism are.

While trying to decide what I could possibly say on this matter, one comment on a post by Coates struck my eye:

These kids were all raised in the United States. This is not really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is about American bigotry, for us Americans to think about and deal with. While these Jews too often move to Israel and contribute to the problems there, it’s a fundamentally American problem that needs to be thought about and dealt with by Americans. What about America is making this happen? How is the rubric of classic American racism changing? How do we deal with it differently? What does it mean when a historically marginalized group produces bigots who migrate to the right wing?

It’s way too easy to fit this into a rubric of Israeli racism.  The fact is, this is indeed an American problem – not one that is confined to Jewish communities by any stretch of the imagination, mind you, but one which is, unfortunately, not isolated in the least.

While much of the onus has been on the fact that these kids are Jewish (or mistakenly, Israeli), I’m more alarmed by the fact that the kids are of “a higher socio-economic class,”  have downstate New York accents, and with the exception of one or two, appear not to have been in Israel for very long (one of the girls, when asked what she thinks about Benjamin Netanyahu, says “Who’s Benjamin Yahoo?”).  They are the epitome of the Northeast elite.  There’s no more turning up our noses and calling this a problem of the South or the Midwest.

With our first black president in office, and our first Latina supreme court judge on the bench, one might think America has rid itself of racism forever.  But while behaviors have changed, and institutionalized racism might be disappearing (or at least on the downswing), I don’t think we’ve changed much at all.

Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to acknowledge that Israel is a “Jewish state.” I don’t understand this demand. Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a multi-cultural state, with about half a million non-Jewish Russians and Ukrainians and 20% of its population is Arab. If “Jewish” is meant religiously, then observant Jews are actually a minority of the population in Israel. If “Jewish” is meant racially, then it is a particularly shameful demand. It is like demanding either that the US be recognized as a “Christian” country or as a “white” country. Obama was ill-advised to use the diction, himself.

The Moroccan civil registry recently rejected 13 Berber names after receiving a list from the Ministry of Interior with specific Berber names considered in violation of law 99-37 that determines names fit for males and females.

Now, realistically, it’s a much smaller percentage of Moroccans who would choose to do so, but the fact of the matter is, Amazigh people are the true Moroccan natives. They are spread throughout the country and beyond. They are urban and rural. And the Moroccan government is trying to tell them that, by naming their child an Amazigh name, they are giving them a name which is “contrary to Moroccan identity.”

What exactly, then, is Moroccan identity? Is it Arab identity? The official language of Morocco certainly is Arabic (although it could be argued that what is actually spoken on the streets is only a distant cousin). Still, it is estimated that 23 of Morocco’s 30+ million people speak one of three Amazigh dialects. And according to sociologist and writer Mohammed Chafik, up to 80% of Moroccans are of Amazigh ethnicity.

The flag of the Amazigh people

In neighboring Algeria, where the number of people speaking a Berber dialect is significantly lower (at about 29%), Berber is actually considered a “national language” (though not an official one). Now, I’m not 100% sure, but it seems that in Algeria, there is more naming freedom; either Amazigh names are on the “approved” list, or the law has been done away with entirely. In Morocco, however, you must select a name from a list of (entirely Muslim) names which reflect “Moroccan identity.”

Oddly enough, in the past few years, trendy new names have been cropping up in Morocco; names popular in the Levant, such as “Rime,” or popular in Iran, such as “Nasreen,” have made their way into the Moroccan identity. But try to name your daughter Numidia, and all hell breaks loose.

When will Morocco realize that Amazigh are part of their national identity? Once the languages have died off (another contentious issue is the teaching of Tashelheit, Tamazight, and Tarifit)? Once there are no more Tanasts, Shadens, or Numidias? Once all Amazigh political parties have been banned for good? Or will the history of the Amazigh simply be erased?