COVID19 and Muslims in the Netherlands 1 – Testing Muslims

The text below was my lecture at the annual symposium of the department of Islamstudies at Radboud University, 14 June 2021.

In my presentation today I will focus in particular on the reactions among Dutch Muslim institutions to the pandemic and the measures against it. It is all ongoing work obviously and the first time I discuss this in public, so bear with me, it is basically thinking out loud.

My interest in the reactions among Dutch Muslim individuals and organizations stems mostly from my work on how Muslim individuals and organizations from a variety of theological trends and ethnic backgrounds respond to interpellations in the public debates about Islam and the presence of Muslims. It also stems from a concern of how to address specific issues when Muslims are continually being interpellated as dangerous, odd people, and people out of place.

In a more general sense, it also relates to broader questions. For example, we have to be aware of how, as Heynen and Van der Meulen state in their book “Making surveillance states” how disease surveillance since colonial times has been crucial in the militarization and racialization of borders and regimes of “bioinsecurity” (Ahuja 2016, in Heynen and Van der Meulen 2019: 31). Surveillance underpins normalizing visions of the nation while excluding those regarded as out of place, for example black people, Jewish people and people with disabilities (Heynen and Van der Meulen 2019).

My argument will be twofold. Firstly, I will argue that it is important to consider religious meaning making in relation to the pandemic and to policies against the spread of the virus. And secondly, I show that it in order to understand the dynamics within Muslim communities (and probably other religious communities as well) that we need to go beyond the question of whether or not religion is a factor that helps or harms the fight against the virus. I will first go into some of the studies highlighting some of the patterns regarding the spread of the virus among the Dutch Muslim and ethnic communities and the reactions in public debates about these issues. Then I will, albeit briefly, highlight some of the process of meaning making and collective action among Muslims and end with some questions. Note that my analysis pertains to the first two / three waves of Covid19 in the Netherlands in particular.

Religion in times of COVID19 and its countermeasures

Although the politicians and commentators sometimes present the Netherlands as a very secularized country with very little relevance of religion (except Islam of course), religion has at times been very prominent in the discussions about the pandemic. As we have seen in different European countries, including the Netherlands, early in the pandemic European governments are reluctant to restrict religious services depending on the secular-religious traditions in each country and the robustness and speed of the general measures against COVID19.

Are these restrictions necessary and sufficient and therefore proportional and are they within the boundaries of the rule of law (Vleugel 2020)? Or do the exceptions for religious services amount to unlawful discrimination as, for examples, other group meetings were more restricted or even completely banned. Or is it actually religion that is discriminated against as at one point people could go to Ikea and fly to wherever, while religious services were still restricted (Vleugel 2020)? Such debates tell us something about the position of religion in society, the continuing importance of it but perhaps also the continuing loss of plausibility (in Berger’s terms) of religion.

An important question that is lingering behind this legal discussion is whether religion is good or bad for curbing the pandemic. In a study on religion and the transmission of COVID-19 during the first wave in the Netherlands in 2020, our Radboud colleagues Vermeer and Kregting show that in the so-called bible belt the number of patients strongly correlated with church attendance while in the catholic south church membership mattered more. According to my colleagues, religion facilitated the spread of the virus through collective worship and through cultural festivities.

In a second article, revisiting their thesis for the second wave of the pandemic in the Netherlands, they include Muslims in their analysis. They are able to show that there is a positive correlation between the number of Muslims and the number of hospitalized Muslims in the same municipality; no positive or negative correlation is found for Christians during this wave. The authors speculate that  the positive correlation in the case of Muslims has to do with a relative distance to society and less confidence in societal institutions, including the government. As the authors cannot make a distinction between a so-called non-Western background and Islamic background, it remains difficult to assess those findings and explanations.

In a recent policy brief by Stronks, Prins, and Agyemang (2021) of Amsterdam UMC, GGD Amsterdam and Pharos Amsterdam, the authors confirm the finding that groups with a migration background (Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and others) have significantly higher death rates, hospitalizations and number of infections. The authors point to working and housing conditions, collective cultural and religious activities, fear of stigma, and lack of understanding of Dutch language and lack of understanding the goals of the counter-measures as factors which may play a role in explaining these numbers and perhaps for the moment also low numbers of people prepared to get vaccinated. Yet, there are many differences between and within the different minority groups. Nevertheless, it does raise the question as to how the impact of COVID19 is building upon and increasing already existing inequalities.

Islamophobic responses

The researchers mentioned above call for better protective measures for these groups; this in sharp contrast to politicians who, in response to earlier signs of higher infection rates for minorities during the second wave and again in response to this research, have put these groups in the spotlight as superspreaders.

As we have seen in other cases as well, forms of antisemitism, antiasianracism and antimuslimracism have been influenced by the pandemic as traditionally has been the case in any form of pandemic. In some way the COVID19 pandemic has also become a citizenship test for Muslims. The rapid response among Islamic organizations (a little more about that in a minute) also had to do with Islamophobia and the fear to harm their reputation and then become objects for anti-Islam hatred and actions.

There have been several messages from politicians and authorities urging Muslims to stay at home for the end of Ramadan and Eid; not unique as such messages have also been published for christmas, Pesach and Easter but at one point at seemed that practically all mayors issued such calls in the case of Islamic festivities. Although seen by some as a form of recognition others saw it as an example of a government putting Muslims to the test while distrusting them, a sort of “rhetorical surveillance” a term I borrow, somewhat loosely, from Steere-Williams (2019) in his work on surveillance and disenfection technologies.

How this relates to ongoing instances of Islamophobia remains a topic of investigation, but in particular on social media there were indeed several instances of trying to portray Muslims as superspreaders or rendering initiatives from local communities to provide Muslims with a space to pray outdoors for Eid as a form of Islamic replacement or islamisation. Sometimes also enhanced by statements of politicians, in particular Geert Wilders who responded to the first signals that people with a non-Western background may suffer more during the second wave by  stating ‘Henk and Ingrid’ the quintessential Dutch white people may die because Mohammed and Fatima, the quintessential Muslims, may not abide by the law.

The meanings of COVID19

I suggest these examples show how the question of whether religion is good or bad for fighting the pandemic is an important one, but such a functional approach to religion also partly misses the point and partly taps into an already existing line of thinking that regards religion and Islam in particular as a danger to the well-being, integrity and social cohesion of the nation. People’s experiences and views about contemporary society during corona time are influenced by systems of meaning making (religious or otherwise) which go beyond a biomedical clinical and governmental approach (Padela and Curlin 2013; Kleinman 1980).

As shown by Raja (2021) there are a number of historical precedents in Islamic traditions pertaining to how to behave during pandemics depending on the situation the individual is in. In particular the Amwas plague in the time of the second Caliph Umar has set a precedent to which present day scholars return to but also the outbreak of leprosy has played an important part in establishing the foundations of some of the interventions against diseases such as the frequent washing of hands, maintaining social distance, the importance of fresh air and outdoor excercises as well as the decree to stay or leave the lands suffering from a plague. Imams and scholars have drawn from these sources to emphasize health and wellbeing, patience and thankfulness, bathing and ablution, utility and equity and so on (Maravia 2020).

In informal conversations with my interlocutors and monitoring online lectures and debates, we can see people referring back to those precedents but in a rather symbolic way as shown in the picture. Different renderings of the COVID19 virus come about in these conversations. Most importantly, Covid19 as a test, a trial for the individual believer and the Muslim community. With denoting something as a trial, comes a call for action and responsibilization. A test is a call to change one’s behaviour, to actively endure a specific situation and we have seen that a lo,t for example by people calling for solidarity but also in a more spiritual way, for example that the loss of social interaction during Ramadan is a pity and difficult, it is a trial in itself but also a possibility to go to the essence of fasting: connecting with God.

In other texts and lectures we come across COVID19 as a punishment; in some cases a punishment for the unbelievers and sometimes for the believers and sometimes both. In the first case, COVID19 is also referred to as a soldier of God. All these meanings are not only meant to provide sense to the new realities but they also come with a program of action however they do not determine that action and they are often used the justify the action.

Programs, trust and protocols

When we look at the Dutch organizations, mosques in particular, what stands out is the complacency with the rulings, advices from the Dutch government and institutes for public health. When the first lockdown was announced on 12 March 2020 at 17.00, within an hour the first suspensions of Friday prayer were announced. The following morning about 300 (of the 460 – 470 in total) mosques suspended Friday prayers or closed all together. Mosques and other organizations as well as individuals announced all kinds of solidarity calls and corona care projects; often low profile neighbourhood actions.

As there was already a strong online presence by the main Islamic centres in April 2020 basically everyone was online with much stronger presence of women then in the past. After it was possible to open up again, several regional organizations came with corona protocols emphasizing individual responsibility, physical distance, everyone had to bring their own prayer rug, stay at home when one had symptoms and so on. Often these protocols were devised in contact with local public health authorities. And more recently the Ministry of Public Health asked an imam to explain the lawfullness of vaccination against COVID19 and several seminars have been held about this issue.

Whereas Islamic authorities and organizations try to ground their decisions and public statements in Islamic sources and medical sources, the most important aspect that explains the behaviour of these authorities and organizations is, I suggest not very surprisingly, the decrees of the national authorities in the countries they reside in. And I think here we also see the main differences which as far as I have seen now, cut across all ethnicities, religious trends and movements and which pertain to trust. Are the corona measures a means to target Islam? Are they an unlawful or unneccesary restrictions of freedoms, does Corona actually exist?

Here we also see some remarkable shifts. To mention only one example. One of the preachers I spoke with, initially was very hesitant to suspend the Friday prayers and to close the mosque. However, he also has some insider knowledge and experience (in order to protect his anonimity I’m not going to explain how) with health care and social care. As soon as he knew about the consequences of COVID19 for people and health care, he changed his mind he told me and became convinced the measures made sense and were the right thing to do.

Besides this fundamental issue of trust, which is certainly not limited to Muslims as we have seen in the last year, there were also several practical obstacles. What does distancing with Friday prayer mean for the value of that prayer? The information of local and national authorities was at times contradictory and unclear, how to deal with that? Others, for example the initiative Hand in Hand against the Niqab ban have issued statements and flyers criticizing and playing with the obligation to wear a mask while not being allowed to wear the niqab.

Closing

All these examples do not neatly line up on the good or bad side of how to curb Corona it is not even clear in all cases what a good or bad reaction actually is. In order to understand how people are dealing with the pandemic and its measures, we need to beyond this good and bad frame which, in the case of Muslims, also taps into and builds upon already existing discussions of good and bad citizens and good and bad Muslims. We need to look at the many ways of meaning making, the innovative responses to how to deal with the limitations to the demands of collective worship, what are the factors that constitute the program of action by individuals and organizations and how are political and religious leaders from various sections of society scapegoating Muslims (or other believers) in the pandemic? And, as a more fundamental issue, I think we can connect these issues to the broader question Schirin Amir-Moazami is asking in her work about which she will talk about after me.

How is the interest of the state, public health institutions and yes also academics in Muslims and COVID19 predicated upon epistemologies of governing, how does it connect to historical and imperial visions on race and religion regarding Muslims and what does this mean for our work as academics of religion? How do we as scholars navigate and engage with developments among Muslims in Europe as many of the political concerns but also academic agendas are building upon questions of integration, radicalization which contribute to problematizing Muslims as Muslims through securitization and racialization? Thank you for your attention.

 

Literature

Ahuja, Neel. 2016. Bioinsecurities: Disease interventions, empire, and the government of species (Duke University Press: Durham).

Heynen, Robert, and Emily Van der Meulen. 2019. Making Surveillance States: Transnational Histories (University of Toronto Press: Toronto).

Kleinman, Arthur. 1980. Patients and healers in the context of culture: An exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine, and psychiatry (Univ of California Press).

Maravia, Usman. 2020. ‘Rationale for Suspending Friday Prayers, Funerary Rites, and Fasting Ramadan during COVID-19: An analysis of the fatawa related to the Coronavirus’, Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association, 4: 10.

Padela, Aasim I., and Farr A. Curlin. 2013. ‘Religion and Disparities: Considering the Influences of Islam on the Health of American Muslims’, Journal of Religion and Health, 52: 1333-45.

Raja, Irfan. 2021. ‘A Discussion of Relevant Religious Teachings from Islam and Christianity to the COVID-19 Crisis.’, International Journal of Religion, 2: 81-96.

Steere-Williams, Jacob. 2019. ‘2.“Coolie” Control: State Surveillance and the Labour of Disinfection across the Late Victorian British Empire.’ in, Making Surveillance States (University of Toronto Press).

Stronks, Karien, Maria Prins, and Charles Agyemang. 2021. “Covid-19 en etniciteit.” In. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UMC, GGD Amsterdam, Pharos Amsterdam.

Vleugel, A. 2020. ‘Stelling: De Beperkingen van de Godsdienstvrijheid Door Middel van de ‘Corona-Noodverordeningen’ Zijn Rechtmatig’, Tijdschrift voor Constitutioneel Recht: 290.