Stop Islam(ofòbia) - a Clapback to Racism
STOP ISLAM(OFÒBIA):
A Clapback to Racism
Paula Díaz, Berta Puig, Oriol Solé
1. INTRODUCTION
Our chosen token is a piece of graffiti writing on a wall, which reads “STOP ISLAMOFÒBIA ”. The writing, however, seems to have been done in two steps, and the original message appears to have been “STOP ISLAM”, which would have later been transformed to “STOP ISLAMOFÒBIA” by adding “-OFÒBIA”. As it is graffiti, it belongs to the activity domain of urban art (Mooney & Evans, 2015), and because of its location we can affirm it is of a transgressive nature. The message is composed of two languages, English (“stop Islam”; although “Islam” could also be Catalan or Spanish) and Catalan (“islamofòbia”), both of which we can consider as main or foregrounded languages, with no secondary or backgrounded languages. The alphabet used is the Roman alphabet.
2. CONTEXTUALISATION
The graffiti is located in Avinguda Pearson, 23, in a neighbourhood in Lleida known as Pardinyes (See Figure 1). Regarding the neighbourhood’s demographic profile, one could define it as a mainly residential neighbourhood, as it does not fit into any other category, not even the “migrant-populated” one. This is particularly important due to the message conveyed by our token, as it is referring to a primarily migrant community (that is, the believers of the Islam religion) which actually does not represent an important percentage of the neighbourhood’s population, as there is only a 17,04% of foreigners in Pardinyes (La Paeria, 2012).
Most of the houses in the neighbourhood of Pardinyes show signs of infrastructural decay. However, new buildings intended for housing have begun construction processes, and these new buildings contrast strongly with the ones that have been there lifelong. It is worth mentioning that during Catalonia's housing bubble of the 2000s, the low prices of the brand new property in Pardinyes attracted young couples looking for their first home (Bitrià and Camprubí, 2014) and here they stayed decades later. Most families residing in this neighbourhood belong to the working class (Bitrià and Camprubí, 2014).
The linguistic token discussed was found next to a group of terraced houses, presumed to be owned by middle-class citizens. Down the street, there is a group of apartments, called Blocs de la Pau, which are known to be mainly inhabited by migrant people. Furthermore, in front of our token there is a private archery club, and near it there is a public skatepark that is a gathering place for the youth in the neighbourhood: these two places may illustrate the essence of this particular area of the neighbourhood to a certain extent, as the former is destined for an affluent public, whilst the latter is intended for working-class people. The presence of the skatepark means the token will be visible to the migrant population residing in Blocs de la Pau without the need for the message to be close to their building.
3. METHODOLOGY
Our group conducted two fieldwork visits instead of three due to our token being located in a street with little traffic and extremely few passers-by. The first visit was done by Paula, who took the photo of our token, at 17:30 on the 8th of March. The whole group assisted to the second visit, on a Tuesday afternoon, in which we made sure the graffiti had not been erased (it had not), and we spent approximately two hours compiling information on the languages heard in the surroundings of the token. Since, as mentioned above, the immediate environment of our chosen token is not frequented by many people, we walked up and down the avenue (in fact, across the street from the graffiti, as the other sidewalk was much busier in comparison) collecting the data to get a general idea of the languages spoken in that part of the neighbourhood. We found that Spanish (57.6%) and Catalan (26.9%), the official languages of the Autonomous Community, made up for more than half the passer-bys' repertoires, followed by Arabic or Darija (7.6%), and with Romanian (3.8%) and Russian (3.8%) last.
Top-down policies in Catalonia establish that any sign in the public space of official nature must be in Catalan (La Paeria, 2018; BOP, 2014), which is the vernacular of the territory.
This could be misleading, taking into account the usage of Catalan in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) token, yet the support indicates the bottom-up nature of the sign, as it is graffiti. However, Catalan regulation prohibits the creation of signs of any type within public infrastructures (La Paeria, n. d.), which explains the usage of spray paint and not other more permanent material as could have been a metallic plate. In addition, bottom-up policies aim for the reclaiming of the spaces the producers inhabit (Mooney and Evans, 2015) by way of producing original signage.
Regarding the linguistic context of our LL token, we compiled data on both other LL it was in and on the languages heard in that area of the neighbourhood. Linguistic tokens found near our graffiti included: graffiti in Catalan (LLUITAR CREAR PODER POPULAR ☆ JR), Italian (Amore Ti Amo) Spanish (Te Cojeré) and English (Special Graffity Love), a bus stop sign in Catalan (Autobusos de Lleida, S.A.), a road sign in Catalan (Precaució; Pas Elevat) and the name of a bar in Catalan (La Mitjana). Although it was not found in the immediate environment of our chosen token, as it was located down the street (between our chosen graffiti and Blocs de la Pau, although much nearer to the latter), we believe it is important, or at least interesting, to mention the existence of pieces of graffiti in Catalan and English, also done with black spray paint, which read: “NOMES LLUITAN TENIM FUTUR” (“ONLY FIGHTING WE HAVE A FUTURE”) and “ANTIFA ZONE”. It is an important piece of data, we believe, because it declares the will by at least one individual of the neighbourhood to reject and condemn fascist actions linked to the right-wing movements with some connections to Francoist ideologies started in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which obviously include racism and discrimination, and fight against them. Thus, we have found several LLs with a similar intention in the same area.
As mentioned above, our group also collected data on the languages heard in that avenue over the span of two hours. Most people spoke Spanish, including the children in the football club, the people at the skatepark, the men at the archery club and the elderly men playing boules. We were surprised to find that very few people were speaking in Catalan. The only instances of other languages being heard were a woman and her son, who were speaking a language we could not identify but which we believe to be Romanian; a man and his daughter who spoke a language we believe to have identified as Arabic or Darija; and two people speaking English, one of which seemed to be a tourist. We also heard one of the elderly men playing boules celebrating by saying “yes!”, and we overheard a conversation near Blocs de la Pau about one of the children there having a Russian parent, which leads us to believe that Russian is also a language spoken in that area. All in all, the soundscape included at least multilingualism in the neighbourhood.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The chosen token has two main values that are worth being analysed, as they convey relevant data about the authors, their motives, and background. To start with, there is the presence of the aesthetic value (European Language Convention, 2000), as the visual features of the graffiti disclose information about who did it, for instance. In this line of thought, we can conclude that there are two authors of the selected token: the first one seems to have written ‘STOP ISLAM’, whilst the second one -which we assume operated later on- altered the token by adding ‘-OFÒBIA’, from which we infer, due to the correct usage of the accentuation rules, that the author is literate as it is written in proper Catalan and lacking heterography. We have reached this conclusion through the analysis of the size and colour (which are very similar to the first part of the token, but in the second part the writing is bolder and seems to have been done in a rush) and, more specifically, of the typeface: when looking closely, one will realise that the ‘’I’’ on ‘ISLAM’ is different from the ‘’I’’ on ‘-OFÒBIA’, a difference which led us to think that there have been different authors of the graffiti.
Furthermore, after analysing the authorship, we realised that the second value of the token merges, in fact, two values, which are identity and spirituality (European Language Convention, 2000). There is a strong message ingrained in the graffiti which does not portray the first author’s religious beliefs per se, but its opposition to the Islamic religion prompts us to hypothesize about the author’s spiritual beliefs and, as a consequence, the authors’ linguistic identity. The idea of the original author is to portray opposition and divergence to a specific demographic -Muslims-, whilst the second author spurns this message and, as a consequence, defends the aforesaid demographic. From these two antithetical viewpoints, we deem the first author to be a Christian believer (due to the region’s religious tradition devoted to Christianism) or even non-believer at all (considering the rise of the agnostic and atheist views in our current-day society); notwithstanding, the second author’s standpoint is not related to spirituality but to identity, considering the other examples of tokens mentioned above, such as “ANTIFA ZONE”, that are present around the area.
In this particular case, the original Linguistic Landscape was made to be “STOP ISLAM”, showcasing a claim for the space from the Muslim population residing in the neighbourhood. The results of our fieldwork visits lead us to believe there is a significantly low percentage of migrant population transiting this zone, and therefore the original actor was mistaken or did not choose a fitting area for the message to have an impact. As mentioned above, we believe that the graffiti has been made by two different individuals or groups of individuals: this means the original message was one of rejection from the local population, possibly the same population that frequent the archery club near the LL token, and this message was then altered in a way that flipped the meaning completely. It went from conveying unwelcomeness to being a cry for tolerance, almost a reprimand for the original author(s) of the graffiti, displaying, overall, conflicts based on religious exclusion/inclusion, taken to the terrain, indirectly, of migration. Taking it a step further, English was used to reflect the idea that the Muslim population would not understand a message in the official languages (Catalan and Spanish), as a subliminal message that they do not belong in this space, and yet the alteration was made in Catalan, the vernacular. Three interpretations could be made: (1) the addition was made by a member(s) of the Muslim community in Lleida, and it was made in Catalan as a rebuttal, “I do know how to speak in Catalan”, (2) the addition was made by a Catalan person as a way to reprimand a compatriot for being distasteful; or (3) regardless of the identity of the author, the usage of Catalan might be deliberate due to its status as a minoritised language, thus using it in contraposition to Spanish, which in Catalonia can be associated by some with racist, religious or narrow-minded people. In any case, English here was used not as a vehicle for communication but as an attempt at othering a community, which we do not abide by.
5. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
From the chosen token we may conclude that, in regards to Englishization, English is, in fact, present throughout the whole city of Lleida -with slight differences according to the street and neighbourhood-, as there are many linguistic landscapes using English with words such as ‘Parking’, ‘Wifi’, ‘Stop’, ‘Free’, ‘Cash’ and so on. This shows that there is an understanding of certain terms and expressions by the general population, a fact which proves that English is becoming a more widespread lingua franca all over the world, specially in more globalised and capitalist areas.
Furthermore, this token, alongside others found near it -such as “ANTIFA ZONE”- seems to reveal a global trend in which movements related to social issues -migration, gender identity and sexuality, climate change, feminism, working class concerns, and more- use English as a lingua franca in order to further their causes. On this note, some signages such as ‘Refugees Welcome’ and ‘Yes We Can’ have become the embodiment of these movements, and them being written in English exemplifies that the aforesaid language is becoming more relevant, not only on a consumerist, capitalist level but also concerning social challenges.
The proactive attitude students have to undertake in order to tackle the matter does imply a different way of learning and applying concepts to the real world: this seems to be, in fact, quite rare in most subjects, as the theoretical framework does not allow students to associate certain concepts with the outer world. In this sense, being able to relate sociolinguistic concepts with our surroundings has proved to be interesting, as it has, in some manner, helped students better comprehend what has been taught in class. This way of turning students into generators of knowledge to ensure that they truly dominate the concepts is a fun, dynamic manner of involving them in the classroom. Moreover, the topic being the presence of English in a small, Catalan city such as Lleida makes it surprising to realise how present it really is, and what we use it for, and where. However, we think that the amount of research that had to be conducted (the type of neighborhood, the history of the neighborhood, the use of the buildings) only for the purpose of analysing graffiti is not proportionate. Maybe it is due to the fact that Lleida is not a very big and digitized city, or the fact that resources were hard to find, if any were found, but the process was not as fruitful as we would have liked. It also was a bit troublesome that we were provided some references for basic concepts but they were incomplete: we had the author and the date, but no title of the original source. That made citing sources a bit of a chaos.
6. REFERENCES AND WEB SOURCES
Bitrià, I. & Camprubí, A. (January 2014). Estudi de cas de Pardinyes (Lleida). Institut de Govern i Polítiques Públiques. Retrieved from https://barrisicrisi.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/informe-igop-pardinyes.pdf
Butlletí Oficial de la Província. (2014). No title.
La Paeria. (2012). Butlletí Socioeconòmic de Lleida. Retrieved from http://paeria.cat/butlletieconomic/2012/03-juliol/06-poblacio.pdf
La Paeria. (2018). No title.
La Paeria. (n. d.). Ordenança municipal de civisme i convivència de la ciutat de Lleida. Retrieved from http://www.lleidaparticipa.cat/public/197/docs/6c2e2ab8cee8ef11cc82f1e8621d78b5.pdf
Mooney, A. & Evans, B. (2015). Chapter 5. Linguistic Landscapes. In: Language, society and Power. London & New York: Routledge. 86-107.
The European Landscape Convention (Florence, 2000). Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/web/landscape/the-european-landscape-convention
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