During the past few years, the global environmental movement has been undergoing a period of reflection and reckoning, much like other social justice movements. The whiteness, privilege and colonial origins of the environment movement are being questioned. The discourse is de-centring the ‘climate anxiety’ and ‘climate grief’ felt by the privileged denizens of the ‘Global North’, and focusing instead on the displacement, violence, and threats to lives and livelihoods faced by the people of the ‘majority world’ due to environmental breakdown. Work is finally being done to understand the intersections of the climate and ecological crisis with racism, economic disparity, and other social justice issues.
In Scotland, where I live, a lot of this work has been focused and shaped around communities – communities of place, communities of practice, communities of interest, and communities of faith – including, of course, the Muslim community.
But how much of this work is real? Are the powers that be – the Scottish Government, environmental organisations, and other third sector initiatives – committed to a real change in practice? Has the Muslim community properly integrated and internalised this discourse? Has there been a lasting change in people’s daily lives? Has there been any inkling of an Islamic environmentalist pedagogy? Or has this just been a case of pandering on one side and a funding opportunity on the other?
Let me being with my own estrangement and alienation from spaces dedicated to environmentalism and sustainability when I first moved to Scotland.
I grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan. My parents were academics and public servants, my education was private and western-liberal, and my family background is Punjabi and Sunni – it has taken me some time to unpick my own majoritarian privilege. Growing up, there was always a sense of stewardship towards the environment and towards people less fortunate. It was never something I was explicitly taught, but it speaks volumes about my parents that I can’t perceive being any different way. Moving to Scotland then, moving to an ‘elite’ university in a tiny town on the picturesque east coast, was jarring for many reasons. But mostly, it was jarring because – suddenly an ethnic minority – I had lost this sense of ownership and stewardship. It wasn’t that I found myself in predominantly white spaces, be it community gardens, skill shares, workshops, and so on. It was my perceived role in these spaces – I was the person that needed to be looked after and catered to, a ‘service user’ and not someone with skills and capabilities of my own. It has taken me many years to regain the sense of ownership, and in some ways this essay is a chronicle of that journey.
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