International Blog Against Racism Week (IBARW) started this Monday. We would like to support it, and use this opportunity to point out that Ramadan is approaching - starting around the 21st of August, 2009, and culminating in Eid, which will be celebrated around the 20th of September, 2009, depending on geographical locations and moon sightings.

Not all Muslim characters are non-white/characters of colour. However, a significant majority in the eyes of the white, Western media are -- and the link between Islamophobia and racism is pernicious and pervasive.

In looking back at the previous years our sister comm eid_fic tried to generate effort in an Eid ficathon, it's disappointing how few responses there were. Seeing responses to other ficathons that have very specific requirements (zombies! threesomes! obscure multi volume canon for pinch hit!), we know that fandom is certainly capable of rising to the challenge of writing beyond their comfort zone, as long as they feel the interest in doing so.

We'd like to ask you to help us generate interest.

If you have reviews of books or movies with Muslim characters, post or link to them, and tell us what names to add to our master list.
Write or repost meta analysis about the intersection of Islam and race/culture in a source you enjoy reading/watching.
Think of a character you can talk about, and write an intro post, or do a picspam.
Make icons to share with other fans.

We're not looking for everything to happen this week. What we'd love is to have commitments from enough people to be able to guarantee a post a day through the 28 days of Ramadan... posts that hopefully incite a larger response for the celebratory Eid ficathon.

Although my co-mod shewhohashope is Muslim, I am not, and I have had to deal with unpacking my own ignorance, getting over my own fear, and overcoming my privilege to write Muslim characters. Celebrating Eid is personal for me because it is a festival I share with friends and relatives, but wanting to see more characters like them in fandom is political. Because I think that fiction has enormous possibilities for inciting change in how we define "normal", and whom we learn to love and care for despite differences in culture.