A few years back, the ABC offered a Ramadan explainer using a series of memes and tweets. There are also innumerable social media feeds devoted to Muslim memes, such as this Facebook page or this Twitter feed. Humor – specifically, humor in a language and mode that we all relate to – connects us and provides access to the practices of a community often questioned and misunderstood. By the way, iftar is the meal eaten at sunset to break the day’s fast and traditionally begins with the consumption of dates. Both my Muslim and non-Muslim friends always get a kick out of the memes in Image 4 and Image 5. The humor not only provides a platform for internal communication for Muslims but also a means to connect to non-Muslims, with whom they share these linguistic expressions and cultural references. The creative efforts behind Muslim-based memes have been written about in numerous places such as here. Their cultural references are TV shows like Friends and The Hunger Games and there is no shortage of memes based on dialogues from popular TV shows and movies. Many of their linguistic expressions relate to sarcasm, irony and wordplays based on English. In the Australian context, second and third generation Muslims communicate with each other and outside of the Muslim community in English. In the numerous conversations these memes inspired, most expressed that they had no idea that there was a ‘world’ of Muslim memes that entertained and explained.įor me, these memes have played two important communication roles: intergenerational and intercultural. In fact, the first time I showed this meme to a work friend, he exclaimed, “Hey, I asked you that, too!” We both laughed (at him) and then, spent the next half hour going through other Ramadan memes, like those in Image 2 and Image 3.Īnd once more, I shared not just a laugh with someone, but an opening for genuine intercultural communication and sharing. There are many versions of this meme, and it owes its popularity to the fact that across generations, we answer this question every Ramadan, without fail. Image 1 has always topped the list of our favorites. So, when my children began texting me a range of Ramadan-themed memes, I was elated to find something that we could relate to and laugh at together. One of the most questioned of these practices is Ramadan, the month in the Islamic calendar when Muslims abstain from consumption of food and drink during the day. As a Muslim family in Australia, this inter-generational exchange is often characterized by questions from my children about our Islamic practices and how we talk about these with our friends who are not Muslim. Like many parents of teenagers, I delightedly welcome any occasion to connect with a generation I don’t always understand and that doesn’t always understand me.
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