Quarterly Magazine

Volume 2, Issue 1 - February 2020 / Jumadi II 1441 ISSN 2632-3168 £5 where sold Home, heart and community: rethinking and reclaiming the minority space

ARZU MERALI: FAISAL BODI: KASIA MAZ Hindsight in 2020: After the 2019 General NARKOWICZ : SALEEM: US think tanks and the Election, Britain’s minorities Brexit and the The scourge of deterioration of Muslim must brace themselves for hierarchies Islamophobia civil society space worse to come of Europeanness In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful t is a sign of how far we have regressed been placed centre-stage creating an envi - that Muslim civil society veterans in the ronment of hate which encourages the UK fondly remember the Satanic Verses popular expression of hitherto latent sen - Affair as the high point of community timents. While some have called for Labour Contents: unity and activism. In the late 1980’s it took to adjust to the new reality, something that the besmirching of the beloved Prophet effectively amounts to a policy of appeasing MIuhammad (peace be upon him) to bring racism, others have urged the party to re - together the diverse strands of the commu - connect in new ways with people whose nity and give birth to what represented economic disaffection is vocalised in the 3 Arzu Merali: nothing short of a political awakening. In language of race. There is no quick fix to Hindsight in 2020: US the years that followed the experience of the “white tide” sweeping Britain, argues think tanks and the campaigning during these events spawned Bodi, and things may have to get a lot deterioration of Muslim an array of representative organisations worse for those on the receiving end before raising hopes that a newfound political con - they get better. civil society space sciousness would translate into effective The second article on Brexit, by Kasia political power. However, barring the odd Narkowicz, looks at how the issue has Faisal Bodi: notable exception such as the 2003 inva - brought into sharp relief the racism and 8 After the 2019 General sion of Iraq, the history of Muslim politics discrimination faced by people of Eastern has been dominated by powerlessness, frac - European origin. The arrival of these expa - Election, Britain’s tiousness, sycophancy and strategic miscal - triates in large numbers after 2004 coin - minorities must brace culations. cides with an increase in anti-immigrant themselves for worse Charting the trajectory of UK Muslim sentiment/hysteria in Britain. While Mus - to come activism, our lead article by IHRC’s head of lims are often depicted through old racist research Arzu Merali, explains its decline by tropes of potential terrorists and sexual reference to a wider Zionist, neocon, strat - predators, Eastern Europeans are seen to Kasia Narkowicz : egy of divide and rule, led by think tanks be responsible for stealing jobs and re - 11 Brexit and the such as the Rand Institute. Using the old sources. Since they are also likely to feel the hierarchies carrot and stick approach, western govern - force of racist post-Brexit immigration pol - of Europeanness ments have co-opted and/or coerced inde - icy, it is a travesty that their plight is usually pendent Muslim voices into such lassitude overlooked. Narkowicz says that while that many of us are able to raise even a many Europeans from the former Soviet whimper of protest, let alone organised bloc have made Britain their home, they Maz Saleem: campaigns, against policies and actions that fe el far from at home. They are scared and 13 The scourge of progressively undermine our religious and insecure. Narrowing, increasingly social life. Where we are outraged enough racialised, definitions of Britishness and ris - Islamophobia to speak out, such as for example on the ing hostility make these white and Christian issue o f Islamophobic anti-terrorism legis - migrants feel more and more unwelcome. lation, the response has often fallen into the Our final article comes from a cam - frameworks constructed for us by our ad - paigner who was reluctantly thrust into versaries thereby advancing their agenda anti-racism activism after her father was instead of securing our own strategic ob - murdered by a white supremacist as he The jectives. walked home from evening prayers at his While she laments the slide into a trap local mosque in 2013. The killer of 82- ong View set by our adversaries, this is not a nostalgic year-old Mohammed Saleem would later L Quarterly Magazine plea for a return to some imagined halcyon be found to be responsible for planting days. Rather it is a genuine, heartfelt call bombs at mosques in the same area of the on the community by someone who daily West Midlands. Maz Saleem recounts the lives and breathes the Muslim experience Islamophobia she faced from a criminal to reflect and reset if we are to ever become justice system that initially treated her fam - Editors: the kind of force our numerical presence ily as the prime suspects and showed little Faisal Bodi and and collective talents justify. sensitivity to religious sensibilit ies pertain - Arzu Merali The recent election of a party led by an ing to burying the deceased. But her focus opportunistic xenophobe and misogynist is much wider, explaining the term ‘institu - The Long View is a project will do little to ease things for Britain’s tional Islamophobia’, and documenting its Muslims and racialised minorities in gen - presence across the gamut of society from and publication of Islamic eral, not least of all because the poll was security legislation to education and health Human Rights Commission driven overwhelmingly by an issue that has care. (a limited company no 04716690). its roots in racism: Brexit. The first of our The submissions this issue paint stark articles on the subject by Faisal Bodi iden - pictures of societal crises and upheaval. Yet Web www.ihrc.org.uk tifies the underlying causes for the popular from these analyses comes the possibility of E info@ihrc,org support for the party that recast itself as the joined up thinking and conversation. From Tel +44 20 8904 4222 party of Brexit, paying particular attention there, maybe even action. Let’s make a to the flocking of Labour’s traditional start. All views are the authors' own and do working class base to the dog-whistle of immigration. He highlights how Islamo - not reflect IHRC's views or beliefs. Faisal Bodi and Arzu Merali phobic and racist meta-narratives have Editors Cover photo: Fight the far right: No to Tommy Robinson. No to Fortress Britain, Join the conversation by emailing us on [email protected] , tweeting @ihrc or find us on 9th December 2018 by and (c) Socialist Facebook. You can even send us an old fashioned letter to IHRC, PO Box 598, Wembley, Appeal under CC 2.0 HA9 7XH, UK. Or pop by to the IHRC Bookshop for one of our events (or watch online www.ihrc.tv) at 202 Preston Road, Wembley, HA9 8PA. Find out what events are coming up at www.ihrc.org.uk/events .

The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 2 ā ā ʾĀ Muslim civil society

Hindsight in 2020: US think tanks and the deterioration of Muslim civil society space The promise represented by the emergence of RAND in summary The RAND reports that have some res - Muslim civil society activism in late 1980’s Britain has onance amongst Muslim civil society date failed to translate into effective political agency. In back to 2003, in particular Civil Demo - cratic Islam by Cheryl Benard and Building fact, if anything, it has regressed under the weight of Moderate Muslim Networks also co-au - internal contradictions, powerful external opposition, thored by Benard in 2007. Benard in 2003 (amongst many other things) argues and the absence of principled strategies. Arzu that Muslims could be categorised in four ways as: fundamentalists, traditionalists, Merali explores how Muslims can get back on track. modernists, and secularists. Let’s leave t’s been a funny few years/decades. It has stitutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Re - aside the critique of such terms, but focus only just struck me how far the post- sistance by Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria . These on the reality that they are made meaning - colonial narrative has shifted, and been three co ntinue in detail micro and macro ful as praxes recommended by US think shifted by Muslims in large part in the theorizing the conveyor belt of anti-Islamic tanks. last 40 years. What has been all too evident and hegemonic forces that impact not just In this neat and tidy Muslim world of is the countermovement of capitulation or Muslims but many and all oppressed peo - RAND, only the secularists and some mod - Iinternalisation of hegemonic colonial narra - ples in some form or another. The catas - ernists can be engaged by the US to further tives at the day to day level of Muslim civil trophe of water contamination in Flint, the US aims in the region. Make no mistake, society in which I work. This piece requires role of multi-national corporations and the at this level, conversations about the future me to add examples and anecdotes, and as economic desolation of swathes of the US of Islam and Muslims are brutal. RAND’s far as possible I want to anonymise the since the 1970s (Saeed Khan in The New overarching agenda is to reform Islam fun - organisations and individuals referred to. Colonialism), intersects and has unex - damentally, thus removing any possibility This piece is not about individual or organ - pected consonance with the structural tha t should the US move towards a position isational blame, though there is much to be forces that the Kerner Commission, ap - of fostering or allowing democracy in the re - doled out. It must be a critique of Muslim pointed to discuss the so-called race riots of gion – or indeed if there are momentums civil society and Muslim leadership in 1967, identified as the foundational dis - and movements that make the US’ actions minoritized situations. A world which course of a country that built itself on the and aims moot – ‘Islamists’ do not come to includes me, and a critique that starts with notion and praxes of whiteness (Mary K. power through the ballot box. All three me too. Ryan ibid) . think tanks fear this scenario, to a greater It is ironic or apt that I am writing this Saghaye-Biria’s book, however, is what and lesser extent, looking to the Islamic Rev - while overlooking a monument to Charles, has largely motivated this article. I am olution in Iran as the main focus, but lump - Earl Grey KC. This (in context) radical po - lucky enough to be reviewing it pre-publi - ing in with this the Morsi government of litical figure is here commemorated for the cation, and its analysis of the thinking and 2012 in Egypt, the Sudanese regime involv - Great Reform Act of 1832, where some sort praxes of three US Think tanks – RAND, ing the National Islamic Front of circa 1989 of semi-universal suffrage was granted to the the Brookings Institute and the Washing - – mid noughties. RAND is clear – whatever English masses (at the very least rotten bor - ton Institute for Near East Policy the short-term benefits of working with oughs were abolished). He is also feted as (WINEP), highlights a sustained obsession Muslims of the fundamentalist/ traditional - presiding over the abolition of slavery and with the world of Islam and Muslims that ist ilk, the US’ long term interests lie solely fell out with the Pitt the Younger over the predates the Islamic Revolution in Iran, with those who would either relegate Islam latter’s rejection of Catholic emancipation. but which accelerates from then on as the entirely to the private space, or better still, He is also the man Earl Grey tea is named primary d river of policy focus and recom - engineer its tenets to become an enlighten - after. Tea, that most potent symbol of colo - mendations to the US government. Saghaye ment ‘religion lite’ a la Christianity. nial humiliation. As they (don’t) say, one Biria argues that their work must be under - RAND’s vision even then, saw more man’s radical is another man’s symbol of op - stood by Muslim countries as having pro - than simply alliances with ‘traditionalists’ pression. I am drinking a cup of English found security implications for them. But it as expedient realism. This was never to be breakfast tea as an act of accidental, mud - got me thinking, mainly about RAND and a static relationship – the social changes dled and muted resistance. also the impact on Muslims – specifically being enforced in Saudi may attest, 17 At the time of publication the following our civil society – in minoritized settings. years down the line, to being something IHRC research projects may already be What impact has this intense effort by akin to an aim of RAND. Having propped available or are in the final stages of publi - US think tanks had on enervating our up a dictatorship resting on superficial cation: The New Colonialism -The US move ments and work not just of efficacy but Islamicity, the US now finds itself with an Model of Human Rights ; a podcast on – as is their stated aim – their ontology and equally authoritarian but socially Genocide Prevention and Understandings epistemologies? Here are some thoughts – liberalized ‘Islamic’ country as its steadfast of Genocide with one of the contributors to a start or contribution to a very needed con - ally. that volume, Saeed Khan, and a book on Po - versation about where Muslims are going As Saghaye-Biria explains: litical Islamophobia at American Policy In - and how.

February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 3 Muslim civil society

“The Islamic world is not just How far have these ideas been inter - regarding what is legitimate Islam. facing different interpretations of nalised by Muslim communities in minori - Salman Sayyid has argued (2003) it was Islam with some being in concur - tized situations? Whilst as a community we : “[Imam] Khomeini’s political thought, rence with American interests. have berated and lambasted the direct engi - alone among Muslim thinkers of the last Rather, powerful voices and forces neering and attacks by government, their hundred years, [that] does not try to have among the American foreign policy minions and supporters like the Quilliam a dialogue with western discourse”. It is this elites and in the foreign policy appa - Foundation, the Commission for Counter - way of understanding and acting – where ratus are actively engaging in reli - ing Extremism, Sufi Muslim Council et al, the political conversation does not begin and gion-building, fostering certain that desire to be ‘understood’, to show our - end or even acknowledge the relevance of interpretations of Islam that would selves and more specifically Islam as sympa - traditional super-powers that RAND et al pacify the religion in the face of tico with the ‘West’ is a trend that can be have devoted their energy to scupper and hegemonic Western powers.” found across our communities’ leadership. up-end. Benard’s contention that: Organisations and movements needn’t So what of civil society over here? be formally or even consciously in support “The traditionalist belief set does of US or Eurocentric interests and thinking. Benard and RAND more generally include democratic elements. It can Understanding this, and reviewing civil so - spoke of reaching out to traditionalists be made to justify reforms, but not ciety organisation around it is the basic chal - against fundamentalists thus: without significant effort. Tradition - lenge we face. alists have produced a large number • Publicize traditionalist criticism of of publications sketching a “kinder, fundamentalist violence and extrem - gentler” vision of Islam, in rebuttal Anomalous interpreting ism; encourage disagreements between of the religion’s negative image and The actual anomaly of an American traditionalists and fundamentalists. of the public statements by radicals, think tank directing what is and isn’t Islamic whom they do not wish to be tainted – not least one considered to be staunchly • Discourage alliances between tradi - by. These books typically praise the pro-Israel in the case of WINEP – is an ac - tionalists and fundamentalists. socially positive aspects of Islam, tual problem that Muslims should have been find rationalizations and softened discussing, analysing and berating. Instead • Encourage cooperation between interpretations for practices that are we appear to have implemented it whole - modernists and the traditionalists who today considered oppressive, and heartedly from the level of how to pray salah, are closer to the modernist end of the argue that Islam is not only compat - to how to manage society – or even to accept spectrum. ible with the principles of the mod - that there is such a thing. ern age (democracy, equality, social Mehdi Khalaji at WINEP, characterises • Where appropriate, educate the tra - welfare, education) but indeed pio - the Islamic Revolution in a similar frame, ditionalists to equip them better for de - neered them…” seeking outreach to other Shi’I Muslim in - bates against fundamentalists. stitutions to bolster them against any idea of Fundamentalists are often rhetorically can be found in any number of projects, Velayat-e-faqih . This endless turn in US superior, while traditionalists practice a documents, speeches and so on. Benard is think tank recommendations, of gutting politically inarticulate “folk Islam.” In in fact conceding that this thought process Islam of its political content or urging such places as Central Asia, they may already exists. The Brookings Institute, as change in the name of modernity or moder - need to be educated and trained in or - Saghaye-Biria points out, positively pushes ation is powerfully analysed by Saghaye- thodox Islam to be able to stand their the point for outreach to ‘good Islamists’. Biria. To adapt her words, the polarization ground. The introduction To Power Sharing Islam of Muslim societies based on the modera - (ed. Tamimi, 1993) is just one of the many tion/radicalism duality is a strategy that has • Increase the presence and profile of cases in point. Based on papers submitted real… security consequences for Muslim so - modernists in traditionalist institu - to ‘contribute to the growing effort to bring cieties. According to her use of a construc - tions. about intellectual rapprochement between tivist-framing, the lack of clarity that the Islamic and Western thinkers, to eliminate think tanks have in the identity labels used, • Discriminate between different sec - misconceptions about Islam and Islamic according to certain powerful frames, end in tors of traditionalism. Encourage those movements…’. Naïve at best, this approach the excommunication (or takfir ) of large with a greater affinity to modernism, feeds into the later RAND type vision of an segments of Muslims. Allowing Islamic po - such as the Hanafi law school, versus Islam that seeks the understanding of the litical culture to be taken over by such polar - others. Encourage them to issue reli - hegemon – a capitulation to its power and ization is surely disastrous. She argues: gious opinions and popularize these to an undergirding of its legitimacy. Contrib - “Ultimately, there is the danger that weaken the authority of backward utors to this volume discussed in these these labels would solidify over the long term Wahhabi- inspired religious rulings. terms, Jordan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kuwait into ideational structures. The solidification This relates to funding: Wahhabi and Algeria. Tunisia and Yemen get a name of such ideational structures can result in money goes to the support of the con - check too. The editor made clear at the out - overlooking the real diversity of ideas within servative Hanbali school. It also relates set that this was set in juxtaposition to Iran, Muslim societies which has for years been a to knowledge: More-backward parts of and its ‘anomalous interpretation of Islam’ source of strength rather than weakness. the Muslim world are not aware of ad - under the revolution. Accepting the legitimacy of the moderation vances in the application and interpre - Ironically, as the years have worn on, vs. radicalism duality hinders efforts at tation of Islamic law. from that list of countries, many have found defining Muslim identity in terms of the themselves now categorised as Iran is, by ummah of Islam.” • Encourage the popularity and ac - Muslim civil society, intellectuals or activists. The ummah, in this reading is vast, ceptance of Sufism. (Barnard, pxii, This dual track of West-focussed political or - transnational, of diverse Muslim under - 2003) ganisation, coupled with denunciation of the standing and may even include oppressed ‘other’ Muslim, is ironically also part of not from different traditions. Instead we find a These partnerships are refined further in simply a RAND recommendation of out - drive to homogenize the understanding of ‘Building Moderate Muslim Networks’: the reach to those within ‘traditionalist’ camps, the ummah around particularized identities US can work with “secularists; liberal Mus - but a wider praxis of pitting Muslims against of Muslimness. lims; and moderate traditionalists, includ - each other, a surprisingly British divide and Looking at Building Muslim Networks, ing Sufis.” rule which is echoed in WINEP’s assertions in particular on existing ‘Moderate Euro -

The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 4 ā ā ʾĀ Muslim civil society

pean Organizations’ one could argue that imagined and we don’t need these some cases led protests against the upcom - the decimation of Muslim civil society space laws to exist. Unless we have scruti - ing onslaught. It claimed that it did so NOT in the UK is a fait accompli . Those named nised these things effectively, we because it supported Saddam Hussein but and shamed in the report have been forced cannot call for them to be dismissed. because of the illegality of the precedent; the into a number of recalcitrant positions – It’s not sensible. futility of war; the need to protect already dropping support for pro-Palestinian ac - “Also, the letter is all negative. It beleaguered civilians and so on. We would tivism, no longer criticizing the problems as - should add a few positive points: do the same, we all argued regardless of sociated with the foundation of Holocaust Passing of Protection of Freedoms whichever country was involved. Come Memorial Day, dropping association with Act which repealed Section 44, pass - 2011, and Syria, Muslim civil society did a organizations deemed beyond the pale – all ing of Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime volte face . This is civil society in minoritized in the hope of reasserting their previous po - and Policing Act which amended settings. There is much to be said about this, sition vis a vis government. This latter hope Schedule 7 (not fully, but some good and here is not the space. What can and is still elusive despite over a decade of trans - changes introduced). Letter should must be said is that the dropping of principle formation. Those lauded in the report as acknowledge Government took so swiftly and obviously is seen as weakness. moderate are now promoted as leaders, or good steps forward and is now tak - Its instrumentalization to such devastating at least the only acceptable figures govern - ing considerable steps backward.” effect is something we need to be deeply ment will deal with. But can we simply ashamed of. This is no longer about the de - blame the machinations of think tanks ei - The letter was published in The nial of rights and discrimination. People are ther in the US or UK? Guardian without the changes requested dead and murdered in thousands, millions In the wake of the killing of General above. are homeless. Yet we remain trying to ex - Soleimani in January 2020 and the com - plain how far our project aligns with West - ments and reactions from Muslims, it seems ern interests, and remain bemused that once even more apt to ask this question: how far Sensible is as sensible does our role in destabilisation has been ex - have RAND et al won in the minoritized We are still not able to move forward hausted, and devastation reigns, we are now Muslim space in, say, the UK, North Amer - without feeling the need to address as inter - rejected, demonised even criminalised. ica etc. by dint of Muslim civil society and locutor the powers that oppress us. Any leadership’s own lack of vision and desire to amount of honest reflection would highlight promote identity issues over ummatic ones? just how poor we all have been in this regard. Then there is (always) When each US think tank has identified From the endless submissions to govern - Palestine Iran as its prime target, and sought to break ment consultations, long after they became Some time ago, perhaps even just before Muslim solidarity with it, how bizarre that simply rubber-stamping exercises, to pre - 9-11, a mosque contacted IHRC to say they Muslim civil society leadership puts out varicating over calling for Prevent to be had been contacted by the Charity Commis - statements claiming that secretly Iran is in scrapped (how many times have we heard sion. The Commission was querying why it league with the country that has done every - ‘we can’t deny there is a problem’?) A clear was that prayers after Jum’ah included thing to cripple it for forty years, including up of the office recently meant finding some prayers for Palestine. This is political they targeted assassinations, an imposed war that left over early ‘Know Your Rights’ leaflets claimed and violates charities law on politi - it supported and, most recently, crippling IHRC launched in the early noughties re - cal causes. This space – the spiritual – where and arguably genocidal economic sanctions. garding anti-terror laws. A larger organisa - the Islamic diktat to at least hate injustice in Yet this is where we are at. What do we tion with government approval issued the your heart – has come frequently under at - need to do if we are really serious about tack - Know Your Rights and Responsibilities tack in the years since. Now it is also the ling the elephant in the room – being polit - leaflet. IHRC’s project sought to empower breeding ground for a project to legitimise ical Muslims through Islamised thinking? Muslims, then being targeted en masse by Israeli illegality through the idea of inter- anti-terrorism laws with arrests and stops faith in particular, a project that looks at the running into the thousands annually with similarities between Jewish and Muslim You can’t be really serious? few or no actual prosecutions. At a time faith practices – in and of itself an excellent Five years ago, IHRC started a modest when speaking of rights was more norma - educational project. However, many com - campaign to take back the narrative on anti- tive than now, it seems Muslims themselves plaints have been raised – the introduction terrorism laws. We want them all scrapped. felt they needed to undermine their status, of the idea of Israel as an undisputed article Always have done. Alongside our long - putting in peril the idea that they were equal of faith, and criticism of it as anti-Semitic, standing rejection of Countering Violent Ex - citizens. and worse still to an audience of believers, tremism projects, we felt that they were This exacerbating of Muslim vulnerabil - an affront to religious sensibilities. based on a knee-jerk response to be seen to ity is not the only own goal. The desire to be Arguably the 2019 Journey to Jerusalem be doing something but that in reality they the only partner – of government or other trip, featuring senior Muslim ulema from were unfit for purpose and that existing movements – from the Muslim community, the UK claiming that they aimed to: “ad - criminal laws were enough to prosecute is more evidence of the misplaced political vance peace and coexistence in the Holy crimes of political violence such as terrorism. gaze of Muslim leadership. This leads to Land of Muslims and Jews and Christians”, It’s actually not that controversial, or at least gatekeeping and undermines solidarity. is an extension of this. it didn’t used to be. However, the character - Whilst claiming to work on issues of society Saghaye-Biria, discusses WINEP’s con - isation of Muslim dissent by targeting wide importance, this desire to keep out tribution to developing similar sounding groups and advocates as extremist had the other Muslims negates that claim. Further - projects: requisite chilling effect on Muslim civil so - more, it perpetuates Islamophobia – priori - ciety space. In 2015 we asked for collabora - tising only your own voice and excluding “Mohammed S. Dajani, the We - tion from other organisations. others, is simply a replication of institutional ston Fellow at The Washington In - Whilst few Muslim organisations agreed exclusionary practice. stitute, previously a professor of (we had less trouble with members of the This failure to be both humble and show political science at al-Quds Univer - House of Lords, and other civil society solidarity is not just a sorry spectacle to be - sity in Jerusalem, founded the Wasa - groups), one Muslim group sent a lot of ad - hold, a smaller and smaller group of Mus - tia movement of moderate Islam. vice. A lot. I quote some below: lims NGOs vying against each other for a Through this movement, he sought “We cannot endorse the last line few political spaces, instead of struggling to to break three taboos in Palestinian about scrapping all legislation post- make political space larger and better for society: “attitudes toward the United 2000. It looks as though we are say - everyone which we saw in the run up to the States, toward Islamic education, ing the problem is not as great as Iraq war. Muslim civil society marched, in and toward Holocaust education”

February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 5 Muslim civil society

(Dajani, 2015a). Through his ac - tion on the issue is becoming a repeated re - In the UK, Muslim and Jewish co-oper - tivism, Dajani aims to change Pales - frain. There are many arguments that Mus - ation in the struggle against Israeli tinian culture in three ways: lim civil society can make in response. Yet apartheid has strengthened in the last creating a favorable image of the have they? twenty years but is increasingly charac - United States, a pluralistic vision of Hatem Bazian describes this type of terised by staunch pro-Israelis as anti-Se - religion with Islam being one process – specifically the US MLI initiative, mitic. A new project aiming to connect among other acceptable faiths, and as faith washing. He cites recent faith acti - Jewish and Muslim liberation theologians a change of narrative regarding the vist history as a warning that Muslims are and Jewish and Muslim activists to work on Holocaust. This was carried out failing to take on board: actual theological discussions around jus - through the initiation of a Master’s tice and peace, politics and injustice in Is - program in American studies at al- “Instead of such contrived meet - rael / Palestine is already being rolled out. Quds University, starting the al- ings, MLI participants genuinely in - Such projects need to tackle commonality Wasatia (moderate) movement in terested in interfaith work should and difference because difference is not bad. Palestine in 2007, and doing stu - engage Jewish liberation theolo - Our communities, whether at the micro dent tours of Auschwitz and a Pales - gians on the question of Zionism level of Muslim or the macro levels of na - tinian refugee camp. and Judaism so as not to conflate tional and international, suffer from the “The Wasatia movement is espe - the two, and to refuse to operate ability to manage difference, from an insis - cially noteworthy for this study. within erroneous and pernicious tence on singular identity and hierarchy. While Dajani (2012) calls the move - nationalism. Only ‘I’ can be right, and ‘I’ must be boss. ment non-political, its ultimate goal “They should learn from the The danger of an inter-faith dialogue is to create a favorable environment mistakes of Christian leaders in the premised on an acceptance of Israel right or for “a negotiated peace with Israel US who long made what theologian wrong can be seen in the recent debacle that would help to bring peaceful Marc Ellis has criticized as the “ ec - around the invitation of a figure from the solutions to the acute religious, eco - umenical deal ,” where Christian- British Board of Deputies to speak on the nomic, social, and political crises Jewish “dialogue” is structured issue of the persecution of the Uighurs at plaguing Palestinian society.” In around a quid pro quo : Jews absolve Regents Park Mosque. The venue was what he calls Islamic education, Da - Christians for historic anti-Semi - changed after protests from leading Muslim jani aims to further specific inter - tism on condition that Christians organisations. This latter act is an example pretation of selective verses of the remain silent about Israel’s abuses of overdue action in this field. Without it, Qur’an and Hadith to show how of Palestinians. such events will legitimise anti-Muslim and Islam is compatible with liberal val - “Muslims are being invited to anti-Palestinian hatred, by elevating the ues. Citing his own experience, Da - strike a new ecumenical deal with voices of pro-Israel organisations. jani says that at a point in his life he Zionism in the United States, which A long while back, whilst trying to per - “began to think of [his] enemy as a may result in access to circles of in - suade key Muslim organisations to sign a partner.” In line with WINEP’s fluence in civil society as well as statement condemning the massacres in other expert productions on Is - other benefits. Darfur, one explained why they refused. lamism, he views the competing in - “The only precondition is that Some Darfurian groups had set up shop in terpretations of Islam put forth by critique of Israel is set aside and Tel Aviv. It was a step too far, a betrayal. As the several Palestinian Islamist par - boycott, divestment and sanctions with the Stop war – Start war fiasco, the ties as the obstacle to peace and rec - (BDS) or other effective forms of same leader had jettisoned these reserva - onciliation with Israel.” solidarity with Palestinians rejected. tions when backing some of the more This Zionist effort to co-opt overtly pro-Israel opposition in the conflict Sound familiar? Muslims, under the guise of “inter - in Syria. faith” understanding, comes at pre - We can break this cycle. One of the best The German Kreuzberg Initiative cisely the moment when the examples comes from American Jewish Against Anti-Semitism (KIgA) project of ecumenical deal with Christian de - youth walking out of Birthright tours in Is - taking Muslim, usually Turkish heritage nominations is eroding, as more rael. Taking part in such tours, widely pro - youth to Israel to combat anti-Semitism fits and more people, including moted to get US Jewish youth to engage this narrative too. Whilst far-right thinking churches in the US and Europe, em - with and sympathise with Israel, many use rises in Germany, the exceptionalization of brace BDS .” the forum to protest Israeli atrocities – pub - Muslim youth as singularly needing educa - licly and vociferously walking out of the

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The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 6 ā ā ʾĀ Muslim civil society

tours , recording their protests and circulat - tities and systems (Pharaoh was both a des - hint of irony. In the current moment, ing them on social media. pot and the symbol of a structure of injus - ummahness has come to mean fighting and Put simply, maybe it is time to just walk tice), and an example of the internalization dying in nationalist causes (the correct Syr - out. It’s time to protest. and universalization of the said systems of ianess is but one painful example), and it January 2020 has seen the revelation injustice as normal and natural. We no can be fought alongside any old foe so long that many left wing and anti-racist groups, longer look to change how the world works, as that singular unified vision of who is the alongside environmental groups have been just our individual positions, or that of our right Muslim can prevail. Yet another is the added to lists of extremist groups and ide - narrow group within those structures. plethora of engagement projects that ologies . This includes pro-Palestinian As insidious as this love of un-Islamic sprung up in the wake of the Rushdie Affair. groups from outside the Muslim stable. structures is the insidious term non-Mus - Muslims are not political enough, it has Again, the attempts to demonize and mar - lim. Sometimes used as translation of kafir , been commented, again without irony. The ginalise Al-Quds Day is a case which re - more often just as a shorthand for anything Muslims of 1989 were affronted by a media quires Muslim civil society action. Whilst not Muslim, it has a perverse normativity and political onslaught that nothing, or at Muslim organisations have been pres - that homogenises those of other faiths, non- least nothing belonging to the oppressed, surised to drop their support, ironically believers and the outright perverse and un - emotional, spiritual, cultural - is sacred. non-Muslim organisational support, and just. They are not all one. They fought back. Characterising them as general attendance have increased. It is a The works of Imam Muhammad al-Asi apolitical is simply offensive. Political sign of the chilling effect political pressure and Imam Achmad Cassiem are instructive agency in that moment for Muslims was at and Islamophobic discourses that posit on this point. Muslim thinking is ham - its peak. Every day since has been a step Muslims (unjustly) as anti-Semites based pered by what is in effect a chauvinism backwards. on their critique of Israel, that Muslim lead - against the non-Muslim ‘other’ at the level Whilst other liberation movements ership is running counter to both its grass - of the individual whilst internalising and track towards transnationalism, why the roots and progressive civil society. celebrating the system. Musexit from the ummah? This inability to Whilst national rhetoric cannot rid it - connect with our diversity- especially in the self of the underlying jingoism of nation face of overwhelming Islamophobia unrav - ‘Ummahness’ and border (one religion, one ethnicity, one language, els apace. A recent claim to advocacy vic - thinking one culture – all misimagined), ummah tory in the UK centred on the changing of The narrowing of the idea of ummah to means that even the borders policed by the term ‘imam’ to ‘Muslim leader’ in a the mirror image of what you are – e.g. Syr - passports then, and guns, walls and fences newspaper article. The term appeared in an ian or Libyan of a certain stripe, is an act of now, do not matter. Not morally and even - article constructed through deeply racialis - theoretical, political and actual violence in tually – in the reimagined world – not po - ing narratives. That was the point to call combination. The victims are the diversity litically either. out. Read the recommendations on media of the ummah generally, and Palestine in Where does that aspiration stand now? from the UK paper on Counter-Islamopho - particular. As the Arab Spring collapsed As we – Muslim activists – have gotten bia Narratives from media professionals under the weight of its contradictions, one older, and the reality of the world more ob - and academics. Or the Kerner report , or Palestinian activist in London aligned to viously complicated we have allowed that any work of critical race theory and media. such thinking announced at an awards cer - complexity to grind us down, or even worse These counter-narratives are transferrable emony to celebrate writing on Palestine, no to give up on the ideas altogether, or worse across national settings , just as much as the less, that, in effect, he did not care if there still reappropriated them to fit the very demonization they challenge. was no Palestine and only Israel, he just chauvinisms we supposedly deplore, and re - This is a sorry state, but really it doesn’t wanted the family house and land, which purpose their narrow content to align with have to be. We have agency even if we keep contained a mosque, back. He argued that the very forces that had and would deny us denying it. It requires courage and a lot of there had never been a Palestine ever, it was any form of liberation. humble pie. It requires taking on risk, and only the Palestinian that required justice in The endless money poured into Muslim solidarity. Things are difficult, but we know the way he demanded it. infrastructure promoting a one (type of) that if it’s not hurting it’s not working. The idea that there could be some sort Muslim consciousness has resulted not in of accommodation with racist structures so creating a unified Muslim ummah, but a variety of fractured and competing Arzu Merali long as individuals are recompensed is non - is one of the founders of Islamic Human Rights ummahs. The sectarian uber narrative has sensical. This obfuscation of the injustice Commission. She has written extensively on eventually created in response a competing of systems and structures is both a denial of Islamophobia, human rights, Islamic feminism and set of narratives – Shi’i, sufi, jihadi and so Quranic ideas of taghut – of oppressor en - a variety of other topics. She is based in on. All claim their universalism without a London, UK Nigeria Appeal

Currently there are thousands of children, women and men suffering as the result of the violence of the Nigerian police and army. Members of the Islamic Movement have been routinely targeted, with over 1500 killed in the last three years alone. They have left behind dependents who are often destitute and shunned. Families are left without enough income for basic necessities like food and clothing, children loose out on education.

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February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 7 Minorities under the cosh After the 2019 General Election, Britain’s minorities must brace themselves for worse to come Labour’s loss of its heartlands in last December’s general election has been the subject of much dissection, introspection and recriminations. But aside from what it means for the party, the collapse of the fabled, once impregnable, ‘red wall’ under the onslaught of a nativist ‘white tide’ has more important and disturbing implications for the place of minoritised communities in England and Wales, argues Faisal Bodi. he ease with which the wall crumbled birth to the Brexit Party, successfully ex - slightly greater proportion of people in the in a poll widely seen as a re-run of the ploited these concerns to mobilise the “left- £25,000 - £50,000 earnings bracket con - 2016 Brexit referendum defied his - behinds”. The researchers say that it was no sider minorities to be a threat to Britain than tory. Encompassing much of Wales and coincidence that in the 2016 referendum the do people who earn less than £25,000. In Tstretching across the northern half of Eng - vote for Brexit was strongest in areas that fact, concern about immigration (‘immi - land, this once impregnable barrier has had given UKIP strong support in the two grant’ is often synonymous with ethnic mi - withstood the ravages of time, deindustriali - years prior. Leave was the preference for nority) in British society as a whole has risen ation, neglect and even austerity to remain working class and poorer voters by a sub - in line with increased immigration, even if loyally Labour for the best part of a century. stantial majority. Britons routinely overstate or exaggerate its And while the decline of industry, trade “Leave’s ‘Take Back Control’ message actual scale. unions and old-fashioned class-conflict over harnessed the motive power of immigration, Since the late 1980’s the percentage of the last four decades has seen a weakening an emotionally charged issue that had been people who believe there are too many im - of the mortar that has bonded Labour to the baked into British psychology long before migrants in Britain has never fallen below ‘traditional working classes’, until now, the vote was called. These immigration fears, 60% and has even reached 80%. Opposition Labour, as the party of the common man, not abstract concerns about a ‘democratic to immigration has increased since free has still been able to count on their support. deficit’ that required rescuing UK sover - movement came into effect following the In the end it was the power of the forces eignty from Brussels bureaucrats, do much 1993 Maastricht Treaty, spiking higher when propelling the Brexit campaign which sealed to explain why Britain voted for Brexit,” con - central and eastern European countries Labour’s fate in the last general election. clude the authors. joined the EU in two waves in 2004 and Brexit was, is, and always will be a racist Labour pundits and activists pounding 2007. By 2006 “race and immigration” were right-wing project. The divisive impulses the pavements in the latest general election recorded as the most important issues facing that motivated the poll to leave the Euro - reported much the same level of antipathy the country. pean Union ha ve unleashed a latent xeno - to free movement and immigration. Paul The question of whether hostility to im - phobia that has long simmered Mason was clear that the open racism he migration, especially of the levels facilitated uncomfortably under the surface of British so - had encountered among traditional north - by free movement, is necessarily an expres - ciety. With its defiant jingoism and outright ern working class communities during cam - sion of racism is a fraught one. There can be opposition to ‘non-natives’, Brexit successfully paigning was, in significant part, responsible no doubting that the issue is a gravitation tapped into this thick racist seam. As many for his party’s drubbing. “Let’s be frank: a point for out and out racists who use its political observers have remarked, Brexit was minority of the working class abandoned emotive appeal to stoke people’s prejudices fought and won primarily on a single issue: Labour for authoritarian conservatism and and fears. But there are also those who claim immigration. Slogans such as ‘take back con - nativism...... in towns like Leigh, where I that their opposition has nothing to do with trol’, repeated against the backdrop of campaigned, the main reason people want racism and is instead motivated by social alarmist posters and rhetoric predicting an in - Brexit has always been to stem economic and cultural imperatives. Too much immi - vasion of migrants into mainland Europe as a migration. We can go a long way to address - gration too quickly, they say, threatens social stepping stone to Britain, resonated with ing the cultural insecurity of people whose cohesion. communities already left behind by economic lifestyles and industries have been destroyed. This argument is the easiest to dismiss change and progress. They were dog whistles But when they complain there are ‘too many because underlying it is a “reactionary pop - to a disenfranchised population whose pre-ex - foreigners’ in the queue at their GP surgeries ulism which demands the restoration of a isting prejudices predisposed them to scape - we cannot meet the implicit demand behind mythical golden age of sovereign nation- goat ing. it, which is for two queues...,” he writes. The states defined by cultural and racial homo - Academic research supports the view fact that not even a staggering quantum of geneity”, in the words of Brendan McGeever that immigration weighed heavily on deci - economic inducements dangled by Labour and Satnam Virdee. It is the image con - sion-making in the Brexit referendum. In in front of its traditional base could persuade structed in the famous Hovis advert from “Brexit Why Britain Voted to Leave the Eu - enough of it to vote red would seem to sup - 1973 (revived in 2019 suggesting it carries a ropean Union”, academics Harold D. Clarke, port this thesis. renewed appeal in contemporary times) de - Matthew Goodwin and Paul Whiteley, picting a Britain of yesteryear that is idyllic, found that among a majority of voters, hos - wholesome and also, even if subconsciously, tility to the EU fed into deeper fears about The immigration fallacy white. The nostalgia is also laden with ad - immigration which they opposed on a mix - This is not to give a clean bill of health miration for Britain’s brutal, militaristic, ture of economic, cultural and social to those positioned at the upper half of the racist, colonial past - even before Brexit 59% grounds. The UK Independence Party socio-economic scale. Research undertaken of Britons felt the Empire was something to (UKIP) which would later splinter and give in 2019 by Protection Approaches found a be proud of (YouGov 2014). Since the begin -

The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 8 ā ā ʾĀ Minorities under the cosh ning of the so-called ‘war on terror’ politi - virulent nativism: the assumption by older bynite wing of the party. It did not go unno - cians of all stripes have regularly exploited white workers that their family history enti - ticed that Mirvis’ attack on Labour effec - this nativist sentiment to attack multicultur - tles them to go to the front of the queue for tively exonerated Johnson and fellow Tories alism, suggesting that the emphasis on di - public services, and veto over who can live for a litany of racist abuses against Muslims versity has been at the expense of national and work in their community. This ideology and people of colour. unity. is growing all over the developed world, and Johnson infamously referred to Muslim The second grounds invokes the concept if the election shows one thing it is that pure women wearing the burkah as resembling of natural justice. It suggests that immigra - cultural liberalism has no effective answer to bank robbers and “letter boxes”, a remark for tion of the type facilitated by free movement it. The antidote is to create a community which he was referred to the Equalities of people, goods and services, disadvantages based around citizenship: where the fact Commission, and described black people as those already suffering most the shortages that you live and work in Britain entitles you “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. and delays of a crumbling public service sys - to use services and benefits from day one, Michael Gove’s 2006 anti-Muslim polemic tem. It is an act of harm inflicted on the and where refugees and migrants are wel - Celsius 7/7 is premised on the belief that poorest people already settled here to heap comed into a single civil society, composed Islam poses an existential threat to Euro - yet more bodies onto an already creaking of diverse groups that respect each other. If pean civilisation. Not coincidentally, one of employment sector and public services. In - we create agency in the diverse communities its chapters is entitled ‘Trojan Horse’, the terestingly, this view also finds some degree we represent then, even if their cultural val - same name given in 2014 to the fabricated of support amongst minority ethnic and re - ues and lifestyles diverge, there is a chance scandal about a supposed plot by Islamists ligious communities. Many working class that - at the crucial moment of the next elec - to take over several inner-city Birmingham voters who deserted Labour at the 2019 gen - tion - their separate narratives converge into schools. Gove’s wife, the Daily Mail colum - eral election express resentment for both the a single story: of hope, social justice and a nist Sarah Vine, has called Islamophobia parties that support free movement and the plan to meet the climate emergency.” “clever and funny”. newcomers it has brought in. To date the fight against racism in I find this argument just as unacceptable Britain has, in the main, seen Jews, Muslims as the first. Hostility to immigrants on ac - What next for minorities? and other racialised minorities put aside count of a policy over which they have no For the here and now though, Britain’s their differences to tackle a common threat. control is irrationally misplaced. And no minorities must brace themselves for au - However, with their unashamed backing of matter how much it is dressed up in the lan - thoritarian, majoritarian government by a the Conservatives in an election fought guage of fairness one cannot help feeling party whose lurch to the right has made it largely on the terrain of immigration and that it originates in a sense of racial privilege indistinguishable from the extremists in - race, a large segment of British Jewry have that positions some groups, on account of habiting the outer edges of the political spec - adopted the short-sighted position that serv - their status as ‘indigenous’ or ‘here first’, trum. If that ideological alliance was not ing Israel’s interests trumps the need to higher in the pecking order when it comes evident in the run up to the 2019 general maintain the integrity of any alliance in the to the allocation of state resources. election when Nigel Farage withdrew his anti-racism struggle at home. How those Brexit Party from over 300 Tory constituen - who have been swept under the bus now cies to help the incumbents, and far right react to their betrayal will determine the Labour at the crossroads rabble rousers such as Katie Hopkins and make-up of the anti-racism movement in Addressing the economic resentment Tommy Robinson endorsed the Conserva - post-Brexit Britain. that is vocalised in the language of racial ha - tives, it was certainly underlined after the Not surprisingly, the right-wing pro- tred and prejudice is a huge challenge for poll when the neo-Nazi organisation, Britain Zionist mainstream media made as much Labour, even more so as the scale of the elec - First, exhorted its supporters to join the hay as possible under the sun of Labour’s al - tion defeat increases pressure from within party to help shape it from within. leged anti-Semitism, seizing and manufac - the movement to rethink its stand on immi - For all Farage’s protestations and “mis - turing every possible opportunity to gration to reclaim the working class. For the givings” about a Boris Brexit, he and his bed - uncritically repeat the accusations. Like so-called “Blue Labour” activists/academics fellows on the right see in the current prime sharks drawn to a kill, they tore lumps out such as Goodwin, reformulating policy to minister a demagogic strongman formed in of a victim already presumed guilty at the take into account its impact on communities their own image, leading an inner coterie in - same time as they turned a blind eye to the is an urgent imperative. Labour simply can - tent on reshaping Britain along the fault Conservatives’ woeful record on Islamopho - not afford to ignore the strength of (white) lines of race and religion. Remember, this is bia. working class feelings on the issue if it wants a Tory party described by its own ex-chair - Despite Muslims outnumbering Jews by to become re-electable. However, as critics woman as institutionally Islamophobic, one 10 to 1 and there being no suggestion that have charged, this would amount to embrac - which stubbornly refuses to embrace a anyone in the current Labour leadership has ing the politics of appeasement. widely accepted definition of Islamophobia made any openly anti-Semitic remarks, the Yes, Labour must reconnect to its work - and has already backtracked on promises to disproportionality in coverage between Is - ing class in a new post-industry, post-unions launch an independent inquiry into the lamophobia and anti-Semitism has been era but it cannot simply throw minorities problem, and which is determined to con - glaringly obvious, suggesting that one type under the bus, either out of expediency or tinue the war against multiculturalism and of racism is more unacceptable than the principle. Approximately one in five ethnic minorities through its ever-widening Pre - other. minority voters prefers Labour at the ballot vent anti-extremism programme and ‘hos - box compared to one out of 20 who vote tile environment’ immigration policies. Conservative - in fact their collective vote is In pursuing their agenda, the Tories will Media propaganda the deciding factor in many constituencies. be able to count on the support of at least Framed by an alliance of politicians and More importantly though, Labour needs to one important and powerful racial/religious willing journalists, the issue of immigration articulate convincingly the truth that it is the minority. During the 2019 general election has been forced up the agenda under succes - logic of unchecked capitalism, not immigra - campaign Britain’s Jewish community, or at sive Conservative governments since 2010. tion, that is the real enemy and come up least the part of it represented by the Chief The Migration Observatory, an independent with workable policies that empower and Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, effectively endorsed think tank, found a substantial increase in improve the life chances of those who feel the Conservatives by saying that Labour’s the volume of articles about immigration left behind. anti-Semitism problem made it unfit to gov - published in the national British press be - In his post-election obituary of Cor - ern. The intervention was the culmination tween 2012 and 2014. When British news - bynism Paul Mason charts this as the way of a long-running campaign seeking to un - papers have chosen to describe immigration forward: “We are now fighting a strong and dermine the dominant pro-Palestine Cor - in some additional way over the 2006-2015

February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 9 Minorities under the cosh period, about 15% of the time they explicitly cultural Relations by which the Muslim mi - voices in consultations that directly relate to used the modifiers ‘mass’ and 12% of the nority becomes victim to the social attitudes their communities. Instead officials now time “illegal”. When the press explicitly de - of the majority – learned through govern - seek to co-opt deferential and conformist el - scribed immigrants and migrants during ment policy and the media they consume – ements that can serve as a rubber stamp for 2006-2015, 3 out of 10 times (30.4%) it was and this is then expressed in acts of hatred, government policy. The era of Uncle Tom is with the word ‘illegal’. And when news arti - hostility and violence. back with a vengeance. cles explicitly used a word to describe ‘immi - With the PM reneging on his pre-elec - The challenges presented by the new al - gration’ in the first five months of 2015, tion promise to launch an inquiry into sys - liance of right, far right and Zionist politics about 6 out of 10 times it was with a word temic Islamophobia in the Conservative are formidable. Clearly, minorities’ ability to related to its scale or pace. Is it any wonder Party and appearing equally keen to kill off affect policy is hugely attenuated by the clo - then that Britons overestimate the number Leveson Pt 2 which promised to make the sure of channels for genuine civil society par - of immigrants in the UK by over 50% (31% media more accountable, the signal has al - ticipation, as is the ability to direct media compared to the actual incidence of 13% - ready gone out to the media magnates that discourse. But rather than being a reason to Ipsos Mori 2013)? business should continue as normal (it was abandon the battlefield it should spur If ‘scale’ has framed one side of the im - surely more than coincidental that Johnson’s groups who believe in social justice and mul - migration debate, the other scaffold has first soiree after the election victory was at a ticulturalism to greater action. Statistics been ‘undesirability’. The Migration Obser - party held by the Tory-supporting Russian suggest that turning back the white tide will vatory found that when newspapers men - proprietor of the London Evening Stan - be a generational endeavour driven more tioned either EU or illegal immigration dard). Having repaid his friends in the than anything else by the passage of time. between 2006-2005, the majority (approx - media, Johnson’s next task will be to ensure There is little mileage in focussing on the imately 70%) tended to focus on perceived that the areas of the country that turned blue older half of the population, the lost gener - problems rather than achievements. The in - for him remain so. That means actualising ations fixated on restoring an imaginary creasing conflation of immigration issues the kind of racist Brexit and immigration white utopia. Instead we must redouble our with welfare fraud in the popular press has policies they voted him in to deliver. efforts and concentrate them on the under also exacerbated negative attitudes towards 40’s who are overwhelmingly less predis - migrants in an audience largely dependent posed to anti-immigrant, right-wing narra - on the media for information on the issue. Bleak outlook tives, exposing racism and highlighting the Islam and Muslims have received special For racialised minorities things are set to dark places it leads to. attention in Brexit Britain. An anti-Muslim get a lot worse before they get better. Nearly There must be a special focus on win - meta-narrative constructed around issues a decade of Tory and Tory-led government ning back the ‘white working class’, the new such as grooming gangs, no-go areas, Mus - has seen them ‘otherised’ and their voices social category that the right has successfully lim women’s attire, imposition of shariah marginalised to the point where Muslims in racialised and managed to isolate from the law, takeover of schools and terrorism has particular have effectively been cast out of rest of the working class. The shit show that resulted in 56% of the general public believ - public-policy making and consultation. “We is Brexit will do the rest. Nationalist fan - ing that Islam poses a serious threat to West - are living in a moment described as an envi - tasies will be dashed against the reality of ern civilisation (Populus 2016) and the same ronment of hate against Muslims,” wrote maintaining markets in the EU, continued number believing that Islam is incompatible IHRC in a briefing published last year. “This immigration to fill labour shortages, and an with British values (Comres 2016). The environment is the product of the cross fer - economic downturn for which neo-liberal British public hugely overestimates the tilising and mutually reinforcing of anti- economics has no answers for those that will number of Muslims in the country: on aver - Muslim racism, and political, media and be hit the hardest. As events take their age, the public think that around one in six policy discourse. Attacks on Muslim civil so - course, we must all hope and pray that when Britons are Muslim, rather than the actual ciety organisations must be understood as the political fraud of Brexit is finally exposed incidence of fewer than one in twenty (Ipsos part of this climate which is part of the and when immigration can no longer be Mori 2016). deeper crisis of the political and social cul - blamed for all the nation’s ills, it will concen - A study by the Muslim Council of ture we live in.” trate minds on finding real solutions to the Britain of over 10,000 articles and clips re - Authentic and independent Muslim actual problems facing the nation rather ferring to Muslims and Islam in the last voices that do not conform to preconceived than usher in a new, altogether uglier round quarter of 2018 found that 59% of all arti - official strategies or desired policy outcomes of scapegoating. cles associated Muslims with negative be - have been pushed to the margins through haviour. Our own report from 2015 delegitimization in the media, denial of explained the otherisation of Muslims and Faisal Bodi funds and outright exclusion. It has become is a former journalist, writer and co-editor of its consequences by reference to its location standard practice ignore genuine Muslim The Long View. inside a Domination Hate Model of Inter -

Forcoming publication

Looking at the RAND corporation, the Political Islamophobia Brookings Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Saghaye-Biria at American Policy Institutes: overviews these three think tanks’ obsession with Islam and Muslims since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. She Battling the Power discusses the implications for Muslim societies of the direction of travel of Islamic Resistance proposed. by Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria is an Assistant Professor at University of Tehran, Faculty of Islamic Knowledge and Thought. Available in March 2020 in paperback and digital download from shop.ihrc.org and amazon.co.uk

The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 10 ā ā ʾĀ White on white racism Brexit and the hierarchies of Europeanness Despite what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says, not all EU migrants in Brexit-Britain treat this country as if it is their own. Those that do are the already privileged and desirable, the bona fide migrants, the proper Europeans whose whiteness is never put into question. But many on the receiving end of rising post-Brexit hate crime do not feel at home in Britain, with their daily lives precarious and their futures uncertain. Kasia Narkowicz explores the hierarchies of Europeanness and the racialisation of Central and East Europeans in the context of Brexit. few days before the 2019 UK gen - Theresa May back when she was Home Sec - European Union, the Brits have filed for di - eral election, Boris Johnson com - retary in 2012. The fact that the policies were vorce because they believe, or hope, that their plained that EU migrants had actually named ‘the hostile environment’ lives will be better without. They have been come to Britain and treated this might seem refreshingly honest for any po - told that the source of their increasingly dif - country as if it was their own. In order to pre - litical party, but it says something about the ficult lives are the waves of immigrants. It is vent migrants from feeling at home in the political climate we live in and about the the Polish plumber and the Syrian refugee, AUK, a points-based system discouraging things that can and cannot be said about im - the Eastern European and the Muslim, that unskilled workers will be implemented. Boris migrants in Britain today. In a short book of steal whatever is left after a decade of cuts to Johnson’s comments about migrants treat - the same name, actor turned activist John public services. While the Muslims are often ing the UK as home caused anger across EU Cusack met Indian activist Arundhati Roy depicted through old racist tropes of poten - migrant communities. In a letter to the and two whistle blowers; Daniel Ellsberg and tial terrorists and sexual predators, the East - Guardian, Maike Bohn, the co-founder of Edward Snowdon. In an elegantly worded, ern Europeans are responsible for stealing ‘the3million’ challenged Johnson saying that idealistic and depressing book they discuss jobs and resources. But as Maya Goodfellow ‘for most migrants working, studying and what can and cannot be said in various na - argues in her recent book titled ‘Hostile En - raising families in the UK, home is here and tions around the world that, as they con - vironment’ , despite the things that can and we are here to stay ’. In the same letter she clude, tend towards the imperial. This rings are said of immigrants, the facts consistently said that many migrants, including her, came true within the borders of a once global hege - show that there is little evidence that immi - to the UK unskilled, “curious to discover mon that has become so much less signifi - grants are responsible for our economic other countries”. Others, like the journalist cant in today’s global economy. problems. Halla Mohieddeen tweeted that her Italian Here in Britain, the imperial project is But then the facts have consistently had husband only regarded the UK as home, a intimately bound up with a national identity little to do with Brexit and people’s percep - home in which he ‘bought a house, paid tax, that is currently being reclaimed in Brexit tions at large. British people believe that al - made friends’. Britain, one of ‘taking back control’. But im - most a quarter of their population is These are voices of privileged Western perial nostalgia is only one part of the coin, immigrant, while in reality the number of European migrants and certainly does not the other is an inward-looking nostalgia, a foreign-born people in the UK is about 14%. represent the reality for all. In contrast, many return to a Britishness void of all those for - A large proportion are EU migrants. Accord - Europeans from Central and Eastern Europe eign bodies that were never wanted within. ing to statistics from The Migration Obser - live hard lives in the UK, working in low- In their article on Brexit and racism , Satnam vatory just over half of the 3.6 million EU skilled jobs (even if they were skilled upon ar - Virdee & Brendan McGeever show how migrants in Britain hail from countries that rival), renting rooms and houses with no racism is central to Brexit because of these entered the Union on and after 2004, which prospect of home ownership and with a two parallel historical developments; the loss predominantly includes countries in Central deepening sense that the home they left years of empire as one loss and neoliberalism con - and Eastern Europe. Of these, the largest ago is not home anymore, and the UK might tributing to structural decline since the 1970s group are the Polish. never be. The truth is that even if many East - as the second loss. With that came a loss of ern Europeans, like the Polish, arrived in working class politics and consequently, Britain en masse over 15 years ago, they do working class solidarities that stretched The hierarchies of EU not necessarily feel at home here. In my work across racial divides weakened. whiteness as a sociologist, I have been conducting in - In the Brexit campaign, racism was cen - Among the countries that joined the EU terviews with Polish immigrants in the UK. tral yet rarely called out for what it was. before 2004 are Western European coun - Their situations are diverse and their com - Politicians openly said that they wanted to tries including Denmark, Netherlands, Spain mitment to the UK varied, but very few take make the lives of migrants unbearable and and Belgium. In 2004 the EU expanded their lives in the UK for granted. Instead tabloid journalists referred to immigrants as with the enthusiastic inclusion of Poland, many talk of feeling insecure, scared and un - cockroaches. Even if this kind of rhetoric gets Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slova - welcome. a light slap for echoing Nazi propaganda, it kia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - all for - is this idea of immigrants as draining ‘our’ re - merly part of the Eastern Bloc. In 2007 the sources and polluting ‘our’ spaces that has led EU further integrated Bulgaria and Roma - Brexit and Racisms to a strong Conservative victory in the 2019 nia. More countries wish to join the EU, Since coming to office as Prime Minister, national elections, putting the final seal on among them Albania and Georgia. But the Boris Johnson has been set on deepening the Brexit. more the Eastern neighbours wish to be part hostile immigration policies introduced by After over 40 years of membership in the

February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 11 White on white racism of the Union, the lesser the Western coun - tion… it has not appeared as an in - with his British-born kids, he doesn’t think tries seem satisfied where their project is dependent element in the series of that it is received positively by the British heading, even leading to talks about a Swexit, phases that Reason has assumed in public, in contrast with if he was speaking a Swedish EU exit. the world’. French. He said that it makes him more The European project is a racial project aware of people around him when out with and one that scholar David Theo Goldberg The recent political shift in Central East - his Polish-speaking family and that makes argues is committed to producing and main - ern Europe, perhaps most notably in Hun - him feel uncomfortable. Several intervie - taining Europe as Christian and white. How - gary and then Poland, has given ample wees, often those that reported feel ing most ever, within that are also hierarchies that date reason for a continuation of a narrative of integrated and experiencing least racism, back further and uphold Western Europe as Western exceptionalism and Eastern back - have either changed their names entirely or the cradle of civilisation, Enlightenment and wardness. Despite the fact that the politics of have made their Polish names sound Eng - progress, and Eastern Europe as their back - closed borders, keeping out Muslims and lish. One woman was told by her boss that ward cousin who is on what seems a never- maintaining Europe as Christian and white she should not speak her language with the ending journey of catching up with the West. is central in these narratives, the migrants other Eastern Europeans in her workplace, After 1989, with the collapse of Commu - from Central Eastern Europe are, upon en - despite the fact that each of them spoke a nism, Poland invited Western investment to trance to the West, nevertheless racialised as different Eastern European language and the degree that economist Thomas Piketty the Other; not quite European, not quite could not possibly communicate with one calls it a ‘ foreign-owned country ’. Yet, as white or not white enough. This translates to another in any language other than Eng - Aleksandra Lewicki points out , the Eastern feelings of not belonging and actual experi - lish. expansion of the EU did not only benefit the ences of racism. Sociologist Alina Rzepnikowska from formerly Communist states. Although the the University of Manchester has mapped 2004 EU accession was framed in a lan - experiences of racism among Eastern Eu - guage of bringing back democracy to Eastern Both victims and ropeans before and after Brexi t. She dis - Europe, as Lewicki argues: ‘Western Euro - perpetrators cusses how markers of difference such as pean countries were keen to secure their own In the UK, hate crimes and hate inci - speaking Polish, having a differently sound - economic progression by further expanding dents have been defined as occurring across ing name and clothing that is considered un - into novel markets’. five categories: race, religion, disability, sex - fashionable, serve to differentiate and In Western discourse, Poland and other uality and transgender identity. In some racialise Eastern Europeans despite their Eastern European countries have often been places, like Manchester, other categories shared whiteness with those who racially depicted as homogenous. Indeed, Poland is such as s ub-cultures are also recognised as abuse them. one of Europe’s most homogenous countries. hate crimes. Perhaps the case that made the biggest But as the work of the Polish Nobel Laureate In the aftermath of the Brexit referen - headlines in the UK and abroad was the Olga Tokarczuk so masterfully depicts, dum, several hate crimes and incidents tar - death of a Polish man only two months after Poland was once a multi-ethnic and multi- geting Eastern Europeans were recorded. the Brexit referendum. Arkadiusz Jówik religious place with a diverse population of Although hate crime statistics generally have died on a night out after being pushed by a Christians, Jews and Muslims. The country’s increased yearly since hate was introduced as teenager and hitting his head on the pave - homogeneity is a more recent phenomenon, a category of crime, in July 2016 the num - ment. It was reported that Arkadiusz was a consequence of the redrawing of the coun - bers rose by over 40% causing people to the victim of a racially motivated attack be - try’s borders and mass persecution of its mi - make links between Brexit and hate crime. cause he spoke Polish, however evidence norities by the Nazi regime, most Cards with the words ‘No More Polish ver - later emerged that Arkadiusz and his friends significantly Jews during the Second World min’ were posted through letterboxes, the were also making racist comments about the War, and later the Communist regime. Polish Social and Cultural Association in teenagers before the attack. While this find - Historically, and well before the Cold London (POSK) was targeted with graffiti ing doesn’t undermine the real rise of hate War split between East and West, the region and there were several reported incidents of crimes towards Eastern Europeans, it does of Central Eastern Europe was already con - violent hate crimes towards Poles across the point to an important aspect of being an im - sidered as part of lesser Europe, outside the UK. According to studies on hate crime East - migrant from this part of Europe; the rela - ideas of Enlightenment - irrational, supersti - ern European migrants experienced pre - tive ways in which whiteness can be claimed tious and industrially backward. Back in dominantly verbal abuse at work, on the and taken away from those migrants to the 1824, Leopold Von Ranke who was a Ger - street and online. Lincolnshire, where one of UK that occupy that precarious place of man historian said about Central and East - the studies took place, has one of the largest being white but not always white en ough. ern Europe: EU migrant populations and was also one of the highest Leave voting areas in the UK. ‘It cannot be maintained that Language is a major theme in the expe - Relative whiteness these peoples too belong to the unity riences of exclusion among Eastern Euro - Eastern European migrants have been of our nation; their customs and con - peans. In contrast to French, Spanish or called ‘in between mi grants’ by scholars be - stitution have ever separated them Italian, their languages are not the languages cause while they are affected by the hostile from it. In that epoch they exercised that serve as elective choices in Western environment of immigration policy they are no independent influence, but school curricula and are not considered as in - also protected by their whiteness and Euro - merely appear subordinate or antag - ternationally desirable. In my own work, I peanness, something which grants them onistic.’ have interviewed Poles in London, a city with rights that immigrants from outside the EU the largest concentration of Eastern Euro - don’t have access to. On a global scale of German philosopher Hegel had similar pean migrants in the country alongside border regimes, Eastern Europeans from thoughts. As Teshale Tibebu argued in his Birmingham, Slough, Leeds and Southamp - countries like Poland, Hungary and Roma - book on Hegel and the Third World, the ton. There, people talked about feelings of nia have been privileged with free move - philosopher considered Slavic people as not not belonging, a sense of insecurity and fear ment and the ability to work in the UK having made any significant contribution to about their lives as migrants in the UK. while often, but not always, also being read world history. As Catholics, he considered Many expressed that they felt less secure as European and white. them to not have developed a sense of indi - and less welcomed in Britain since 2016. One As Akwugo Emejulu has pointed out: ‘It viduality. Hegel said of the Slavs: woman told me that she always ‘looks behind seems some people are only concerned with her shoulder’ when speaking Polish on the racism and xenophobia when their own ‘This entire body of peoples re - phone when walking in the street. Another privileged migration status is challenged.’. main excluded from our considera - man said that while he always speaks Polish Indeed, the Guardian and other sections of

The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 12 ā ā ʾĀ Institutional Islamophobia

the liberal press have frequently published migrants. Often arriving with no money, no enough to have time to pack their own bags stories of distraught white, Western Euro - connections, no work and no home, the fact and be granted indefinite leave to remain. pean and often middle-class migrants. An that no one could or would bother to pro - When Boris Johnson suggested that EU Austrian woman admitted that with Brexit nounce their names was the least of their migrants treat the UK as their own country, she had made a realisation: ‘now I am the worries. The Austrian immigrant that it seems that he targeted the wrong kind of immigrant ’. It is remarkable to think that shared her story with the Guardian ended immigrants. The ones that he really wants an immigrant might never have realised her commentary with this: ‘I will pack my out, the ones who do not qualify for an ac - that they are one, never felt it from the looks suitcase later – for now I am just gobs - ceptable Europeanness, are those who al - of others, when their names are not only macked.’ Because she is the deserving, de - ready do not feel at home here despite their mispronounced but not recognised or when sirable migrant that Boris Johnson does not relative privileges. With their daily lives pre - their traditions and food are treated with ei - want to lose, she can pack her suitcase later. carious and their futures un certain, Eastern ther suspicion or with an ironic fascination. Other immigrants might not have the European migrants already know that their Having never felt that is a privilege that few opportunity to pack any bags but instead be presence in the UK is not welcome and their immigrants and non-immigrant people of put on a charter flight ‘back’ to a place they existence here remains as it has always been: colour can claim experience of. might not even call home. As Luke de precarious. Post-Brexit, Western EU migrants seem Noronha writes in his research on deporta - to have noticed racism and claim that they tions, borders are not for white people, and are its victims. While this should, and has so they feel ‘ betrayed’ and ‘offended’ . But as Kasia Narkowicz is a lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the been, critiqued, it should also be treated dif - de Noronha also notes , Eastern Europeans University of Gloucestershire. She works on ferently to the discrimination that Eastern occupy a more hybrid space of in-between - issues of racism and Islamophobia in Europe. European EU migrants are experiencing. ness. They are not quite white enough to Kasia has published on the rise of Islamophobia Not many Central Eastern Europeans can feel offended by Brexit and increasingly in Poland and is currently researching the be accused of not noticing that they are im - hostile border regimes but privileged experiences of racism by Poles in the UK.

The scourge of Islamophobia In the space of just a couple of decades Islamophobia has become the bane of western societies. In Britain, its incidence has soared as it has become embedded in the very core of our institutions. Maz Saleem analyses the pervasiveness of this more acceptable face of racism and how it is manifested in everyday social and political life. phobia, according to the Cambridge that even pre-9/11, Muslims were widely 99.993% were innocent of any wrongdoing. dictionary, is ‘an extreme fear or dis - viewed as different and as a threat to national This highlights the disproportionate use of like of a particular thing or situa - security. However, as the report also high - the power and illustrates its abuse with dev - tion, especially one that is not lights that Islamophobia and institutional Is - astating consequences for thousands of peo - reasonable’. lamophobia have increased exponentially ple. The practice amounts to the most Islamophobia is anti-Muslim racism over the past two decades. exhaustive racial profiling strategy witnessed wAhich manifests itself in an exaggerated fear, in modern times.” hatred, hostility and rejection towards the Is - Schedule 7 is part of the Terrorism Act, lamic religion and Muslims, perpetuated by Anti-terrorism laws 2000. But running parallel to the legislative negative stereotypes. There are several areas in which institu - framework to combat “terrorism” (an amor - When these result in bias, discrimination tional Islamophobia manifests itself in the phous, ever-widening term that seems to be and the marginalisation and exclusion of UK. The most prominent of these is anti-ter - based more on political expediency than any Muslims from social, political, educational rorism legislation. precise definition) is another sinister social institutions and against the civic lives of Mus - Under the controversial Schedule 7 engineering programme that seeks to eradi - lim individuals and communities, it is called counter-terror law, Muslims are being de - cate views and beliefs of resistance within the institutional Islamophobia. tained in disproportionately high numbers at Muslim population. It is called PREVENT. In line with the definition of institutional ports and airports even though the convic - Ever since its introduction in 2003 Prevent racism employed by the Stephen Lawrence tion rate from such stops is 0.007%, accord - has focused its attention primarily on Inquiry institutional Islamophobia consists ing to the human rights group CAGE. In the Britain’s Muslims and has probably done of the collective failure of an organisation to 20 years it has been in operation approxi - more than any other policy or law to entrench provide an appropriate and professional serv - mately half a million people have been their status as “problematic” citizens. It has ice to people because of their Muslim back - stopped under this power. been widely criticized for spying and infiltrat - ground or faith. It can be seen or detected in Muhammad Rabbani, International Di - ing Muslim communities, browbeating and processes, attitudes and behaviour which rector for CAGE, says: financially inducing them to become compli - amount to discrimination through unwitting “The discrimination faced by Muslim ant and assimilated. prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and travellers highlights how embedded Islamo - In 2015 the Counter-Terrorism and stereotyping which disadvantage those per - phobia is in Schedule 7, and in broader Security Act widened the scope of Prevent ceived to be Muslim. counter-terrorism powers. Officers routinely even further, placing a duty on specified Islamophobia is not a 21 st century phe - ask intrusive questions about religion and institutions and authorities to be vigilant nomenon. The 2015 Islamic Human Rights practice, which amounts to a modern-day in - and show “due regard to the need to prevent Commission report ‘Environment of Hate: quisition.” people from being drawn into terrorism.” As The New Normal for Muslims in the UK’ by “Over the last decade alone, Schedule 7 a result, nearly two million public sector Arzu Merali and Saied Reza Ameli shows has seen over 400,000 people stopped, workers are trained to spy on Muslims for

February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 The Long View - Quarterly Magazine ā ā ʾĀ 13 Institutional Islamophobia signs of extremism. The government has that disagreeing with them is seen as con - Service is legitimised through policies in outsourced its intelligence gathering to doning extremism and there is pressure to healthcare by prejudice towards Muslims. normal society. Human Rights organisation ‘watch’ Muslim students and their work.” The NHS staff have been told that they must trust ‘Liberty’, has called PREVENT the biggest emphasis on PREVENT, and in particular, their “gut feelings” when looking for key spying programme in British modern on Muslims, left many teachers feeling con - signs of radicalization, according to Dr Tarek history. Most people feel its aims within flicted about their role as teachers and (for Younis. He goes on to say in his most recent educational institutions is to disarm work ‘Islamophobia in National Health Serv - Muslim children and adults politically and ice: An Ethnography in PREVENT’s stop them from speaking out. Counter-R adicalisation Policy’, that ‘no other We remember bricks social ill with such deficient evidence has such a strong public duty. He asks why there Education thrown into passing cars is not a dedicated programme to report Education is another area in which insti - and Asians being spat on (largely white male) pre-criminals vulnerable tutional Islamophobia is pervasive. by thugs with scary to spouse violence considering that in a pe - The National Education Union has been riod of just three years there have been 300 concerned at the insidious ways in which Is - tattoos and body domestic homicides in the UK lamophobia is operating and intersecting at piercings. Many of these Younis states that the advice to use your the structural, community, cultural and in - ‘gut feeling’ is key to understanding how terpersonal levels and is becoming part of so - memories come flooding racial prejudice is legitimised through insti - ciety. They have expressed the normalisation back when I see images tutional racism. He gives an example of a GP of anti-Muslim racism must not be allowed of the English Defence who immediately thought of PREVENT to blight and affect the lives of Muslims, and when a Muslim male said he wanted to everyone perceived to be Muslim. It under - League and Britain First. homeschool his children. The doctor with - mines the concept of equal rights for all and held asking further questions. This is just one as such undermines British democracy. example of a racialised interaction between Young Muslim children in the UK say some) as members of Muslim communities. doctor and the patient. Would the GP have they have been called “terrorists” at school The third-highest number of PREVENT thought of PREVENT if the patient was and been told by strangers to take off their referrals comes from the education sector but white and wanted to homeschool their child? headscarves. In 2018 alone, according to only five per cent of referrals are sent to government figures, religious hate crime in - Channel, a programme providing support to creased by 40% across the UK, with more individuals who are at risk of being drawn Media than half directed at Muslims. into terrorism. High referral rates according Much of what is known about Islam and The NEU has stated that at ‘at national to the NEU ‘could be a sign that teachers are Muslims in Western societies is derived from level, the debates around Brexit, the anti- misreading the signs of radicalisation or they the mass media. Studies have shown that Muslim narrative of senior politicians, the se - are being overcautious or using a form of over three-quarters of people in Western so - curitisation agenda including Prevent and profiling. However, a referral can mean long cieties rely on the mass media, mainly televi - the statements by the head of OFSTED are term stigmatisation and trauma for the sion, as their primary source of information worryingly impacting on schools and col - child’. about Islam and Muslims. leges’. PREVENT is also having a hugely detri - In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist at - The NEU has also raised deep concerns mental effect on Muslims in the health sec - tacks, the sustained intensity of media cov - about the PREVENT policy saying that it en - tor. erage of Islam and Muslims resulted in an courages treating pupils as ‘suspects not stu - The PREVENT duty was introduced in almost universal distorted awareness of dents’. Evidence has continued to mount that the NHS in 2011, not because there was evi - Islam and its beliefs. the PREVENT policy is causing fear and dis - dence associating terrorism to health issues Research has shown that Western media crimination for Muslim pupils. In the NEU’s but because of moral duty for everyone to coverage of terrorism is often based on Is - report ‘Barriers’ teachers talked about how play their role in countering terrorism and lamophobic assumptions. Islamophobia in “PREVENT is so strong that teachers feel radicalisation. the Western media is increasingly spreading Islamophobia in the National Health to other parts of the world, which rely on

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The Long View - Quarterly Magazine February 2020 / Jum d al- khirah 1441 14 ā ā ʾĀ Institutional Islamophobia

Western news outlets, yet have little everyday city area of Birmingham popular with skin - The Muslim Council of Britain has re - exposure to Muslims. heads. We remember bricks thrown into peated many times their call for an inquiry In the UK, there are many examples of passing cars and Asians being spat on by into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. news headlines and coverage that could po - thugs with scary tattoos and body piercings. And now, following a ridiculous number of tentially instill fear and the possibility of ‘oth - Many of these memories come flooding back Tory candidates, members and Councillors erising” Muslims. Mainstream newspapers when I see images of the English Defence being suspended for anti-Muslim comments such as The Daily Express, The Sun and The League and Britain First. and abuse, Baroness Warsi has admitted that Times, the Daily Mail have run offensive I will draw upon my own family’s expe - there were “weekly occurrences of Islamo - headlines, including “Ramadan A Ding- riences of criticism of the judiciary and the phobic incidents“ in the Conservative Party. Dong”, “Christianity Under Attack”, “Mus - police. Not much seems to have changed There have been an unprecedented lims ‘ Silent On Terror ’”, “Britain Goes since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. My 82- number of cases that have been brought to Halal… but Nobody Tells Public’’, “1 in 5 Brit year-old father, Mohammad Saleem, was the public’s attention, suggesting a culture Muslims Sympathy For “Jihadis” and others. knifed to death by Lapshyn, a self-confessed within the Conservative Party where Islam - While these are some of the most obvious white supremacist, as he walked back home ophobia is not only widespread, but institu - examples, instances of Islamophobia also after attending prayers in his local mosque in tional. The Tories have disgracefully ignored exist in other parts of the media and enter - Small Heath, Birmingham. After my father’s calls for an independent inquiry on anti- tainment, including newspapers, radio, TV murder we were treated with suspicion by Muslim hatred and are failing to take action and films. Since the war on terror, the repre - the police and placed under surveillance. We against Islamophobes in the party such as sentation of Muslims in the media is as a do - were all suspects for our fathers brutal mur - MPs including Bob Blackman, Zac Gold - mestic terrorist threat. Immigration, the der according to West Midlands police - to smith, Michael Fabricant and Philip Hol - niqab/ burqa , and forced marriages have the point that I believe one of us would have lobone. bene used as tools to portray Muslims as ‘ for - been charged if Pavlo Lapshyn had not been eigners ’, and ‘outsiders’. The so-called Mus - caught standing at a bus stop near our house lim grooming scandals tag all Muslim males in Small Heath, Birmingham (months later) Recommendations and as predatory. Mosques and madrasas are based on random evidence given by an al - Opposition regularly represented as ‘ problematic ‘ and in - leged ‘drug addict’ from the area (we were The government needs to adopt a defini - compatible with British society. told by police). When we saw our father’s tion of Islamophobia. In contrast to the The portrayal has been largely negative body in the mortuary for the first time since IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, drawn up and stereotypical informed often by a violent, his brutal killing we were subjected to two by Jewish groups, it has so far resisted an radicalised Islamophobic narrative. The male family liaison officers staring at our re - agreed definition put forward by campaign British media contributes daily to growing actions as if we were all potential suspects groups and Muslim organisations. tensions between communities through neg - rather than victims of one of the vilest Islam - The racist PREVENT duty needs to be ative representations of Muslims and consis - ophobic terrorist acts on UK soil. scrapped as soon as possible because it has tently carries Islamophobic stories that play Our father’s body remained in the mor - been a catastrophic failure. There is ab - to the far-right. tuary for many months and this was excru - solutely no evidence that PREVENT has ac - It has become a mainstay of western ciatingly painful for all of us especially tually prevented any act of “terrorism”. From journalism that Muslims are asked to con - because, Islamically, the burial should be the very start it has almost entirely focused demn every alleged terrorist attack carried completed as soon as possible. Understand - on abhorrent racial profiling of Muslim com - out by any Muslim anywhere in the world. ably, given the circumstances, we knew it munities. PREVENT has fuelled the percep - Yet few in the mainstream media even stop would take longer but we didn’t expect sev - tion that there is an inherent problem of to consider that the majority of victims of ter - eral months to pass. We were subjected to “extremism ” in the community. There also rorist attacks are Muslim. A 2019 study by seven inquests in which the coroner played needs to a far-ranging public inquiry into Is - researchers at Georgia State University and the role of God. During the first two inquests lamophobia similar to the Stephen Lawrence the University of Alabama found that jour - he seemed sympathetic to our religious be - Inquiry and the outcome must be imple - nalists are much less likely to dedicate cover - liefs, but then his abruptness left us feeling mented in all social and political institutions. age to terrorist attacks not committed by distressed. We were desperate to get our fa - The government must give priority to ed - Muslim perpetrators - attacks committed by ther’s body released from the mortuary but ucating people about Islam and its historical Muslims get 357% more media coverage the lack of compassion and a two-week hol - positive influence and contribution in the than attacks committed by other groups. iday in between these inquests left us deeply world. It must also demand better from the upset and angry. We were told that if we mainstream media. dropped our official complaints about West The UK Government should commit to Criminal Justice Midlands police and they would consider re - ending all involvement in military interven - The UK often claims to possess the finest leasing the body. tion in foreign countries and to strengthen justice system in the world, with a “colour its efforts to resolve conflicts humanely and blind” approach to the law. Unfortunately, peacefully. This is extremely important in re - this just isn’t true. Historically, the UK justice Islamophobia in the ducing political violence and it is important system has been used to legitimise slavery, Conservative Party to end disastrous British counter terror poli - and then colonialism, from Victorian days. The Muslim Council of Britain, Baroness cies which only have resulted in bloodshed, a The British Empire has institutionalised Sayeeda Warsi and many other high profile huge refugee crisis and anti-Muslim hatred apartheid and discrimination since its incep - organisations and politicians have expressed across the globe. tion. their concern over Islamophobia in the Con - Take for example, the brutal killing in servative Party being ignored quite blatantly. 2013 of my father, Mohammed Saleem, by The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has Maz Saleem is an active anti-war and anti-racist campaigner neo-Nazi terrorist and mosque bomber, publicly humiliated Muslim women who who has written for a variety of publications, Pavlo Lapshyn. wear the niqab and the burqa. Boris Johnson including the Independent, 5Pillars, Middle East The injustices within the legal system has faced much criticism but he has still re - Eye and Stop the War Coalition websites. Maz made us feel we had regressed back to the fused to apologise. In 2014 he published a will soon be launching an educational website 1980s and to the days of the National Front blatantly Islamophobic book “Seventy-Two addressing ‘Anti-Muslim Hatred’ and delivering - frightening times when non-white families Virgins – A Comedy of Errors” with refer - anti-racist workshops in schools in memory of would not dare venture out after dark or on ences to “ Islamofascists ”, “Islamic headcases” her father, www.efpmohammedsaleem.com - days when football matches were being and “Islamic nutcases” and a stereotypical Education for Peace in memory of Mohammed played. I remember growing up in an inner- suicide bomber plot. Saleem.

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