Shrinking Spaces

Journalism in the Time of Trojan Horse

Arzu Merali reflects on Serial’s podcast series of the infamous affair that resulted in a societal sea change for the worse against Muslims [substitute alternate teaser here].* Let me start with this. Serial is excellent and everyone needs to listen to it, even if, like me you were already very familiar with

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Working with the Western(ised) Establishment

My presentation for Session 3 of the 2021 Islamophobia Conference on War and Law: Challenging the Violent State from Policing, Apartheid and Segregation to the Forever Wars.  I was a last minute addiiton to the panel as someone dropped out. Find out more about the conference ‘Working with the Western(ised) Establishment: Yes,

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Are Muslims being silenced? | The Big Picture #13

In this week’s episode of The Big Picture, Roshan Muhammed Salih looks at whether British Muslims are being squeezed out of mainstream life by right-wing policymakers, ideologues and the media. If so, what are the implications for communal harmony and democracy in the UK? Arzu Merali joins the conversation.  She discussed the

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On Islamophobia, Britishness and the shrinking political space

Islamophobia has always needed to be understood as part of the deeper crisis of the political and social culture we live in* I have been swotting up on Jerusalem for my youngest’s A-Levels this month. I would rather abstractly debate whether the dark satanic mills of William Blake’s imagination are the factories of

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First Muslims, now the left: How the UK government has Islamised dissent

New paper from the Commission for Countering Extremism associates left-wing views with ‘violent extremism’ The document released by the UK Commission for Countering Extremism, titled “Violent extremist tactics and the ideology of the sectarian left” reads more like a textbook of sectarianism than an analysis of its ideas and methods. It is deeply alarming. Earlier this year,

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