Will June be the End of May?

Mainstream electoral politics is getting interesting in the UK these days, scary at times, with small willy terrorism and big willy counter terrorism ensuring that security politics will play themselves out over the next few week. The dynamism is not just confined to the Muslim kooky sideshows for once, through there are plenty of those, from Salma Yaqoob vs Naz Shah in Bradford West to Ajmal Masroor vs Rushanara Ali in Bethnal Green by Bro and even George Galloway vs Afzal Khan for Manchester Gorton.

Although there are great signs of political maturation and movement, just looking at MEND's rather useful tabulation of Muslim populations per constituency, there are plenty of very Muslim peopled constituencies with really whitewing Labour MPs.

No, the excitement is the growing political horizon of hope articulated by Corbynjaan's manifesto [pdf], encouraging poll (game) evidence and a terrible Conservative campaign which just gets worse the more Theresa May opens her mouth, thinks or has her photograph taken. It is almost as if the establishment had already thrown all of its stash of petrol bombs at Corbyn before the General Election was called.

A Labour government headed by Corbyn would face the risk of anti Corbyn, anti Left and anti Muslim elements stabbing him in the back and the front, sodding all the consequence just for their narrow interest. Prime Minister Corbyn would be a  blessing for so many people struggling every day. Imagine, just over two years ago...

A May continuity  and landslide would be a nightmare, Prevent on steroids, superficiality in general, oppression of the poor, sick and elderly. It is incredible to think that this person studied geography.

The Big Sufippointment

One winter, three thousand miles west of here,

Somewhere in a city on the occupied Turtle Island

While the aspirant Mourgeoisie bathed in the warm white glow of acceptability and Convention

A Great White Shayk basically dethroned himself in two acts,

To the clarified ghee of Pavlov's dearly beloved kuttahs

Who actually clapped.

Not so fresh off the luxury plane

From a petro moronarchy's playground game

Chaired by our very own bechara Ed Husain.

Shayk elaborated the crises of 'The Muslim Brain'.

With what one might charitably describe as an ironic prescience and privilege.

Within days, the deadly worlds of Developmentia, Preventitude and Neoliberalistan

Stank, closed ranks and sang in the new Gregorian year.

Depoliticised by years of rather whiney anaesthetainment,

Confused brown musalmugs ran for (their iPhone) covers.

Some sought solace In The Shade of the Traditional Trees

In a battle for memory, power, pacifier and mediocrity.

"Say something nice or shut up"

Buttercup?

"Black on Black crime statesticals, Black friendly vouchers.."

13th Ammendment Documentary.

"Metaphysical osmosis"

Islamic Decoloniality

"Stop this unedifying lynchmob"

Whiteous indignation much?

And  our old favourite,

 "you're overreacting"

From the autodismissive

Bending light to autoforget. 

Meanwhile, in a gilded ivory trashcan, 

A Fake White Knight, smiled at the opportunity.

And videos kept getting pulled from youtube

The Ummahtic car crash is not rare,
Nor something overnight.

May this mass witnessing of whiteness open futures.

Challenging the bases of PREVENT: The Letter

This Friday (10th) a letter was published in the Independent newspaper, and signed by hundreds of leading academics and activists to express their objections to the assumptions, contents and impacts of the UK government's policies on counter-terrorism. Its a simple seven paragraph affair, which moves a consensus view which is becoming increasingly common sensical to people who think about these matters. The Paper Bird blog has a neat analysis of some early responses to it and you can sign the statement at Protecting Thought here.

It is great to see so many names behind this, which comes towards the end of Ramadhan, as Preventitude is being nationalised by an Act of Parliament, the school summer holidays are in view and the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre is being performed.

The text is a good primer for anyone wishing to orientated themselves around the core of whats the matter here. It has already provided sufficient discomfort for Birmingham City Council's Muslim PREVENT manager to offer a very lengthy facebook response that ran to 1909 words. It included such gems that even his wife doesn't support his PREVENT work, communities distrust him and his employers are too austeritied out to help him much. The Independent letter reproduced below is only 464 words.

"We, the undersigned, take issue with the government’s PREVENT strategy and its statutory implementation through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 for the following reasons: 

1. The latest addition to the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism framework comes in the form of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTS Act). The CTS Act has placed PREVENT on a statutory footing for public bodies to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism by tackling what is claimed to be ‘extremist ideology’. In practice, this will mean that individuals working within statutory organisations must report individuals suspected of being ‘potential terrorists’ to external bodies for ‘de-radicalisation’. 

2. The way that PREVENT conceptualises ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’is based on the unsubstantiated view that religious ideology is the primary driving factor for terrorism. Academic research suggests that social, economic and political factors, as well as social exclusion, play a more central role in driving political violence than ideology. Indeed, ideology only becomes appealing when social, economic and political grievances give it legitimacy. Therefore, addressing these issues would lessen the appeal of ideology. 

3. However, PREVENT remains fixated on ideology as the primary driver of terrorism. Inevitably, this has meant a focus on religious interaction and Islamic symbolism to assess radicalisation. For example, growing a beard, wearing a hijab or mixing with those who believe Islam has a comprehensive political philosophy are key markers used to identify ‘potential’ terrorism. This serves to reinforce a prejudicial world view that perceives Islam to be a retrograde and oppressive religion that threatens the West. PREVENT reinforces an ‘us’ and ‘them’ view of the world, divides communities, and sows mistrust of Muslims. 

4. While much of the PREVENT policy is aimed at those suspected of ‘Islamist extremism’ and far-right activity, there is genuine concern that other groups will also be affected by such policies, such as anti-austerity and environmental campaigners – largely those engaged in political dissent. 

5. Without due reconsideration of PREVENT’s poor reputation, the police and government have attempted to give the programme a veneer of legitimacy by expressing it in the language of ‘safeguarding’. Not only does this depoliticise the issue of radicalisation, it shifts attention away from grievances that drive individuals towards an ideology that legitimises political violence. 

6. PREVENT will have a chilling effect on open debate, free speech and political dissent. It will create an environment in which political change can no longer be discussed openly, and will withdraw to unsupervised spaces. Therefore, PREVENT will make us less safe. 

7. We believe that PREVENT has failed not only as a strategy but also the very communities it seeks to protect. Instead of blindly attempting to strengthen this project, we call on the government to end its ineffective PREVENT policy and rather adopt an approach that is based on dialogue and openness."

We live in interesting times, under an appalling freshly elected government willing and able to cause great havoc with impunity courtesy of House Muslims, white supremacists and confused people. So I welcome and feel encouraged by the letter and look forward to further challenges and adjustments as the summers rolls on.

Conservative Party Muslim Mohammed Amin has done his party duty to defend the policy with a post on Conservative Home on Sunday (12/07). Unfortunately, it seems preoccupied with sounding like an establishment guffaw,  and he doesn't appear to understand very much of what was written. His ill-advised launch into a discourse on logic is one for the archives though.  Lets call that one logicwash.

Amin chooses to dismiss the academic-and-activist letter as offering no constructive inputs, which is his political duty. However, in my reading, the letter offers several take homes for securocrats. I have coded the most obvious in green above, and that excludes the idea that saying something is wrong is also a positive contribution to the dialogical process.

Preventitude : A Newham Case Study

What is Prevent?

CAGE analysis of PREVENT's role in the
generation of though crimes in the UK today.

The UK government's Prevent strategy is a sinister method of manipulating and undermining the Muslim community. State mouthpieces like the BBC would disagree, but even they cringe sometimes, albeit in a smug technocratic resource efficiency and Private Eye orientated fashion that never questions the political fundamentals of white privilege. For that level of analysis, Arun Kundnani has studied the government's approach to what it has called radicalisation and extremism over the past decade and formulated a constructive critique.

However, the odious ghetto of the jobsworths and securocrats responsible for Prevent is not in the business of admitting the degree to which their bogeymen are of their own making. After all, it is far easier to repress the weak than risk the truth. These individuals are paid handsomely by the state, often with competitive pensions to recruit vulnerable people to their nefarious schemes of ummahtic suffocation. What motivates them to choose this life of an open air prison warden is unclear and worth pursuing, theories range from structural learning difficulties to sexual impotence to daddy issues.

For Muslims and others with a decolonial analysis of things, Prevent is a neoliberal representation of a long tradition of coloniality stretching back hundreds of years. It surveils, fragments, disciplines and depoliticises the formation and articulation of a Muslim sense of self, place and community,. The strategy has even been reframed as a Cradle to Grave Police State.  Rendered statutory by the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, it is something we need to understand, resist, survive and recover from.

Rather than be permanently bummed out over the latest bro to sell out, cash in and cause cringing, its high time to respond in the tradition of decolonial Ummahtic Love. To turn the gaze ( and the blade) towards the slow violence of Prevent , Establishment Extremism and the coloniality that makes them possible, is a liberating, positive and politically productive project that I am sure many would like to see operating.

Preventitude and the #NewVic3

Mak Chishti threat upon the bodies, spaces and habits of all Muslim youth was not an isolated incident. There is an entire generation, particularly in the schooling system, being subjected to Preventitude. The term salutes the Francophone African Negritude movement, and articulates a rallying call  to attend to the colonial institution of Prevent. Experience of this unjust set of power relations and weaponry connects not just those trapped beneath it in the UK, but in other locations around the world as powerful governments employ weirder, meaner and more brutal forms of policing souls, minds, bodies and with them the future. After all, the counter extremism kit, of hard and softer varieties is a growing British export to many countries.

A good example is in the country of my immediate ancestry, Bangladesh. Over their the British trained and human rights violating Rapid Action Battalion headed by Benazir Ahmed (who presided over the 2013 Dhaka Massacre ) would not be possible without the UK's  multidisciplinary input into the great War on Terror Scam. Fields of diplomacy, academia, military, education, culture and media operation are integrated into this mutually useful enterprise. Therefore, it stands to reason that calling out and challenging malevolent bullshit in the UK can work towards institutionally, professionally and politically safeguarding vulnerable people and societies all over the world, whether they are in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, India or Pakistan.

Yesterday, less than a fortnight after the exposure of primary school children to dubious surveillance in Waltham Forest, I heard of the suspension of three upper sixth form students from New Vic College in Newham, another east London borough. Punitive measures had been taken against them for their opposition to college Prevent policies and Islamophobia. Given that it is exam season for A-level students, the college's behaviour is disproportionate and stupid at best, if not outright malicious.

Unreal right? You may have attended a wedding
at the nearby Impressions venue.

Justifying his destructive decision, Principal Playfair (!) cites the student's circulation of a petition to students and staff and IT policy as the grounds for their suspension. He talks about a commitment to fighting Islamophobia yet has contributes to it with his actions and doesn't seem to be fighting with Islamophobia's expression through Prevent. Maybe he is one of those post-racials who thinks that because his local prevent officer is brown, that there cannot be anything wrong with it.

Needless to say, the girls' supporters' and sympathisers' at the college and around the country aren't convinced by his initial pronouncements. If inclined to, you can watch the #NewVic3 hashtag on Twitter to see and connect to outrage at this serious institutional student rights violation.  From what I can tell, their petition is legitimate and interesting. It demands honesty, transparency from the senior management and protection of their student rights from the government's Prevent policy and in particular.

Some more politically-seasoned people might have advised a slightly different course of action, had their invitation by the students not been rescinded by the college. The context of the petition was in the aftermath of the college's banning of an event they had organised to critically discuss the politics and meaning of the government's Prevent policy. NUS Black Officer Malia Bouttia and others including local councillor Unmesh Desai were scheduled to speak, but for some undisclosed reason the college students were denied an audience with them.

The Lie of 'contravening IT policy' is enforceable by white power and 'how dare they demand of us' thinking. In reality it resembles an abusive big brother punching you in the gut, throat and mouth, then branding your face with 'enemy of the state' for picking the teeth out of your mouth. I hope the governor's of New Vic are busy making justice out of this situation. This is a school where a teacher can tell a room full of female students that they are. 

“too lazy to run to Syria, carry machine guns and have sex all day.”

and get away with it

I wish these young sisters a successful political and academic education and support their cause. They have shown more leadership than a lot of the fat brown bearded males. I think they should be nominated for a Muslim News Malcolm X Award for Services against Preventitude.

Recognising and supporting courage is one important, but so are the underlying causes of the Prevent Policy Disaster and our particular situations.

Reading Moby Dick in Newham

Cabinet Meeting at Newham.

Newham is a one party state. An East London borough where every single council ward is controlled by the Labour Party presided over the elected Mayor Robin Whale.  Whale plays an effective divide and rule policy on the boroughs different ethnic minority communities, has quite hard secularist views on multiculturalism and diversity and was a key collaborator in the gentrifying orgy that was Olympic Developmentia.

His whiteness, Labour identity and compliance with corporate interest means that he hasn't been subjected to the same scrutinies, dirty tricks, boycotts and lawfare of Lutfur Rahman next door in Tower Hamlets. The lack of headlines regarding his overrepresentation of 16.7% White British community in Newham is notable.

Whale's contribution to this Case study of institutional insanity is his appointment of the much-hated Quilliam Foundation's Ghaffar Husain as the borough's Prevent Officer. Interestingly, the Foundation's founder, Essex-born Majid Nawaz went to college in Newham, where he manipulated student politics, finances and Islam to violent affect. Following the 2013 Woolwich murder he made political value for himself spinning another self aggrandising yarn about the murder of Ayotunde Obanubi at his college.

What is to be done?

To close, the classroom coloniality unfolding in every educational institution around the country is on the increase and we need to tool up. Data and case studies like this one will be plentiful because of the baseline stupidity of institutions. Looking at the situation optimistically, it is a good opportunity to hold up a mirror of coloniality to government functionaries. Intellectuals focusing on race, Islamophobia, civil liberties and human rights discourses will of course be busy.  Muslims need also to attend to the spiritual impacts and connectivities of the problem, both to safeguard young people and better understand the sicknesses inside those who design, enforce and defend preventitude.

A Decolonial Dua

Owner of Judgement, Everlasting, Protecting Friend

forgive us those foolish decisions,

which enclose noble futures,

as we make our way to the minbar.

Guide us in our knowledge adventures,

beyond the accumulation of certification

to generation, political epistemic emancipation.

Protect us from developmentors on the watchtower,

and their developmentees

Preventing us, from helping us

Selling poverty pornography and non answers.

[Political Tragicomedy Alert] A Diary of a Bad Man does PREVENT

Today around lunch time a piece of weird news was circulating the social media, that the maker of the YouTube phenomenon A Dairy of a Bad Man had sold out to Prevent, the UK government's deradicalisation programme. Sure enough, the BBC article, then the Leicester Mercury piece furnished us procrastinators with the sad tidings and a vivid of Muslim cultural degeneration's latest wrong turning.

We learn that PC Rizwaan Chothia, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit's Prevent team coordinated the project on the same day as a secret trial of a terrorism suspect possibly alludes to an attempt to bring Tony Blair to a belated and worldly account via some kind of Bollywood dance move. Its worth noting that we might have expected better, as PC Rizwaan was subject to Islamophobic humiliation a few years back. I wonder if he 'gets' any of this?


A Dairy of a Bad Man has made me belly laugh at times, especially in its early physicality. Who can forget the classic tribute to the 'Roti or Rice?' dilemma, or Humza's Rap Battle with His Mum? Yet its not hard, even for a comedically challenged miseryguts like me, to notice how he found it hard to grow beyond the slapstick and toilet humour of the facebook/iphone degeneration. Salafis turned on him once they were guilt tripped by their seniors into disapproving of the fellow. His political commitments were admirable, appealing to followers to sign the Babar Ahmad petition, and objecting to Boris Johnson's hair in the run up to his recent reelection.

Think for Yourself is a royal bumwave of epic proportions

His Deradicalisation episode 'Think for Yourself' (above) is very unconvincing. See for yourself, he said, patronisingly. I'm struggling whether to rank it above or below that  #HappyMuslims video earlier this year. But its not just appalling cultural product, by any standards, its menacing. Think for Yourself appeals to viewers to snitch on their close ones, which is deeply Stasi-esque.

Perhaps the Muslim Oaf is an important dumbographic, but I think its been a mistake from Humza, who would appear to have sold himself, and his efforts out to the prevent agenda. Perhaps he made it all the more awful as an act of subversion, or was institutionally bullied into it - sixty eight excuses to go. I hope somebody close to him raises these issues and he considers his community with enough respect to dialogue on the issue.

Analyse the whole A Diary of a Badman experience, with ISIL's most recent propaganda offering 'Flames of War' (liveleak URL here, watch it carefully if you dare), and the whole problem of Muslim Ridiculisation is revealed.

Press TV Report on MYHGate

MYHgate Part 3 Wolf(,) Whistling?

Ever think you were being played for a greatfool muppet?

In an age where the microphone, reputation management and lawfare are the preserve of the more powerful, we could do worse than listen for the silences, the cheese and the occlusions.

The writer writes well about how they are sorry for any wrong doing and harm, explaining inbetween sobs, that their opposition was heinous and drove them gaga and that they look forward to moving on. Terrible time to be going through.

The endangered volunteers remain gagged under threats from lawyers and an investigating Board interested in surviving an emergency general meeting today, one which they should have called at least a month ago to bring Number One and Number Two to account for their playground misbehaviour, backstabbing and bullying of volunteers.

The Board only jumped when Fosis intervened. I guess its a one of those trophy boards.

We probably wont hear from the signatories of the May 18th petition as lawfare and Board's adhoc policymaking have cast heavy shadows of immobilisation upon them, and they are retracting their signatures for fear and ease. We don't hear the contents of their original internal petition as its been framed by the grassing up letter and the apology.

Occlusion, misdirection, suppression and silencing.

My favourite part of the verbose 'letter of apology' is where we are asked to feel reassured that the kindhearted dialogical folk in Prevent/Channel/Implode are ok really. Followed closely by the casting of 'Noor' as passive victim and the use of 'John' as an affirmative action alibi.

Note that the hacker/sniffer who made the whistleblower website should really have studied the adab of heckling, drawn up a trouble timeline and redacted the personal detail bits, as they endanger the volunteer's cause, and lend credence to the other belligerents. Because technocrats value procedure over justice.

The board will give excuses and a sob story, empowered by the apology, what tune will the wolves whistle?

Sheep you make wolves possible, wake up your time has come.

MYH-Gate: Entirely Preventable

After the *alleged* news that the *alleged* leadership of an *alleged* youth orientated organisation was playing *alleged* extremism cards against its volunteer staff to wriggle out of *alleged* bullying charges, the organisation is in meltdown, spectators of the car-crash are pulling pieces of shrapnel out of eachothers backsides, and trustees are trying to build trust. As hardcore lawyers have been deployed by the person at the core of the intergalactic bumwave, you may take this blog as a work of speculative Su-Fi if you like,

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Supernovae are of the brightest objects in the universe. This is where stars are born. 

It is *allegedly* sad that a dude who we thought was an up-and-coming political writer for a better world was caught in such an apparent, compromised position. We await his articulate explanation with hope. In recent efforts to *allegedly* stop being pissed of with him I have a fantasy where it's a jinn what-done-it bruv.

Ok, my fingers hurt. Though my maths is rusty I shall apply the following disclaimer integral for allegations, speculations and truth over the whole post and we hope that the attack drones at Mishcon de Reya get the message.

To manipulate contacts inside the security apparatus to bring harm on innocent people blows my mind and I struggle to imagine the fields of delusion and whisperings operating around the couple at the time. To cry 'from an extremist agenda' in the current situation where Muslims are regarded as menacing and suspicious really sucks.  And for what? To help ones spouse in an employment dispute at a little have-a-go NGO?

And that's not to mention the way the data travelled through the security service organisations, with slimy due diligenceless nonchalant ease.

Sh!t, Fan, Mess. Ghusl?

One of the most powerful arguments that is deployed in the organisation's defence is that it does good work for vulnerable people who are neglected and abused. This will regularly be used to justify the organisation's continuing existence, despite the mistrust it has emitted, its misleadership and the decay curve it has been on for many years. Most will find the restore-continuity directive compelling, and I see why its a key message to convey. I'm just not so sure and its not because I like to devour young girls for breakfast, but because of the most basic observation of developmentia.

For developmentia is dressed with copious virtue and laden with well presented practical results. It is like dementia but with dubious donors.

My feeling is that despite the financial constraints it might appear to put on us, we need to fund our own work/deeds to a much greater degree, and commit acts of socio-spiritual love without such formalistic conceits as charities and NGOs et al.  Subcontracting action to G(rel)ief and Aids organisations doesn't work for the kind of Jamarchitecture I'm imagining.  For not only does it delimit, depoliticise and murder the sincerity and humanity out of us, it is administered by fools, who are becoming increasingly malicious and hooked on government service delivery dosh.

Big funding might help establish buildings, but the strings and baggage are really not worth it in the long run. In the 70s people suckled on Saudi petrobucks, and some on Iranian ones, in the 00's there has been too much taking of govt disciplinary dosh. The latest injection goes a long way to explain the situation that unfolded in the youth organisation. The sasa (uncle) generation that some find it fashionable to despise and ridicule as insensitive simpletons would never sell their children down the river.

Slap them about a bit and keep them straight? Yes, but shop them in on false pretences? Never.

What's scary is the snapshot MYHgate has given us of the world of the insecurity industry and its tentacles that extend into our very bodies. What we think we see and what we have seen are only the tip of the iceberg of what goes on and what we have to live with.

We are lucky to have these arsifacts (def: fossils of f£$%*edupness). Plenty of people aren't so stupid as to complain about hacking to police using the same computers and services that they alleged to be hacked in the first place.  As a friend of mine pointed out, there is a positive way of seeing this, as an unsurprising event that will enable something greater to rise out of the ashes of mediocrity. 

But these are thin linings. How much trust has been destroyed? How many young people have been misled? How many of us are really on the books of insecurity jobsworths? How many people have the police got to record and harm on the basis of utter BS?

The men stroking cats love to point the finger at the community for involving them in grudge matches, it gets them off the hook and reinforces the mistrust cascade.

What should not have been

The toxic odour of betrayal
Wafted along the breeze
What was becoming apparent (over recent days)
Our hearts could not believe

Developmentia organised
In pathetic technicolour.
Brittle technocratic souls
Engaging foreign power.

How fucking dare you sell them down,
That god forbidding river
I await your untold side to this
And long to be your brother.

British Masochists for Sadistic Domination?

 [Inspired by Wikipedia]

BMSD is an buerotic preference and a form of sexual political expression involving the consensual use of white structures of power, intense secular stimulation, and fantasy power games. The compound BMSD is derived from the terms: british, a national formation in decline; Muslim, the subjectivity targetted for attack; secular, the vice of godlesness in polity; and democracy, a form of political charade whereby the people are duped. BMSD performs a limited range of activities, supplicates to secular authority and reproduces forms of indistinct blandness.

On Prevent: What to do

Seems to me that resistance to this campaign particular campaign by the British Government to produce docile Muslim subjects is growing and needs to be both broadened and deepened.  I suspect its intimately tied with the discovery, creation and exercise of ummahtic mojo.

Here's what folks can do.

1. Read this dossier on PREVENT
2. Highlight the experiences and ordeals of those at the bum end of the Project to Produce Docile Muslims
3. Sharpen awareness of whats going on around us in legislation, institutional policies and everyday life
4. Convey the experiences of those who have previously engaged with this shit
5. Encourage radical forms of expression, action and imagination
6. Delegitimate engagement and engagers
7. Lampoon and spit upon ideological foundations of the project
8. Reward creative - disengagement with social dignity
9. Share best resistance practice

I do so hope that you share this good news with others.