#JusticeforTahirAlam is justice for us all

Oh Knower of Subtleties, Master of Judgement, Just and Mighty Avenger, Protecting Friend and Everlasting Source of Life, strengthen the spines, bonds and arguments of the defamed, humiliated

It has been a few years since an extraordinary sh!tstorm was kicked up by the government and establishment press regarding schools in predominantly Muslim areas in Birmingham and the words Trojan Horse. This storm provided important political capital for British neocon politician and one time Education Secretary/Vandal Michael Gove (whose jaundiced treatise Celsius 7/7 even had a chapter called "Trojan Horse"). It is worth considering the role of the event in politically underwriting the deepening of the Preventitude State enveloping Muslims in this Cartographically United But Crumbling Queendom.

High impact letter writing

In case you've been living under a rock for the past five years, education institutions are now legally obliged to snoop, confuse and grass up students they reckon are at risk to council securocrats. Find me a defence of Prevent that doesn't draw on Trojan Horse imagery.

Operation Trojan Horse saw technocrats and hacks making mincemeat exegeses of WhatsApp group messages between rudeboy types, and the common sense being constructed that all Muslim community organisation in education was suspicious and deserved destruction. While some people are always going to be as thick as pigsh!t, incompetent and/or easy tools to manipulate, the damage political opportunists have wrought with this, to other people's futures is extraordinary. Imagine that your school was colonially invaded, dragged through the mud and dumped on because of the anti Muslim arrogance and prejudice of state institutions and politicians? Now try and sit some public exams that count.

The affair consumed the reputations and educations of hundreds of mainly young Muslim people, stigmatised and scarred by the disaster, which carries the hallmarks of the collaborative skullduggery of people with professional and political axes to grind. People with life experience of such axes in school governance, local authorities, central government or politics might easily empathise with more creative explanations regarding who really wrote the Trojan Horse letter that sparked it all off.

The importance of fighting back, not rolling over and dying

Since 15th March, one of the professionals ruined by the Trojan Horse/Hoax saga, Tahir Alam, has been having his appeal heard by the Educational Tribunal at the Royal Courts of Justice against the ban imposed on him by the Education Secretary from involvement in any schools for 'Violating British Values'. Tahir Alam is widely acknowledged as a wide minded, decent, hardworking and honest educationist in the Muslim community and has done a lot to develop community engagement with education in this country. This is why his crowdjustice funding campaign has raised so much. It is widely felt that he was the primary target of the whole bureaucratic assassination operation.

The Tribunal will make public evidence and alternative understandings of the current establishment view of one of the most important political attacks on Muslim community organising in the past decade. There are a few days left until the hearing ends, Court 23 generally.

I doubt whether corporate media editors will cut their pet Muslim reporters and/or radicalisation hacks some slack on this, but I hope people of justice will take this on, just like many did in order to campaign for the release of poet Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad from supermax detention in the US.

Long term we need sophisticated, mature and distributed expertise in educational institutional development and legal defence, this tough legal-political battle is definitely a good one for learning and connecting the dots. 

 

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.