Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Usman Nawazis a British activist, author, columnist and politician. He was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 general election. He is also the founding chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionActivist
debates exchange fear longer programmes ridicule schools shut themes
Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence.
cannot extremism hope online
We cannot hope to effectively counter extremism if we just focus on schools, universities and prisons: we need to take this online as well.
appeal attention competing failure grasp narratives
There has been a failure to grasp how competing narratives fight for the attention of angry young Muslims, and we have grossly underestimated the appeal of the jihadist brand.
banks civil contrary cover expect faces identify islam nor rest teachings women
Yes, women should be free to cover their faces when walking down the street. But in our schools, hospitals, airports, banks and civil institutions, it is not unreasonable - nor contrary to the teachings of Islam - to expect women to show the one thing that allows the rest of us to identify them... namely, their face.
anymore close dear family fell immediate marriage members simply talking
There are members - very, very close and dear members - of my family - I'm talking immediate family - who simply don't speak to me anymore and haven't done so for years. My marriage fell apart.
expressing
Expressing myself through language was always something that I had had to learn to do more so than others.
symbol
The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides.
breaking feed hard hateful islamists seemed
De-radicalisation begins by breaking down the logic which once seemed unassailable and rethinking what you are fighting for and why. That is hard to do when Islamists and Islamophobes feed off each other's hateful cliches.
citizens communal express identities instead muslims public religious themselves wish
Not all Muslims wish to express themselves in public through a communal religious identity. Identities are multiple, and some may wish to speak instead just as citizens in their professional capacity, through their political party, or their neighborhood body.
best democratic
The best revolutions are unplanned, and the most democratic are leaderless.
america invade iraq iraqis money
America did not invade Iraq because Iraqis are Muslims. Oil, money, economic interests. Who knows? But it was not because Iraqis are Muslims.
All my friends were non-Muslims. I actually knew very little about Islam - like, very little.
Academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them.
among societies
Societies should be judged by how they treat the weakest among them.