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
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.
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The British state already invests in early intervention campaigns in drug abuse and sexual health. Challenging extremism should be no less of a priority.
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As people's opportunities to succumb to confirmation bias increases online - only seeking out information that confirms their prejudices - ignorance, extremism and close-mindedness have continued to rise unabated.
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Non-violent extremism is essentially the increase of intolerant and bigoted demands made by groups seeking to dominate society.
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The way to tackle Muslimphobia is to tackle prejudice against Muslims. What it is not is to pretend that Islamist extremism does not exist.
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The fact is that there is a serious problem of extremism with minority groups within Muslim communities.
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Increased sympathy for an Islamist cause, lack of integration, and the absence of acceptance of Muslims into British society makes it harder for Muslims to challenge Islamism and tough for non-Muslims to understand it.
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In current times, our moral uproar is best reserved for those who aspire to stone men or women to death, not those who consensually watch women - or men, for that matter - dance.
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In Bosnia, the case was there were white, blond-haired, blue-eyed Muslims who were being slaughtered and identified as Muslims. That really touched me.
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The best revolutions are unplanned, and the most democratic are leaderless.
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I joined a radical group at the age of 16 because I'm a passionate man; the good news is that I turned myself around since then. But my character is still quite free and passionate.
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If liberalism is to mean anything at all, it is duty bound to support without hesitation the dissenting individual over the group, the heretic over the orthodox, innovation over stagnation, and free speech over offense.
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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.
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The Islamist ideology took decades to incubate within our communities, and it will take decades to debunk.