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
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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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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.
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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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To be forced to defend oneself is an inherently undesirable position to be in. The focus shifts from ideas to the person conveying them.
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To suggest that a Muslim cannot think for himself sounds to me very much like an incident of anti-Muslim bigotry.
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Being veterans of the struggle to push back against fundamentalist Christians, American liberals are well acquainted with the pitfalls of the neoconservative flirtation with the religious-right.
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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.
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Expressing myself through language was always something that I had had to learn to do more so than others.
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Broader social concerns within Muslim communities, such as discrimination, integration or socio-economic disadvantages, should be treated distinctively and not as part of counterterrorism agenda, which has been counter-productive.
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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.
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I have founded Khudi, in Pakistan, a youth movement which tries to counter extremist ideology through healthy discussion and debate.
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My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.
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My feminism, as intended by me, extends to empowering women to make legal choices, not to judge the legal choices they make. My fight is for rights.
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Neoconservatism had the philosophy that you go in with a supply-led approach to impose democratic values from the top down. Whereas Islamists and far-right organizations, for decades, have been building demand for their ideology on the grassroots.