Nusrat Ghani, Islamophobe or victim of Islamophobia?

<h3><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">In light of the allegation by Conservative MP </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nusrat Ghani that she was demoted from a ministerial position on account of her “Muslimness”, CAGE Research Director Asim Qureshi considers the importance of taking into account Ghani’s own role in fostering the very climate in which Islamophobia thrives in Britain.</span></em></h3> <h3>This is an adapted version of Asim's <a href="https://twitter.com/AsimCP/status/1485922236536172546">Twitter thread</a> on the topic.</h3> &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: 400;">While it is important to pay attention to the reason why Nusrat Ghani was removed from her position, it is equally important to remind ourselves of who she is and the views she subscribes to. </span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Almost a year ago to the day of her expose, she wrote </span><a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/commentary-william-shawcross-must-put-fight-against-non-violent-extremist-ideology-at-the-heart-of-what-prevent-does/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">this piece</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> for the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Ostensibly, the piece is a defence of the government's appointment of William Shawcross as the independent reviewer of the Prevent strategy - but the comment piece tells us much more about Ghani's understanding of Islamophobia, beyond her particular experience.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">To begin with, the fact that she is ok with being published by Policy Exchange Exchange – of which she is a</span><a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/author/nusratghani/"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Senior Fellow</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> - is in itself a problem, as the think tank regularly spews racist and Islamophobic content. It's not the platform any decent person should be using to air their views, let alone a Muslim. </span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Ghani praises Shawcross for his time at the Charity Commission, despite there being a wealth of information about how his tenure there resulted in the specific </span><a href="https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/commission-unfairly-targets-muslim-charities--says-think-tank.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">targeting of Muslim charities</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Presenting a defence of Shawcross cannot simply be ignored, because as </span><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/shawcross-prevent-role-tories-latest-salvo-culture-war-against-muslims"><span style="font-weight: 400;">detailed by Peter Oborne</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Shawcross has been deployed to defend all manner of unconscionable programmes that target Muslims, including indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay and torture</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/shawcross-prevent-role-tories-latest-salvo-culture-war-against-muslims"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Ghani cites a CREST Advisory report on Prevent while failing to mention that CREST Advisory is the go-to research body for the security agencies. As </span><a href="https://www.cage.ngo/survey-on-prevent-attempts-to-prop-up-failing-policy-by-manufacturing-muslim-support"><span style="font-weight: 400;">CAGE has detailed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the questionnaire was rigged from the start to provide cover for the strategy.</span><a href="https://www.cage.ngo/survey-on-prevent-attempts-to-prop-up-failing-policy-by-manufacturing-muslim-support"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Ghani's position in criticising China on their oppression of the Uyghur population entirely obfuscates the extent to which Prevent in the UK was exported to the Chinese state as a ready-made product that they could build on.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">In the Policy Exchange piece, Ghani also attempts to shift the boundaries of who is dangerous to the UK by presenting caricatures of Muslims. According to her, the new 'dangerous type' is the one who wears a suit and talks about human rights/social justice. </span> <blockquote><span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thus, if the archetypal radicaliser in the first decade after 9/11 was the almost pantomime figure of Abu Hamza with his eye-patch, hook hands and wild rhetoric; his counterpart in the last ten years was likely to be smartly dressed, soft-spoken and to mouth platitudes about social justice and human rights.”</span></blockquote> <span style="font-weight: 400;">One can only imagine whom she has in mind.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> focus on ideology is so outdated and </span><a href="https://www.cage.ngo/product/the-science-of-pre-crime-report"><span style="font-weight: 400;">so well deconstructed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that there is almost no point in doing so further. There is literally no useful science that supports this proposition, but she reiterated it because that's the easiest way to criminalise large proportions of Muslim activism.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Eventually we get to the point of Ghani's article, which is to target FOSIS, MEND, MCB and CAGE as being somehow subversive. It's worth noting here how she deploys her own Muslimness in order to Other-ise these groups.</span> <blockquote><span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Just as the Prevent Review in 2011 called out the student group FOSIS, we should be prepared to name groups like Cage, MEND, or the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), and say that such organisations should not be misconstrued as representatives of all Muslims (we aren’t one monolithic group – controversial I know) or “critical friends”, or offered a seat at the table.”</span></blockquote> This should also be seen in light of her statements in 2018, where she used the fact of being Muslim to deflect then-mounting accusations of Islamophobia in her party, and calls for an inquiry. In <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/nusrat-ghani-i-was-expected-to-marry-young-and-live-in-social-housing-i-never-expected-to-be-a-member-of-parliament">her words</a> <blockquote>"[It's] not the experiences that I have. I mentor dozens of candidates, whether they’re council or parliamentarian. I’m always keen to try and get people involved in politics – and for me it’s not about their faith or their heritage."</blockquote> <span style="font-weight: 400;">So there is a quandary here. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the one hand is the fact that Ghani is someone who was willing to deploy her Muslimness while a serving MP to harm other Muslims. At the same time, regardless of what one might feel about her as a person, it is the essential “Muslimness” she holds that led to her being sacked.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">As Dr Khadijah Elshayyal has </span><a href="https://twitter.com/DrKElshayyal/status/1485684974720364549"><span style="font-weight: 400;">written on this very subject</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, regardless of how obnoxious one may find someone, justice dictates that we understand this moment in a wider context of Islamophobia that Muslims face:</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Ultimately, we all lose when we accept the oppression of one person. You don't have to express any form of sympathy and solidarity for the person, but all moments of injustice have to be reckoned with.</span> &nbsp; <em>Image used courtesy of <a href="https://www.nusghani.org.uk/news/nusrat-ghani-speaks-policy-exchange-event">Nus Ghani</a></em>