Does Radical Islam and Harry Potter Have This in Common?
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Author and peace activist Maajid Nawaz argues that we too often treat radical Islam with kid gloves. While our good intentions make us sensitive to the Muslim faith, and keep us from labeling its violent members as radical practitioners, it does society a disservice.
Odd as the comparison may sound at first, it’s the same disservice that members of the Hogwarts community do by refusing to mention Voldemort’s name. By refusing to label him, they prevent an open and honest discussion from taking place about possible solutions. And that is where Muggle society finds itself today in regards to radical Islam.
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MAAJID NAWAZ:
Maajid Usman Nawaz is 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 co-founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists.
Nawaz is a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. This association led to his arrest in Egypt in December 2001, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. Reading books on human rights and interacting with Amnesty International, which adopted him as a prisoner of conscience, resulted in a change of heart. This led Nawaz to leave Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounce his Islamist past and call for a “Secular Islam.”
After his turnaround, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former radical Islamists, including Ed Husain. He documented his life story in his Amazon bestselling autobiography Radical (2012). Since then, he has risen to become a prominent critic of Islamism in the United Kingdom. He is a regular op-ed contributor, debater and public commenter, and has spoken from various international platforms including the TED conference. He presented his views on radicalisation in front of US Senate Committee and UK Home Affairs Committee in their respective inquiries on the roots of radical extremism.
Nawaz is proficient in three languages: English, Urdu and Arabic. He is a weekly columnist for The Daily Beast, and had his writings published in various international newspapers including New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Mail and Wall Street Journal. He has made appearances on programmes including, but not limited to, Larry King Live, BBC Hard Talk, Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Newsnight and Real Time with Bill Maher. He has delivered lectures at LSE and University of Liverpool, and has given talks at UK Defence Academy and Marshall Center for Security Studies.
In June 2014, Nawaz became an honorary associate of the National Secular Society which was founded in 1866. His second book Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015), co-authored with American neuroscientist Sam Harris, was published in October 2015.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Maajid Nawaz: These people that I refer to as the subsection of the left I refer to as the regressive left have good intentions. I recognize that. I also recognize that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I think it’s important to understand that I am a Muslim. I’m born and raised a Muslim and every single grievance that my fellow well-intentioned liberals are worried about that a Muslim may have, I have experienced. They worry about racism. I’ve had Neo-Nazis come at me with hammers and knives and machetes. I’ve had to watch friends stabbed before my eyes — friends had hammers put to their heads. I’ve seen all of this growing up. I’ve witnessed this and I’ve experienced it. They’re worried about the war on terror. Well I’ve been a victim of the war on terror. I’ve witnessed torture in an Egyptian jail. I’ve been interned without charge and eventually I’ve been a prisoner of conscience adopted by Amnesty International. They’re worried about profiling at airports. I’ve had my DNA taken from me forcibly without my consent. I’ve had my right to silence taken from me under British war and terror laws. Everything they’re worried about, I’ve had happen to me. And I say this therefore from a place that is concerned about these civil liberties issues for Muslims because I’ve suffered them myself.
And when I say to these well-intentioned regressive leftists is that you’re good intentions in not having this conversation, not differentiating Islamism, Islamist extremism, the ideology briefly summarized as the desire to enforce a version of Islam over society ……
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