With the anniversary of the Christchurch Mosque attack approaching, and following Brexit, is the Muslim community in the UK living in fear? s the United Kingdom faces a post-Brexit reality spurred by an unprecedented rise in support for radical right populist parties, I interviewed Imam Saleem Hussain from Medina Mosque in Southampton, to gain an… Continue reading “Conversation with an Imam: being Muslim in Post-Brexit UK”
The evidence that Jussie Smollett staged his attack is overwhelming, but it doesn’t detract from the fact very few hate crimes are hoaxes. It highlights it. Earlier this month, actor Jussie Smollett, whose claims a year before that he had been attacked by homophobic, racist Trump supporters caused a brief media firestorm, was indicted on… Continue reading “Why Prosecuting Jussie Smollett Is Important”
In the first CARR Research Insight, Mark Potok considers the resurgence of the radical right in the United States. This piece explores this resurgence in the context of ethnic and racial hatred and political backlash against multiculturalism. Turning to the radical right in the early 20th century, Potok provides an overview of a long history of ethnic and racial hatred. He argues that Donald… Continue reading “CARR Research Insight Series: Two Americas: The Radical Right, Then and Now”
My new book, “Reconfiguring Islamophobia: a radical rethinking of a contested concept” (Palgrave Macmillan) marks a decade since the publication of my first book on the topic (“Islamophobia”, Ashgate). Through the lens afforded by the phenomenon of Islamophobia, it is an understatement to suggest that much has changed in that decade. For instance, it was… Continue reading “Reconfiguring Islamophobia and the Radical Right: a decade in retrospect”
Within the context of our policies for Integration, Hate Crime and the Prevention of terrorism, do we need a “Hateful” Extremism policy at all? In October the results of the Extremism Commission’s review of the Extremism Strategy were published. The “Challenging Hateful Extremism” report is critical of the Government’s approach to countering extremism thus far… Continue reading “The UK’s “Hateful Extremism” report: more muddled thinking on an already over-crowded pitch”
Lack of reporting and coordination between federal and local law enforcement are just some of the challenges with tracking hate crimes like anti-Semitism. The Halle synagogue shooting in Germany, which occurred on October 9th, 2019, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, serves as a tragic reminder that anti-Semitism among the radical right often directly… Continue reading “Unquantified Prejudice: The Challenges Of Tracking Hate Crimes”
The UK education system has, since the statutorisation of Prevent, been legally obliged to both nurture ‘resilient’ students and refer those whose resilience has been or is at risk of being eroded. Resilience being understood as the ability to ‘bounce back from adversity’, or in other words, being able to both reject and remove oneself… Continue reading “A Case for Making Students Resilient to the Far-Right?”
What does the latest data say about the prevalence of hate crimes across Canada and online? On July 22, Statistics Canada, the agency tasked with producing statistics to help better understand all aspects of Canadian life ranging from population growth to resources to culture, released the new national crime data for 2018. The study, which… Continue reading “Putting Canada’s Hate Crime Data in Context”
On July 10, 2019, a landmark BBC Panorama investigation documenting the Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis aired in the United Kingdom. The report primarily highlighted cases where member criticisms of Israel and Zionism by Party members had crossed the line into bigotry and racism. Jeremy Corbyn and his allies in Labour are now being probed by… Continue reading “Israel in the Eyes of the Contemporary Right”
Anti-Muslim hate crime, which spikes following terror attacks, is inextricably intertwined with racism. This article has been difficult to write because I was hoping that, in 2019, I would not need to start talking about international terrorism and how it can impact the streets of Britain. Instead, we are focusing on the terrible events that happened… Continue reading “Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Is a New Form of Racism”