Open Discussions
in association with
Gulf Cultural Club
invites you to a Discussion titled:
Muslims in Britain
Citizenship, inclusion and integration
Speakers
*Abdool Karim Vakil (Lecturer at King’s College)
** Ifath Nawaz (Chair, Legal Affairs Committee, MCB)
While the emergence of Muslim communities and Muslim civic and political participation across Europe has largely shared the trajectories and struggles of other ethnic and racialised groups, their histories are often cast as religious stories apart, and their present belonging and citizenship held as conditional and exceptional within debates largely framed around integration and security.
Critical discussions, in turn, have either largely focused on the question of negative representations and the role of the media, or on the role of the far right, Muslim experiences of violence and harassment, or of prejudice and discrimination. From different directions, political Left and Muslim critical voices point to the problems of state multiculturalism, communitarianism, and identity politics, while conservative and Liberal opinion champion British values and identity.
What alternative stories might we narrate? How have Muslims engaged citizenship in ways that mobilise different conceptions of identity and belonging? What constraints and predicaments map current challenges and opportunities?
6.30pm, Tuesday, 5th March 2019
Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, W1H 4LP
* AbdoolKarim Vakil is Lecturer in Contemporary History in the departments of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies and History at King’s College London. He is co-editor with S. Sayyid of Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives (2010) and co-author of Moçambique: Memória Falada do Islão e da Guerra (2011), an archival and oral history exploration of Portuguese colonial and counterinsurgency policies towards Muslims during the decolonisation war in Mozambique. His research interests have ranged over Portuguese intellectual and cultural history, nationalism and national identity, Islamophobia and the comparative history of contemporary Muslim communities in Europe, and is currently involved with ReOrient: the Journal of Critical Muslim Studies. AbdoolKarim has been academic advisor to Muslim organisations in Portugal and the UK.
** Ifath Nawaz is a solicitor with over 25 years’ experience in the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom specialising in planning, environment and national infrastructure work and is heading the Planning Team at Setfords Solicitors in London. She was and was one of the founding members of the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML), President of the AML from 2002 – 2011 and Vice President until 2016. As a senior member of the organisation she played a key role in representing the organisation in the Citizens UK’s Commission on Islam, Participation in Public Life and the 2017 report “The Missing Muslims – Unlocking British Muslim Potential for the Benefit of All”, presenting workshop in 2014 at the Oman Message Conference on Freedom, Human Rights and types, being a member of the London Strategic Partnership on Hate Crimes and previous member of Hate Crimes Scrutiny Panel Thames Valley and Deputy Convenor of the working groups on Policy and National Security on the Government Taskforce, Preventing Extremism Together 2005.
Admission is Free. Please register for catering purposes – email: d05sa@yahoo.co.uk or text 07795 660 438
