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Islamophobia in the National Health Service, an ethnography of institutional racism in PREVENT's counter‐radicalisation policy: A Summary

12/20/2019

I am very delighted to share the main output of my work of the last few years: Islamophobia in the National Health Service: an ethnography of institutional racism in PREVENT's counter‐radicalisation policy. My research focus has been: how is prejudice towards Muslims legitimised through policies in healthcare? How can we understand and operationalise institutional racism? You can find the article link here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9566.13047

This is empirical work which connects policy, Prevent training and actual Prevent referrals. The purpose is to operationalise Islamophobia as a systemic issue BEYOND overt verbal and physical abuse (hate crime). The key term I would like to bridge in to policies in the War on Terror, especially as we enter 2020, is colour-blindness. I explain how gov efforts to mitigate Islamophobia by pushing CVE towards ‘far-right’ or employing more Muslims doesn’t help—it makes things worse. The paper is unfortunately not open access but do let me know if you’d like to read it. This is a post summarising its content, and I explain its significance given the recent UK election results.

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Politicising Muslim Mental Health

5/24/2019

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Muslim Mental Health (MMH) is on the rise, its ascent driven by a growing awareness that Muslims must finally take mental illness more seriously. Such is a viewpoint not only shared by a growing number of Muslim grassroots movements, but increasingly recognized by the upper echelons of the health industry. The purpose of this post is not to unpack what MMH is or how it should look - though this is important - but rather to propose an element which MMH cannot deny: the political context of MMH. To explain, let me preface this discussion by summarizing how, in my estimation, our (grassroots organizations, health institutions, etc.) desire to ‘improve MMH’ boils down to two, interrelated objectives: cultural sensitivity and stigma reduction.

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The risk of our children inheriting our anxiety

5/23/2017

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I was told many things about parenting, but two thoughts are often missing. First, you’ll see time fly. Yes, time always flies, but now it eats and poops and says new words, and then poops again, gets bigger, and learns something new. Then the day is gone, and the next day ushers more novelty unlike the days before. Before becoming a father, there was a casual monotony in my everyday that made any of the last ten years seem indistinguishable. Sometimes I can’t tell if a memory belongs to 2006 or 2013. But now time is encapsulated in a small but growing body; a recall trick that reminds me exactly what year it is by association of its temporal embodiment. A good reminder that we are all creatures of time.

The second realization was how terribly easy it is to hand down our anxieties to our children. This process resembles how children are socialised to associate emotions to various situations. If I, the father, have a fear of spiders, my reaction is appropriated by my two-year old who's scanning my face to emulate a response and decipher its meaning. Though temperament will undoubtedly factor in the child’s reaction, I fear parents (or caregivers) may belittle the fact that they are the physical embodiment of their children’s sense of security - always and everywhere.

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Islamophobia in the National Health Service, an ethnography of institutional racism in PREVENT's counter‐radicalisation policy: A Summary

Politicising Muslim Mental Health

The risk of our children inheriting our anxiety

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