Condemnations are futile and dehumanising
Book Review: I Refuse to Condemn – Asim Qureshi
I Refuse to Condemn is a love letter to the Muslim youth of this country, to those who have grown up with their minds shaped and fears created by a post 9/11 world. A world in which expressions of religiosity are problematised, political agency stifled and the ability to dissent translated into source of criminal suspicion.
The book is introduced with Asim Qureshi’s reflection of an interview he had with John Snow, in which the latter demanded a condemnation from his interviewee. The chapter goes on to relay the hurt and shock that this specific moment caused, which Qureshi powerfully reminisces “that night he changed my physiology forever”¹. When I think of this demand for condemnation, to me, it’s emblematic of so much more.
Firstly, the confusion and sadness, exacerbated by the sheer unexpectedness of it, is an all too familiar feeling that ethnic minorities and Muslims are often faced with on a somewhat regular basis. It is the reminder, that comes every so often, that the countries we reside in, hold governments that designate minorities as suspect communities in which citizenship is both conditional and precarious, whether that comes in the form of Brexit, the Windrush scandal or the ceremonious stripping of citizenship. It is a reflection of the demand that requires ethnic minorities to be eternally grateful for whatever pittance they are thrown and to make the case for their own humanity, reifying the McCarthyist notion “condemn, or be condemned”². It is the demand that requires you to disprove your inherent guilt, reflected by the fact that minority groups make up 78% of those stopped under Schedule 7, as recounted in Lowkey’s chapter.
As majority of the Muslim world fell under European colonial rule by the end 19th century, it is easy to see how the ‘othering’ of minorities, particularly of Muslims, is a historically rooted practice that is neither accidental nor regretted. It is an act of political expediency, for without the advent of racial hierarchies and the ‘othering’ of racialised peoples, could colonialist “discovery”, denials of indigineity, mass surveillance, neoliberal wars and genocide be possible. It is not a mere coincidence that while austerity measures are brought into place, public spending is cut, unemployment rises, a distraction towards the “other” is invoked. As historian Eric Hobspawn opined “there is no more effective way of bonding together the disparate sections of restless peoples than to unite them against outsiders”
Each chapter is a deeply personal take on resistance from the perspective of each author. A theme throughout is that, in actuality, condemnation is futile and dehumanising. Despite the plethora of condemnations that ensue in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, Muslims in the UK continue to be victim to disproportionate surveillance and criminalisation. Government legislation such as Prevent, that targets the Muslim community, continues to exist with impunity, and acts as a means to further entrench the marginality of British Muslims. The appointment of openly Islamophobic William Shawcross as the independent reviewer of Prevent is evident of this state sponsored racism and Islamophobia as well as the quiet expansion of Prevent by Priti Patel.
The surveillance and criminalisation of Muslims comes under the rhetoric of integration and public safety/security, to protect the rest of the population from the backward “other”. Whilst the strength and subsequent fear induced by the securitisation narrative is not unsurprising considering that it exists outside democratic processes and above the rule of law, the reality is that these narratives are often invoked as a means of perpetuating racism and dehumanising practices. As Nadya Ali writes in her chapter “they will try to tell you it’s not about racism. They will use other words like “security” and “integration” to hide the truth. Don’t believe them”³. As Malcolm X often spoke about, prejudice and discrimination frequently comes disguised in the language of integration.
For me, this book was such a necessary read, and I am more than grateful that it exists. It has allowed me to reflect on the deliberately orchestrated narratives that have come to shape Muslims in this country, and even across the world. The War on Terror narrative is a narrative that exists to instil fear, self censor and silence dissenters whilst criminalising an entire community as if they are one monolithic bloc. This book was a reminder that these fears are not natural; they were intentionally manufactured by states to serve a purpose, and therefore require unlearning.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/3zKMKGR
¹ Qureshi A, I Refuse to Condemn (Manchester University Press 2020) 3
² ibid 41
³ ibid 165
