Author: Tehmina Kazi

When Protected Characteristics Collide

Published by Tehmina Kazi

This weekend, the city of Birmingham hosted a dazzling array of colourful floats, sparkling costumes, and groups bearing a message of love and equality as part of its annual celebration of Gay Pride. However, in an unprecedented move, this particular march was led by LGBT Muslims. Often subjected to discrimination and ostracisation by their own religious communities, and shunned by certain sections of wider LGBT communities for adhering to any form of religion, LGBT Muslims are in a bind. Some people even maintain that the term is an oxymoron. Yet it is precisely young Muslims—who might be experiencing profound questions about their sexuality or identity, and torn between two different sets of expectations—who have the most to lose as a result of the LGBT schools row engulfing the city. It was therefore encouraging to see them front Gay Pride this year, alongside someone who has done more for equality and diversity than 99 percent of the UK population: Andrew Moffat, Assistant Headteacher of Parkfield Community School. In 2017, Moffatt was awarded an MBE, and subsequently …

Why Charlie Hebdo Was Right to Address the Brussels Attacks

Published by Tehmina Kazi

Once again, satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo has received significant opprobrium – much of it unjustified — for its recent editorial on the Brussels attacks. Posing the question “How did we end up here?” the editorial was a paean to secularism. It bemoaned the average French citizen’s inability to challenge religious fundamentalism in their day-to-day lives, an inability attributed to fear and political correctness. It described the Brussels attacks as “merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed,” the invisible part being widespread hesitance to ask hard questions about Islamic apologism, veiling, a refusal to sell ham sandwiches in a bakery, or why so many young terrorists go through a phase of being ostensibly irreligious. One would hope the publication would be lauded for asking serious questions about fundamentalism, free speech and the place of religion in society. Generally speaking, this has not been the case. Brookings Institute fellow Shadi Hamid tweeted that the editorial was “remarkably bigoted.” On Facebook, Teju Cole, a Nigerian-American writer, drew comparisons with the treatment of Jews in Europe …