Thread by @AsimCP

🧵 (will limit spoilers) Was really happy to hear @HamzaMSyed get agitated about the impact of the Trojan Horse hoax, particularly when confronting an interviewee who was blasé on the consequences. I wanted to write this thread to make visible the severe consequences #trojanhorse

The revelations were a full-spectrum assault on the Muslim community in the UK. It is worth thinking through how this was felt across different sectors. First of all, it was made public in the media, the chosen journalists being Richard Kerbaj and Sian Griffiths.

The journalists are fed the fake letter in 2014. It is interesting to note about Kerbaj, that he seems to be regularly given access to material from sources close to government that target Muslims in one way or another. I have been a target of his dog-whistling myself in the past

Perhaps more importantly than focusing on the role of Kerbaj and Griffiths alone, it was more telling that the liberal media did nothing to question the letter at the heart of the controversy. Rather they perpetuated a government-led narrative as if it was all without question.

Immediately, the most important impact on the communities was that on the students, teachers, governors and the community. They were placed under a racist microscope that created layers of trauma that until this day cannot be truly accounted for

I remember the days well because friends of mine who taught in the school could not believe how their lives had been turned around. In the case of one former student, she told me that she does not name Park View as the school she studied at on her CV due to the stigma.

The Guardian eventually got around to reporting on the difficulties students were facing 4 months later, but even then they continued to uncritically regurgitate the official narrative, citing those accused of Islamophobia like Khalid Mahmood: theguardian.com/politics/2014/…

The other aspect of this was the community having to live with the kind of dehumanising language that was regularly being used about Muslims. Michael Gove famously referring to 'draining the swamp' of extremism in communications with the Home Office

Muslims close to the government were rolled out en masse in order to provide legitimacy to the government's claims without having done any work with the communties. First Sara Khan wrote this terrible piece: telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/…

10 days later Usama Hasan of the discredited Quilliam Foundation wrote in The Guardian in a similar vein, trying to write a former insider perspective, but only to repeat unfounded tropes about Muslims, but in particular giving credit to the Clarke report: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

As is made clear in the podcast, the myths that were perpetuated by the various individuals have never been taken to task. The Daily Mail printed a piece with claims by Mohammed Zabar of various Islamisation of his daughter's school, only for much of it to turn out false.

Again,it is difficult to quantify the significance of having narratives within the mainstream that are penned by Muslims who play an obsequious role in perpetuating the structural racism of the system. If nothing else, many Muslims felt that they could not own their own narrative

In terms of framing, the very fact of the investigation into the Trojan Horse letter being led by a former counter-terrorism in itself became central to how the entire community felt it was under suspicion of being dangerous and subversive.

One year on from the Kerbaj article, the real significance of the Trojan Horse began to be felt. In March 2015, the Home Secretary announced the Extremism Analysis Unit, a database that monitors Muslims in the UK without any process and in secret theguardian.com/politics/2015/…

The Extremism Analysis Unit is important, because the information that is fed to the them comes from Islamophobic think tanks such as the Henry Jackson Society. The unit was formed directly due to the Trojan Horse Affair. @UK_CAGE wrote on this here: cage.ngo/product/blackl…

By September 2016, the myth of the Trojan Horse had become deeply embedded in Prevent-thought. A document from Tower Hamlets evidences how terrorism police, Prevent and Birmingham city councillors were willing to export the lie to other parts of the UK: democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.…

Rather than dealing with the lies of the Trojan Horse affair they restate its internal truth 2 years later. The document only acknowledges that the name should stop being used because of its negative impact on communities.

Again three years on, the organisation that advises the Extremism Analysis Unit which keeps files on Muslims in the UK, reiterates the Trojan Horse Affair as a guiding moment for a counter-extremism strategy in the UK: henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/upl…

Even Jonthan Hall QC, charged with reviewing counter-terrorism laws in the UK, does not question the use of Trojan Horse, but rather reiterates its significance as late as 2020: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Ultimately the point is that within the law, media and political arenas, the myth of the Trojan Horse plot established an embedded racism and discrimination against Muslims that was built almost entirely on that moment. The impact was and continues to be severe.

I forgot to add Nusrat Ghani's role in all of this too. It's important for the record in light of recent controversies around her own experience with Islamophobia: parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/nusrat-ghan…