Institutionalised Islamophobia as the legacy of the Trojan Horse Affair
Beyond the immediate benefit of its vital and much-needed information, the NYT Trojan Horse podcast has revealed several observations. Indeed, the podcast highlighted the complexities underlying the Trojan Horse debacle, discussing the main characters implicated and set aside at the conclusion of the process. However, the backlash against the podcast has been interesting, particularly in how it has sought to attack the very idea that there was no problem at all. Rather, there was, in fact, something suspicious going on in the city at the time, and it was a dangerous situation that was rightly exposed by the investigations. This liberal, or neoconservative, pushback, I suggest, reproduces the Islamophobia and institutionalised racism that were at the heart of the initial sets of concerns.
This response is a contributing factor to the difficulties that arose in the first place. Too much of the reporting has been London-centric and conducted by self-selected journalists. Well-documented is Michael Gove’s historical defence of his own theories of the Trojan Horse takeover by Islamists, as described in his 2007 book Celsius 7/7. But the efforts taken to investigate a number of schools run counter to the popular perception that the initial letter was a fake. It was not that no one wanted to call it into question, because it had been done locally and extensively, but with journalists like Andrew Gilligan, who wrote eleven articles for the Telegraph emphasising the urgency of an apparent Islamist takeover, and others willing to jump on this issue because it served the sensationalist dynamic that sells well, it did not seem to matter if the letter was fake or not. The truth is that far too many individuals were unconcerned about the impact it would have on young Muslims.
I remember these schools from the 1980s because I went to one in Small Heath, which, like many others, reeked of failure, ineptitude, and mismanagement. In the 1990s, before all the changes, I was researching these same institutions for my doctoral thesis. By the late 1990s, professional Muslims aspired to change everything in these failing inner-city schools. They succeeded. This accomplishment, however, was too much for the racist class system. And much too much for a booming counter-terrorism sector that sought mainly to de-radicalise Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7. And, as we now know, this entire Trojan Horse plot story became a forerunner to the Prevent Duty, which is one of the most pernicious Islamophobic policies ever devised, despite recent attempts to justify it by claiming that it is relevant to the growing threat from the far right — a post-hoc justification. And now, the liberal intelligentsia has blown it up all again. And thus lies the crux of the problem: far too many individuals not only do not care but personally benefit from distancing themselves from it all to actively support the goals of the Islamophobic counter-terror state. There is that dreadful odour of ‘well, there must still be something going on… we know what these Muslims are capable of… just look at what they symbolise’ bunkum that is repeatedly spouted.
This problem continues to polarise relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Former anonymous teachers who worked at these schools speak out about safeguarding and the governing body’s bullying tactics. But these claims are not made openly, and so it is difficult to know anything for sure. Muslim women’s groups argue that young women in schools were forced to segregate themselves and wear headscarves to avoid being scrutinised. This, too, is an after-the-fact rationalisation. Gender segregation occurs in many schools, and research shows that these schools outperform others in terms of educational achievement. Muslim activists emphasise that institutionalised racism and Islamophobia are inextricably linked, but this is not only about the Trojan Horse Affair. The latter delves further into history, namely the late 1980s and the Rushdie Affair. The subject of whether fundamentalist Muslim males were pushing anti-women legislation and practises is portrayed more forcefully than the actuality. Going back to my research in the mid-1990s, I witnessed Muslim parents in Birmingham encourage their schools to introduce the possibility of their daughters wearing headscarves to reinforce a sense of identity and to create a safe distance between them and the hypertoxic masculinity of young boys who were running amok in the very same schools, and this was long before the Trojan Horse scandal.
Parents wanted this, and Muslim governors were chosen in part to fulfil their wishes. The governing bodies, consisting of distinct types of Muslim leadership, made it happen at a rapid speed, and with it came a fundamental increase in educational standards and performance, which was what the parents desired and what the schools became proud of and celebrated for. The schools were following all the rules. After all the investigations and hearings, just one individual was found guilty of not respecting standards and was barred from serving on any governing body ever again. This was a political decision directed at the plot’s alleged main motivator. Without this one erroneous conviction, the entire affair would have gone down in history as one of Britain’s worst incidence of systemic racism. The fact that, in part, the New York Times podcast not only exonerates but also portrays this individual as having succeeded in his capacity is crucial to much of the liberal-conservative response.
The Trojan Home Affair became a landmark event for British Muslims and their relationship with the state, but there remain unanswered problems. What has been obvious since then is that divides are widening. This is due, in part, to a rising distrust between British Muslims and the state, but it also reflects the battle lines that British Muslims create between themselves. According to some, the Trojan Horse Affair is the Dreyfuss affair for British Muslims. The reality is that institutionalised racism and Islamophobia have been in the making for over three decades — and this will continue in earnest as it divides, separates, and polarises on many different levels — but what is also clear is that the same British Muslims who are living in some of the worst social and economic conditions, excluded from society and politics, will continue to be a kicking ball, not just for ‘progressive’ Muslims but for parts of the liberal majority who have never seen these spaces and have no intention of ever doing so.
