Bradford In Our Own Words  Resisting Counter Extremism Apparatus
Channel: JKTV Live
Date: 01/07/2019

Following last week’s revelations that the Bradford Literature Festival has accepted funding from the Home Office’s Counter Extremism program ‘Building a Stronger Britain Together’ (BSBT), at least 11 speakers scheduled to speak at the event have pulled out.

Counter Extremism covers a broad range of state practices, which have been built off the back of CONTEST (the government’s counter-terrorism strategy which includes the PREVENT agenda and Schedule 7). What they all have in common is their disproportionate focus on Muslims, criminalising an entire community, and developing an entire repressive apparatus build on thought-crimes and discrimination. 

We refuse to legitimise the Counter Extremism apparatus that sees us as suspect individuals and communities. We refuse to be paid by an event that has been funded (irregardless of whether in part or in full) by the programs that target and harm us and others. We refuse to facilitate a project that believes communities like Bradford’s only deserve to access literature, art and creativity through the lens of policing or deradicalisation. 

As well as no longer participating in BLF, the speakers - alongside activists, students, trade unions, and individuals from the Bradford community who support their decision - have decided to hold an alternative event on Sunday 30th June- ‘Bradford in our own words: resisting the counter extremism apparatus’.

This event is about opening up the conversation around how we resist the normalisation of the CE agenda. How do we collaborate to not only condemn but refuse and work against the CT infrastructure? How do we reject the criminalisation and targeting of our communities and build inclusive spaces of resistance and liberation? How do we reclaim our right to think, to act, and to speak up outside of intellectual and physical boundaries set by the state? 

We refuse to believe that highlighting the problem IS the problem. Bradford’s communities deserve to enjoy literature, art and culture free from the criminalising eye of the state. Muslims deserve more than having to choose between the arts or their community’s safety. 

Come along to discuss the destructive effect of the Counter Extremism Agenda and how we take it on. Also hear about some of the topics that many of the writers and performers have written on. 
All welcome.

Speakers include:

Afia Ahmed, writer and contributor to It’s Not About The Burqa, educator and researcher

Faiz Ilyas, Bradford University Students’ Union Student Affairs Officer 
   
Hussein Kesvani- author of Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims

Lowkey-Hip-Hop artist & activist 

Malia Bouattia-activist & contributor to Its Not About the Burqa

Maria Battul- University of Bradford Students’s Union Women’s Officer

Moazzam Begg, CAGE Outreach Director 

Piers Telemacque-community activist

Samayya Afzal-community activist & writer 

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan- writer, poet & educator 

Sadia Habib:  Academic & Writer, Riz Test 

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