Note to Subscribers: Interested in chatting with Mehdi on Zoom TODAY? He’ll be hosting a Town Hall ‘Ask Me Anything’ where he’ll be talking about this year’s elections, voting, and taking your questions! This live online event will be at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 10pm GMT and is exclusively for paid subscribers. Please register via the link at the bottom of this email.
“In this country, four generations on, we don’t matter, we don’t belong, that we’re still othered, and that it doesn’t matter how much blood, sweat, life you give, you’re still seen as the enemy within.” — Sayeeda Warsi
Muslims don’t matter. That’s not just the reality for a lot of Muslims living in Western countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, where Islamophobia has gone mainstream in both politics and the media.
It’s also the name of a new book from Sayeeda Warsi, the British baroness and former Conservative cabinet minister, which examines her fear and heartbreak when it comes to the way in which even the perception of being a 'Muslim’ results in dehumanization and bigotry.
Mehdi recently traveled to London and sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with Baroness Warsi on the growth of Islamophobia in the US and the UK and how Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, in the wake of the Oct 7th attacks, has resulted in further hatred directed at Muslims across the globe.
The two also discuss the state of the UK’s Conservative Party with Warsi, who served as the country’s first Muslim cabinet member, recently resigning the Conservative whip, saying her party has moved too far to the Islamophobic right.
“I think that the Conservative Party's relationship with the Muslim community is deeply toxic and flawed,” Warsi tells Mehdi.
Gaza also comes up, with Warsi condemning the UK’s support for “war crimes” against the Palestinians under both Conservative and Labour governments. In 2014, Warsi quit David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government in protest over the then Israeli assault on Gaza.
Watch the full interview above, it’s a great conversation. Paid subscribers can watch the full 37-minute interview, while free subscribers can watch the first 5 minutes.
Paid subscribers: Register via the link below for today’s Town Hall with Mehdi…
