MOTION RECASE April 14, 2023

THBT THE WEST SHOULD INVEST DOMESTICALLY IN SCHOOLS THAT PROVIDE

ALTERNATIVE PROGRESSIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGIOUS TEXT TO
COMBAT RADICALISM

Transcript of Doxbridge Worlds 2021 West Round 4

Link: (114) Doxbridge Worlds 2021 West Round 4 - YouTube

Prime Minister – Taha Iqbal

Panel, religious extremism is rising in the west. It can look like Lone Wolf Attacks from those
inspired by ISIS or other Islamic terrorist groups. It can also look like Christian fundamentalism
on the rise and attacks on things like BLM for instance or other kinds of protest movements. It is
generally on the rise and we think alternatives to battling this kind of religious extremism have
failed. But before i get into argumentation let's make it very clear what is the kind of model that
we are supporting:
1. I think the first thing that we need to talk about is that we have a panel of experts and clerics
who are obviously going to be representative. This looks like people from within the
Islamic community from different kinds of races and different genders are collaborating
together assessing the syllabi of these schools. Perhaps also giving recommendations on
what the syllabi should be for these schools to go forward. And therefore advising the
government on which schools to invest in and which schools do not invest in.
2. The second thing that we're looking for obviously is whenever the government is coming
up with syllabi they have anti-racism and sexism guidelines which are used in setting up
curricula uh we're obviously going to use that over here as well.
3. The third thing that we just find with is that the government can either set up new schools
which teach this sort of curricula or give funding to additional existing schools which
already teach this sort of curricula.
4. The fourth thing i want to emphasize is in terms of the curricula. We already use these
kinds of hermeneutical devices when we're talking about progressive religious texts and
interpretations.

What are we talking about over here? I think there are two things that religious communities which
are progressive oftentimes do.
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1. One is there's a selective interpretation of events that gears towards more, you know uh,
progressive ideals. What does this mean? This looks like, for instance, us telling muslim
kids that Hazard Aisha was allowed to go on the battlefield and it was okay for women to
not only fight others but also help actively. So their role is not in the home.
2. The second thing is there's a selective ignorance of of events and also other kinds of things
in scripture. So for instance, not teaching kids about verses in the Quran which supports
sexual slavery or slavery of any kind. I think these are the kinds of things that already
happen within the status quo which we are absolutely fine with doing.

So what is the problem in the status quo?

I think the existing alternatives to fighting religious extremism are already failing. These are failing
in two respects and we just need to look at what the kinds of responses from governmental
authorities, are over here.
1. The first kind of response is retrospective or after effect. This looks like maybe a bombing
has happened and now the government is on the hunt for who the terrorists are or who this
terrorist organization is the problem there. Then is that the harm has already been incurred
and this is merely retrospective, you're only trying to bring people to justice as opposed to
preventing the harm to begin with.
2. The second thing is you're often aggressive and reactive when you're trying to preempt
harm. So this looks like more securitization and more policing of communities. This looks
like what happens in France for instance where muslim communities have more police
involved within within their respective areas and zones, or this looks like brown people at
airports being stranded for hours that end because they're suspected as terrorists without
any sort of knowledge for whether they are or not.

Why is this harmful then?

Because i think in the first instance this is useless. Because this is happening after the fact. But
secondly this is oftentimes counterproductive that is to say that you perpetuate cycles of violence
because these people specifically feel discriminated against from things like the police or from
events that happen at the airports. And the problem with this is even people who are moderates
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within these communities, because of feelings of authorization and discrimination go towards more
radical forms of action against the society that they feel is discriminating against them.

Arguments then on our side of the house:

1. Firstly i just want to point out we have more buy-in for these schools. What is the existing
problem within these communities? I think ethnic and religious enclaves have formed
within the West. This looks like muslims for instance sending their kids to only muslim
high schools which often times have very radical interpretations of what the Quran says or
what Islam says. This also looks like a Christian community sending kids to, you know,
Christian schools and so on and so forth. So you only either go to schools within your own
communities or religious schools.
2. Or secondly even in the instance where you go to public high schools which don't have,
you know, religious texts as part of their discourse, the problem then is, the socialization
that happens at home. That is parents who are oftentimes either radical in terms of their
beliefs or are first generation or second generation immigrants who have carried on those
beliefs from the countries that they came from, oftentimes are the only source of
information that kids have for their socialization and their interpretation of Islam. This is
what we stand to change. Why are parents likely to send their kids to these schools but
before that i'll take a point from CO.

POI:
This is a clarification. There are different educational systems in the West. Some of which allow
parents to opt for their kids to go to certain schools, others of which force kids to go to certain
schools. Would this be part of a system which forces kids to go to specific types of schools you
set up?.

Response:
I mean in areas where you're forced to go to school we're happy with including some part of,
you know, religious education within your syllabi like an extra class for muslim students. I don't
care
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Okay, in terms of buy-in, two reasons for why we have buy-in.

One, clerics and religious authorities have said that this is the right syllabus so within these
religious communities these authorities have a lot of power because they are literally your conduit
to God they are telling you what God said, but also your only way of speaking to God. So i think
that's one reason why there's buy-in within these schools. But secondly, these schools are getting
investment from western governments. This means that they have more resources more facilities.
Your kids have better life chances if they go to these schools. Their education is much better off.
Parents are incentivized to send their kids to these schools.

Now what are the impacts of this?

1. The first impact that i have is you battle the us versus them mentality so right now the
problem for these people is they feel otherwise, because even when Joe Biden is trying to
solve the problem of Islamophobia, what he says is we must talk to Muslim communities
as Americans, or Americans need to deal with this Muslim problem. This obviously misses
the fact that Muslims are also part of America and are Americans themselves. So, otherwise
what we do is we make them feel included and cared for crucially. Because the messaging
now is, we care for your religion and we are going to help teach it to you and we're going
to give you access to discourses within your religion. So that's the first thing.
2. The second thing i will note is that kids are much better off because oftentimes, note, kids
often times lock themselves out of opportunitie. So for instance Muslim kids who don't
want to get into the banking sector because interest is haram in Islam for instance. Or more,
crucially, girls within these communities who are told don't go for jobs in the future or
don't go for extracurricular activities because this is un-Islamic or irreligious. We prevent
this sort of locking out of opportunities because what we are doing is equipping the next
generation with the ability to obviously interact with these sorts of discourses which are
much more liberal, and and tell them please access these kinds of opportunities, so in their
lives they're much better off.
3. The third thing we do is we battle media discourse. So regardless of whether we actually
get kids or communities to be much better off, what we are doing is we are changing
interpretations of say Islam within media in the in the western discourse where Islam is
only noticed as extremist sort of religion where the Abraham taliban interpretation
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dominates FOX users, and even CNN. What we are now forcing these sorts of, because the
messaging of the government policy and that sort of effect would be forcing these
communities to do, is realize what Islam actually is and we are therefore reducing
discrimination against these communities.

For all those reason very proud to propose.

Deputy Prime Minister – Hamza Tariq Chaudhry

Opening opposition's policy is like the spider-man meme where they're basically doing the same
thing vr(?) except stupider their policy. Secular schools and supporting liberal mosques. Somehow
our policy doesn't have efficacy, where, why would their parents send their children to religious
schools, but their policy of sending them to secular schools definitely gonna work out. Somehow
our policy about entrenching, you know, alternative progressive interpretations in the school is
going to lead to backlash, but their policy of doing it in the fucking mosque is not going to lead to
backlash. Like not only is their policy simultaneously contradictory it's also completely incoherent.
It's almost argumentatively impressive.

Two points on opening opposition side.

Firstly i want to talk about efficacy. Showing to you that Taha did talk about efficacy all done an
ESL accent so i'll try to use my british one. And then secondly i'm going to look at how this changes
mentalities.

Let's talk about efficacy first. Four reasons for why we have efficacy.
1. Number one, you finally look like you care about muslim communities. Taha has clearly
showed to you that even within progressive politics there's a tendency to use an us versus
them language. The point of which you say here's a billion dollars from the department of
education where we're going to look at alternative interpretations of Islam. By the way
we're going to use the British Muslim Association and the Association of Muslim
Americans as part of our independent panel of experts. I'm going to into it muslims will
say “finally someone cares about us” and have buy-in into this policy in a country where
they have been systematically neglected politically and socially.
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2. Secondly just the economics of it. If you're putting money into good school then school is
better school. So kids send parents and their kids to better school. Like it's just trivially
speaking if you're leveraging these schools with more resources. It's unclear to me why
these people don't change.
3. The third reason, that these muslim communities will favor this policy is the reasons that
Taha gave, which is for instance that current policies are really bad. They're bad in two
ways. One they're retrospective. They look at things after the fact. After the bombing, after
the shooting all of that stuff. But for muslim communities specifically, they're bad because
they're reactive. I have to fucking stand at the airport for five hours in security and miss
my flight. I would much rather prefer steadying progressive Islam ten fuckingyears ago.
So again, it's a comparative debate, right? Where existing policies are so inherently reactive
that muslim communities would exponentially prefer this sort of policy which tends to be
much less inclusive than the sort of policies that exist within status quo. Which opening
opposition on some level had to defend.
4. Number four, and i'm really sorry i'm saying this, but we have to have some efficacy, right?
Like just like fiat. Like realistically speaking, we're going to have some efficacy, some
change in our policy. It's not going to be like there's going to be no change. But the final
point i want to make this, is the second contradiction. This really confused me is, on one
hand they say no one will listen to anything on school when on the other hand they say this
is going to strengthen the legitimacy of religion in these communities. Only one of those
things can be true. Because if they're not listening then none of the strengthening of
legitimacy stuff happens. If they are listening i am happy to rebut the strength of legitimacy
point which i'm going to do now.

Two reasons why strangling the legitimacy of legend is not a bad thing.
1. First, and this isn't some sort of progressive call out, but i do think this is important. This
argument implies that religion is a priori bad. Why? Like if you're strengthening the
legitimacy of progressive religion, why on earth is that a bad thing? If anything i just think
that doubles our impacts because we get a lot of more progressive Muslims, a lot of more
progressive Christians because the argument implies that more religion is bad. No we say
extreme religion is bad. Progressive religion is good, sure. To me why that's not the case.
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2. But secondly, again, deal with the comparative where systematically either these kids are
funneled into schools where they taught much worse things, funneled into mosques where
they are taught much worse things, and live in communities where they are taught much
worse things. So at least on the comparative we're getting some incremental change. The
final point then that they had here was to do with this idea of like, you know, there will
always be some restrictions, there's still other means of socializing these communities all
of that stuff. Two or three responses here.

Yes there will be some restrictions. This policy is not perfect. I'm happy to lose the debate on that.
Two, now these kids have something that's really crucial. They have a language in which to push
for aggressive change. Now i'll give you an example from Pakistan, where if my feminist friends
say something like “we want rights for women because Judith Butler said so”, the mosque tells
them to fuck off. But if they say we want rights because Hazrat Aisha, several like in 710-80 fought
a war on the battlefield and you know it's in the Quran, they're like, okay now i'm willing to have
a discussion with you. These progressive kids and these progressive generations finally have a
language with which to debate religion now because they're using their own weapons against them.
They're using the text, they're using the pedagogy of all of this stuff, which i think really helps out.

The final point that they had again was crowding out which is you can put this money somewhere
else. I've shown to you why the places you're putting money in is a bit stupid. Let's talk about two
additional claims that i'm going to make.

The first claim is to do with the idea of remittances and this is really important because as Taha
said a lot of these people are first generation and second generation immigrants. Now what that
means then, is that when they're sending money back home, they're not just sending money they're
also sending ideas. These people the point at which they have the occasional skype call with their
family back home in India or travel back home to Bangladesh talk about these progressive
interpretations, the point at which they've learned about them in school. This means that you're
creating discursive change not only within these communities, but also outside these communities.
MOTION RECASE April 14, 2023

The second part of this claim i'm going to discuss, but before that i'm happy to take Closing
Opposition for engagement purposes.

POI:
Sure, so the comparative clearly isn't one where unfortunately muslim people aren't going to
stop being stopped at airports or for example we're going to continue to not have these
reactionary policies. So in that context do you really think this motion is beneficial?

Response:
Wait this was brilliant. I want you to think about this poi for a second in the meta way. She
asserted thing, uh, something about the policy being bad and said it's bad. No i'm going to
counter assert. We're not going to stop people at airports anymore. Did you notice that she just
said we're still going to stop people at airports and hence it's bad. No i'm not going to stop people
at airports. I don't know why you said that. Like, i've given you reasons for why we're shifting
the funding towards funding of liberal schools as opposed to, like, you know, stopping people at
airports. Unclear why that was a valuable point of information.

The final thing i want to talk about then, which i think is really really important. It isn't just the
remittances going towards other places but the generational change. And i think this is really
important. Let's assume a point to opening opposition, i'm sorry Serena, our policy has 10%
efficacy, right? Why not? These ten percent of people will grow up probably have families if
climate change doesn't kill us all. And what that does then it creates a positive feedback loop.
These people will become parents who would teach these children progressive interpretations, go
to the mosque, and discuss these progressive interpretations, leading into a much bigger ideological
multiplier than just the short-term effects of our policy. Panel, i've shown to you that there's a
terrible relationship between the west and its minority communities.

The discourse is the best way to solve it and discourses within school are the best needs within
that. I am so proud to propose.

PROBLEM IN MIRWAN’S SPEECH SOLUTION

MOTION RECASE
Starting point:
➔ Mirwan’s opening didn’t talk about the
biggest problem that exist, which is
“the rising of radicalization”, instead
talk about a reason why radicalization
happen in school, which is not that
important anyway since
explained latter anyway in argument
(redundant)
Model:
➔ Mech about making it hidden, not
letting people know is not strategic.
Since you can instead use this
mechanism to attract
sympathy by showing that the states is
caring for their community
Impacting to how people will not
change anyway in a way that OG want,
since people do not know that gov
trying something to
discrimination towards Islam → Not
even give likelihood about how far you
can keep this hidden since people can
still know it as the time paaes by.
➔ Not explaining how we will change the
interpretation of concervativism
through OG’s mech. → Impacting the
benefit taken for granted
➔ Not explaining what
progressive interpretation that you
want → Mirwan brought about school
April 14, 2023
➔ Directly talk whats wrong in SQ, which
is how the rising of Radicalization is
concerning, that we need more mech in
solving this situation.
will be
➔ Explain about how this mech will be
given to people, and we will tell them
Muslims beforehand. → Then explain how
people will perceive this, in a way
→ where Muslims see the states is starting
to be caring
➔ Explain about cleric and preacher that
you are going to use in these institution
eradicate to help gov shaping secular
interpretation, and to help gov deciding
which country to invest in and not
invest in.
➔ Bring a more grounded example, like
Aisha that stated in Quran joining war.
It proofs as to how the conservative
want to make discussion with you,
because you use their weapon to attack
kind of them.
MOTION RECASE April 14, 2023

that never compare their religion to

another religion and keep teaching
love. This is not enough to depict how
it will shape/change people since it is
might be something that the Quran
never said (conservative never want to
opt in discussion)
➔ Bring about gov that only work after
the fact, after bombing happen →
Prevention less likely to happen (The
Urgency: Americans do not satisfied)
➔ Argument about why SQ mech to ➔ Shows how prevention like stopping
combat radicalism is not enough. people in Airport → Islam and some
Example about internet was not a so people that are suspected to terrorist
grounded example, since there are but actually aren’t feel oppressed (The
another mech that gov used in Muslims do not satisfied)
combating terrorism
This give more urgency, because you touch
the metric about actor analysis, giving your
urgency become tangible.
➔ Analyze the actor of Muslim or
Likelihood for Changes:
religious people, how they perceive
➔ Not analyzing why in SQ it is hard to
Western educational system. Ex: They
eradicate radicalization → No tangible
are enclaved since not every school
explanation about this, only bring
teach Muslim study → So
analysis about students being
interpretation can happen in a harmful
indoctrinated, but no likelihood how
way
indoctrination happen and how it is
➔ Expplain about the background and
perpetuated in SQ
characteristic about these religious
people, like how their parents are 1st or
MOTION RECASE April 14, 2023

2nd generation immigrant, still embrace

interpretation from their homeland
➔ Talk about how it will solve problem
between Islams and people scepticism
about Islam
➔ How it change how people perceive the
Impact:
words of Islams
➔ No impact analysis at all
➔ Changing Islam’s way in seeing
themselves, like how women more
incentivized to persue high education
and getting a good job