BY NATHAN LEAN
January 27, 2016
... Nawaz broke ranks with Hizb ut-Tahrir the same week that his Newham College classmate and ex-party member, Ed Husain, rose to quasi-stardom with the publication of his kiss-and-tell memoir, The Islamist, a stirring defection story of a Muslim extremist who had come clean ...
Nawaz has said that his approach is one of dialogue and seeking common ground. That’s music to the ears of many who are turned off by polarized debates about religion and politics. Yet for all the right notes that he hits (public “conversations” with controversial figures, and calls to reject racial profiling) Nawaz’s stated mission is at odds with many of his actions. He’s wheedled Western politicos who advocate draconian policies that target Muslims, and he indulges the worst offenders when it comes to anti-Muslim prejudice ...
Some of his most vocal supporters .. include New Atheists that seem to take great pleasure in lambasting Islam. There’s a strong current of affection that flows between Nawaz and Sam Harris, who calls the religion the “mother lode of bad ideas” and has advocated racial profiling and torture (Harris has donated $20,000 to Quilliam). HBO’s Bill Maher, famously hostile toward Islam, wished that there were “a thousand” of Nawaz, while Richard Dawkins (“to hell with their culture”) lauded him as a “truly moral & brave man,” and urged his online flock to support Nawaz’s failed 2015 parliamentary bid. The ex-Islamist has even cozied up to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born activist who once tagged the Muslim faith as a “nihilistic cult of death” that should be “defeated” by any means necessary, including militarily.
That Nawaz enjoys the company of such a galère isn’t the problem. He’s not guilty by association. He’s guilty of giving life to their extreme ideas. In 2009, when his Quilliam associate Ed Husain advocated spying on British Muslims, Nawaz chalked the ensuing controversy up to the bellyaching of a “pro-Islamist brigade.” The next year, he sent the country’s security and terror chief a McCarthy-esque list of Muslim groups that the government should be wary of lest their non-violent views morph into violent ones. Nawaz’s organization, along with a software company, developed “radicalization keywords” used in a computer program that monitored the Internet searches of school kids and flagged would-be extremists for investigation. And Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the far-right, anti-Muslim English Defence League, alleged Quilliam paid him thousands of pounds to resign in a move that many saw as a bribe: Robinson stepped down, and Quilliam took credit for bringing about his departure. The money, Robinson said, went to pay “my wife’s rent and help with basic bills, <and> in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy” ...
https://newrepublic.com/article/128436/maajid-nawaz-really-believe
Maybe he's nothing but an opportunist who's found a way to make a living by cuddling with bigots
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