Saad Kassis-Mohamed

Thank you to @LSEMiddleEast for sharing our conversation with Dr James U. Cole on the kafala system.

We spoke about why legal reform is only part of the solution. Workers must be free to leave abusive employers and seek protection without fear.

Mawlid al-Nabi Mubarak to Muslims around the world. May the example of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ continue to guide us toward justice, mercy, dignity and service to others. Wishing peace and blessings to all who mark this day.

I call upon New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to oppose the Madison Square Garden event featuring Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Bhagwat does not represent some harmless cultural organisation. The RSS sits at the centre of a political movement that has spent decades advancing a Hindu-majoritarian vision of India. Its ideology has repeatedly placed Muslims, Christians, Dalits and other minorities in the position of having to prove that they belong in their own country.

This cannot be separated from what India has experienced over the past decade: growing anti-Muslim rhetoric, attacks on religious minorities, campaigns against interfaith relationships, discriminatory politics around citizenship, and the normalisation of language that treats millions of Indians as outsiders.

New York is home to Muslims, Dalits, Christians, Sikhs and many others whose families have lived with the consequences of this politics. They should not be expected to watch one of its most powerful ideological leaders receive a prestigious platform in their city without challenge.

Hindutva is increasingly being exported abroad through political networks, lobbying, cultural organisations and diaspora institutions that attempt to present an exclusionary political project as nothing more than Indian identity or Hindu culture. Opposing Hindutva is not hostility toward Hinduism.

Mamdani has spoken forcefully about equality, racism and minority rights. Those principles should apply here too. New York should not lend prestige or legitimacy to politics built on religious hierarchy and exclusion.

@NYCMayor @ZohranKMamdani @Hindus4HR @IAMCouncil

The hijab cannot be banned in the name of “liberation” while women’s autonomy is ignored everywhere else. Liberation without choice is just another form of control.

Not listening to rap is a preference. Making a point of being proud that you don’t listen to rap is a dog whistle. It’s not subtle.