Radio ReOrient Season 13 Roundup – Summary

Podcast: New Books Network: Radio ReOrient
Hosts: Saeed Khan, Amina Easat Daas, Marchella Ward, Claudia Radiven
Date: January 16, 2026

Brief Overview

The Season 13 round-up of Radio ReOrient, hosted by Chella Ward, Claudia Radiven, Amina Easat Daas, and Saeed Khan, reflects on the season's central theme: resistance, with a particular focus on global Islamophobia, its manifestations, and the politics of solidarity. The discussion traverses the interconnectedness of anti-Muslim racism across the world, delving into its relationship with broader phenomena such as colonialism, nationalism, and international struggles for justice. The episode also critically examines how Islamophobia evolves in language, politics, and everyday life, while highlighting the show’s ongoing commitment to nuanced, structural analysis.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Central Thread – Resistance & Islamophobia

• Season Recap: The season explored forms of resistance to global Islamophobia, with emphasis on solidarity for Palestine, the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in East Turkestan, and anti-migrant narratives.
  "One of those common threads has been the question of resistance and ways of countering things like global Islamophobia, but also the interconnected Islamophobic genocide of the Palestinians, for example, and other forms of injustice." – Chella Ward (02:30)

• Filton 24 Hunger Strikers: The hosts contextualize the episode amid the hunger strike of the Filton 24 – activists imprisoned pre-charge in the UK for direct action against Elbit Systems, an arms manufacturer supplying Israel. The treatment of these prisoners exemplifies how Islamophobia shapes political repression in Western democracies.

  “I suppose I wanted to start by thinking about the Islamophobia that those young people are experiencing… It racializes Muslims… marks them as Muslim in order to subject them to violence or discrimination…” – Chella Ward (05:06)

2. Islamophobia: Historical and Structural Dimensions

• Rooted in Imperialism & Colonial Logic: Saeed Khan draws parallels between historic Irish hunger strikers and modern Muslim political prisoners, highlighting the cyclical and imperial nature of Islamophobia.

  “Islamophobia informs imperialism and imperialism informs Islamophobia… it goes both ways.” – Saeed Khan (06:34)

• Islamophobia as a Racializing Mechanism: The panel emphasizes that Islamophobia is not limited to Muslims but racializes anyone perceived as such, affecting solidarity activism and minority communities.

  “Very important aspect of Islamophobia is that it racializes Muslims—even those who are not.” – Chella Ward (05:54)

3. Ethno-nationalism, Narratives, & Historiography

• Palestinian & Irish Struggles Linked: Several hosts critique ethno-nationalist mythmaking in Israel, the UK, and China; they connect historic and modern liberation struggles and discuss the weaponization of archaeology and history.

  “All Palestinians are at this current juncture of world history, Muslimized…It defines this ethno-nationalist idea of a state from which the Muslim is excluded and excluded historiographically…” – Chella Ward (11:07)

• Nationalism & Racist Boundaries: The analogy expands to the hostile climate for migrants and refugees, where “Muslimness” is constructed as outside humanity, denying those perceived as Muslim the right to support and justice.

  “Muslimness is kind of seen outside of the realms of humanity. And therefore Muslim refugees—or Muslims in state of crisis—are not deserving of support…” – Amina Easat Daas (14:10)

4. Contesting Language, Definitions, and the Liberal Project

• Debate Over 'Islamophobia': The politicization of the term Islamophobia distracts from structural issues; governments prefer ‘anti-Muslim hate’ to avoid acknowledging deeper, systemic problems.

  “This constant distraction about the term Islamophobia…has proven to be a really helpful distraction.” – Claudia Radiven (21:30) “We are at risk of losing our structural understanding of Islamophobia right in these conversations…” – Chella Ward (23:28)

• Linguistic & Ideological Battles: The episode traces how terms like 'intifada' and 'Islamism' are being appropriated, criminalized, or hollowed of meaning by liberal and far-right actors alike—a ‘fascist land grab’ on language.

  “We are living in a world where increasingly fascism is expressing itself through deliberate attempts to redefine language, to remove our right to use language…” – Chella Ward (25:29) “Liberalism has gone ahead and hijacked terminology for centuries…So when we look at this idea of knowledge is power and terminology, I think we need to be intellectually honest…” – Saeed Khan (27:30)

5. Everyday Islamophobia, Media, and Political Representation

• Normalization of Islamophobia: The panel notes a worrying trend of ‘everyday Islamophobia’ both online and in public life, drawing examples from the UK, France, and the US.

  “Are people now more happy to be Islamophobic in public, rather than just online?...I think they've been comfortable with that for quite some time.” – Claudia Radiven (35:30)

• Impact on Muslims in Politics: The election of Zoran Mamdani (first Muslim mayor of New York City) highlights both the possibility of solidarity and the continuing everyday Islamophobia faced by Muslims in positions of power.

  “…having so many other members of the Jewish community coming to his support…And it's something to then go ahead and consider that as we look at Islamophobia and how it is deployed…” – Saeed Khan (18:51) “There is a great deal of self-censorship that goes on…Muslims are now…increasingly cautious in describing the way in which their Muslimness shapes or orients their political participation…” – Amina Easat Daas (39:30)

6. Muslimness and Resistance as Political and Ontological Positions

• Expanding the Concept of 'Muslimness': The episode repeatedly returns to the idea of Muslimness as a political/epistemological stance—one that is “not contained by ethno nationalists' ways of understanding the world.”

  “Muslimness as something that is not contained by ethno nationalist ways of understanding the world…as a political position, which is also a historiographic position.” – Chella Ward (15:24)

• Hope in Intersectional Solidarity: As more groups are “Muslimized,” resistance grows broader and more intersectional; opposition to Islamophobia is cast as opposition to global structures of injustice.

  “There’s something almost hopeful…as the process of Muslimization increasingly engages with further—and further—communities…resistance to Islamophobia grows and it diversifies…” – Chella Ward (42:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Islamophobia’s Broader Reach:
  “Islamophobia is not only a manifestation in some areas of imperialism, but it...goes both ways. Islamophobia informs imperialism and imperialism informs Islamophobia phobia.”
  — Saeed Khan (06:36)

• On Language and Control:
  “We are living in a world where increasingly fascism is expressing itself through deliberate attempts to redefine language, to remove our right to use language…”
  — Chella Ward (25:29)

• On Hope in Intersectionality:
  “There’s something almost hopeful...as the process of Muslimization increasingly engages with further—and further—communities...resistance to Islamophobia grows and it diversifies…”
  — Chella Ward (42:00)

• On Structural Racism:
  “All these...terms are about trying to roll back the clock on the last few decades of learning about structural racism...trying to roll back the clock on the way that Islamophobia was being meaningfully understood as a kind of structural racism.”
  — Chella Ward (23:52)

Important Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 01:35 | Season Context & Filton 24 Hunger Strikers by Chella Ward | | 06:18 | Historical Parallels: Bobby Sands & Imperialism by Saeed Khan | | 09:37 | Palestinian Identity & Archaeology’s Political Role by Chella Ward | | 15:16 | Nationalism, Migrants, and 'Muslimness' by Amina Easat Daas | | 17:50 | Nation-State Logic & U.S. Politics by Saeed Khan | | 20:42 | Debate over Defining Islamophobia/Erosion of Structural Understanding by Claudia Radiven & Chella Ward | | 25:29 | Criminalizing Language, e.g. 'intifada' by Chella Ward | | 27:27 | Liberalism’s Role in Redefining Terminology by Saeed Khan | | 30:32 | French & UK Contexts; Reappropriation of 'Islamism' by Chella Ward | | 35:13 | Public Islamophobia & Social Media by Claudia Radiven | | 39:21 | Muslims in Politics & Self-censorship by Amina Easat Daas | | 41:58 | Solidarity & Structural Analysis by Chella Ward |

Additional Resources and Forthcoming Events

• Upcoming Critical Muslim Studies Conference
• Open-access ReOrient Journal’s Special Issue on Everyday Islamophobia (early 2026)
• ReOrientations Blog (short public-facing analysis pieces)
• Active on Social Media: [Instagram: @MsReorient], Facebook (Critical Muslim Studies project), Blue Sky, Twitter

Conclusion

Radio ReOrient’s Season 13 Roundup provides a robust, interdisciplinary reflection on the politics of resistance under contemporary global Islamophobia. The hosts highlight solidarity across movements, expose the language games that obscure structural injustice, and end on an optimistic note: as the faces of Muslimization diversify, so too does the coalition for justice.

In their words:

“Standing against Islamophobia is actually standing against all of those injustices that are the product of European imperialism and colonial projects...it does the work of linking up the pro Palestinian liberation struggle with all of the other struggles, you know, against European colonialism, of which Zionism is of course a glittering example.” – Chella Ward (42:08)