On Tuesday, Cambridge Stand Up To Racism held a discussion on the rise of Islamophobia at King’s College entitled ‘Islamophobia: The New Racism’.

The panel, slightly changed from the advertised line-up, included Bengali author and Liberal Democrat councillor for East Chesterton Shahida Rahman, NUS Black Students’ Officer Malia Bouattia, Cambridge University Calais Refugee Action Group (CamCRAG) member Dan Ellis, and Zak Cochrane, a member of Stand Up To Racism’s standing committee.

The panellists’ observations ranged from everyday anti-Muslim harassment, with Ms Rahman sharing her personal experiences of Islamophobia on the doorstep, to broader remarks from Cochrane on the parallels between hate-speech towards Muslims and the abuse which the first South Asian immigrants were subject to in the 1970s.

The event was supported by a range of left-wing causes, whose banners and posters decorated almost the entirety of the Keynes Hall stage; from unions (NUT, TUC) to anti-racist groups (Stand Up To Racism, Love Music Hate Racism), as well as Stop the War and the Green Party. The influence of this ideological bent was noticeable, with the conversation punctuated with a variety of politicised themes, from austerity to terrorism.

Opinion was rarely divided, although the title of the discussion was challenged, with Rahman disputing whether Islamophobia could really count as a ‘new’ form of racism.

Before the discussion began, Lewis Herbert, the leader of Cambridge City Council, made some brief comments. Bringing greetings from Daniel Zeichner MP and Richard Howitt MEP, he described his pride at being involved in the Cambridge groups which have travelled to Calais.

CamCRAG’s Dan Ellis would later follow this up with his own story of going to ‘the Jungle’ and building shelters, remembering that “the spirit of cooperation was intense”. However, he also remarked that they were likely among the many shelters destroyed in the recent forced evictions in Calais.

However, Herbert also had concerns, specifically about the potential consequences of the upcoming EU referendum increasing the incidence of Islamophobia. He predicted that “over the next few months there’s going to be a polarising split-off effect”.

Cochrane said: “We’re going to see a disgusting auction over who can attack refugees the most.” A similar concern was also raised by a gentleman from the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, who believed that it was all tied into the Conservative Party’s economic agenda, saying that anti-terrorism “greased the wheels of hatred” against immigrants.

Perhaps most relevant to the university was the critique of the Prevent programme by Malia Bouattia. Prevent, the government’s anti-terror agenda, was labelled “state-sponsored Islamophobia” by Bouattia, who argued that universities were not hotbeds of radicalisation. She expressed concern about the government’s supposed belief that “there should be no ungoverned spaces where Prevent isn’t active”, mentioning the introduction of cameras in prayer rooms. Bouattia suggested that the programme was damaging, dividing communities and fuelling Islamophobia within educational institutions by turning educators into informants and students into suspects. One sixth-form teacher in the audience agreed, calling for a ‘boycott’ of the Prevent programme within schools.

“For Muslim students,” Bouattia noted, “there truly will be no respite from the storm of Islamophobia that greets them in all other sections of society”.