Ask Charlotte 4— Palestinian Collective Self-Determination
Charlotte Littlewood is the Founding Director of Become The Voice CIC. A grass roots youth centred community interest company that she has built in response to the need to tackle hate, extremism and radicalisation within communities and online.
Here we talk about work and BTV.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You got some part-time work. Why is it important for BTV?
Charlotte Littlewood: I am now working part-time for Faith Matters that brings faith together to combat extremism. In particular, the program is Muslims Against Anti-Semitism. It is about promoting positive relations between Muslims and Jews, as we have been seeing a rise of anti-semitism in the UK — and in the left-wing and Labour Party. This project is about challenging that and tackling the rise in anti-semitism through Jews and Muslims working together.
It aligns well with BTV because it will be about empowering young people and also cohesion and counter-extremism, which is what BTV is about. My new employer, he is very positive about BTV and wants to support what we’re doing. We are already developing a fundraiser together for the work in Palestine. He suggested cross-populating the work with Faith Matters. Hopefully, things we do can go on the Faith Matters site as well.
We are hoping for a productive relationship. I am very much looking forward to supporting their project once we get that getting off the ground. It will also give me invaluable experience working with a charity far more advanced than my own. I essentially look up to him as a mentor. I am grateful to the organization for the opportunity. I am excited to see what it can do for them through BTV.
Jacobsen: How does this all link to women’s rights work, women’s empowerment work?
Littlewood: We tend to do women’s empowerment work in Palestine. It was a natural area to work. There are organizations already out there working on it. The Islamists in Palestine are pushing against gender equality. They are mostly one of these Islamist organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir. They are protesting against mixed gender marriages and against famous Western females coming over to Palestine, for music or other reasons.
Work in gender equality and women’s empowerment combats extremism in the area. The extremist organizations in the area are anti-gender equality and anti-women’s rights. Also, it also kept us in a human rights space. One that wasn’t related to the occupation. I have to be careful in Palestine in not getting involved in platforming and providing a voice for those who may be unsafe for me and may cause problems for the organization.
So, it is one reason to be focused on women’s rights over there. BTV is broader than that. It is a lead for tackling extremism but we also go beyond looking at far-right extremism, LGBT rights, and other rights like individual liberty. We look at minorities within minorities. One is the Ahmadiyya rights. One is the blasphemy laws. The ideology of that affecting the laws in the UK. One of the scariest things that we have seen is a Christian woman who was convicted on blasphemy in Palestine.
She was released, thankfully. She sought asylum in Norway. She sought asylum in the UK but we were concerned about security. We are going beyond women’s rights. It is a concern about the UK in its ability to stand up for some minorities and the wider community, and the uprisings against us standing for human rights because of a hateful extremist ideology that is affecting our communities.
It has been very much a place to be in Palestine to continue working on women’s rights and combatting extremism, and where extremist manifestations or shown especially here in the UK because that is where I am based. So, that was a very long answer! [Laughing]
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Charlotte.
Littlewood: That was a hugely long answer, Scott.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com.
Image Credit: Charlotte Littlewood.
