Token brown faces are not what Muslim women want

When a Muslim woman such as Sara Khan is invited to the table, her presence serves to reinforce the ideologies used to oppress us

What makes the whole ordeal worse is that Muslim women are being told that this move should be celebrated, given "a sister" has made it to such a prominent post. Malik even stated that it showed the government is taking "women's voices in preventing terrorism seriously".

Amina Lone, co-director of the Social Action and Research Foundation, said "It's quite incredible we have elected officials decrying an appointment which should be welcomed - which is of a young British woman, Muslim woman, when we say there aren't enough women in leadership."

There is a patronising, racist assumption here, that what Muslim women seek, at the height of Islamophobia in the UK, is tokenistic brown Muslim faces in high places, regardless of what they represent politically.

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Khan is a woman who paints Muslim women such as myself - who campaigned against the policing and racial profiling of students, the thousands of teachers and lecturers who voted against complicity with Prevent, the nurses and doctors who stood against institutional racism, the parents of countless children who were the victims of this draconian policy - as an "Islamist hard-left alliance".

She accuses our opposition - the many thousands of us across the country - as being founded on lies, and implies by doing so, that we are, at least in part, responsible for the current situation and living proof of the need for greater surveillance and repression.

It is clear that in her new post, Khan will not offer a critical analysis of a policy that has targeted and traumatised a whole community, and been discredited by so many, including MPs, academics and even UN officials. She is far from someone I - and the majority of Muslim women in this country - would ever look up to as a role model for Muslim girls and women.

I do not see her appointment as "one of us" (whatever that means) being promoted to a position of responsibility. Rather, it is the establishment extending greater power and influence to one of their own.

In reality, orientalist tropes drive much of the way we are treated and patronised by the state. It is expected that Muslim women are easily led by ideology, whether that is Islamist fundamentalism, or right-wing neoliberalism that blames the poor and the racialised.

The developments in the treatment of Muslim girls by Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman is a clear example. Following her decision late last year to allow inspectors to interrogate hijab-wearing Muslim girls, she has publicly voiced her discontent with St Stephen's school governors' decision to reverse a hijab ban that headteacher Neena Lall imposed last month.

Read more: The hijab is a chip on Britain's shoulder

Her speech on faith schools to Anglican clerics and educators last week included a highly charged accusation: "Under the pretext of religious belief, they use education institutions, legal and illegal, to narrow young people's horizons, to isolate and segregate, and in the worst cases to indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology."

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From a young age, Muslim women are considered more prone to peer pressure and extremism - in the very unclear definition used by the government.

The continued association between violence and religious observance also reinforces the idea that Muslim communities hate their women, and punish them by forcing them to wear the hijab from primary-school level.

We are yet again, informed that we are merely brown and black women who need saving from brown and black men.

In true racist tradition, we are rarely, if ever, consulted by the state. We are homogenised and further silenced.

When a Muslim woman such as Sara Khan is invited to the table, her presence serves to reinforce the ideologies used to oppress us through state policies and institutions, and her compliance is assured in advance.

I am reminded of the French campaign in Algeria that encouraged women to burn their hijabs in order to "liberate themselves", and join the Republic's values.

Today, just as then, it is not hijabs that need discarding, nor the state that will deliver our liberation. Instead, we must fight for our right to dress and express ourselves freely.

Perhaps this is why Khan described our growing alliance in the way she did; we threaten their power, and they are running scared.