Hamza and Brian think the source of the Trojan Horse letter might be hiding in plain sight. After learning about the petty personnel dispute that probably gave rise to the letter, they’re even more bewildered about how it ever could have been taken seriously.
Brought to you by the Capital one venture card.
Earn unlimited double miles on every purchase every day, and you can use those miles on any travel purchase.
Plus, earn unlimited five x miles on.
Hotels and rental cars booked through Capital one travel.
Your next trip is closer than you think with the venture card from Capital one terms.
Apply.
See Capital one.com for details.
Hamza and I are sitting behind two children's school desks.
We're in the COVID classroom at the front of Tahir Alam's house talking about the Trojan horse letter, those four pages that painted Tahir as the ringleader of an extremist plot.
Tahir clearly has strong suspicions about who wrote it.
The motive was quite an interesting one.
Even though the plot wasn't real, the Trojan horse letter still prompted authorities to investigate and ultimately dismantle the education movement.
To hear who was leading a successful movement, outcomes for muslim students had improved dramatically.
The national government also beefed up counter extremism policy and tried to prevent Tahir and his colleagues from ever working or volunteering in schools again, all in the aftermath of the letter.
Tahir believes if they'd ever bothered just to investigate who wrote the thing, it would have been very difficult for the government to justify its actions, because, he says, it would have been.
Obviously, the letter had nothing to do with a conspiracy or with him.
He's sparse on details with us this first day, but he does give us that tantalizing hint that the letter came from someone close to him.
But whoever wrote the letter, they knew.
They knew me, I think, or possibly more than one person.
Were they from Birmingham?