A Further Inquiry

"Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the questions that began when I was nine have never stopped. I was nine years old on September 11, 2001...
September 11 was not simply the day I learned that terrible things could happen. It was the day I began to understand that evil could be chosen."
By Mathew Giagnorio

"Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the questions that began when I was nine have never stopped. I was nine years old on September 11, 2001....
September 11 was not simply the day I learned that terrible things could happen. It was the day I began to understand that evil could be chosen. For a child, that is a profound discovery."
By Mathew Giagnorio

The Day I Learned Evil Was Real Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the questions that began when I was nine have never stopped.

In this latest episode of AFI Roundabout, Scott Jacobsen and Khadija Khan discuss how secularism, free expression, and women’s rights are being challenged or strengthened in the United Kingdom, Iran, Afghanistan, and Brazil.

AFI Roundabout: Secularism, Iran, Afghanistan, and Women’s Rights How are secularism, free expression, and women’s rights being challenged or strengthened in the United Kingdom, Iran, Afghanistan, and Brazil?

https://afurtherinquiry.substack.com/p/afi-roundabout-extremism-taliban

Khadija Khan is a British-Pakistani journalist, broadcaster, editor, and commentator based in the United Kingdom. She edits A Further Inquiry and co-hosts its podcast, examining human rights, women’s rights, minority protections, extremism, Islamism, secularism, and freedom of expression. Through journalism, debate, and public commentary, Khan challenges religious and political orthodoxies, defends dissent, and argues that open criticism of ideas is essential to resisting extremism and safeguarding universal rights and civic equality in plural democratic societies.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Khadija Khan discuss the UK Prevent strategy, youth radicalization, Taliban rule in Afghanistan, women’s rights, climate risks linked to a potential super El Niño, and academic suicides. They examine failures in safeguarding vulnerable people, ideological polarization, racism claims surrounding academic investigations, online harassment, and the need for humane responses. The discussion emphasizes accountability, nuance, mental-health support, and protecting civil liberties while confronting extremism and abuse across contemporary societies.

AFI Roundabout: Extremism, Taliban Rule, Academic Su***de, and Human Rights How do extremism, Taliban rule, academic pressures, online harassment, and political polarization affect human rights and vulnerable people?

Mathew Giagnorio is an Italian-Canadian journalist, writer, researcher, and founder of A Further Inquiry, a multimedia publication and podcast. Based in Niagara, Ontario, he studies human rights, religion, secularism, history, politics, national security, counterterrorism, illiberal movements, freedom of expression, and the cultural power of narrative in contemporary civic life today.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Mathew Giagnorio examine how Ottawa emerged from a modest lumber town into Canada’s permanent capital. They discuss competing claims from Toronto, Montreal, Kingston, and Quebec City, Queen Victoria’s 1857 decision, military concerns involving the United States, linguistic and political compromise, Parliament Hill’s development, and Confederation. Giagnorio argues that Ottawa ultimately embodied a distinctly Canadian form of symbolic neutrality, balancing geography, culture, security, and national identity.

Our History Today: How Ottawa Became Canada’s Capital: Mathew Giagnorio on Canadian History Why did Ottawa become Canada’s capital, and how did geography, political compromise, military strategy, and symbolic neutrality shape the decision?

https://afurtherinquiry.substack.com/p/afi-roundabout-mecca-defence-pact

Khadija Khan is a British-Pakistani journalist, broadcaster, editor, and commentator based in the United Kingdom. She edits A Further Inquiry and co-hosts its podcast, examining human rights, women’s rights, minority protections, extremism, Islamism, secularism, and freedom of expression. Through journalism, debate, and public commentary, Khan challenges religious and political orthodoxies, defends dissent, and argues that open criticism of ideas is essential to resisting extremism and safeguarding universal rights and civic equality in plural democratic societies.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Khadija Khan discuss the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia-Turkey defence pact, regional rivalries, and Palestinian statehood; public fascination with solar eclipses and superstition; risks posed by AI-generated police evidence; and the imprisonment of Andrew and Tristan Tate. They examine prisoner rights, accountability, misogyny, religious reinvention, social media influence, and how controversial online figures can reflect wider cultural problems involving masculinity, extremism, fame, and institutional trust across contemporary democratic public life societies.

AFI Roundabout: Mecca Defence Pact, AI Policing, the 2026 Eclipse, and the Tate Brothers How do Khadija Khan and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine the Mecca defence pact, AI policing, eclipse superstition, prisoner rights, and the Tate brothers?

How did Sir James Douglas, Coast Salish alliances, and abolitionism shape British Columbia's history and Canada's Emancipation Day?
Featured guest Terry Glavin

Our History Today: Emancipation Day, Sir James Douglas, and British Columbia’s Forgotten History How did Sir James Douglas, Coast Salish alliances, and abolitionism shape British Columbia’s history and Canadian Emancipation Day?

"By reframing his classical flaws as modern trauma, depression and guilt, the film significantly alters the very fabric of Homer’s epic. Rather than showcasing a king who actively shapes his fate through pride, curiosity and shrewdness, the film reduces his decisions and the ten-year delay to the effects of hysterical neurosis and regrets associated with the fall of Troy. The epic fall of Troy is not seen as a glorious victory anymore in the movie. This has been turned into a tragedy."
By Khadija Khan

For the full article, click the link in bio

WHO GOVERNS CANADA?

Canada's constitutional order is changing before our eyes.

But perhaps the more important question is one we rarely ask: Who actually governs Canada?

Parliament? The provinces? The courts? Or have we gradually transferred so much authority to unelected institutions that we no longer recognize the democracy we inherited?

In this four-part A Further Inquiry series, I examine Canada's constitutional architecture, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 33, the rise of judicial power, the responsibilities of elected governments, and the fragile federal bargain that holds Confederation together.

This is not an argument against rights, or against the courts.

It is an argument for democratic accountability.

What happens when elected governments increasingly defer difficult political questions to judges? What happens when courts become the arbiters of questions that Parliament is unwilling to confront? And what happens when the constitutional balance between Ottawa, the provinces, and the judiciary begins to shift?

From Pierre Trudeau and the Charter to Peter Lougheed, Brian Peckford, the Gang of Eight, and the constitutional democratic compromise of 1982, this series asks a question that may define Canada's political future:

Who governs Canada?

And perhaps the more uncomfortable question:

Who should?

Part I–IV | Who Governs Canada? | A Further Inquiry

https://afurtherinquiry.substack.com/p/afi-roundabout-wildfires-afghanistan

Khadija Khan is a British-Pakistani journalist, broadcaster, editor, and commentator based in the United Kingdom. She edits A Further Inquiry and co-hosts its podcast, examining human rights, women’s rights, minority protections, extremism, Islamism, secularism, and freedom of expression. Through journalism, debate, and public commentary, Khan challenges religious and political orthodoxies, defends dissent, and argues that open criticism of ideas is essential to resisting extremism and safeguarding universal rights and civic equality in plural democratic societies.

In this AFI Roundabout discussion, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Khadija Khan examine wildfires in France and Spain, Afghanistan-Pakistan violence, allegations against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, and diplomatic tensions between France and the United States. They also discuss child marriage in Afghanistan, the treatment of girls as property, media framing, male responsibility within coercive systems, and the need to defend women’s rights without turning sympathy for hardship into excuses for abuse or exploitation under Taliban rule.

AFI Roundabout: Wildfires, Afghanistan, the ICC, and Women’s Rights How do Khadija Khan and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine wildfires, Afghanistan, ICC accountability, media framing, and women’s rights under coercive systems?