A Further Inquiry

08/30/2026

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.

How are secularism, free expression, and women’s rights being challenged or strengthened in the United Kingdom, Iran, Afghanistan, and Brazil?

08/19/2026

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.

How do extremism, Taliban rule, academic pressures, online harassment, and political polarization affect human rights and vulnerable people?

08/18/2026

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.

Why did Ottawa become Canada’s capital, and how did geography, political compromise, military strategy, and symbolic neutrality shape the decision?

08/13/2026

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.

How do Khadija Khan and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine the Mecca defence pact, AI policing, eclipse superstition, prisoner rights, and the Tate brothers?

08/03/2026

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

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

07/31/2026

"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

07/31/2026

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

07/29/2026

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.

How do Khadija Khan and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine wildfires, Afghanistan, ICC accountability, media framing, and women’s rights under coercive systems?

07/28/2026

Mathew Giagnorio is a Canadian writer, commentator, and co-ost and founder of A Further Inquiry. His work examines Canadian history, civic identity, political culture, patriotism, and the relationship between inherited symbols and contemporary public life. Giagnorio approaches national questions through historical reflection, philosophical discussion, and cultural analysis. He is particularly interested in how Canada’s regional traditions, linguistic communities, political disagreements, and shared institutions contribute to an evolving civic identity grounded in participation, pluralism, memory, and responsibility.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Mathew Giagnorio examine nineteenth-century Canadian sovereignty, frontier law, and civic identity. They discuss Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie’s contested judicial legacy, including rulings involving Chinese and Indigenous residents, and the creation of the North-West Mounted Police under Sir John A. Macdonald. The conversation also considers the March West, cooperation with Crowfoot, American incursions, the Fenian raids, and Canada’s development through regional, linguistic, Indigenous, and institutional pluralism, memory, and responsibility.

How did Judge Matthew Begbie and the North-West Mounted Police shape Canadian sovereignty, law, and civic identity?

07/22/2026

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee. Interview conducted July 11rd, 2026.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Irina Tsukerman discuss proposed social media restrictions for users under 16, their enforceability, and the risks of shielding young people rather than preparing them for online harms. They also examine Meta’s planned Alberta AI data centre, energy demands, foreign influence claims, domestic opposition, environmental costs, employment benefits, and the need for transparent public consultation, measurable definitions of success, and meaningful community support before large technological projects proceed.

How do youth social media restrictions and Alberta’s proposed AI data centre raise questions about public safety, energy policy, innovation, and community consent?