and concludes on the other side of the world, possibly years too late to remedy the effects of the Trojan Horse panic, as its protagonists are left struggling with the supposedly redemptive properties of truth. The eight-part series asks simple questions: Who wrote the letter and why? By the end, you will have ridden shotgun on a story that starts in the U.K. In The Trojan Horse Affair, the latest investigative audio documentary from Serial Productions, that quote manifests itself in almost literal fashion. It’s been said that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. And remarkably, the identity and motivations of the letter writer are unknown to this day. Birmingham has a sizable Muslim immigrant population, and the repercussions of the hoax ruined lives and thrust vulnerable communities deeper into the void. (Not unlike how Americans treat the hunt for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, perhaps.) Of course, “moving on” is a privilege enjoyed by those who weren’t directly harmed. The scandal is now recalled by many with the exhausted spirit of a hangover, as a mess best kept in the past while the populace moves on. They also seized on the panic to implement harsher counter-terrorism policies, which made life more difficult for Muslims living in the U.K., dehumanizing them and reinforcing stereotypes. Conservative politicians, who knew not to let the opportunity go to waste, used the “Trojan Horse letter” to stall an education movement that sought to help immigrant communities integrate their cultures into school syllabi. One newspaper described it as a crude, “apparent forgery.” But that didn’t stop the panic over Islamic extremism from spreading nationwide. The inflammatory document would later be revealed as a fake. “Operation Trojan Horse,” as the letter referred to it, would systematically push non-Muslim school administrators out of power and replace them with people who would operate the schools according to strict Islamist principles.

In 2014, an anonymous whistleblower leaked to the British press a photocopy of what appeared to be a secret communiqué outlining an Islamist conspiracy to take over schools in the English city of Birmingham.

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