Identity

Muslim cleric says Amir Khan is a 'bad example'

A radical Muslim cleric has said the British boxer Amir Khan is setting a bad example to Muslims. Omar Bakri Mohammed, who lives in Lebanon said Khan’s wearing shorts with the Union Jack is a sin, claiming sovereignty is for God and his only allegiance should be to the Prophet Mohammed.

Although The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said his comments were “bizarre” and that Khan’s a wonderful role model, there are always those who are influenced by what extremists such as Mohammed say. This is usually to do with gullibility, belief that if someone is a religious cleric they are always right and lack of proper Islamic knowledge.

I know my family would consider Mohammed a  person of authority and someone to listen to, because he has a beard and  appears to represent our religion. They wouldn't see the extremism because it's hidden within the veil of religion.  As long as he mentions Islam and says a few prayers every once in awhile, they'd believe anything he says. And there are thousands more Muslims who think like them.

Amir Khan, on the other hand is a great role model, a young man with British and Pakistani values who seems to have them in good balance. I'm always so proud to see him on television, a Pakistani Muslim doing something different, representing Britain and successful in a field normally not associated with British Muslims. We need more like him and less like Omar Bakri Mohammed.

But publicity like this gives Muslims a worse reputation, results in more pigeon holing and more stereotypes for those like myself to fight, which is a shame. Extremists like Mohammed don't care about that, as they're selfishly trying to raise publicity for their own twisted ideologies rather than worry about creating problems for moderate Muslims.

You can read the article at:

http://itn.co.uk/news/fe4c21f49efd431587d710b84fa85947.html

 

What makes a successful blog?

They say you should blog on something you know about, which no-one else is writing about to get your blog noticed.

I wanted to write this blog because I felt there was no outlet for me when I was going through the initial stages of being disowned by my parents, when they found out about my now ex-partner and the whole situation exploded. At the time my partner was a great source of support and my friends did their best.

But my Asian friends seemed horrified by the seriousness of the situation and I felt they were thinking, "thank God it's her and not me". That's not a bad thing, i've felt that kind of relief many times when a friend confides in me about something serious.

My Caucasian friends at the other end of the spectrum didn't understand why my parents would have the right to question my life. Coming from backgrounds where parents generally accept children's choices, they'd ask, "but why do they think you should do what they want?".

I carried on and dealt with the situation the best I could. I always longed to know girls in similar situations, but didn't know how or where to find them.

Since the terrorism threats of 9/11 and the news coverage of Muslims, particularly Pakistani Muslims in England since 7/7, I felt there was something missing in the public's perception of people like myself. I'd sit in an office in one of the biggest broadcast institutions in Britain, surrounded by some of the brightest journalists in the country. There'd be discussion on how to cover the 'Muslim debate'. Who should we have on air? What angle should we take this time? Everyone in the room apart from me was white, middle class, probably private school educated, probably Cambridge and Oxford graduates.

That's fine, but there was definitely the need for at least one person who was a Muslim, who'd grown up in traditional family, who could explain things which no years of working or training in a field could provide. I felt there were hundreds of things which needed explaining in order to understand the Muslim debate better.

I'm not saying i'm the answer to this gap. This project started as a way to help me deal with the aftermath of the fallout with my parents and it's evolved to discuss some of the current issues surrounding Muslims. I don't think the news coverage has been wrong, but there aren’t enough voices from ordinary people like me, about everyday life in families such as mine. These might provide the foundation knowledge in understanding the Muslim debate better.

A two minute news bulletin can't cover the idiosyncrasies of a family and community like mine, their belief system and how we live in England yet cling onto our Pakistani Muslim identity for dear life, trying desperately not to be tarnished by Western values and customs. Also, this is specific to my community and doesn't reflect all Muslim communities in England. But I think it might explain how hard it is to balance to two identities within the second generation, in a country which is the opposite to where your parents grew up and the struggle within people such as myself, when it comes to everyday life, not just serious issues such as terrorism.

So that’s what my blog will aim to address, in amongst my own story of how I've lived my life caught between two cultures.

Elections in Pakistan

As elections are held in Pakistan today and the count has begun, i'm reminded of the benefits of living in a country as democratic and with as much freedom as Britain.

I read comments on the BBC News website about how people were afraid to go out and vote for fear of violence or worse. I fell bad that I often don't vote in any elections in Britain, where it's safe to do so and there are no problems such as those which exist today in Pakistan.

Although I've lived in Britain all my life I'm still Pakistani. I look Pakistani and despite being at odds with my cultural upbringing and the struggle to combine two such distinct cultures, my Pakistani heritage is very important to me and I think of myself as British Pakistani. So i'm sad to see and hear of violence and fear in my country.

I last visited Pakistan about three and a half years ago. I was there for my nephew's wedding, which took place in Kashmir, in the village where my sister is married into. As she's married to a first cousin everyone in this village is related to me one way or another and I have more second and third cousins than I can keep up with.

Although I was happy to go to my nephew’s wedding, having always been very close to him, it was still difficult being surrounded by extended family for a concentrated period of time, without respite. The social etiquette, the rules of who I can and can’t mix with when it comes to the men, despite them all being related to me and many being my junior is just too much for me.

Whilst at the wedding, which was spread over a week with all the various celebrations, I was, as usual, the object of curiosity and gossip. I'd be sat amongst the women and they'd stare at me, dying to know what the story was with the unmarried twenty-nine year old who'd had the longest education anyone had ever heard of in our family and was now here for her nephews wedding, who was ten years her junior!

I'd move from one room to another, never staying around the women for long and would amuse myself by chatting to the kids. Somehow at family functions I always end up with the children, as they don’t question me and accept me the way I am.

After the wedding I promised I wouldn’t be going back to Pakistan, certainly not for another nephew or niece’s wedding. Why should I deliberately put myself in a situation where people view me as an oddity and speculate on the type of life I live, and why I wasn't married with a minimum of four children at my age?

The Archbishop of Canterbury's comments on sharia law

I read the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said the adoption of some aspects of of Islamic sharia law in the UK ‘seems unavoidable’. According to him, because certain laws of other religions are already recognised in UK law, it would seem appropriate to apply the same to sharia law. He said there was a place for finding a ‘constructive accomadation’ in areas such as marriage, which would allow Muslim to avoid western divorce proceedings.

Although he said sharia law, equal to laws of other religions which are incorporated into UK law, could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual’s right as a citizen, and that it would require a change in how sharia law is perceived, as often it is seen as imposing extreme punishments and attitudes to women in Islamic states, I’m not sure if the Archbishop has a thorough understanding of what the incorporation of sharia law would mean for Muslim women.

For example, in a Pakistani-Kashmiri community such as the one I come from, it would give the men, who are ill informed on religion at the best of times, to think UK law was almost completely Islamic and they'd use it as an excuse to impose their backward and chauvinistic ideas, none of which are Islamic, on women.

For the women, who are often not well educated or don’t have access to resources to inform themselves of their rights, this could mean they'd be more bound to their husbands and families. This wouldn’t work well if they were in bad marriages, at least in a legal marriage they can go through a proper divorce procedure. If they are told that now, in England sharia law applies and are presented with a distorted view of what it means (ie, Islam states a divorced woman is disrespectful and creates a bad impression for her family, an excuse I've heard many times in my family when defending why a woman should never leave her husband, no matter what) then women will be even more helpless to assert their rights as a British citizen. This is especially important for girls who've been forced or ‘persuaded’ into marriages with unsuitable men because for the parents and community it’s perceived better for them to be married than single.

I'm not against incorporation of sharia law into UK law if everyone is aware of their rights, it's just i've seen within my own family Islamic rules distorted to benefit the men and leave the women in vulnerable positions.

The transcript of the interview with BBC Radio 4's The World at One can be read at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/wato/archbishoptranscript.shtml

The Archbishop's comments following his interview can be read at:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1581

See the BBC's report on the Archbishop's comments at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7232661.stm