Rays of hope that the media do not see
Published 16 October 2006
The vast majority of things I read and watch in the mainstream media relating to Muslims focus obsessively on what divides us. But, at several wonderful, uplifting moments each week, I find myself amazed and proud at how diverse Britain has become.
Sometimes these feelings come out of funny moments. A while ago, I was catching a train from Leeds to London. Before boarding I stop ped at a newsagent to buy a newspaper and a bottle of water. The man in front of me was a young British Asian. He was wearing the baggy pantaloons, long shirt and skullcap you see in religious seminaries in Pakistan. He also had an Islamic-style beard. The white woman behind the counter was probably in her mid-forties. She spoke in a thick Yorkshire accent as she joked and flirted with the customers.
I assumed that the young Muslim was going to take offence, or at least not find any of the woman's banter amusing.
His turn at the counter came. "Awright lurve, that be wun poun fifteh," she said. "Awright, there yer go. Thanks lurve," said the young man with the beard and skullcap. An irrepressible grin came over my face. But this is not the kind of thing we are likely to find written about Islam and Muslims in our newspapers.
Then came the lady with a headscarf, speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent, who I saw in a London park last weekend. My children were queuing up to have a go on the slide behind her daughter. The lady told the little girl in Arabic to hurry up and be careful.
I thought that maybe she didn't speak English very well, because she had lived most of her life isolated at home and didn't have any English friends. Then she looked at me and said, in a classic Estuary accent: "My goodness, it's so difficult keeping up with the little things. Where do they get their energy from?" The same wry, optimis tic grin came to my face again.
There is far more hope and optimism for our country than is reflected in the press. There is far more intermingling of ordinary Britons, Muslim and non-Muslim. There is far more interest in each other, a greater attempt at understanding why the politics of our identities has been marked by misunderstanding, crisis and, too often, violence. The public is miles ahead of the media and politicians.
But best of all the things I see that make me so hopeful is the number of couples from different races and backgrounds. As a journalist covering international news, I travel frequently across the west and the developing world. Nowhere have I seen as many "mixed couples" as in British cities - not in the US, nor in Canada, and certainly not in any country on mainland Europe.
It's not just simply a case of black and white couples. That taboo was broken a long time ago. I have now met many couples of mixed Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds. The most surprising thing is how long such relationships have been a part of British life. On three occasions this year alone, at literary festivals in Wales, Scotland and England, I have met men and women who have spoken to me of their marriages and partnerships with Muslims.
Usually the only time the public hears about these relationships is when they go wrong. Such stories are about Muslim men fleeing, snatching children to take them back to their homeland of Pakistan, Libya or Iran - the invariable tone of the coverage heavily suggesting that these places are barbaric hell-holes. Go into any bookshop and you will find many publications telling stories of how "they tried to rescue their children" . . .
What isn't written about is the difficult, sometimes funny, and always insoluble problem of how children of such marriages and relationships are raised with knowledge of and empathy for both sets of identities. I'm not talking about what religion they should be brought up in. It's much more immediate: how can the children grow up being able to speak both English and the language of their other parent, be it Hindi, Arabic, Kurdish or, in my case, Somali?
My wife has continually urged me to do more to teach my children Somali. And I have to admit that the fault is entirely my own. Laziness? Maybe. Lack of interest on my part? Certainly not. I am not going to be so wimpish as to blame the amount of time I spend travelling abroad. If any readers have any suggestions from personal experience, I'd like to hear.
I will write more anon about where I think I am going wrong, or what is preventing me from getting on with teaching my children Somali. If nothing else, I hope it will provide readers with a tiny little window on how the vast majority of Muslims have integrated into Britain, and a sense of what normal lives they lead. It's getting harder to find such stories, after all.
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