Zaiba Malik

In 2003 the journalist Zaiba Malik was imprisoned in Bangladesh for several days because of an investigation she was undertaking into Al-Quada for Channel 4. This year she published her autobiography, ‘We are a Muslim, Please’.

I found this an enjoyable easy read; interesting, informative, occasionally distressing even heart-rending, yet humorous in parts and sometimes searching. What should make this book of particular interest is possibly threefold. Firstly, we live an area that has a large Muslim population and it is perhaps incumbent upon us to try and understand our neighbour a little better. Secondly, in the light of the so named, ‘war on terror,’ occasional sensational reporting coupled with extreme and unhelpful protests such as the ‘burn a Koran’ episode (regrettably perpetrated by Christians), along with a woeful lack of understanding as to the teaching of Islam, a balance needs to be discovered. Then thirdly, surely everyone likes a book about a place they know and can identify with. I say this because Zaiba Malik was born in Leeds and brought up in Bradford.

In the book you will discover that whilst in captivity she was told by her captors, that she was not a ‘proper’ Muslim. This had a profound effect upon her as, brought up a Muslim by devout parents, she could not recognise or identity with the Islam taught by her captors and to the cruelty and fanaticism they espoused. She recalls poignantly the hatred and racism that she had witness come to birth and take shape in her home town.

‘We are a Muslim, please’, was recently serialised on Radio 4’s Book of the Week, which is where I first came across it. Because I was not in a position to hear the broadcast through I sent for the book. According to Susan, I send for too many books! I read it within a few days of its arrival.

It is obvious that we see our hurt through our own eyes. It is something personal. In relation to our communities we sometimes speak of a loss of identity. It is valuable to understand that our Muslim neighbours also know hurt and pain, and many do not like, or want, the hardening of attitudes that they so often witness within their own, as well as the wider community.

To quote the synopsis on the back cover , ‘For Zaiba Malik, growing up in Bradford in the '70s and '80s certainly has its moments - staying up all night during Ramadan with her father; watching mad Mr. Aziz searching for his goat during Eid; dancing along to Top of the Pops (so long as no-one's watching). And, of course, there's her mother - whether she's writing another ingratiating letter to the Queen or referring to Tom Jones as 'Thumb Jone'.

But Zaiba's story is also one of anxiety and seemingly irreconcilable opposites. Growing up she is constantly torn between two identities: 'British' and 'Muslim'. Alienated at school and confused at home, she encounters racism that mirrors the horrors she experiences at the hands of Bangladeshi interrogators as a journalist years later.

Five years after the 7/7 attacks galvanized debates about Muslim-British identity, "We Are A Muslim, Please" is a stirring and enchanting memoir. We see, through Zaiba's childhood eyes, the poignancy of growing up in a world whose prejudices, contradictions and ambiguities are at once distressing and utterly captivating.’

I heartily recommend this thoughtful little book to you, and although the new bookshelf is stacked two deep, it at least got the books off the floor.… (más)