Special reports | How would you describe your identity?
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | How would you describe your identity?
Table 1
How would you describe your identity?
Multiple identities for those whose family roots reach abroad can be “comfortably” negotiated, Mr Ahkter added, explaining: “I am absolutely British. I am absolutely Pakistani. I am absolutely Muslim. I am all of those.”
“‘British Muslim’ is a title with an empty page, we have a good opportunity to start defining it,” he concluded.
Table 1
How would you describe your identity?
Tuesday November 30, 2004
The Guardian
“It is not about what people feel but what they are allowed to feel,” said Alya Shakir, a translator, who believes a public declaration of being a “British Muslim” is impossible because of stereotypes surrounding Britishness.
“We are restricted by how people perceive us and what they allow us to be. You can say to people you are British and they will push you for another explanation because we do not fit their idea of what ‘British’ is.”
Such signifiers as an Islamic name or a non-western looking face provide a ready-made barrier to one’s citizenry entitlement, according to Iman Naji, a student at Surrey University. “I was born and brought up here, all I know is a British life, but we have to accept the fact we will never be 100% British.”
Raihana Nasreen, a medical student at King’s College London, said: “I am Muslim first because I measure everything against that.”
Being a British Muslim is an easier space to inhabit in multicultural hotspots such as London and Manchester than the backstreets of Bradford, participants agreed. But what is clear for these second- and third-generation Muslims is that the question of passing the “cricket test”, as coined by the former Tory minister Norman Tebbit, has had its day.
Being British can no longer be determined by which team you support in an international game. “That’s the politics of empire, the legacy of partition,” said Navid Ahkter, a television producer. “It’s a very outdated notion to feel we have to go through these tests at all. There are many ways of being British.”
Multiple identities for those whose family roots reach abroad can be “comfortably” negotiated, Mr Ahkter added, explaining: “I am absolutely British. I am absolutely Pakistani. I am absolutely Muslim. I am all of those.”
“‘British Muslim’ is a title with an empty page, we have a good opportunity to start defining it,” he concluded.
Consensus was more easily reached on a question about whether Muslims should participate in British political life. Speakers revealed clear frustration at the way the country’s 1.5 million Muslims are perceived as having different “needs” from their non-Muslim neighbours. Their interests are often presumed to be about foreign policy rather than domestic issues.
Yet Muslims were no more or less likely to be concerned by the government’s decision to invade Iraq, for example, than other citizens of Britain. While first-generation Muslims in Britain may have focused their sights on politics “back home”, the younger generations are engaged by social issues here in Britain. “I don’t know why they think we need amazingly different things,” said Lorraine Hamid, a Whitehall civil servant. There was a strong awareness that voter apathy was a malaise affecting young people everywhere, not just in Muslim homes. May al Timmini, a locum pharmacist, rejected the idea that Muslims vote on faith issues. “I would not be thinking from the point of view of how [politicians] are going to serve the Muslim community, but how are they going to serve the community I live in? Are they going to provide better roads, more jobs? Those are my priorities.”