Az-Zalzalah – The Earthquake

Laid open.  Bare.  Exposed. Naked.

It’s as though the innards of the secret between us have been dissected, surgically exposed, a scalpel taken to us.

Reading over the electronic past, a realisation that nothing should have changed dawns upon me; an angry dark cloud, obscuring the hurt, exposing the pain.  But it did.  And it changed in an instant.

Words suspended in the electronic book of our lives tell a different story to the reality you described that day.  The day the earth moved and shook; the day the zalzalah came, and you with it.

On the 26^th July 2009 I wrote those three little words, etched them onto the wall, engraving them in with a metal file, hoping that they could not be erased.  But the click of our fickle friend, the power held in a mouse click could take it all away.  I remember you replied in kind, the very next day, not the same day, but the very next, as though cementing things between us.  Words suspended in hyperspace were never to be relied upon, but we did.  They hang there still, tenuously, as though on a dead tree, mocking.

There is nothing so big that words cannot fix.  There is nothing too mountainous that words cannot climb, conquer and override.   There is nothing.  I believed that.  But I was alone in my belief in the power of words, their power to heal, overcome and seal the wound with the curved way they hang in air above us, tangible utterances.

Words are all I have, write through everything.

The Mighty Conversion/Reversion Experience

Today I was invited by a good friend of mine to witness and take part in a non-Muslim woman “converting/reverting” (whatever the currently fashionable and acceptable term might be) to Islam.  Despite the scariness of the term, it does not involve any surgery, ritual circumcisions and kissing the sacred chicken’s bottom – although it would be fun to make someone do that – it is actually as plain and simple as saying the “Shahadah”.  This is a declaration of faith, which translated means “I bear witness there is no god but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.”  So all that you really need to do is say these words, and shazam, one is transformed quite magically into a bearded lion if a man, or a black-clad ninja if one is a woman. 

In all seriousness, all that is required is a firm, true belief in those words, and any recitation of them is to be from the heart and not just from the lips.  Your mouth can form the words, first in Arabic, then in English, without you actually believing in them, and often many who are perpetually Muslim do not dwell on their significance; but for Tracey today, every single word was important, carrying a weighty, life-changing significance that only Arabic seems to carry, forcing her to form the Arabic words by over-pronouncing, stumbling and eventually reaching their destination. 

We met at the door with Amanah’s mother-in-law, a friend she had brought along for the experience and Tracey; the two Aunties were already in the house, waiting in anticipation for Tracey to arrive so we could claim her for our own.  They waited inside, with a friend of theirs whilst we made short, polite, very English introductions; Amanah being white and English helped here; we kept it brief, shook hands and tried to enter the house – simultaneously. 

Often I wonder in all the ardent hospitality that so positively colours our Asian culture why we fail to allow others to step inside a room before us, waiting politely for the guest – in this case Tracey – to enter before barging in ourselves.  So while Amanah’s mother-in-law and her friend got stuck in the doorway together, Tracey and I waited politely, in our very English fashion whilst they kissed and hugged the internal occupants.  I smiled at Tracey, in manner I hoped was encouraging rather than psychotic to prompt her to enter the house before me; Auntie Arifah (not my real aunt of course, but all ladies who are old enough to be our mothers are our Aunties) made sure to welcome Tracey with hugs and kisses on both cheeks and I entered and dutifully hugged and kissed all the occupants, making sure everyone was sufficiently kissed and hugged so as not to offend anyone.  It’s a wonder we Muslims ever get anything done with all the hugging and kissing one is required to do – but I digress. 

Once Tracey was safely seated amongst us all, the conversation started.  I was expecting some kind of ritual action to be taking place, having never witnessed a conversion so up close and personal before, I was on tenterhooks, waiting for an explanation.  But Auntie Samia and Auntie Arifah offered none and continued to talk to Tracey asking her questions about life, where she lived, worked and how she had met Amanah, our token white Muslim, now complete with twins.  All of a sudden, in hushed tones, Auntie explained the meaning and significance behind the words that Tracey was to utter.  She quietly explained what exactly Tracey was going to declare after Tracey had quite candidly told us that she had researched Islam, read the Bible and discovered that she felt Islam was the truth.  The Aunties nodded in appreciation and then the quiet, modest conversion began. 

We all leaned in as Auntie Arifah said each and every word of the Shahadah – the Muslim declaration of faith, our creed – separately and Tracey repeated each word.  When Tracey stumbled Auntie Samia picked her up, dusted her off and set her off again, repeating the phrase slowly so she could correct herself.  It was as though time had stood still as we leaned in closer subconsciously, as though the world had stopped turning for all of us, held in stasis, knowing very little about each other and yet sharing a moment so close, so intimate that to speak would be to desecrate the sanctity of the space.  I held my breath as the declaration drew to a close; the whole thing was over in less than one hundred and twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity, a vast open space in which we were all held close together, united by our occupation of the sacred space where the smallest, most significant things had happened to Tracey.  As the words drew to a close, we all leaned back in our seats, as though the world started to spin again on its axis, as though the clock breathed and continued to tick, marking the significant seconds that passed us by.   

Tracey was shaking, the transformation she had undertaken so immense that it lit up her whole face.  She looked to us all and glowed with happiness as she said, “Thanks, Jazakallah Khayr my sisters!”  To everyone’s delight, Amanah had been quite dutifully teaching Tracey how to express gratitude using Arabic and Islamic phrases.  This was followed up with another round of hugging and kissing to congratulate Tracey and welcome her into the folds of our community. 

The ceremonial hugging, kissing and tearful congratulating was followed up with the giving of gifts.  Auntie Samia produced a Jane Noir bag in a shocking pink colour full of scarves and other covering outer garments that Tracey was to wear during prayer.  Amanah had prepared a bag, in real Amanah-style with a scarf and I could quite significantly see poking out the top her guide to prayer she had so lovingly produced to help other people when she knew she herself had struggled so much with the words of prayer. 

I approached Tracey to bombard her with my own gift, a modest one, used, second-hand, with a cracked spine: a copy of “From My Sister’s Lips” by Naima B. Roberts: the story of the conversion and transformation of a woman from her past life to her Islamic life.  I thought it better to give Tracey something she could possibly relate to rather than the “fire and brimstone” dictum contained in many books about Islam – I actually own a book called “Descriptions of Hell”, it’s an uplifting and lyrical piece that is sure to help your children sleep at night. 

          “I’m sorry it’s not completely new Tracy; it’s a well-read book that I have passed around to people, but it’s always come back to me.  I read it myself ages ago and then put it away. I was hoping you would like it.”

The rabbit-caught-in-headlights look had not left Tracey’s face since the first bag of gifts was thrust upon her.  “Oh, that’s so nice of you,” she managed.

          “It’s a book written by a lady who converted to Islam herself and then she wrote about her experiences.  Sorry it’s not new,” I made sure I added again, apologetically, conscious that all eyes were on me. 

          “No, that’s great,” said Tracey, genuinely grateful and taken aback by the loving gestures she had received from complete strangers.

          “That’s the English teacher in her coming out,” Amanah chimed in, cheerfully; she was clearly glowing with post-conversion bliss, possibly remembering her own conversion over ten years ago. 

          “Yes, I have a book to mark every occasion,” I quite proudly announced to the room in general, not realising that this was something no one else could possibly relate to.  Tracey laughed, hopefully to save me from embarrassment as everyone started at me. 

As always, each occasion is marked ceremoniously with a small feast and we had one prepared: tea, homemade cakes, a giant brioche-type-dough-cake, Bombay Mix and newly-discovered gram flour crisps.  We ate and made sure we provided Tracey with as much as information as she could soak up and Auntie Samia started a rather positive conversation about the scientific material contained in the Qur’an and how modern science is starting to catch up with things already described 1400 years ago, from the mouth of an illiterate camel herder.  Bizarrely, one of the ladies present – a friend of Auntie Arifah’s I assume since she was already in her house – asked about adultery and the fact that in Islam, a woman’s testimony was only worth half of a man’s.  The conversation took on a scary tone as Whipping, Stoning to Death and their friendly brother, Testifying To Adultery all entered the room and quite rudely squatted on the coffee table. 

Tracey followed the conversation quite closely, not offering comment, and I tried quite unsuccessfully to lighten the atmosphere, chiming in with, “Yes, but as I understood it, you need four witnesses to prove adultery, which means four people have to be in the room with you while you’re at it.  I’m sure that would put anyone off adultery in the first place!”  Thankfully, my vocabulary did not become colourful and nor did I describe any acts of love-making to provide a distraction from a topic I thought was a wholly inappropriate way to welcome Tracey to Islam.  It seemed to say, ‘Welcome to Islam sister, please leave any pork, alcohol, foreskins and adultery at the door.  If not, you shall be given 100 lashes and/or stoned to death.  Have a nice day.’

Sadly, my cunning diversion sent the wrong message to the rogue Auntie, she was undeterred.  There was a knock at the door and our three unwelcome friends were joined by their equally unsuitable sister: Rape. 

          “So you’ve got the testimony of four men, testifying to rape, why did these four men do nothing to stop it?” Auntie Rogue asked; it was phrased rhetorically it seemed, not referring to any incident in particular, not even tying in nicely with another topic of conversation, just randomly squatting on Auntie Arifah’s polished coffee table amongst the remnants of our tea party. 

I panicked, fearing that Tracey would run screaming from the room, I searched out Auntie Samia’s eyes and tried to give her a signal that said “Change the subject, talk about flowers and bunny rabbits, scarves, prayer, anything!”  Instead, I think I just ended up looking scary and psychotic, but eventually, Auntie Samia said something to placate the rogue Auntie and I made sure I deftly added a conversation starter about the joys of being a Muslim woman. 

I described in detail about how liberating it was to have the luxury of not having to work, choosing instead to stay at home, pursuing other avenues if one wished.  It actually helped to say out loud that it was a luxury to be a Muslim woman, as Islamically what we earn is our own, and if we share it with our family then it is considered an act of charity. I finished up with my famous line, “And quite frankly, I’m looking forward to getting married and spending someone else’s money for a change.”    

Sadly, Amanah had to go and feed her babies so the magic of the late afternoon conversion had to be drawn to a close, reluctantly by all involved, thankfully, even Tracey looked sad to leave; Rape and Adultery had not ruined the party.  She had stopped looking so bewildered, so to make sure she was taken aback some more we all offered her lifts to take her home.  Tracey looked around at all of us, eagerly holding our car keys, leaning in towards her, making sure our hospitality was not left incomplete.  The bewildered look returned.  I helped by declaring I would be taking Tracey home as I wanted to see where she lived. 

As it happened, the flat she rented was literally around the corner and quicker to walk to rather than drive, so we set off on foot, my new friend Tracey and I, on a journey less significant than the gargantuan one she had just undertaken.

Reflective Essay: How Do I Write?

All writers are asked this question at least once during their careers, and those of us who make no secret of the fact that we would love to be in their position, feel the need to explain to ourselves why we undertake creative tasks.  Most creative writing books I own encourage this form of blatant narcissism as a form of creative self-reflection, a journey into a writing sub consciousness, a Freudian (however fake) “writing” cure designed to help us understand our own practice.   So in an attempt to comprehend myself, I’m undertaking the one task that all my books on writing theory recommend: write about why you write.

 

There are often a thousand ideas for stories in my head at any one time.  Often I find myself thinking, “That’d make a great story,” or “I should write that down” or “This story of my life would make me famous” about something profound in my life; but I rarely do something about it.  These unwritten tales are often worse than badly-written fiction, as, in allowing the death of an idea before is has even begun, I commit some kind of literary sacrilege. 

 

Sometimes, I’ll sub consciously form a story for myself, for no one but me; if it’s not written, materialised, made tangible then it cannot be true.  Is this writing at all?  Does this cerebral story-forming constitute the same as the physical act of writing?  Is it the same as forming a fiction on a page, as I do so now, my cheap biro scarring the paper like an inky razor?

 

Very rarely do I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, but when I do it is for personal rather than monetary gain.  There is something satisfying about displaying your talents for yourself.  In this way, writing, for me, is an egotistical act, a form of unashamed self-gratification, a display of the fact that despite peoples’ perceptions, I can still be successful at something. 

 

Writing is a selfish act for me, I write to express, but only express what I feel I can share and form unconscious, unwritten stories for the rest.  This is mainly why nothing I ever write is completely finished or planned.  Spontaneous fragments of fiction fill my “My Documents” folder on the communal computer and this does not bother me as much as it should.  I’ve never been one to complete a project before beginning another, sporadically flitting from acrylic painting Arabic calligraphy to writing essays about writing to compulsively purchasing more books I probably won’t read but will dust every six months.  Ironically, I teach all of my students – or at least I used to  - that the best essay, the most valuable writing is planned, carefully thought out, predetermined as a set of legible notes, and yet I’m writing this with nothing but a semi-blank page and a black pen as an aid.  Writers (or teachers for that matter) never practice what they preach; those who argue we should omit the adjectives often find they overload their own prose with adjectival verbosity, and those of us who advocate rigorous planning as a rule, always fail to plan rather than plan to fail.

 

This lack of planning is far from a cause for celebration; in fact, it shows quite starkly and scarily how all of my prose fiction eventually leads to creative non-fiction.  Thus, a story about teaching inevitably ends up as a “Life in the Day” article, complete with anecdotal advice and personal quotes; a random musing about a parallel universe ends up starkly as a life I should or used to lead.

 

Maybe I just have a strangely egotistical, narcissistic belief that the whole world wants to read about me, greedily consuming fiction rooted in my own experiences.  In this way, I am an openly conceited writer striving for the ideal of creating memorable fiction but inevitably concocting a written documentary of my life as it is now, as it was or as it may be.  Maybe I should embark on my own memoirs rather than dangerously dabble in the art of prose fiction – get it all out of my system in a kind of autobiographical literary cleansing before venturing into the abyss of literary fiction.

 

I should.  But I probably will not.  I’ll probably just keep starting projects, endeavouring to finish them, turn them all into creative non-fiction and put them on my blog in the vain and narcissistic hope that they bring me pleasure and a sense of achievement in a world where success is measured through monetary gain and fame.  After all, “we can’t all be heroes, someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”  Now who said that?  And more importantly, does this count as a completed projected I can fill my hard drive with?

GCSE Poetry LIVE!

Word of the day: Qualitative.

We’re sitting in the middle, sandwiched between the two main places of unrest.  A no-man’s land of Poetry Live!  And like all good soldiers, we ventured forth into battle, straining to see, to hear through the mists of foggy clouds of noxious gases and crisp packets. 

Armed with booklets and anthologies, we ventured forth, pens poised, bayonets sharpened, and eyes on the stage.  There was the fear that Gillian Clarke would bore us into submission, sending us reeling back into the rustle of crisp packets, but she held us captivated.  I glanced at the students on my left, their faces glued to the stage as if to “that old rope”, coerced quietly into concentration.  Brows furrowed as the precise, warming voice filled the room, clouding the rustles behind us.  Even references to the Irish Question, 1916, 1998, the IRA were scribbled furiously on our brains.

Intervals left us wanting more, rudely interrupted by the presence of the chief examiner, our students taking their seats readily, eagerly, hungrily.  Carol Ann Duffy captivated us further, her down-to-earth gritty realism, reference to reality and precise explanations left us scribbling furiously on pages, arms, legs, minds.  An updated Salome entertained students in a way that no classroom reading can ever do, striving to capture what poetry was initially about: the naked spoken word.  The spoken work overtook the written in an attempt to flood our senses with the power of language, attempting to erase the ingrained notion that poetry should be read and not heard.  Hearing Duffy’s poetry for the first time, many of our students were pleasantly surprised by the humour, irony, straight-forwardness of her poems.  Stripped bare of the classroom setting, students were illicitly exposed to poetry the way it should be experienced.  Most were untainted by the “death” caused by excessive scrutiny and therefore bathed in the language of the poems without worrying about exams and meaning-making.  Just plain, unadulterated naked poetry.

Duffy left amongst cheers and wolf whistles as Simon Armitage ascended.  Our students cast sidelong glances, wondering what the cheering was about for this plain-looking, West Yorkshireman, striding purposefully towards the microphone.  Amid howling laughter and claps, he recited a warm-up poem about an obscure place practising witchcraft, painting their genitals blue and orange.  After this, there was no going back, we were hooked, obsessive fans, drawn to our own “Anchor.” Those who were hearing for the first time, the poet’s stories about his personal life, his poetry, his art, breathed his every breath, waited, mesmerised for a little more.  He wowed us for what seemed like five minutes before leaving amidst cheers, catcalls and wolf whistles. 

Advice from the chief examiner rudely interrupted us again, despite its usefulness, we wanted more poetry.  Grace Nichols was next on the menu.  Armed with accent, poetry that we did not have in print and an amazing knack for rhythm, Creole was brought to life for the first time for our students.  Amongst the rise of noxious gases from other schools, our students seemed captivated by the sights, sounds and smells evoked by Grace Nichols, recreating the Caribbean in the bright lights of Newcastle. 

Imtiaz Dharker closely followed with stories of the Indian Subcontinent, some of which were not conducive to the image of Pakistan.  Her hatred of an Islamic faith seemed to scream out at me from the poem so divisively named “Honour Killing”.  So much for artists and writers trying to break down the misconceptions about the Indian Subcontinent, creating new frontiers and a celebration of a culture.  Nevertheless, she was a performer; playing expertly to the crowd who cheered during the delightful performance of “She must be from another Country”.   Race relations, we salute you.

The much anticipated, much-celebrated poet and performer really brought down the roof with wild performances of many of his poems; poems we did not have in front of us, naked and unashamed, exposed language slicing through the rustles, his shouts drowning out anything and everything.  Funny, passionate and completely committed, Agard held the audience, cradled closely to his chest, like children, sending out messages of hope for the young, a multicultural approach to poetry, life and words, which hopefully did not fall on deaf ears.  A half-caste tongue in a half-caste head, convoluted notions of race, division and caste thrown aside in a symbolic gesture: the trademark, “standing on one leg”.  Raising the roof whilst simultaneously bringing the house down, Agard left our young people with notions of language as “sexy and erotic”.  In his own words, all the poets had proved to us, “language can really turn you on!”

On reading Qur’aan after some time…

Belated shock at the number of references to punishment and Hell-fire overtook any initial pleasure, threatening to invade and engulf the tranquillity gained through the logical grammatical constructions of the Holy Qur’aan.  The words curling upwards, forever upwards, pointing to a Heaven unseen.

Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  Mercy.  Fornicators.  Punishment.  Paradise.  Hell-fire.  Forgiveness.  Torment.  Repent.  The translated words leap from the page with every flick, escaping into the present and invading the past.

The juxtaposition of the incongruous, images lost in translation, vividness lost within the narrow gap between direct understanding and translated text, burst forth from the pages, like comforting demons.  The idle blank space between the interpretations of the meanings and the curling Arabic text screams out to be read.  Recite.  Read.  In the name of your Lord. 

Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  Prayer.  Salah.  Charity.  Zakah.  Repetition a comfort; the acknowledgement that humankind is forgetful.  Reading reminds.  Again the gap between English and cursive Arabic yearns to be read, pleading in the infinitely loud way that only silence can.  The white space a white noise, aching beautiful, coveted by none, pining for a perfection only achieved through divine understanding.

Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  The pious.  Al-Mutaqoon.  The disbelievers.  Al-Kaafiroon.  The All-Merciful.  Ar-Rahman.  Tangible and intangible mingled together in the most important Book you’ll ever read.  Seemingly irreconcilable, disturbingly violent, yet so delicately loving; an hourly minute balanced against the shortest infinity.  Again the gap screams, writhes in agony at the silent space it inhabits, the white noise between the languages, pushing against the bars of an invisible prison. 

This space inhabited between the languages is where atonement lies; like an informant, a spy, an absent partner, it waits, silently screaming in anguish.  It begs to be decoded, deciphered and laid to rest, perpetually waiting for the understanding we award to so many others.  Here is where salvation lies, within the neglected, hidden in plain sight, so clear and yet so obscure; a deliverance so potently real, tangibly intangible, readably unreadable. 

Once the idle blank space has been conquered, mastered and perfected, maybe there’s hope to be reconciled with the Maker.  Like the unread gap, there’s a yearning, a yearning for the unread gap; a time where we can sit and smile together, reminiscing about a time when we were once strangers.  For now, we’re held perpetually in our stasis, waiting, yearning, silently agonising. 

Flick.  Flick.  Flick.   

Transience

 

 

“My soul, you only have one life.  No moment that has passed can be recovered.  And in God’s mind, the number of your breaths has been set down and cannot be increased.  When life is done, no spiritual highways will hold the traffic of your freighted soul.  Therefore what you would do, you must do now.  So treat this day as if your life is spent, and this, an extra day was granted you by special favour of Almighty God…What folly greater than to lose this chance…” 

 

-The Alchemy of Happiness, Imam al-Ghazali

The Traditonal Way

That is the way of the Muslim woman.  The way that we are all expected to follow; similar to the inevitable life cycle of a plant, the natural order of the universe.  The way the planets are aligned around the sun, orbiting the golden orb endlessly, suspended perpetually in limbo, inevitably turning, turning.  It’s natural.

 

Thus, the Traditional Way is to be born, and in our birth there is mush rejoicing, celebratory congratulations: it’s a girl, no shame in that; after all, we’re not Hindus are we?  She’s so beautiful; she’s so fair mashaAllah; she has her mother’s eyes, let’s pray inshaAllah she’s pious like her. 

 

The rejoicing leads to schooling, teaching and learning, life skills and the useless ones they teach you at school too.  Our schooling always involves the art that is being a girl, a true girl.  The clang of cooking pots, the powerful sting of onions: a reminder of the tears of injustice felt during our adolescence.  The Traditional Way involves learning the art of Womanhood: negotiating the complex world of kitchens, housekeeping, sewing, attending to the sick, moving graciously through the political world of family social events, serving guests, making the tea at just the right time: not too early after their arrival as it may be seen as trying to get rid of them too quickly, but not leaving it too late as one does not want to leave one’s guests sitting without a table filled with tea, biscuits, those evil cake rusks from the Asian shop and a pile and fruit, for fear that they might starve whilst they sit in your house for two hours.  The delicate balance of the timing of hospitality, hanging precariously like the moustache of an Asian Aunt over protruding lips, an art form, a kind of pre-meditative state, only to be achieved through rigorous training and exercise.  Very much like the moustache, the art is a cruel master, little reward offered for success but the prick of a thorny moustached-kiss on the cheek for every failure: every kebab not cooked perfectly, every roti (chapatti) not perfectly round.    

 

Once mastered, the art of Womanhood is an invaluable skill, an art form akin to a Buddhist’s achievement of the state of nirvana, a higher state of consciousness, a state to be revered and treated with great care.  Those who fail to master this art, as women, are often seen as incomplete; having said that, those who slot into the Traditional Way need not worry about the art of Womanhood, as often women who can’t wipe their own arses, let alone make a eight-course Asian dinner are accepted into Traditional Society as they fulfil the requirements of marriage and copious procreation.

 

Thus, it is natural that after mastering the much-revered, little-recognised art of Womanhood, there is a progression onto better, greater things.  It goes without saying that many “women” who have mastered the art of Womanhood have also excelled in professional worlds too, seamlessly weaving domestic education with their chosen field, a patchwork quilt woven with the material of impeccable organisation, sewn together with the precarious stitches of hard work, living a double-life in order to reconcile domestic duties and a secular education. 

 

Secular education and living a double-life aside, it is a natural progression, part of the sacred Traditional Way that a woman is quite rightly to be placed officially on the marriage market.  In extreme Traditional Ways, this is often an insular family affair, with extended families involved at every stage; this is clearly dependent upon families and their circumstances.  In some cases, the carefully “outing” of a woman expertly trained in the art of Womanhood is a little less insular, with family friends making introductions, aging “Auntie-types” suggesting the local bad boy as a potential mate.   Searching for a spouse the Traditional Way warrants its own novel, its own saga; it’s a topic that one cannot do justice to without flags, banners and that very tacky tinsel used at Christmas and Asian weddings.

 

Therefore we will ignore the digression and console ourselves with the knowledge that the natural progression, if one is to follow the sacred Traditional Way is to marry into a well-respected family and live out a “happily-ever-after”, procreating, rearing, cooking, slotting seamlessly into the new family, adopting them as your own.  All of this is natural and quite necessary, far be it for me to scoff or scorn at this; this is after all what the loins are for; don’t misunderstand, this is all to be revered, a conditional to aspire to; we all want to find a suitable life partner, grow old and be comfortable with one another’s corns, trimming them when necessary.

 

Life under the Traditional Way involves living out the ultimate dream: living within close proximity of in-laws – sometimes even in the same house – or close enough to your parents if your Traditional Way marriage involved a trip abroad to secure the good; working not too far from home, arriving home to share your chores – if the husband is a woolly liberal – cooking the dinner, cleaning the house, only to do it all over again the next day.  Weekends function pretty much the same way: cooking, often for the in-laws, inviting guests over, going to visit your parents or numerous relatives, cooking, eating and talking.  This all sounds very serene and relaxed, a perpetual holiday if you like, living the dream of the Traditional Way.  Bliss. 

 

But what of those for whom this is not enough?  What of those who want a little more?  Not only in the musical Oliver! Did they exclaim, “What?! You want MORE?!”  This exclamation rings out throughout the corridors when one dares to suggest the Traditional Way is not enough, shattering the illusion of a world based on perpetual happiness through procreation and deference to one’s spouse.  Some of us want more than the cooking, cleaning and copulating like which is presented before us as an ideal, causing problems with the society and raising questions of our sanity. 

 

It’s not considered a part of the Traditional Way to want to use your skills to help people less fortunate.  Of course charity is important, they exclaim, but what is wrong with donating some money?  Women who want to travel, yes, travel, (with spouses I might add) are considered slightly deranged, if not a little unhinged. 

 

Look, volunteering is all very well and good, but when will you have children?  This question rings out at every turn, as if a woman is a baby-producing, breast-feeding bovine, raised only to raise her own, a vessel for carrying and feeding.  Can one travel and not have children at the same time?  After all, women are naturally gifted at multitasking – one only has to observe one making a fifteen course Asian dinner to see this.  If a woman can cook fifteen courses, look after her in-laws, feed the baby, iron her husband’s clothes and also have a career at the same time, would it not be safe to say she could have children AND (haven forbid) help someone in another country for a few months of the year?

 

The Traditional Way does not allow for such reprobates and renegades to exist without being labelled as “independent;” a word that cannot be uttered without its characteristically damning inverted commas, a slight sneer on the lips and a shake of the head.  “You know Muhammad’s daughter?  Yes, she’s quite, ‘independent’, does charity work.”          

 

Let’s hope one day, somewhere out there will be the male equivalent of such an ‘independent’ woman, the same ideals, unfulfilled with the Traditional Way, wanting a little bit more.  In the meantime, we can but pray and occasionally hum the songs from Oliver!         

Eternally An Amateur

Ten years

That’s how long it will take you to be a good teacher.

At least that’s what they claim.  They have this obsessive idea that one cannot be good at one’s job until one has grey hair, unsightly wrinkles and have put sufficient number of hours in.  They of course speak about the hoards of teachers who qualify every year without the faintest clue about imparting knowledge. 

Some of progress at a faster rate than most of the population; after all, being a Muslim woman, I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life working until the early hours.  Masculinising my life, face and mannerisms in an attempt to compete with my male contemporaries.  Personally, that’s not the life I envisaged for myself when I took the job; I’m good at what I do, thus this should be recognised. 

But no matter how good I am (all thanks to Allah) compared to others, or how humble I seem in front of them, or how long they have been working; ten, fifteen, twenty years dedicated to furthering themselves, treading on others, crushing the opposition with leather-clad feet to get to the top of the mountain, I will always be an amateur.  Their success measured in cups full of the blood of innocents is their prize, disguised in good intentions, masked by the sweet stench of accomplishment.  I cannot measure success in statistics, league tables, a number-crunching so alien to the profession to which I signed up; a creative, progressive, multi-faceted career, the business of saving lives with the power of language.  A piece of paper so powerful that it opens doors for all who possess it: The Holy Grail, the blessed holy water of a GCSE in English, a vital, life-giving force, delivering progenies of success to all who receive it. 

They claim to have the knowledge of this blessed entity, they even possess one themselves, but fail to remember the dedication of their creative teachers who made it possible for themto enter the realm of education, compose a sentence, write that application, the bone-crushing, damning sentence which condemned those beneath them in order for them to get to the top.  They’reindebted to these creative souls, who like present-day English teachers, inspire, against all odds, the desire to gain the Holy Grail.  Even those who hand in one hundred words for the coursework of their lives, finally, at some point recognise the urgency of such a precious booty.  In their pre-exam state, they create, re-create, attend and perform in every lesson, drawing upon reserves from the arduous winter and thus shaping their lessons, dictating the pace, rigour and performance of their humble teacher. 

Even these creative souls, possibly responsible for the monsters they may have created only ever claimed to be a guiding force, therefore can abstain from claiming any responsibility for their prodigious progeny who ruthlessly maintain they have more right to be at the top for the reason they have trodden on people for longer than those too demure, too polite to do so.  Chronology and not ability, determines success in this profession, overpowering and strangling creativity and passion.  They are not amateurs because they have been at it longer than others.   This illusive and illustrious it is still yet to be defined; is it the heartless business of teaching, coldly delivering a curriculum, which they speak of?  Or is it crushing those beneath them with their cheap patent leather lace-up shoes with the slight heel aiding them in their superiority?  The dissembling and distinguished it seems to have escaped me. 

I, on the other hand, will always be, and am proud to always be an amateur at what I do.  Practising everyday, not claiming perfection, striving for the ideal, experimenting and regurgitating practice everyday, each moment captured in the creative flux of the philosophy of teaching; imparting, prompting, inspiring. 

I will never be perfect and nothing more than an amateur. 

“We are all amateurs.  We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”  Charlie Chaplain – Limelight

In School, Silence is a Virtue…

Staff turnover in schools.  A major issue for schools across the country. 

 

Many teachers claim poor behaviour is the cause of their leaving the teaching profession; others speak of rowdy classrooms, violence against teachers, intimidating Year 11 boys, charged with testosterone and looking for a fight.  Sometimes teachers leave the profession over workload, stress and long hours despite the bell ringing noisily at 3.30.  Others leave due to management, bullying by other members of staff who seek to intimidate anyone who tries to criticise their regime and their school. 

 

Upon reflection, sometimes silence is always a virtue in schools.  When the outspoken and rowdy student, opinionated about sexual matters, well-versed in modern-day expletives utters words unutterable by decent society, the professional remains calm, preferring to calmly address such obscenities in a measured tone; carefully avoiding drawing too much attention to the student in question, after all, giving them an audience exacerbates and encourages.  As he – we always assume it’s the testosterone-charged male – sits down in his own time, taking care to expertly catch the eyes of any heavily made up, doe-eyed females within his gaze, the teacher barely acknowledges his tirade, choosing to swiftly, silently gloss over and continue with the precious learning slipping away through her fingers, like grains of rice in the school cafe. 

 

Silence in the staffroom is always a virtue and yet we feel compelled to share: the battle with those Year 10s, the great lesson we had with Year 11 because they were so willing to work, the overly-keen Year 7s who wrote 7 pages for their last assessment.  The emotional highs and lows of the profession never change and will probably remain until education is replaced by the future, otherwise known as vocational qualifications.  In reality, it’s the creative teachers, the English teachers, those who came to the profession to instil a love of literature, those who want everyone to gain the most important GCSE of their lives who suffer the greatest emotional highs and lows.  English Faculties as a rule are generally passionate people, sentiment playing the highest part in their teaching, pushed through the bars of a rigid English teaching system, shackled to a curriculum which seeks to enrich lives through sub-levels, SATs and the decimal point, we soldier on. 

 

Occasionally, some of us forget that silence is a virtue.  Occasionally, some of us dare to venture into that unknown abyss of management to express some dissatisfaction, make a suggestion, and voice a minor concern.  It is at these times that it becomes apparent that very few teachers genuinely care about their students.  It is love of students and all that we want them to become that drives us down into the pit where none dare venture.    It is this love that gives us the passion and drives us to confront the power living in the lair about the situation, ask questions, and raise concerns about how we cheat our students, our future out of an education by not providing for their needs. 

 

Once this is done, there is no going back.  The rule book has been broken, shredded and thrown out the window.  One is perceived and couched as a trouble causer; a hopeless no-hoper who does not wish to inspire students and instead is intent on belligerent badgering of management, which will neither do the teacher any favours or help the students.  The silence is shattered, a vial of poison in a thousand pieces on the floor, seeping slowly into the generic grey carpet of the staffroom. 

 

The silencing of such renegades who dare to question or make suggestions, offering their head on a platter to Salome, like the sacrificial lambs on the pilgrimage to Mecca, oblivious to their fate, guided by the only hand that rules them – passion for their students and their well-being – is as much like the muffling carried out by the testosterone-charged teenager.  The same naked, raw aggression, the same intimidating testosterone, shooting sharply out of their pores and mouths like oppressively warm semen, quashing any attempt to speak out, gagging the belligerent, smothering the rebellious with a viscous coating, the concerns masked forever by a tirade of words and accusations, so far-removed from the macho male teenager, a yet so closely placed in aggression that one mirrors the other.  Where the teenager used expletives, the management male uses accusations; where the teenager made explicitly offensive sexual references, the male in management, differing only in his physical size and suit, uses aggression and the voice of authority. 

 

So I reiterate, in schools, silence is a virtue.  We would not want to speak out in the interests of our students, lest we’re accused, aggrandised as a revolutionary, a radical who hates to educate.  Any voice is perceived as a negative, mutinous and anarchic, a voice who seeks to endanger rather than educate our nation’s children. 

 

Silence is a virtue, because apparently it is in our silence we benefit our students.    Silence is a virtue; one that in school, I hope I never start to practise. 

Being “Foreign”, Yet A Very “English” teacher…

So, you’re a teacher?

 

 

I never get tired of the questions about teaching; my favourite ones come from my students. When I first started at my current school over a year ago, students went through mixed emotions about being taught English by someone who appeared “foreign.”

 

Firstly, the immediate denial: “No way are you an English teacher Miss! I mean, you’re just supply for the moment aren’t you? Until our “real” teacher comes back? Aren’t you?”

 

 

Secondly, questioning about origins: “So, where are you from?”

When faced with my brash reply, “Thornaby, it’s just down the road from Middlesbrough,” many students were stumped.

“Yeah, Miss, come on, where are you from really?”

 

 

Thirdly, students tried to make reference to my attire and physical appearance to suggest that one dressed in so much material couldn’t possibly claim to be a real teacher of English.

“Yeah, but you look…foreign Miss.”

“Yeah, you dress….different…like them people, you know. Them people…Sikhs.”

One boy piped in helpfully, “No, it’s not Sikhs, it’s like one of them people you see on the news…Iraqis, that’s it, them. They wear stuff on their heads, just like Miss.” Sitting back he looked pleased with himself as the class nodded in unison, looking to me for approval to this breakdown of my attire.

 

 

To the first, I have a standard reply, “No, I’m a real teacher, honest. Punch me, it’ll hurt and you’ll really get expelled, because I’m a real teacher.” To this students always tend to look slightly worried and perturbed at the thought of expulsion after striking a teacher, even if she is smiling when she says it.

 

The second is slightly trickier; I stick to the simple, “I was born in Stockton, in England, which makes me English.” I pause slightly for effect, watching the faces of my new class contort and struggle with the concept of the nappy-headed foreigner, born on British soil, not an asylum seeker or refugee, but a bona fide English person.

“But,” I continue, not wanting to prolong their agony, fearing the wind may change and their contorted faces would get stuck like that – how would that happen anyway? When the wind blows in another direction, does your face stay like that due to wind resistance? Note to self: ask the school Science Faculty if this is scientifically plausible.

 

But I digress; “But, my parents were born in Pakistan and Kashmir, which means they’re from a foreign country, but as I was born here and speak English as my first language, I’m English.” Their faces relax, realising that I’m not really English, I was just born here. The brighter students, who read a lot, have already construed, and are waiting impatiently to start the lesson; foreign or not, Miss needs to teach us. But their thoughts are interrupted.

 

“So Miss, you’re Asian then?” One keen-faced youngster inquires.

“Yes, I am, but I’m also British, so you could say I was British Asian.”

“Oh, like Mr. Patel who works in the shop round our end,” one girl chimes in, “he’s Asian ‘cause he talks funny, but he told me he had a British passport, so he’s British. England’s really funny sometimes.”

 

 

So that solved the problem of my “ethnic” appearance. But we still have the third problem, my attire.

“I dress like this because I am a Muslim; I believe I should cover myself as it is a command from God in my religion.”

“So, you’re an Islam?”

I reply patiently, “Islam is the name of the religion; Muslim is the name of the person who follows it. So I cover up because I believe I should and I want to. Don’t worry, I’m not being forced to,” I hasten to add as the concerned looks of pity and understanding from the girls on the front row alert me to what stereotype they might have of my religion.

 

I do wait in trepidation for the next few questions that many adults ask, about physical discomfort, the temperature of my head, my attire during showering, but nothing comes. I look around expectantly, not wanting to rob my students from their chance at getting educated about “them ragheads” because it is evident they are genuinely interested, and not just trying their best to detract from the lesson.

 

In the silence that ensues, I have time to reflect that these assertions, rather than evoke feelings of xenophobia and racism, made me chuckle at how we Brits raise our children to be so blissfully ignorant. I’m not one to fall into the culture of blame, but let’s face it; educators, parents and even media moguls are responsible for this condition of “harmless, witty and confused prejudice”, unconscious racism, and inadvertent bigotry.

 

In fact, you could argue that “racism” in its current meaning, does not even apply here, as these students mean no harm by it; abuse is not on the menu today, it looks to me like all they are faced with is a crisis. An existential crisis so great that it flummoxes even the brightest in the class: what do you do when you are faced with a new English teacher, a teacher who dresses like a “Raghead”, looks like an oppressed, down-trodden female, but speaks with a broad Teesside-smoggy accent when really she should be in the kitchen cooking or being locked in the cellar by her husband who is 40 years her senior?

 

It is clear that many of the class that sit before me get their declarations about Muslims and people of other races and origins firstly, from their parents and secondly, from the media; both of whom project a picture of “The English” as white, Anglo-Saxon, sporting crew cut hairstyles and clearly “English” clothes – what are “English” clothes? Thus the youngsters remain innocent and irreproachable in their concept of the non-white foreign “other”, who cannot teach English due to the excessive amounts of material on her head. This is an attitude their parents espouse and the media do well to establish firmly in their heads, like planting the seed of a great oak tree, pushing its roots into the fertile soil of their imaginations. Guiltless and irreprehensible, they wait expectantly, as I make my humble attempt to dislodge the seed from their minds.

 

However, despite this planting of the seed, I offer no complaint or one-sided critique of their behaviour, nor am I negative and cynical in my documentation of it. Instead, I blame myself and look to what the Muslim community is doing about this situation. How can we bring ourselves to complain about prejudice and discrimination in multicultural Britain if we don’t get into varied professions? If our students don’t see British Asian Muslim teachers, comfortable in their religious clothing, at one with the environment they teach in, then how can they possibly accept that it is plausible?

 

 

Education aids the formation and evolution of new societies and forms the identities of future generations. Despite these students not being Asian, or Muslim or anything whatsoever to do with any member of my family, I felt a kind of kinship with them, standing there, in my headscarf and loose clothes, a bond of Englishness I felt the need to assert; but once it was asserted, it stayed planted, ready to be watered and nurtured in the right environment. Instead of dismissing their opinions of my dress, ethnicity and ability to teach English, despite not “looking” English, as racism and prejudice, I felt the need to embrace their opinions, take them on board and counter them calmly, opening the door to them, bringing them into the inner sanctum of possibilities so great that they would change their outlook on Britishness forever.

As educators, we have been given the opportunity to shape the future, should we really be shutting the door on our children?