‘Ms Petiffer,’ began the broadcaster and chairman of the debate, addressing his opening question to the journalist, the counsel for the prosecution. ‘What do you see as the major challenges facing Muslims in Britain today?’
‘Well, as a woman I’ll begin with women’s rights. Women in the West enjoy freedom: freedom to work and near-equality in the workplace, ownership over their bodies, their femininity and reproductive powers. And education is their birthright. Muslims here not only have to respect this in theory, but embrace it in practice. We should no longer accept their daughters being smuggled out of the country to be forced into marriage. And we must make it clear that there is no place for the importation of barbaric, feudal practices, such as so-called “honour killings”.’ Looking over the rim of his spectacles, the broadcaster turned to the Arab gentleman seated alongside.
‘Dr Qasim?’
Dr Qasim gulped.
‘Nobody is going to defend honour killings or forced marriages, least of all myself, but it is simply not an issue for the majority of Muslim women, in this country or elsewhere.’
‘Are you saying these issues are unimportant?’ the lady half-turned, exaggerating surprise. Possibly a slam-dunk coming up within one minute?
‘No, I’m not saying they are unimportant. I’m saying that in the context of this discussion – the future of Muslims in Britain and Europe – it’s irrelevant.’ This was too easy – time to mop up.
‘Well I find that incredible. Incredible and offensive. How can we accommodate a religion that has misogyny encoded into its very DNA?’
‘Ms Pettifer, you misunderstand me. Forced marriages and honour killings are, of course, a stain on the cultures that perpetuate such practices. But it is simply inaccurate to maintain that this is part and parcel of the lot of a Muslim woman. To make out that they, as a rule, live under such threats, is simply incorrect.’ Dr Iqbal Qasim felt emboldened and patted himself on the back. Nevertheless his trimmed beard was now almost completely grey and he looked tired.
‘Oh come now, Dr Qasim, the lot of women under Islam is appalling. And we’re not just talking about isolated incidents. How do you explain the Taliban? Yet another blip? And at what stage do the blips join up to paint the complete picture? You can draw a distinction between theory and practice only up to a point.’
‘That’s a valid argument is it not, Dr Qasim?’ the broadcaster interrupted. ‘You can’t forever claim that the religion itself remain detached, wholly untainted by the way in which it is repeatedly practised.’
‘Indeed,’ impressed Ms Petiffer. ‘Is the case of Amina Lawal merely another blip? Do you want to defend the stoning to death of women for adultery? Doesn’t Sharia law show up Islam for what it really is?’
Dr Qasim made to speak but his throat was dry. When he went to sip some water, Ms Pettifer couldn’t help but smile.
Wasim’s first spell of bowling had been crucial, with him snaring Botham early on to take the first England wicket. He’d received a ball that bounced more than expected and caught the outside edge of his bat. And, positioned perfectly behind the stumps, Imtiaz took a regulation catch. Out! He never dropped those, did that scion of Pakistan. Ian Botham, an ageing lion with his dreams in tatters, walked off prematurely from the biggest stage of his life. And Aamir Sohail helped him on his way, taunting the Englishman: ‘Hey Botham, send your mother-in-law in!’ No one had forgotten his remarks on returning from a tour to Pakistan, where he described the country as ‘the kind of place to send your mother-in-law to, all expenses paid.’ It was no wonder that Wasim found an extra yard of pace for Ian Botham. But now he has to do it again. Unless he can take a wicket and separate Lamb and Fairbrother, it will have been a pyrrhic victory. Wasim begins running in.
‘Have you heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda?’ Dr Qasim asked rhetorically. ‘The LRA, for your listeners, is a fanatical cult, whose “soldiers” in large part are merely abducted children. Their leader, Joseph Kony, is a self-declared prophet who wants Uganda to live by the laws of the Ten Commandments. Does any of this sound eerily familiar to you?’
‘Answer the question!’ came a sudden cry from the audience. ‘Indeed’, impressed Ms Petiffer, emboldened by the support. ‘I put to you, again, does not Sharia law show up Islam in its true light?’
‘There are over 1.5 billion people who consider themselves Muslim. It does not mean the same thing to all of them. The LRA recruited young boys and inducted them with unimaginable cruelty, forcing children to kill children. And so I feel obliged to ask, what should I take from this? What are its implications and how widely should they resonate? Sure it tells me something about the LRA, but what else?’
‘Well, beyond this tragedy confirming that Uganda has yet to find peace, more than forty years after independence, there’s little else to say.’
‘Really? Charles Taylor, the warlord supreme of West Africa, was a lay preacher. Once when challenged about the blood on his hands he retorted, “Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time”.’
‘You are demonstrating nothing to us here, other than that Africa still has many obstacles to overcome.’
‘Sure, but what part does religion, does Christianity, play in all this savagery? After all, in both cases the main protagonists claimed to be acting in Christ’s name. Should I take their claim seriously? And before anyone thinks this is solely a black African problem, let us not forget that the Afrikaners were not simply card-carrying Christians who happened to be racist, but rather their religion was used to explicitly justify their theory of racial superiority. And moving on from Africa altogether, what should I make of Christ’s holy warriors in Europe? Have you not heard of Milosevic or Radovan Karadzic?’ Dr Qasim paused, this time genuinely expecting a response. None came forth. ‘I’m counting quite a few “blips” now,’ he commented with a wry smile. ‘So can I too claim the right to paint my own picture? And can I apply it wherever I like? To a Catholic from the Philippines? To an Anglican in India? And as an Egyptian shall I slap it on the face of my Coptic brothers and sisters, and henceforth look upon them too with greater suspicion?’
Wasim bowls. He hits the deck hard and the ball tears into its flight path. It traces parabolas, the first from release point to pitching being close to a straight line, with the second arc being more discernible. His sense of urgency is apparent and the delivery is fast, but his aggression has not been controlled. The ball doesn’t pitch in line with the stumps and it swings way too much. The umpire judges it wide and thus a bonus run is awarded to England. Wasim turns immediately. He doesn’t want to discuss anything and neither does he wish to dwell on a poor first delivery – he needs to think about the next five. This is make or break.
‘Oh come on,’ began Ms Petiffer, sounding too relaxed for Dr Qasim’s liking. ‘The madness in the Balkans was ended by the West, the Christian West, at a time when the Arab and Muslim world could only blow hot air. And your reductionist suggestions with your African examples are just laughable. Africa suffers from manifold problems, each complicating the other. Poverty, disease and corruption interweave to create a dark, dark shroud, covering much of that continent. To say that Christianity stands alongside that unholy trinity is in very poor taste. Frankly you surprise me.’
‘I said nothing of the kind,’ he stated. ‘In fact, I agree. I was playing ... how do you say, Devil’s Advocate. My point is that the Taliban say no more about Islam than the LRA do about Christianity. Can you accept that point?’
Second delivery, thirty-fifth over. Wasim slides the ball up his hip, removing any excess sweat. He begins running in. His expression tells of an introspection that belies his youth: countless millions are focused on him and Wasim is meditating. Gathering momentum smoothly he exchanges the ball from right to left hand. Take aim ... Fire! His coil and spring action is effortless, poetry in motion, and he releases the ball. He’s looking to get it to dip in, pitch in line with off-stump and then move away late. It doesn’t happen, thou
gh. Instead of altering its line and coming back into the batsman, the ball continues from off-stump to leg-stump. Fairbrother plays a classic on-drive. The batsmen run three and thus exchange ends. Alan Lamb will receive the next ball.
‘Dr Qasim, you live in England. You live here and enjoy our freedoms – freedoms that were absent from your own country. Here you are free to come on the radio and criticise; criticise us. Criticise our country, our culture, our politics and our religion. And you can go back home and no agent from the state will be waiting for you in the shadows. And you can then visit your mosque and pray to whichever God you like. Why? Because we are free. The Christian and post-Christian world is overwhelmingly free, Dr Qasim, and the Islamic world is overwhelmingly enslaved. It is driven by basket-case regimes that suppress their own and foment envy, and a religion that foments hatred. The Taliban lie at the end of a very large wedge, and therefore the association between them and Islam hold, in a way in which that between the LRA and Christianity doesn’t.’ Ms Pettifer’s nostrils flared and she looked at her accuser with wide, glaring eyes. With her greying-blonde hair Dr Qasim thought she looked like an aged Valkyrie.
Fifth ball, thirty-fifth over. Wasim’s third and fourth deliveries were tight and Lamb was unable to score. He’ll be looking for runs now. Wasim releases the ball with its seam, the six lines of stitching down its middle, angled slightly to the left. The rougher side is to the fore, with the smoother, more polished, side behind. The ball is travelling extremely fast and turbulence is created as air passes more quickly over the smooth side. The ball swings in. It pitches in line with off-stump but then changes line. Alan Lamb doesn’t see this, though. He’s shaping to play a textbook on-drive, waiting for the ball to come onto his legs, but instead it’s hurtling towards his off-stump. Wasim hears ball shatter wood. Lamb hears the terrible sound too and he looks round to confirm the worst. One heart breaks, the other soars. 85,000 people erupt. Wasim screams with joy and pelts towards Imtiaz, who from behind the stumps was the first to see Lamb’s defences breached. They meet in the middle and high-five before hugging, sheer relief the overriding emotion. Team-mates dash inwards and flock around but Wasim can’t acknowledge any of them. Still hugging Imtiaz, he is more being held up by him than being embraced, such is the release of tension. ‘What a great delivery!’ gushes the commentator. ‘Left-arm round the wicket. Alan Lamb has been cleaned up. And perhaps so too have been England.’
‘Do you know how the Taliban came into being or who these puritanical fanatics are? They are the orphans of your proxy war with the Soviets. The leftovers from the international network of Islamic militants that the U.S. helped to create, train, finance and arm, to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. You lose the right to now take a step back, point an accusing finger and look upon us all with contempt.’
‘Dr Qasim,’ sighed Ms Pettifer, responding as if talking to a child. ‘The West might indeed have armed the Taliban with weapons, but not with ideology. That was theirs to begin with. We didn’t force their women to wear tents, with nothing but a mesh to look out onto the world from. We didn’t ask them to amputate the limbs of thieves or to ban chess and kite-flying. We didn’t require that they close down girls’ schools and dismiss women from work, and we certainly didn’t cajole them into executing heretics. Islamic fundamentalism is as old as Islam. It’s a home-grown creation; nothing to do with us.’
Last ball of the thirty-fifth over. Lewis to receive. Wasim bowls, continuing from around the wicket. This time the ball pitches outside the off-stump but it’s an in-swinger, a very fast in-swinger. It jags back and squeezes through a tiny gap to hit the top of leg stump. There’s no such thing as an unplayable delivery, but that’s as close as you’ll get. Chris Lewis has been clean bowled. The celebrations repeat but this time Wasim keeps running, unable to contain his joy. England will continue to fight but realistically it’s over. In two balls he’s turned the game on its head. He finally stops running and his handsome face is beaming.
‘Once I was talking to a friend, an English friend, about Iraq. Not the current crisis but rather about sanctions, and the after-effects of the first Gulf War. I remarked that just beforehand there was a growing problem of obesity amongst Iraq’s youth; a product of too much comfortable living. Doctors at the time wrestled with ways to get the youngsters off their couches, knowing full well the toll a sedentary life would take on them in later years. Then I told my friend that after the first Gulf War, obesity rather dropped away as a priority. I mentioned that on top of malnutrition, doctors were suddenly having to deal with the after-effects of depleted uranium. That because of the weaponry the Anglo-Americans had used, the water table had become poisoned and the food chain affected. And I explained that the young were especially vulnerable, and that, as a consequence, cancers of the immune system and congenital abnormalities, previously never recorded, were now being observed with alarming regularity. And then I said that in today’s Iraq, there are babies being born with no heads – literally no heads – and he laughed. He was holding his son at the time, cuddling his one-year old baby in his lap, and he burst out laughing. He’s not some callous buffoon or a maniac; on the contrary he is an intelligent, decent man, who loves his family and works hard to provide for them. And yet he found the thought of headless Iraqi babies, well, funny. Are you starting to see a connection yet, Ms Pettifer? None of us lives in a vacuum, my dear. We are all intimately connected.’
‘Dr Qasim,’ interjected the broadcaster. ‘We haven’t, unfortunately, got time for riddles. Can you please explicitly state what you mean?’
‘I mean, sir, that hatred begets hatred.’
‘Nope. That’s not good enough,’ dismissed Ms Pettifer. ‘Your rather clumsy friend cannot help you deny the charge.’
Dr Qasim paused, shocked by the steel of the woman.
‘The truth is that in your eyes we just don’t count, and never have done. And the genius is you’ve carried your people with you, through Crusades old and new. No wonder you were convinced that your troops would be hailed as liberators; greeted with cheers and garlands, no less! And no wonder my friend found the thought of headless Iraqi babies funny. Our hatred for you doesn’t come from envy, from Islam, or even from our innumerable tin-pot regimes: it’s born out of your hatred for us.’
Fairbrother is holding up the party. Despite Wasim having inflicted serious wounds, England continue to fight. And with Fairbrother there, anything’s possible. Minds need to be concentrated. Aaqib Javed delivers a quicker, skiddy ball that comes onto Fairbrother a fraction earlier than anticipated. He skies it, the ball going high up in the air without carrying. Only two men are nearby: Aaqib himself and Imtiaz. They both tear towards it, to the beat of 85,000 hearts in 85,000 mouths. But as the ball begins its descent Aaqib stops running – only Imtiaz can catch this one now. Constantly looking up past the rim of his floppy hat, Imtiaz cups his hands, slowing down slightly before the ball lands safely. Aaqib simply stands with arms aloft whereas Imtiaz continues running, wearing a big grin. Once again the stadium explodes into colour and noise. Spectators at the front of each tier bang the advertising hoardings in approval. The Aussies in the crowd, having been politely supporting both teams up until now, have finally thrown their weight behind Pakistan. Everyone loves a winner. It was a really well judged catch, and Imtiaz accepts everyone’s praise without much fuss; he knows he’s good.
‘May I remind you, the both of you, that we are here to discuss the challenges facing Muslims, specifically here in the West?’ the broadcaster reiterated in a desperate tone. ‘We haven’t much time left and I must ask you both to stick to the questions.’
‘Absolutely,’ began Ms Petiffer. ‘And accordingly I would like to put to Dr Qasim that the greatest challenge facing British Muslims now, is how they respond to the War on Terror.’ She was looking self-satisfied – mutual loathing filled the air. ‘Leaving aside the politics of it all, of whether one agrees with the line taken by our government, one is obliged to live by th
e rule of law.’
‘Without a doubt. Agreed.’
‘So I ask you then, Dr Qasim, exactly how welcoming can we be towards Muslims, when according to MI5, London is saturated with sleeper cells of Islamic terrorists, just waiting to bring us to our knees? Do you know how frightened people are? I have friends who have stopped travelling on the Tube. I know others working in Canary Wharf or living nearby, who are thinking of moving for fear of being attacked. And you still want us to reach out to you?’
‘Well I’m sure that if Iraqis can get on with their lives whilst Anglo-Americans drop 500-pound bombs on them, then you can keep your upper lip stiff. It is, after all, meant to be a very British quality.’ Dr Qasim winced.
‘Wow, that’s a simply outrageous comment. Do you realise how hurt and offended British people were when they saw pictures of young Muslims in this country, rattling collection tins for Bin Laden?’
‘Well it looks like they’ve finally called the nation’s bluff, no?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning they’ve been portrayed as fanatics for so long, they’ve at last descended into fanaticism.’ Dr Qasim felt numb all over.
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