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"Battle of Brick Lane" fizzles out

Hasan Suroor

Out ofLondon The campaign against British-Asian writer Monica Ali's bookappears to be down to just two businessmen.

PHOTO: AP

Undated handout composite picture of Monica Ali and her book Brick Lane published by Doubleday.

SIXTEEN YEARS after Salman Rushdie saw copies of The Satanic Verses go up in flames across Britain, another British-Asian writer had her book trashed in public at the weekend.

On Sunday, a group of Bangladeshi activists "binned" Monica Ali's Brick Lane in what they described as a symbolic act of consigning it to the "dustbin of history" to protest against the Dhaka-born writer's portrayal of the less privileged people of Sylhet who constitute more than 90 per cent of Britain's Bangladeshi community. As copies of the book were thrown into the bin, protesters raised slogans, "Stop offending my community by writing lies."

Sounds strong stuff. But, actually, it was quite an anti-climax to a campaign that had been billed the "Battle of Brick Lane" and a re-run of the Rushdie affair minus the fatwa. "Hundreds" of protesters from around the country were reported to be on their way to Brick Lane, the street in East London from which Ms. Ali's book takes its name, to burn copies of the book marking a significant escalation in their campaign against its film adaptation. In the event, it turned out to be a rather modest affair with only die-hard activists turning up. And book-burning was off the menu — replaced by the more benign act of binning.

"We decided that the right place for the book was in the rubbish bin," Abdus Salique, chairman of the Brick Lane traders' association and convener of the campaign committee, told The Hindu.

He said the size of the protest was deliberately scaled down after the company making the film agreed not to shoot it in Brick Lane though he insisted that the campaign to have the film scrapped altogether would continue. "We are not going to rest," he declared.

Sunday's damp squib came after weeks of some pretty breathless reporting in the British media with alarming headlines ("Brick Lane revolts... ," "Brick Lane rises up... ," "Asian leader warns of violence... ") giving the impression of an entire community on the warpath, and screaming for Ms. Ali's blood for allegedly misrepresenting it in her book. High-profile commentators waded in to warn of a new wave of intolerance and one leading newspaper even managed to get up a "war of words" between Mr. Rushdie and feminist writer Germaine Greer over the issue — a spectacle not witnessed since the two had a public spat more than a decade ago, when Ms. Greer refused to support Mr. Rushdie as he battled Muslim fundamentalists over The Satanic Verses. This time she refused to back Ms. Ali.

So, how serious is the protest? Are the residents of Brick Lane really boiling with rage? Is there a "revolt" brewing which, if not checked, could easily spiral into "Rushdie Affair— Mark II"?

I decided to check it out, and what I found bore little resemblance to the media accounts of the mood in Brick Lane. There was no sign of "tempers running high" or people vowing to hang-and-flog Ms. Ali. Yes, they had heard of her. Yes, they had been told that she had written "nasty" things about them and were not happy about it. But no, they were not supporting the protest.

"It is just one or two leaders who want to stir up things to get media attention and see their photographs in the papers," said Haroon Rashid, a restaurant owner gleefully pointing to the photograph of Mr. Salique in a national daily.

Indeed, that photograph was repeatedly seized upon by people to allege that the protest was a "publicity stunt" by a group of traders. They were angry with Ms. Ali but said they had no interest in joining a "politically-motivated" campaign.

"It is all a tamasha," said Arman Ali, a pensioner who has lived in Brick Lane for more than 30 years. He said he disapproved of writers who wrote disparagingly about their communities to "get rich" but he was not going to lose sleep over it.

Saleh Rahman, a young waiter, said if Ms. Ali had written something "derogatory" about religion he would have been hurt but since her novel had nothing to do with religion he was not bothered.

There was virtually nobody among those I met who supported the campaign to stop the film. On the contrary, most said they welcomed the idea.

"It would be good for our business if Brick Lane featured in a film," said one trader while one young man said that he would have, actually, loved to get a role in the film.

Essentially, the campaign appears to be down to two rich businessmen — Mr. Salique and Mahmoud Rouf, chairman of the Brick Lane Business Association, both widely dismissed as "self-styled leaders" with political ambitions. Both are from Sylhet and accuse Ms. Ali of "slandering" the Sylhetis.

"She is not one of us. She left Bangladesh at the age of 3. She does not speak any Bengali, not to mention the Sylheti dialect, and is married to a white Englishman," said Mr. Salique sitting in his sweetshop, one of the six businesses he owns in the area.

Outside on the street, people nod their heads but, no thank you, they do not want to join the "Battle of Brick Lane."

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