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Magazine
PEOPLE
Interstices of identity
ZIYA US SALAM
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Tabish Khair, novelist and academic, talks about the blessing and curse of being part of a minority community, of learning to belong in different ways.
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Essays in Moderation: Tabish Khair.
Seldom does an author speak or write with such disarming honesty! Tabish Khair is that rare being who manages to talk about himself without sounding either pompous or self-deprecatory. He writes with the same felicity too. Sample this quote from a ta
lk he delivered at the Florence Poetry Festival in Italy, “To be born into a minority is a blessing and a curse….When you are born into a minority, that too a minority within a minority, you learn to belong in different ways. I grew up as Indian and as Muslim.”
Or take a look at what he has to say to all those self-appointed war analysts, who spread fear and talk of peace. Talking of 9/11, when many started blaming the Arabs for the killing of innocents, and only a handful showed the required restrain till evidence came by, Khair takes shots at the anomalies. “It is easy for us to sit here in our cosy sitting rooms in Copenhagen, holding a cup of coffee, munching a biscuit, watching the tragedy unfold almost as fluently as a film on the idiot box, and speak in general and ineffectual terms. What we are doing is celebrating our humanity, and all human beings — even terrorists — are convinced of their own superior humanity. Many of the most inhuman acts known to humanity have been the consequence of such a conviction. We need to go beyond it. We owe it to the victims of the tragedy.”
Insider’s take
Khair gives another insight into the mindset of minorities, often uneasy with their status, and frequently at the receiving end for the ignorance of those around. Khair, who is based in Denmark, has this to say, “Are you Muslim or Indian, we were asked — as if one could be only the one or the other…Not that the questions got better. I was, after all, again part of a minority — the minority of coloured people in Denmark, the minority of immigrants, the minority of Indians, of Muslims. I was complimented on being taller than ‘most Indians’; I was praised for more liberal habits than ‘most Muslims’. And again and again I had to read largely ignorant articles and letters in Danish newspapers denigrating Asian or coloured immigrants or Muslims. That is the curse of being a part of a minority.”
These and other similar thoughts Khair has put together in his new book, Muslim Modernities, a collection of essays on moderation and mayhem. Brought out by Vitasta, Khair is at ease talking of his work, and the world. “Let’s put it this way, I won’t like to call it as essays by a moderate Muslim. It is by someone who comes from a Muslim background besides other backgrounds. People from my kind of background or even other communities, need to make moderation, secularism more visible. The middle portion between the two extremes needs to be highlighted.”
He takes a little crack at the media which often foists a bearded man with a cap as a Muslim leader. And conveniently ignores reasoning, thinking souls. “The voice has to come within. You have the right to stand up so that extremists do not…It is actually a problem of who gets noticed as a Muslim. The moment you make an extremist statement you become a Muslim.”
He feels Muslim organisations have an agenda of their own when they talk of 9/11 or other similar instances. “They often adopt populist options, like politicians everywhere. One should not let them hog the entire space. Very often they are set up as representatives of Muslims in a way that is problematic. The average thinking person is silenced.”
Having spent more than a few years in Europe, he believes Muslims have become convenient scapegoats. “In the West, people are very frightened of immigrants, some politicians of the Right wing as well as the Left target them, often citing the collapse of the welfare system and the like as the excuse. They argue that immigrants don’t share our language and culture. And the Muslims have become stereotypical representatives of immigrants. Now it is fashionable to say Muslim and make racist statements.”
Does that make Muslims international outcasts?
This time, Khair weighs his words, saying, “Yes and no. Muslims are there everywhere. One should not think of Muslims as one community. They have different practices in Indonesia, the Arab region and India. If you look at historical culture, Muslims have been around for long even in the U.S. They go back to the 17th Century. Yet some may call them outcasts at times because Muslims are minorities everywhere except in West Asia. Here too the West connived when dictators came, imprisoned soft Muslims, tortured them. They were the sane voices. That vacuum was filled by fundamentalists. Some of them were even encouraged by the West, as in Afghanistan and Egypt.”
But why this constant association of religion with terrorism when it comes to talking of terrorists who profess the Muslim faith?
“There are different types of terrorisms taking place. There have been many cases of Christian terrorism in the U.S. There have been attacks on homosexuals. In India, far right Hindu terrorism cannot be condoned. Same in Sri Lanka. However, none of this was identified with religion unlike the Muslims. For them, 2001 became a visible issue.”
He believes that “this kind of position the U.S. takes is very close to what one associates with terrorism. The U.S. even inflicts civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without calling it State terrorism, one would say that the fault lies on both sides and a lot of what America has done has not been conducive to world peace. Any violent reaction is problematic. I would not like to fight with guns, but I won’t say that people invaded have no right to fight the way they want.”
Yes, a people conquered have the right to self defence. Why then do we only get to see images of Palestine people hurling stones at the Israelis while there is no similar reproduction of their armed tanks moving into the Palestine territory?
Different agendas
Khair looks at the larger picture where the media has its own compulsions. “The media tends to be controlled by large business interests. Very often they have their own agenda. In the West, there is a tendency in neo-liberals that if you protested too much, you were making too much fuss. There is tendency among the governments to tell people what they should do, instead of listening to them. To some extent democracy has been weakened in places where it was strong. Like in the U.S., Denmark.”
Back in India, the Bihar-born, Roman Catholic school-educated Khair believes there is a degree of appreciation and a ground-level democracy that often gets unrecognised. “When old school friends call up, I feel happy, irrespective of their religion. Even back then, religion was never an issue. We can connect instantly because we have shared so much. Despite differences there is so much commonality. We have a rich composite culture. That is something the West will do well to look at.”
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