Warsi offers cultural support in biased UK
SWITCHING on CNN to check on the latest Trump evisceration of human rights, I caught an articulate, candid interview with Sayeeda Warsi on her recently published book, The Enemy Within, discussing her life as the first British Muslim woman to hold a cabinet position, where she attempted to counteract the government’s domestic and foreign policy, often accused of alienating Muslims.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, first British Muslim woman life peer in the House of Lords, and minister in the Conservative cabinet – from May 2010 to August 2014 – is described by reviewer Afua Hirsch as writing “a withering polemic on the flaws in government rhetoric and policy on extremism and multiculturalism” (The Guardian, April 3).
Her title derives from the fact that Britain frequently regards groups within its borders whose beliefs, culture, practices or agendas are contrary to that of the majority, as posing a threat to the stability of society.
Catholics, Jews, Marxists, homosexuals, and numerous groupings have in the past been regarded as the “other” and labelled as “the enemy within”.
This type of paranoia is something not unfamiliar to us here in South Africa.
Warsi, born in 1971 in West Yorkshire of Pakistani immigrant parents, brought up in a Sunni-Shia, enquiring, liberal environment, where people of Pakistani background were a minority, records “an acute awareness of difference” and her determined attempts to “fit in”.
In her twenties, having trained as a lawyer at Leeds University and run a successful legal practice, she took a “gap year” to travel around Pakistan as part of her search for identity.
Despite her open, questioning education, she admits to a ceremony of an “arranged marriage” to her first husband, a Pakistani first cousin, which made her “deeply uncomfortable”.
She also honestly admits to ignorantly conservative comments she once made about homosexuality, which she now finds “toe-curlingly embarrassing” and “deeply offensive” – humble enough to apologise for such unacceptable views, recognising the necessity of advocating the right to civil partnerships, working to protect the rights of all marginalised communities.
For over four years Warsi worked in David Cameron’s cabinet, first as Minister Without Portfolio, then as Senior Minister of State and Minister for Faith and Communities, encouraging Islamic business in the United Kingdom, travelling worldwide working for universal human rights through the International Criminal Court.
As MP for Yorkshire in northern England, she formulated a clearer perception of her identity: “I am a woman, I’m not white, I’m from an urban area, I’m from the north, I’m working class – I kind of fit the bill.”
She engaged with religious and community leaders promoting religious tolerance, urging that faith groups be allowed to provide public services without this attracting suspicion.
She was outspoken on the matter of whether Britain should follow the French ban on women wearing the veil. She denounced this as “not the British way”, and criticised a Conservative MP who called for banning the wearing of burkas in public, saying, “Allowing people to wear what they like is the basis of a free society”, although she did caution that those who chose to wear full-face veils should accept there were some situations where it was not appropriate.
She condemned the radical hate-preaching of Imam Anjem Choudary, who voiced support for Islamic militancy, and she criticised various TV channels for giving too much exposure to his dangerous views, to which he responded with warnings that she would be attacked if she approached mosques and Muslim communities.
Attacks
But she dismisses the Cameron Government’s definition of “extremism” as absurdly inadequate, claiming it would even include the utterances of stand-up comic Russell Brand.
Although supported by many both within and outside the Muslim community, she was subjected to numerous vitriolic attacks denouncing her as not being a proper Muslim; unfit to represent Islam and the Muslim community.
Despite such condemnation, she was named in 2009 as “Britain’s most powerful Muslim Woman” and in 2010 as one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslims, by the Middle Eastern Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.
In August 2014, Warsi resigned from the Conservative government on a matter of conscience over the escalation of violence in Gaza, the British government’s inaction in its commitment to rebuilding Gaza and resolving the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Throughout her public career, Warsi has demonstrated the possibility of becoming assimilated into a society without compromising one’s authentic individual identity or religious and cultural heritage.
Her open, pluralistic and tolerant attitude should be emulated by politicians and leaders in all countries, especially those which are home to large ethnic communities of various religious traditions.