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This has been a tumultuous week for London's Muslims: the Government has proposed a raft of draconian new anti-terror measures, provoking angry reaction from some.
At the same time, we have seen striking evidence of London's tolerance towards Muslims in the Evening Standard's poll and debate, with almost three-quarters of those surveyed saying they had Muslim friends.
And yet for far too many Londoners, Muslim communities remain opaque, separate. That is why I urge everyone to see the film of Monica Ali's Brick Lane. Not only is it beautiful, it lifts the lid on the real Muslim lives and tensions that are so often reduced to sloganeering.
That truth-telling has made the film deeply controversial. Self-appointed community leaders have lined up to condemn it for some of the things it portrays. Others are wagging their tails and tongues to intimidate the film-maker after years of trying to punish the writer, a campaign by a few vociferous locals disrupted filming at one point.
This is the paranoid reaction of a few conservative, male leaders to the reality of life - and especially women's lives - in their community. We had a taste of such benighted attitudes this week with the refusal of Muhammad Abdul Bari, Bangladeshi-born head of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), to condemn death by stoning under sharia law, a position repeated at this week's Evening Standard debate by the MCB's Inayat Bunglawala. It speaks of an unwillingness to see Muslim women's world as it is actually lived.
Such boorishness contrasts markedly with this quiet, thoughtful film. Monica Ali can write beautifully but her novel did not engage me as much as its most ardent fans. But the film wins me over completely. Director Sarah Gavron has given us a tender portrait of a people, Bangladeshis, who today live but a mile away from the richest financial institutions in Europe. Most, even those born here, change slowly and cling to the myth of a return to their old land, green and washed over with water. But even they cannot hold off modernity.
Nazneen, the heroine, nervously at first then boldly, steps into the possibilities that the modern world offers, the freedoms most of all. The way she discovers herself is first through earning her own money then embarking on an affair with a handsome young man - and that is what has made conservatives furious.
Her husband, Chanu, is older, and a man, says Ali, of "tragi-comic uselessness", full of big plans and semi-erudition, sometimes overbearing but often vulnerable. Nazneen is played by Tannishtha Chatterjee and Chanu by Satish Kaushik, both trained in India and able to bring to the roles intimacy and authenticity. Nobody can claim they don't understand the South Asian culture - they live it.
Some voluble Bangladeshis - a minority so far - have cried foul because the story reflects back to them what they would rather not see. Abdus Salique, of the Banglatown Restaurant Association, claims they made Prince Charles run scared in September, when the Royal Film Performance decided to cancel a screening of Brick Lane because he didn't want to provoke "community" hostility. What bravery he shows for a future king.
For "the community" read " conservative men". We may yet see the abominable-placard carriers out once again, dishonourable upholders of "honour".
Yet these leaders cannot take criticism themselves. One local Bangladeshi man I know well who runs a restaurant calls the members of the association "village idiots". They would run him out of their mean streets if I named him. Another close friend, Iqbal Wahab, who owns Roast and a number of flash restaurants, is still wary of going into the area. Years back he wrote that the waiters and food on Brick Lane needed to shape up.
And it isn't only Muslims who can't stand truths. Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, the British Sikh playwright, was driven underground by protests against her play, Behzti, on sexual abuse in a Sikh Gurdwara. Oh, they love a bit of outrage in these secretive communities all across the world.
The film of the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, about a young boy in turbulent Afghanistan, is causing much upset too. In one scene a young Shia Muslim boy is raped.
They won't have that, it is a slur. Muslims don't do such things. Bangladeshis don't have affairs either and of course there is no rape and adultery in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh. Those are bad "western" behaviours. There is an even more pernicious diktat: wash your bloodied linen in the dark, behind closed doors away from observant eyes.
Creative, imaginative and dissenting Asians have to wear virtual body armour, hunker down, just in case someone decides to get offended (and someone always does), inciting an uproar on the web, in the media, on the streets. The next explosive episode hangs round the corner.
I used to teach women exactly like Nazneen. The stories I heard. At least 10 of the youngest women had replaced previous wives, used and then dumped in Bangladesh. I would go into homes with such poverty, misery and domestic tyranny that I could hardly breathe. I also witnessed low-income households lit up with post-marital love, where husbands nurtured their wives and insisted on sending them to college.
As for affairs, one Bangladeshi local councillor had a white family and a brown one on two different estates; a businessman was sleeping with a married mother of three. A student, whose teeth had broken off because of malnutrition, had been abandoned by her husband, who had moved in with his mistress.
She is now happily with another man, a Bangladeshi waiter who treats her, she says, like she is a full moon. I am told more young men wash up and treat women right. And this area now has a Bangladeshi woman Labour candidate, admired policy researcher, Rushanara Ali. She must know many Nazneens in her borough. If she ends up in Parliament it will be a sign of remarkable progress.
Germaine Greer recently attacked Monica Ali and Sarah Gavron for causing offence to the poor brown people of Brick Lane: "For people who don't have much, self-esteem is crucial." What patronising rubbish. Self-esteem comes not from protesting against reality but having the guts to face it, warts and all.
Greer asks Bangladeshis to stay away from the film. I hope my old students hire a coach and go see it. Some may hate it but they will, like Nazneen, taste sweet liberty. That is what conservative Bangladeshi men - and our feminist icon - want to deny them.
Reader views (2)
I saw the film today and it's touched me in a way I hadn't expected. Like the book, it exposed the ups and downs of both what it was like to be in Nazneen's world, but also left an impression of what the outside world of 'home' is like. 'Brick Lane' was a visual treat, but also a soulful journey which shows a woman's confrontation with her own culture. I don't understand why there was so much protest - especially from people who hadn't seen it and a supposed feminist. While Nazneen embraces her culture, she just isn't prepared to let her voice stay silent. This we should celebrate, and at the same time admire a woman's struggle to hang on to a faith in a new home that offers her boundless opportunity she discovers in her own time. A beautiful movie and wonderful article - you're right, every Londonder should see this film and rise above those who criticise it because they're afraid that it exposes the bumps and bruises.
- Dana G, London, England, 17/11/2007 21:12
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Feminists must not tolerate cave-men whatever their skin colour.
- Rizwana Ansari, Barkingside, 17/11/2007 16:04
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