Lord Nazir Ahmed
Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, 52, became Britain’s first Muslim Peer in the House of Lords in October 1998. Acclaimed as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, he has championed human rights both in Britain and the rest of the world. Especially since ‘9/11’, he has worked to promote inter-faith dialogue as well as focusing on issues of gender, equality and race.
Interview
Born in the village of Kalyal Sheroo, Mirpur in the Pakistani-administered region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, he first came to Britain in 1969.
When I landed in London at Heathrow, it was like landing on another planet, with white people, all dressed differently who talked in a language I couldn’t understand. And when I started at school in South Yorkshire, the only thing I could do was to count up to 100 in English. But as I began to learn the language, the school ‘bobbies’ – that’s what we used to call the welfare officers – used to take me round to Asian families so that they would see the benefits of their children going to school.
When did you first become interested in politics?
Politics for me started when I was afraid of the rise of the National Front. At the time I was attending the Thomas Rotherham VIth Form College. In 1975 I stood for election for the Presidency of the College. My opponent was a young militant from the Labour Party. When I defeated him, I was invited to join the Labour Party and I became Chairman of the Young Socialists. After studying Public Administration at Sheffield Hallam University, I set up my own business in fish and chips and groceries.
Did you find there was prejudice against you because you were an Asian Muslim?
No, at the time, things were very different. There was a little bit of an issue relating to curries and the smell of garlic but nobody talked of your religion. Yes, there were skinheads and I remember one time when someone threw a brick through our window because we had recently moved into an area where there were no Asians. But I always felt one of the lads. I remember when I was at school I used to enjoy playing football in the street under the street lights with the other boys. Our family had no television but every Saturday our next door neighbour – an old gentleman – would knock on the door and ask: ‘Is Nazir in?’ and I would be invited to his house to watch the football on the television and given a cup of tea and a slice of fruit cake. It was only later, I suppose beginning with the 1979 Iranian revolution and then Rushdie’s controversial book, The Satanic Verses and culminating in 9/11 that the identify of Muslims started to become an issue and Muslims also felt threatened.
When you were young, what were your expectations of life in Britain?
My father and uncles had come to Britain to work. Having come from Azad [free] Kashmir, it was better to earn pounds sterling rather than rupees and there was a demand for manual labour in the steel mills in north England. He thought he would earn enough money and then return home because eventually the Asians would be thrown out. But by the time I grew up, no one expected Asians would have to leave. And so my expectation was to stay in Rotherham. In 1989 I decided to go for selection as a local councilor. The following year I was elected as the first ethnic minority councilor to serve on the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in a ward which had been won by the Liberal Democrats in two previous elections. I also became a Magistrate. During this time, I started work on the Kashmir issue because that is when the insurgency against the Indian government in the Valley of Kashmir had started. By this stage I’d begun to have ambitions about becoming a Labour Member of Parliament. In 1997 I was a candidate for the Labour Party selection for Bradford West but lost against Marsha Singh. I then decided to stand for the European Parliament because Norman West, MEP for Yorkshire South, was retiring. But at the time the Labour Party was looking for a woman candidate for gender balance and so I withdrew my candidature. Then in June 1998 came the announcement that I had been created a Labour Peer and I got a telephone call from 10 Downing Street.
You were the first Muslim Peer and also one of the youngest? What do you think you have contributed by being in the House of Lords for over a decade now?
I think I’ve given a sense of representation for the British Muslim community in Parliament and opened the door to more Muslims. Symbolic actions like celebrating Eid with Prime Minister Tony Blair, taking my oath of allegiance in the House of Lords on the Quran played an important role in engaging Muslims. I also took the first Haj delegation from the UK government to Mecca. One of the main issues I have worked on has been the situation in British prisons.
Ever since I was a magistrate, I have been visiting prisons and my maiden speech in the House of Lords in October 1998 was on the welfare of prisoners. Muslims make up 3 per cent of the British population but 11 per cent of people in prison are Muslims. In 2000 I chaired the ‘Choice by Right’ working group with Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green. I don’t think white indigenous politicians would have been able to penetrate the ethnic minority communities in the same way we did. Our report broke new ground by recommending that forced marriages should be treated like domestic violence or child abuse.
After 7/7/05, I also helped to set up the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body – MINAB – a national facilitatory body for good governance in Mosques, which aims at giving greater training to Imams and Islamic teachers through a process of self-regulation. It does not interfere with theology but sets basic standards. The other issues I have worked on extensively are Kashmir and Palestine. I know I have been criticized by the Zionist groups because of my support of the Palestinians but I can’t change that and I do try to reach out to people who have fallen out with me. The other important issue I have been involved with was in Darfur, when, recently, I led the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) for Peace and Reconciliation initiative to Darfur, and we worked to build confidence bottom up by talking to the local communities. Then there was the episode in 2007, when I and Baroness Warsi went to the Sudan to rescue the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who had been convicted and imprisoned for insulting Islam because she had encouraged the children to name a teddy bear, Muhammad. This was an obvious instance of trying to minimise the clash between cultures and religions. There have also been many other things I have been interested and involved in. What makes me happy is to defend human rights wherever.
We have the feeling that the Muslim community feels under threat due to the numerical superiority of the non-Muslims in the country, but do you think Muslims are also to blame for not doing more to counter what has sometimes been a negative image?
The Muslim community could have done more in terms of its own development, training of Imams, setting out minimum standards in terms of employment, having more representative organizations and democratic structures within Mosques. But I also believe both sides could have done more. What actually happened was that before 9/11 the Muslims community was left alone, the general feeling being, so long as ‘Muslims do no harm to us, then there was no need to engage with them.’ But the problem was we started living parallel lives and now you have divisive social issues. As I mentioned, the statistics of Muslims, roughly aged between 18 and 32, in British prisons for drugs, theft and armed robbery are disproportionate. Other Muslims who see these statistics feel angry that society has failed them – their elders, the Imams, society at large. And these generations who live in isolation are losing touch with English culture; their English is not good and so they have difficulty in finding jobs and so you get a cycle of alienation.
Can you tell me about the ‘Muslim parliament’ because a lot of people think it indicates that Muslims would prefer to have their own political representation?
The Muslim parliament is a just Muslim organization, with the registered name of ‘Muslim Parliament’. It is one of about 1,500 other Muslim organizations in the United Kingdom and nothing more than that. It has a very limited membership and in no way is meant to rival the British parliament. Personally, I don’t believe in assimilation but I do believe in integration.
Does it surprise you the place you have reached in British society when you think of the young boy who arrived here unable to speak English or the Rotherham lad who enjoyed playing football, whose father thought Asians would eventually be thrown out of Britain?
No one knows what the future holds and I can honestly say that I am proud to be a Kashmiri Pakistani and proud to be a British citizen. There is no other country in the world like Britain that gives such equal rights and opportunities.
Visit: http://www.abettertomorrowschool.org to learn more about Lord Ahmed’s free co-educational school at his home in Mirpur, AJK, Pakistan.
Posted by Terri Levin on 23rd December, 2009.
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