Interview: Jasper Gerard meets Shabina Begum

Really worth reading. Few choice bits from the interview below:


• The impression that she was not acting of her own free will was reinforced. Interviewers are used to the odd minder guarding a star, but never an entourage as formidable as that surrounding this teenager.

• My hardly racy request to sit next to Shabina at lunch so we can talk is greeted with glares.

• It is her white guards who are the real frights. First up: her powerfully built “celebrity consultant” (really: I have her business card). If this man-munching reptile is alarming, the three dragons from the legal charity opposite breathe fire

• Shabina: she is — if I may venture this — attractive

• “I go shopping a lot with friends and I love bags, shoes, girly stuff,” she smiles. As one of the dragons points out — without irony — “Shabina is British, you know.”

• I ask to heckling from the dragons, whether she has non-Muslim friends. “I do. I advise people that you shouldn’t stay away from them (non-Muslims), they are not evil.” Commendable, but it reveals much about the divisions in Luton life that this even needs saying.

How can a quasi racist statement like ‘non muslims are not evil’ be ‘commendable’? The soft irony in the interviewers style gets somewhat lost on me there. And im not certain the conclusion does anything more than ensure the article sits comfortably next to the 'bla bla style' and 'bla bla beauty' sections in the Times’ Women section. Because of course we're so over rights and more into Prada now?

Ayaan Hirshi ("everyone is afraid to criticize Islam") suggests you challenge stupidity with derision. Shabina isnt stupid, far from it. But you could still use the same principle regards the issue of burqa 'rights' (c/o Life of Brian below!). Whilst we still can.

Or simply ban all religious garb from schools and ensure girls dont jeopordise their futures by using their intelligence on scarily medieval misguided teenage whims.

I wonder if Shabina got to read the article? I hope so. Its written by a man who thinks shes attractive and who should have told her. After all if she realises beauty is a currency she might actually use it.


JUDITH:

I do feel, Reg, that any Anti-Imperialist group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base.

REG:
Agreed. Francis?

FRANCIS:
Yeah. I think Judith's point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man--

STAN:
Or woman.

FRANCIS:
Or woman... to rid himself--

STAN:
Or herself.

FRANCIS:
Or herself.

REG:
Agreed.

FRANCIS:
Thank you, brother.

STAN:
Or sister.

FRANCIS:
Or sister. Where was I?

REG:
I think you'd finished.

FRANCIS:
Oh. Right.

REG:
Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man--

STAN:
Or woman.

REG:
Why don't you shut up about women, Stan. You're putting us off.

STAN:
Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.

FRANCIS:
Why are you always on about women, Stan?

STAN:
I want to be one.

REG:
What?


STAN:
I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.

REG:
What?!

LORETTA:
It's my right as a man.

JUDITH:
Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?

LORETTA:
I want to have babies.

REG:
You want to have babies?!

LORETTA:
It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.

REG:
But... you can't have babies.

LORETTA:
Don't you oppress me.

REG:
I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!

LORETTA:
[crying]

JUDITH:
Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.

FRANCIS:
Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.

REG:
What's the point?

FRANCIS:
What?

REG:
What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!

FRANCIS:
It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.

REG:
Symbolic of his struggle against reality.