Parental pressure (notorious in our community), combined with a
desire to make some money and 'get on', can be overpowering. But hold on a minute. The
road straight ahead is easy, but it's a dead-end.
The fact is that our community, the second biggest religious group in Britain, needs you
very desperately. It needs you not as a grocer or a taxi driver. Not even as a medical
doctor or an accountant. It needs you in positions of influence.
This, of course, does not mean politics. The clowns of the Commons have very little power.
Most serious decisions are made by advisers in the Civil Service, and unless you change
your religion and perhaps your complexion as well, you'll never become an influential desk
pilot in Whitehall. The English establishment is polite, but it's a closed shop.
But there is another way of being useful, of raising your community from its present
scorned and humiliated status. Ours is an age of words and images whirling around the
globe, moulding public perceptions and creating the mutual perceptions of whole
civilisations. This is the age in which The Bill is seen by 950 million people - a sixth
of the world's population. An age in which John Simpson's lopsided view of Iraq can
trickle down into the national media of two hundred states.
Muslims need representation in the media. Not as ethnic marionettes reading Channel Four
news, mouthing words written by others. Nor as make-up girls, actors or cameramen. We need
people with flair and creativeness.
Most Muslims in Britain don't have two ideas to rub together when it comes to presenting
community issues in a creative and stylish way. Instead we have those awful pompous
conference, attended by the occasional embarrassed MP, which burn up money and achieve
nothing at all; save, perhaps, an enhanced self-image for their organisers.
This is not good enough. We Muslims have been here in force for forty years, and yet we
still cannot present ourselves in a coherent and attractive way. The oldsters have the
excuse of incompetence in English. We, however, are in a position to work our way up
through the system. If we do not, then we are failing in a most vital religious duty.
Let us take a leaf out of the book of the Jewish community. In the nineteenth century, the
Jews were subject to a hatred and discrimination no less virulent than that which now
confronts Muslims. Like us, they saw their co-religionists being slaughtered in Central
Europe and wondered if it could happen here. Their response was an intelligent one: to
educate their children, and shepherd them into professions where they would be
influential: the law, finance, business, and scholarship.
There are five times as many Muslims in Britain than Jews. There is no reason why we
should not emulate their success. But this requires ambition. If the Blessed Prophet
observed that "high ambition is part of faith," then for a Muslim to fail is
disobedience to God. The most successful form of Islamic activism here takes the form of
long, dedicated work aimed at succeeding in a useful career. We do not need more maulvis.
Nor do we need more doctors and dentists. Islam would not suffer in Britain if we had not
a single Muslim accountant or engineer.
But what could we not do if we had just one great novelist, or playwright, or film
director? A man or woman with the subtlety to get a spiritual message across without
having to resort to crude propaganda?
Somewhere out there is a potential Hafiz, or the architect of a new Alhambra. Our
community is a youthful one, but it resembles a field of seeds in need of watering. Once
our young people realise that Islam demands success, and that laziness, stupidity and
greed are mortal sins, we will start to rise up.
There is no escape from this obligation. Whoever you are, dear reader, this is your task.
Kerim Fenari
I write in response to the 'Open Letter to a Muslim
School-leaver'. I agree with Kerim Fenari who points out the importance of being
successful in the right fields as young Muslims but I feel he leaves out an important
point. Enthusiasm and the desire to succeed are not enough to guarantee success. Young
Muslims need networks of support, and quite frankly these networks do not exist.
Last year I graduated with a degree in the arts and humanities. Like the article
suggested, I appreciated that more successful Muslims are needed in fields other than
medicine or accountancy. But the fact is I also graduated with a heavy loan to repay, and
I now work in an unrelated field just for money. I feel I have both the talent and the
enthusiasm, Alhamdulillah, but what use is it? It is very difficult as a practising
Muslim, who has certain values and limitations, to try and carve a niche in the mainstream
organisations and attempt to work without compromising your morals, especially as a woman.
As a student who had just reverted to Islam I had false illusions whilst at university
that a Muslim community was out there waiting for me; that I could do great things for
them, and them for me. But such a network just doesn't exist. There is the odd initiative
like Q News or Khayaal Theatre, which is great but it's not enough.
We need a Muslim recruitment agency, but before that we need to develop some organisations
that have great ambitions in the right fields. For our generation the message is not
simply to be enthusiastic and get the right job, but to set up and invent new initiatives
that can grow so that Insha' Allah, the future generations will not have the same problems
that we have.
Anonymous, London.
© Copyright 1998 Q-News International, UK.
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