Riaz, the solemn, earnest and clever leader of the small group which Shahid joins, understands that hatred of the Other is an effective way of keeping his group not only together but moving forward. To do this, he has to create an effective paranoia. He must ensure that the image and idea of the Other is sufficiently horrible and dangerous to make it worth being afraid of. The former colonialistic Western Other, having helped rush the East into premature modernity, must have no virtues. Just as the West has generated fantasies and misapprehensions of the East for its own purposes, the East — this time stationed in the West — will do the same, ensuring not only a comprehensive misunderstanding between the two sides, but a complete disjunction which occludes complexity.
Of course, for some Muslims this disjunction is there from the start. To be bereft of religion is to be bereft of human value. Almost unknowingly, Muslims who believe this are making a significant sacrifice by forfeiting the importance of seeing others, and of course themselves, as being completely human. In Karachi, I recall, people were both curious and amazed when I said I was an atheist. ‘So when you die,’ said one of my cousins, ‘you’ll be all dressed up with nowhere to go?’ At the same time Islamic societies, far from being ‘spiritual’, are — because of years of deprivation — among the most materialistic on earth. Shopping and the mosque have no trouble in getting along together.
Some of the attitudes among the kids I talked to for The Black Album reminded me of Nietzche’s analysis of the origins of religion, in particular his idea that religion — and Nietzche was referring to Christianity — was the aggression of the weak, of the victim or oppressed. These attacks on the West, and the religion they were supposed to protect, were in fact a form of highly organised resentment or bitterness, developed out of colonialism, racism and envy. The violent criticism of Rushdie, an exceptionally gifted artist of whom the community should have been proud, was in fact a hatred of talent and of the exceptional, a kind of forced equalisation from a religion which had not only become culturally and intellectual mediocre, but which was looking to the far past for a solution to contemporary difficulties.
Towards the end of The Black Album, with the help of his lecturer and soon-to-be girlfriend Deedee Osgood, Shahid understands that he has to withdraw from this group in order to establish himself on his own terms at last. This isn’t easy, as the group has provided him with support, friendship and direction. It also doesn’t want to let him go.
He gets out, in part, by beginning to discover the exuberance of his own sexuality and creativity. ‘How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?’ asks Salman Rushdie, relevantly, at the beginning of The Satanic Verses.
It is also no accident that British and American pop, as exemplified for Shahid by Prince’s intelligent, sensual and prolific creativity, is in a particularly lively phase. The clubs and parties Deedee takes Shahid to represent a continuing form of the youthful celebration that Britain has enjoyed since the 60s. If religions are among man’s most important and finest creation — with God perhaps being his greatest idea of all — Shahid also learns how corrupt and stultifying these concepts can become if they fetishise obedience, if they are not renewed and re-thought. Like language itself, they can become decadent, and newness and vigour doesn’t have an easy time. If blasphemy is as old as God, it is as necessary, because religion and blasphemy are made for one another. Without blasphemy religion has no potency or meaning. If there’s nothing like a useful provocation to start a good conversation, this can only be to the advantage of religion.
It turns out that Shahid is one of the lucky ones, strong enough to find out — after flirting with extreme religion — that he’d rather affect the world as an artist rather than as an activist. The others in his group are not so intelligent or objective; or perhaps they are just more passionate for political change. Whatever the reasons — and it is probably too late for psychological explanations — something had begun to stir in the late 80s, which has had a profound effect on our world, and which we are still trying to come to terms with.
Back to the Borderline
It was with some trepidation that I looked again at Borderline, a play I wrote in 1981. The Royal Court Theatre — where it was originally presented — wanted to mount a reading of it, as part of the celebrations to mark fifty Years of that theatre. My father was alive in 1981, and sat enthusiastically through many performances, laughing at everything, particularly at the character of the father, who rather resembled him. Now, twenty years later, two of my sons, aged twelve, were present. I couldn’t help wondering what it would mean to them — or indeed to anyone, now.
The original director Max Stafford-Clark, whose idea the play was, had worked often with Joint Stock, a touring company started by David Hare and Bill Gaskill with the intention of getting political theatre out of London. The company played in schools, community centres and gyms around the country. We would cast the play, do the research in Southall — an immigrant area of west London — and then I would write it. It would then tour, playing finally at the Royal Court. This was political theatre, emerging from the turbulent radical intensities of the 1970s. The idea was to show the community through its differences: different ages, political outlooks, and different hopes for the future, interweaving numerous characters and points of view.
At that time, getting a writing gig with Joint Stock was, as Max would say, ‘very high status’. I was in my mid-twenties, living with my social worker girlfriend in a low-rent council flat next to a railway line in Barons Court, west London. I can’t have been making a living as a writer; I must have been on the dole. So far I had written only two full-length plays, and many unpublished novels. There were very few Asian or Afro-Caribbean writers, actors or directors who made a living from their work. Why did I think I’d be any different?
I was extremely nervous about the whole thing, and with good reason. It was, as far as I knew, the first play by an Asian to be produced on the main stage at the Royal Court, a theatre known for its innovation and daring. The only other black playwright I knew was Mustapha Matura, whose work I’d admired. But his work was poetic; he was no social documentarian.
For me the Joint Stock process had been frantic, if not hair-raising. The actors and theatres had been hired; everything was in place, but the play had not been written, not a word of it, and we were to start rehearsing in six weeks. I was just beginning to find out whether I could be a writer or not, trying to find a subject, characters, and words for them to say. I was already learning a lot from the directors I worked with, and from the actors: as they began to speak, the clumsiness of the lines was obvious. Fortunately, I was hard-working then, with a fierce ambition.
The play did get written. It also got re-written. This, I saw, was when the real work began. If I’d had too ‘pure’ a view of the artist, I was soon to learn that aesthetic fastidiousness wasn’t a helpful attitude. Max was severe and precise, sending me into a dressing room with instructions to write a scene about so-and-so, with certain characters in it. I re-wrote as we rehearsed; I re-wrote as we played it around the country; I re-wrote it when we opened at the Royal Court, and even after that. This was the first time I’d worked in such a way and it was an important proficiency to develop; it came in handy two years later when I worked with Stephen Frears on My Beautiful Laundrette, and was required to re-write on set.