What does it take to stand up in the face of wrongdoing or injustice? A lot more courage than you might imagine.
I spoke up on matters I thought important a few years ago. Most just politely ignored me, but one dear old friend took me to task for it. He felt my speaking up was unwarranted, distasteful and out of order.
Though more direct than most, I think he just articulated what most of my friends were thinking. If I couldn’t toe the party line, I could at least choose silence. In short, don’t think for yourself.
My friend may well have been right. And perhaps I would have done as asked were people in my own circles not mobilising for the other side in complete disregard for the precepts of the faith we claim to profess.
Finding me silent today, some acquaintances try to convince me that I have since been vindicated for my stance. I’m not so sure, for that stance cost me dearly. Least of all many a friend.
But then I note now that everybody is silent. Nobody dares report the news as it unfolded. Search the activist press for an update on that affair, and you will find absolutely nothing at all. Not a jot!
Either they know and have decided to close ranks and not report it. Or else they do not know, in which case ignorance is bliss. Why probe and search as I once felt compelled to do, when you can instead turn away, indifferent to the calls of faith?
Do not mix truth and falsehood! Stand firm for justice! Do not advocate for the deceitful! Do not deprive people of their due! Do not commit abuse on the earth!
But, admittedly, that’s easier said than done. Who knows what livelihood will be deprived for your stance? What freedom? What wealth? Or what relationships? When it comes to it, would you really do what’s right?
That didn’t take long, did it? Coming to the realisation that the membership thing was self-indulgent nonsense. Does anyone really care that much? Nope. Nobody but spammers and hackers, anyway.
So I backtrack, disabling that functionality. Now we have two content states: published or unpublished, accessible or not.
Does that mean I’ve withdrawn all of my writing? Not for the time being. You may as well just read freely, if you want to. It’s not a big deal. And if not, that’s no big deal either. As the teenagers amongst us would say: Whatever!
That’s the word that most often comes to mind in my encounters with the commercial web industry. Also known as companies pulling the wool over the eyes of their customers.
A recent one I came across: a web host deliberately crippling core functionality of a platform for the sole purpose of differentiating its own products.
If you want automatic updates, they say, you’ll need to move up a tier. Why? Because that’s more complex? No, quite the reverse. The complexity is found in them turning that functionality off for standard users.
Of course, most of their customers wouldn’t know any better. Their disadvantage is their own ignorance. But I find these tactics lamentable. If anything, it makes their least technical customers more vulnerable to security breaches.
But, hey, that’s business. You have to turn a profit somehow. So let it be at the expense of customer ignorance.
LinkedIn prods me: “Your account has been in hibernation for 6 months.” I think to myself, “So what?” and hit delete. But by morning, I’m peering in, wondering what’s new.
I find my former manager being congratulated by a multitude of well-wishers on their new role. I decide not to join them, as it feels a bit galling that they came and went so fast. Momentarily, I consider quipping, “Sorry we broke you,” but realise that’s too close to the bone, and move on.
Scrolling, scrolling, these are all people that I used to know. Some of them have accrued impressive new job titles, others new acronyms after their name. Mostly, they’re a bunch of people in perpetual transition, moving from one role to another. This is that thing we call “career progression”.
Yes, that thing, which has caused me to crash so many times in recent years. I look at the great variety of roles others have had, rising that imaginary ladder into senior leadership, and then I look back at myself, witness to nothing but this constancy.
It’s at this point that I stop scrolling, and kill that tab, returning to my work. I remember why I last put LinkedIn into hibernation mode. It’s not a sleight on the ambitions of others. I just realise this foray is likely to undermine my own fragile contentment.
I’ve learnt to live a different kind of life. Here we remain in our little house in our working-class neighbourhood, second-hand car outside. Were it not for pride and the pressure of external expectations, would I not be perfectly content with this life of ease, unburdened by debt?
Truth be told, this is the most I deserve. I was never on the trajectory of any of my peers, no matter how haughty or humble. Not with these cognitive deficits, this perpetual brain fog, those early language impairments, that long-lasting lethargy.
For me, contentment is definitely the way to go. To be content with the niche that’s been cut out for me, no matter the lack of prestige or status. It’s an honest wage, with good working conditions. Dare I swap it for a lengthy commute in pursuit of some kind of mythical golden role?
No, that’s not my world. Nor is the world of LinkedIn. “Stay in your lane,” I remind myself, retreating back into obscurity once more.
I was pleased with myself on Saturday, congratulating myself for doing a proper weekly shop. But it’s only Tuesday, and already supplies have been depleted, the fridge all but bare.
What would have been a week’s supply of fruit now lasts barely days. Any treat, polished off within hours. Either we’re a household of very hungry caterpillars, or there’s not much baraka in the weekly shop anymore.
I work with some highly intelligent people — researchers, professors, doctors, psychologists — but sometimes they’re completely illogical.
Indeed, sometimes I’m really surprised by their stupidity. I guess we all have our own unique skills and expertise, as well as complete ignorance. To each their own.
Many of us converts are nowadays bemused by the typical view Muslim communities have of us, as degenerates only redeemed by our adoption of faith.
It seems to escape them that many of us had highly ethical upbringings, raised with good morals and manners. Alas, many Muslims are triumphant without reason.
You have nothing unless you practice what you preach. Nothing unless you allow the way to transform you. Nothing unless you bring the precepts of your deen to life in your lives.
“Careful or he’ll be after you.” Erm, well, not really. I wasn’t after anybody. True, there was somebody I liked, though they’d never know it because I kept that to myself.
Yes, these are my gardening ruminations. The delayed reaction to events long gone, forced to the forefront of my mind by the monotony of preparing garden waste for a trip to the tip.
Gardening is supposed to be a therapeutic hobby, in which we empty ourselves until we are completely relaxed. Sounds nice, but I just find my mind wandering back into the distant past to reinterrogate all that once occurred.
Mostly, I’m found taking myself to task for some idiotic action or conversation, endlessly shaking my head at myself. But this gigantic pile of branches has me taking aim at others, suddenly amused by all that was once said about me at pivotal junctures of my life.
Indeed, amidst that pile of leaves, there are simply too many ironies now to contemplate. For all that was projected onto me, I was the most boringest person amongst them, far removed from their notion of me as a predator seeking conquests.
Outside college, my social life was a church youth group and playing in a philharmonic orchestra I was completely unsuited for. Where did those ideas come from then? I can only think of two places. First, prejudice. Second, a mate, who had a very different take on relationships to me.
The first is easy enough to observe in the community I now find myself a very vague part of. To this day, parents will still warn their children to steer clear of the gora kids, lest they set them on a path to destruction. Though the irony here is exemplified by that second explanation.
I was so naïve back then, thinking my mate a sort of Muslim version of me, with strict parents, a religious upbringing and shared ethics with respect to wholesome relationships. But it turned out that I couldn’t really have been much more mistaken.
That might have occurred to me when he once introduced me to his new girlfriend. He seemed to need to show me he’d won a white girl, but I was just perturbed that she was so much younger than him and should probably have been at school.
But it didn’t properly occur to me until the day we parted company. Naïve once more, I thought the college leaving party would be a sort of social gathering, where we all stood around eating crisps and talking about plans for the future. Of course, it was nothing like that.
Suddenly, I saw my companions in a whole new light, and it wasn’t a positive one. Never in my life would I have countenanced picking up a girl in a club for a one night stand. That wasn’t in our culture at all. Talk about culture shock: that was all mine.
That was the night I discovered that my mate, who had long embedded himself in the underage clubbing scene, was very far from the sound advisor I had imagined him to be. Who knows what he had said on my behalf, and to whom, when I was not around?
Separating my pruning into different piles, wood from green, large from small, I can’t help smiling to myself now. Predator? Seriously? With an upbringing like mine?
My mother had only recently been ordained priest, after long working as a respected hospital chaplain. And my father? I’d be dropped off in the morning by him, climbing out of his dark blue BMW E32 around the corner so no one would see me, enroute to his office at the foremost law firm in town.
But naturally, all of this could be a complete misreading of events. Perhaps I was harassed because I was a nerd, my unmasculine face inviting derision, my skeletal frame only capable of producing mockery. Perhaps it had nothing to do with my mate.
Perhaps I was just an easy target because I seemed so weak and pathetic, my voice so odd, my form so immature, my manner so passive. For indeed, I was harassed not only by those who encountered me daily, but also by complete strangers on the street.
Perhaps they all just saw something in me they could easily latch onto. Once at a bus stop, being pelted with eggs, causing me to walk the four miles home thereafter. And daily at college, forever being denigrated and castigated for…. what?
A few times now, I’ve had an opportunity to speak to those involved back then, but none of them remembered any of these events. Indeed, they couldn’t even remember me, or place me as ever having wandered amongst them. And why would they? I was just a leaf blown by the wind, soon to disappear.
And with this thought, my job is done. I’ve collected all the loose garden waste into two builders’ bags, ready to dispatch to the tip. Over there, a pile of branches to be cut into logs next time I take my chainsaw out. And a pile of hazel limbs to be stripped bare, to be used as stakes next year.
Here a job I could only complete with the aid of the grumbling indignation within, which all these years on still provides the fuel of momentum. Let’s get these bags in the car.
It’s amusing to think what a quiet life I could have had when I was my daughter’s age, if only I had understood what my best mate was on.
True, I would still have had to contend with reactions to my nerdy face and form, forever a source of derision. That was inescapable.
But had I not been so desperate for friends — any friends — and not just attached myself to the first person to be nice to me, I could have been a complete nobody, ignored by all.
Instead, I had to contend with preposterous interventions on my behalf, attributing ideas to me I would never have countenanced, which ended up making my life pure misery.
So it’s unfortunate that the first time I realised what my mate was on was at our leaving party, witness to the behaviour of him and his own mates, hunting for girls to spend the night with.
That was the evening I realised I neither knew them, nor did they know me. Just then, the past eighteen months of misery flashed before my eyes, as everything suddenly made sense. But, by then, it was much too late.
I worry less for our daughter than I do for our son. Boys are so easily influenced by their mates, no matter how idiotic their behaviour. To be part of the crowd, they will do nearly anything.
May God preserve our children from experiences like my own, and steer them towards sound companions and positive role models. And may they be granted the ability to speak for themselves too.
A fine day to resume my role as tree surgeon.
Today’s job taking on the hazel and cherry trees blocking our view.
Argh, nobody told me I’m going bald. Ignore that. Look: I’ve got myself a new gizmo.
It’s at this stage that I wonder what I’ve done. How on earth am I going to get rid of that mess.
But nothing is insurmountable on a Sunday afternoon, when I have a head full of thoughts to keep me busy.
Job done. Rubbish dispatched to the tip. Looks like a brutal cut, but it will quickly grow back.
Next episode: the beloved karayemiş, in desperate need of a severe trim. A monster mission for another weekend.
I am a man who likes routine. Who performs his best when he knows what’s next. I’m not great with surprises or sudden changes of plans.
Indeed, in Turkey, I built my own house in a hard-to-get-to village almost solely to escape the social habits of friends and family, turning up uninvited at the least convenient moment, aborting our own plans without warning.
Routine, where it would bore others, suits me to the tee. I’m the kind of person who must always fly the same airline from the same airport, taking the same taxi there and back. I don’t care if that makes it expensive: it’s more important that I know what to expect.
Spontaneity is the spice of life, say some. Good for them. I’d rather know what awaits me. Curve balls, though lobbed daily at work, have a tendency to throw me completely. Routines have the benefit of keeping me consistent.
It used to be that I would spend Sunday mornings travelling across counties for a morning of study in Luton every week. On my way home, almost without fail, I’d do the weekly grocery shop, breaking the journey at Dunstable Aldi en route.
After months of practice, I had the perfect routine. I’d buy nearly the same items on each visit. The same quanties of fruit and veg. I knew exactly where to find everything. I knew what it would cost. The order I’d put it in my trolley. And my checkout procedure? I’d honed it to a fine art.
But that was then. These days, I’m considerably unpractised. I’ve become a disorganised purchaser of bits and bobs from the local corner shop as required. Yesterday was my first big supermarket shop in ages, and my disorientation was palpable.
I recalled that I had replaced those routines with a new one: a weekly stroll in the countryside with a friend, breaking midway at a café for coffee. Occasionally, our routes may vary, but the destination is always the same.
It turns out that I am a chap who needs routine if I am to achieve anything at all. I need to develop habits, lest everything fall into disarray. Otherwise, my mind will be all over the place, fleeting from one thing to another.
The trick is developing habits that are beneficial. Doing a good deed. Being kind or giving charity. A tiresome job done regularly. But, alas, too often, the habits that occupy us are those passive actions: reach for phone and scroll.
What a turn of events, that I should be having a frank discussion with a young man about honourable behaviour. That it should be me explaining that crude misogynistic language should have no place in his vocabulary.
That whatever their differences — whatever argument or dispute should come between them — there’s never an excuse for obscene language like this. In our tradition, I tell him, we treat women and girls with honour and respect.
Whoever would have thought it?
Time definitely compresses as we age. My youth looms as an epoch in my mind, still occupying me all these years on. Recent decades, by contrast, just feel like minutes and days.
Between us, we share recollections of those early days of marriage in west London, returning often as if it was the neighbourhood which defined us. Yet, in truth, we only remained there for five years, before moving on like the whole world.
I was a lodger in a dismal 1970s terrace when we met, red brick walls set above double garages, on a rundown housing estate hemmed in between the Great Western mainline and the fine Victorian streets for which Ealing is known.
It’s so strange that I recall those months as an age, for I only resided there from the autumn of 2000 until we married the following summer. Perhaps those were defining moments. Defining in that they changed everything.
To think I nearly missed it, as I tried to set up lodgings close to my workplace in Maidenhead. I had a property all lined up, only for it to fall through just as I prepared to move. Alhamdulilah for that. For it was just then that I’d be introduced to my beloved.
Had I flown 1.3 miles in a straight line, east to west, from Allingham Close across the park to dinner on Atherton Place, I would have found her waiting. Our hosts will forever remember me as the clueless fool who turned up in scruffy jogging bottoms, pleased with myself for having bought new socks specially.
Still, she didn’t hold it against me, for we spent the next four years living together in West Ealing, back across Drayton Green. There we were, settled in that neighbourhood, happy and content. There our little world, expanding every now and then to encompass Regents Park.
There was our mosque, a mere walk away, past our local park, along the footbridge over the railway line and straight through the old council estates (all now gone). On Sunday mornings, I’d meet with my little band of friends for a cuppa on the broadway opposite Dean Gardens.
There were our close friends, a short walk down Argyle Road, Hastings and Hartington, to spend hours in their company, drinking green tea, overlooking the Uxbridge Road. Later we’d share an allotment together on the corner of Mattock Lane and Northfield Avenue.
There was our local Turkish grocery, Cudis, providing the fresh produce so essential to my new wife’s delicious cuisine, and the nearby Waitrose relied upon for everything else. On Friday nights, we’d rent videos from a local independent on the corner of The Avenue.
Then there was the journey to work. In the early days, by car, taking some ridiculous morning route through Southall’s traffic jams to pick up the M4 near Hayes, for the journey west to my office just outside Maidenhead.
Later, my own early morning journeys by tube to Green Lanes, Mayfair and Wembley, before I finally secured a proper job, three years a married man, catching the mainline from West Ealing to Paddington, then the underground on to Baker Street.
Yes, all of that seems like a whole era in my mind’s eye. But compared to the twenty years that followed, they ought to seem like just a moment. So strange that those years seem so elongated, whilst recent years seem to have vanished as if we barely experienced them at all.
Perhaps that’s the monotony of a career which hasn’t changed very much, or the absence of a daily commute. Or the routines of raising children and attending to their education. Maybe it’s just being more settled, less on edge. Or perhaps it’s just because everything was once so new, and now it is so familiar.
Here we are, all of us, hurtling at pace towards our terminus. By now we know with absolute certainty that when we are raised on that awesome Day, the like of which is fifty-thousand years, we will protest that we tarried on the earth for but a day or an afternoon or a few hours.
Yes, for even now, it’s beginning to feel that way, as weeks, months and years pass by as if they were just days, forgotten.
Is it the collapse of time or memory? The weekend is here again, and I can barely comprehend where the week went. It seems like mere minutes. But then, life as a whole feels like that, fifteen years zipping past in an instant. Were it not for our collections of family photos, I might forget it occurred at all.
