It’s strange. To the other tenents in my flat I was ‘nice’. I was a bit quiet, quite polite, considerate and gentle. I was just, to them, ‘nice’. But suddenly, one day, I was a manifestation of evil. Someone to be ignored and hated. No more patronising “Oh, you’re so good”s when they found me hoovering the stairs; I was now to be frowned upon. To be whispered about and to be slandered. Because yesterday I was one imagined character, and today I am another. They had all heard that I had embraced Islam.
Last modified: 11 November 1999
