Unique Muslimah

The second and final part to Britz showed Nasima’s story, who is Sohail’s sister. We are taken to the beginning of the drama like in part one, but this time we see the events through Nasima’s perspective. I must say, the director and writer did an excellent job in part two to make me feel physically sick and to probably make others understand and sympathise why people are forced into suicide bombing.

Nasima is a medical student but also a political activist. She holds demonstrations and believes that she can make a change through democratic means, because she has faith that the country she lives in is a democratic one. But through her best friend’s ordeal of getting arrested under terrorism charges because her brother is involved in terrorist activities, things change for Nasima. Her best friend, Sabia, is arrested and electronically tagged. She is not allowed to see anyone and is being monitored by police. All for what? Having six packets of pepper (curry) at her house, which the police believe Sabia was going to use for a terror plot. Imagine, pepper!

Nasima secretly climbs up her best friend’s bedroom window to see her and there they talk about what Sabia went through when she was being held in prison. She talks about how she lost her virginity through female police officers searching her body for drugs, including her vagina. She says how she bled and that no man would want to marry her because she wasn’t a virgin anymore. This broke my heart, because it wasn’t Sabia’s fault at all. This is a form of rape and I can’t believe it happened.

When they released Sabia they put her under control orders, through being electronically tagged and not being allowed to talk to anyone on a list that the police wrote out for her. Sabia tries to get a lawyer but the British lawyer, who is appalled by the terrorism legislation’s, tells her that she has no right to be defended in court, that a special officer who is from the state will talk about her case in court without her presence. And get this, Sabia is not even allowed to know what she is being held for. They won’t tell her what she is supposedly guilty for. From this distress, Sabia hangs herself one night. She is found by Nasima who visited her one night secretly. Nasima successfully resuscitates her best friend. But while in hospital, the police men have the nerve to tell Nasima that she isn’t allowed to be near her friend because of that list. Even while she is unconscious!

Her friend dies. She washes her friend and buries her. She is devastated and wants revenge. This is a big turning point in Nasima’s life.

Nasima just keeps getting injustice after injustice from the government and the police. She tried to protest with quite a lot of university friends outside the police station to release Sabia when she was initially arrested and guess what? The police man told Nasima that if she didn’t stop the demonstration she would be arrested on grounds of anti-social behaviour. Nasima is convinced that she has the right to demonstrate because England is a democratic country, not a dictator country like back home. But because they fail to leave the premises, a team of police beat them and arrest Nasima, where she is subjected to interrogation, where the police men say ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll shove this bacon sandwich down your throat and wash it with a pint of larger’. They are saying this because they know she is a Muslim and these two foods are not allowed.

Later, she attends an Islamic lecture (though she was at first always against them) which talks about the injustice the Muslim world is undergoing due to Western governments and though she tries to voice her belief that they could fight through democratic means, the Muslim speaker tells her that it is pointless- How far did she get through democratic means? She finally realises that demonstrations, petitions, talking to leaders, etc, is not changing anything. It’s only getting worse.

That’s why she decides to fight back, for her best friend’s sake, for all the woes she has gone through by the police and the government who just won’t listen to people like her.

Nasima is not a religious girl. She has had sex with her non-Muslim boyfriend Jude, who is a sincere, lovely guy, but he is both black and non-Muslim, which is why her father has a fit when she tells him about it. That’s when her father books her a ticket to Pakistan for her to choose a husband there. I think Nasima planned this so that she could train as a jihadist in a training camp. Because of the ongoing justice she faced.

To make a long story short, she trains and goes back to London to become the first female suicide bomber in Canary Wharf. She has a pregnant suit on that is hiding the explosives. She has nothing to go back to. Her family think she is dead. Her best friend is dead. No matter what she tries to do, the government and the politics of the country will not change.

And just as she takes out her explosive remote control that is in the shape of a drink bottle, her brother comes behind her and tries to stop her. He hugs her and tells her not to do it. That is when police officers with large guns punch him away from her. The outside concert hall she is sitting in is suddenly filled with police officers with rifles, ready to shoot, charging at her, while her brother hugs her and comforts her. But she realises there is no way out. She presses the button and everything goes blank.

The writer/director is showing how it is the government and the police that radicalise people like Nasima. If she was being heard through democratic means, through “dialogue”, then she would never have taken this ghastly route. The director wants the viewers to sympathise with Nasima. She is desperate, she has no where to go now. She is in her brother’s arms while white men who will probably torture her once they get a hold of her, are charging at her with guns.

She wants the world to share her pain. To share her best friend’s pain. And she does so, by killing herself and hundreds, if not thousands, of others.

In the end, a video pops up that she recorded before she killed herself, just like suicide bombers usually do which are broadcasted on the news. She tells the people that we are not innocent because we sit by and do nothing. We elect the same people who murder Muslims all over the world. She is filled with anger and she wants revenge. She wants everyone to share her pain.

I share her pain. I am crying as I write this because it was so real. I cry because of her desperation, to do something so drastic as to kill yourself and other people. To prepare how you are going to die and to go through it. And to believe that these people deserve it because they didn’t do anything about the country’s politics. I cry that she had to go through that, that there was no other way for her. That the country did not give her any other way. Of course I totally disagree with what she did and I’m sure so did the director and writer of the drama. But it is not about us anymore and what we are against. It is what these youngsters believe and what they will do to get their voices heard.

This is a stark message from the director. That the country is responsible for Nasima’s radicalisation. That because everyone and everything was against her, she had to find a different way to get her voice heard. And if something isn’t done soon about these terror legislations, then there will be more Nasima’s out there who will kill herself, her own brother and people around her. This is what I am afraid of. She wasn’t doing it for religion. She said so herself. She was doing it for revenge. What’s ironic is they are both from the same womb, Sohail and Nasima, both lived under the pressure of being Asian Muslims, and both died together.

A final thought. This will alert the viewers that you don’t have to look like a typical Muslim to be a terrorist. Now a whole new band of people have come into fit the profile. Now you can look like an Asian. Now you can be a Muslim woman. A pregnant Muslim woman. And a Muslim woman who doesn’t even practice or is religious or wears the hijab. A terrorist can now look like anyone. I feel quite disturbed watching this. Because it takes you into the mind of a desperate person and it makes you feel completely helpless. Whose side are you on? The drama’s tag line asked. By God, I don’t even want to be a part of this deadly game.