I slutet av varje kapitel i "We are a muslim please" berattar Zaiba Malik en annan historia, ett par rader ner skrivet i annat typsnitt, och man far inte reda pa vad det ar forran i Epilogen som ar ett 33 sidor langt brev. I de sista raderna i de forsta kapitlena staller hon bara fragor till denne, "Did you get what you prayed for? What did you pray for? Why did you do what you did?"
Sa ar jag framme vid Epilogen. Och det ar ett brev till Shehzad Tanweer. Han och Zaiba vaxte upp i samma omrade i Bradford, bara nagra gator bort fran varandra. Shezhad Tanweer var en av de tre man som korde M1 ner fran Leeds till Luton och sedan tog taget till Kings Cross London den 7 juli 2005 och dar efter detonerade de bomber som dodade 52 manniskor. Genom hela boken ar han narvarande och hon tanker pa honom och pa varfor han gjorde det han gjorde. Nagra av de basta delarna ur hennes brev:
"It says that you were born at St Luke's hospital in Bradford on 15 december 1982. You lived at Waverly Road. That's just a couple of streets away from where I grew up in Great Horton. I bet I passed your mum on the street as she pushed you in your pushchair - I was on my way back from the grammar school and she'd been to the fruit and veg shops near the junction with Horton Park Avenue to get some thunya, gobi, aloo and mirch. She probably looked as stressed as Umejee did back then, when they had to do everything themselves, no car, hardly any money. Trying to get the most for her cash - inspecting every bit of produce, every vegetable, every herb, every spice, making sure it wasn't going off. What were you thinking about then as your mum wheeled you around these shops? What did you see that made you do what you did?
I remember how angry the butcher was. He spoke in that half Yorkshire, half Pakistani accent that makes you think at first that he's taking the mickey, but he was so angry he was spitting as he talked so that he had to wipe the saliva from his mouth and beard, exclaiming that what you had done was 'bang out of order!' and that you won't have to wait until Judgement Day to be punished; his Hell will start in his grave. What's happening inside your grave right now?
You must know that our parents - your parents and mine - did what they could to bring us up in a country that was alien, indeed sometimes hostile to them. I read that your dad used to work as a police officer and then he started up his own fish and chip shop. Mine worked in the textile mills. I'm not sure if your mother had a job. Mine didn't. She brought up four children. Mum always says that she brought us up pretty much on her own - Dad was always working or at the mosque. He taught us about Islam and Mum did everything else. She never learnt to speak or read English, and so life was really tough for her, even in a Pakistani area like Bradford 7. Simple stuff, like going to the doctor's or getting on the right bus, was difficult. Sure, language is an essential tool for living, but I have a gut feeling that even if Mum was fluent in English, things would still have been hard. You see, for her and many others, it was about more than communicating with others, fitting in and getting on with things. It was about her, who she was. She suffered the most fundamental loss when she came to the UK. She lost herself, her very being. That person who had been born and grown up with an untained identity of cultture, customs, family, nationality and religion. When she left Pakistan, she left behind that life and her real self. It's easy for people to say 'Well, she came here for a better life, of her own free will.' But it's not that straightforward. Her life here has always been foreign."
I wonder how your mother is in these days. Without her Kaka, her little one. I wonder if she has that same mournful lost look that I once saw on the face of a woman whose two sons had been murdered in a gang fight in Tooting, or whether she threw herself against the walls like an Aunty in Bradford did after her soon died in a road traffic accident. Your poor mother.
So if I lived in a semi in the Midlands with a dog and three kids and an estate car and ate custard creams and drank tea from a floral teapot and kept lavender soap in the bathroom and a rocking horse in the hallway and grew yellow hyacinths in the garden, that would be it, that would be who I was.
So what was going on in your head when you did what you did? You were just twenty-two years old. Did you ever struggle, or were you so sure of yourself and of who you were by that age? When did you start staring at normal people on the bus, on the streets, in shops, in cars, in their homes, thinking to yourself: 'I don't want to be like you. I never ever want to be like you. Did you hate normal people? Like the ones you played cricket against, or the ones who came to your fish and chip shop.
You have an Islamic obligation to the country where you live, a contract as a British citizen to obey its laws and respect its government and to participate in its system, including its political processes, to promote justice and fairness and to maintain peace and stability. Jihad is the struggle for righteousness, to do Gods will and yes, it can be violent or non-violent - but the Prophet Muhammad said that greater jihads were the jihad of the heart.
Were you banned from watching EastEnders like we were?
Did you dance in private like I did?
Did your mum love the royal family as much as mine did?
Did your dad drive a clapped-out Nissan like mine did?
Where you a quiet child, like I was?
Did you think a lot, like I did?
Did you talk to God as often as I did?
Why did you do what you did?
The very street that you and your friends left to kill yourselves and fifty-two other people in the name of your god was the very street where I was born, thirty-nine years ago, in the name of my God.
When the words 'La illaha ill Allah, Muhammad ur rasul Allah' - I bear witness that there no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah - were whispered into my right ear.
When I was born a British Muslim.
Then there were no suicide bombers, no inflammatory clerics, no jihads, no kuffirs, no war on terror, no extremists or fundamentalists, no radicalism or fanaticism, no Islamism, no Islamaphobia.
Then there was just my father and his four children sat at the kitchen table quietly reading the Koran."
Jag bar inga ord for mycket den har boken berorde mig - och som jag skrivit innan - i precis ratt tid, nar jag aker bussen genom Small Heath och jag ar den enda vita (och troligen den enda fran Sverige som nagonsin suttit pa buss nr 60) I solljuset och bland alla man i sadana dar tunna vavda sma hattar och "klanningar" och alla kvinnor i hijabs och niqabs. Jag vill veta allt, jag vill forsta precis allt allt allt.
Det har brevet ar sa javla BRA och EFFEKTFULLT!!!!!!! Som hur man gillade/retades av hur Gus Van Sant bara lat alla karaktarer i "Elephant", som skulle aterspegla Columbine school massacre i USA, kora pa i tystnad, och hur man aldrig fick reda pa nagra bakomliggande faktorer (jag vet att jag mejlade Anton om det har en gang. Det finns sa manga andra exempel men jag kommer inte pa nu) till varfor de gjorde det de gjorde. Det ju bra, for vad finns det for forklaring? Men man (jag) kommer aldrig ifran det eviga sokandet. Hur mycket jag har tankt pa Elin Krantz (tankte bygga min forsta tenta om henne och dagarna, timmarna innan det hande - hur normala de var - och kalla novellen for typ "Lyckolotteriet"... ) och igen - har har vi det dar med brev. Som sjalvmordsbrevet.
Jag alskar din bok Zaiba, tack.
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