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Straightening Ali can be purchased here. A portion of all proceeds are donated to Al-Fatiha Foundation.
It's been 25 years since Hanif Kureishi's screenplay "My Beautiful Launderette" splashed the story of a young gay second-generation Pakistani in Britain across the big screen through the lens of Stephen Frears.
Comes now "Straightening Ali," from StarBooks Press - a culture-clash novel that goes "Launderette" one better with the tale of a young gay Pakistani who is a British citizen forced by his family into an arranged marriage with a girl he's never met, even though they know he's gay. Disastrous consequences follow for the unwilling groom, torn between loyalty to his family, with its rigid religious traditions, and his sexual identity and the possibility of happiness.
"Straightening Ali," said its author, Amjeed Kabil, a 35-year-old gay second-generation Pakistani in the U.K. who works in the housing field and is in a long-term relationship, is "about 70 percent" autobiographical, drawn from events in his own life in Birmingham a decade earlier.
In the novel, Ali, 24, is a university-educated lad with a degree in biochemistry from a well-to-do middle-class Birmingham Pakistani family, and has been in a two-year relationship with Steve, a white Brit graduate student.
But shortly after Ali's graduation, his family summarily informs him that he is to be married in just two weeks to a virginal 20-year-old bride from a highly traditional Pakistani family. She's been selected to be Ali's wife by his mother and sisters, but he has never laid eyes on the girl.
Thrown into an emotional maelstrom, Ali repeats over and over that he doesn't want to get married because he's gay - but is browbeaten into submission by two of his siblings. His macho older brother, Yunus, screams, "You're lucky Mum won't let me deal with you in my own way, otherwise you'd have two broken legs and be sitting at home in a wheelchair" - but then contents himself with wringing Ali's balls, punching him in the nose, and locking him in his room. Ali's hijab-wearing Islamist fundamentalist sister, Yasmin, in turn, harangues him, "Stop believing what this kafir culture wants you to believe, you're not gay, in Islam you would be stoned for being gay."
The threats are topped by the emotional blackmail of Ali's mother, who goes so far as to stage a phony heart attack to convince him she'll die if he doesn't go through with the arranged marriage and save the family's honor. After hours of emotional brainwashing culminating in his mum's threat to die, Ali caves in and agrees to the wedding to save his mother's life, but in the bargain accepts the death of his own soul.
The wedding night, following a lavish, traditional party, is a disaster. Ali, apparently a perfect Kinsey Six who has never had sex with a woman, is unable to perform with his new bride. The next day, Ali escapes, with his family in hot pursuit - the police are called at one point when his brother gets physical with a friend of Ali's while searching for him - and he is driven into the homelessness of living in his car.
For all this, Ali is rejected both by his own family and by his white lover, who after his marriage had quickly moved on to a relationship with an older, well-to-do Frenchman. The novel closes with Ali, broke and alone, trying to reconstruct a life.
DOUG IRELAND: How, and at what age, did you decide you were gay?
AMJEED KABIL: My parents got me engaged when I was 16 as is common in Pakistani families. However, five years later my fiancée broke off the engagement as she had suddenly decided she wanted to marry someone else. In the back of my mind I always thought I could be gay, so now that I wasn't engaged any more, I decided to explore my sexuality. I visited a gay youth group in Birmingham and got to know gay people there, which led me to the conclusion that I was gay.
DI: What was your family's reaction when you told them you were gay?
AK: My family reacted pretty badly. I remember leaving immediately after my conversation with my sister, the first person to whom I came out. Two minutes later my brother found me and picked me up in his car so he could talk to me. Once back at the house, I remember being lectured for hours. They thought I was stressed, which had confused me into thinking I was gay. Couldn't I see that being gay was wrong? All gays should be shot. Being gay was anti-Islamic. And so on.
I screamed for them to leave me alone and they did, but locked me in my bedroom so I couldn't leave. I remember screaming for ages to be let out, shouting and banging at the door. I was told that I was locked in for my own safety in case I did something silly. It seems surreal thinking back on it now.
It was one in the morning when I took the risk of climbing out of one of the windows and escaping.
DI: Your family had been living in Britain since the 1950s. When your family tried to force you into an arranged marriage, since they knew you were gay, did they truly believe it would change your sexual orientation, or was it for them only a question of "saving face?" Is it truly the case that information about the immutable nature of sexual orientation hasn't penetrated the British Pakistani community?
AK: I'm not sure if my family thought whole-heartedly that marriage would change my sexuality. I remember my brother saying that it would "straighten me out" and if it didn't, then he would. There was this misconception that I was only going through a phase, and if it wasn't a phase then why couldn't I be like all the other gays in the community and get married? As you mentioned, it was also a question of saving face, and that I should keep some things private and have the willpower to be straight.
The nature of sexual orientation has penetrated the British Pakistani community, but it has done so at different levels. To many it's just another example of corrupt Western values, and a temptation that we should all try and resist.
You should have a look at a Web site called Eye on Gay Muslims. At first glance you get the impression that it's a support site and then seconds later you realize that it's actually about giving people the will power to resist the "temptation."DI: You have said that you believe Islam is "incompatible" with homosexuality. Would you please explain why?
AK: Mainstream Islam condemns homosexuality. Unlike, say, Catholicism, where there is just one leader - the pope - in Islam, everyone is equal and therefore you end up with many leaders and many differing views. Some of these views can be brought into check by legislation such as the anti-terrorism and the anti-discrimination laws in the U.K.
However, what happens when that person is broadcasting his views by a satellite link directly from somewhere in the Middle East and no one who is there condemns it?
There is still this long-held belief that I have come across in Islamic communities that being attracted to someone of the same sex is a temptation that you have to try and ignore and that it's a test set by God.
DI: What do you think of the newly-formed Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, which is fighting for secularism in Muslim communities, including freedom of sexual orientation? Are groups like this useful in combating homophobia in communities of people of color?
AK: Groups like these are extremely useful. It allows some communities to look at themselves and actually start to challenge the way they behave. It won't happen overnight but there might be this gradual erosion of the homophobia in some communities.
DI: What has been the reaction of your family to your novel? The reaction within the Anglo-Pakistani community? The reaction of younger Anglo-Pakistani readers? Has there been any reaction from Pakistan, either from the Pakistani press or clergy? Have you been targeted by threats for having published it?
AK: In all honesty? Well, errr... I have yet to tell my family about it. I have mentioned it in passing a while back but I'm not sure anyone was listening. My two eldest nieces know. They're 21 and 23 - one of them Googled me and came across it. They've both made the decision not to read it for now.
The book's not available in Pakistan so there hasn't been a reaction from there. Phew! I appeared on a BBC Asian radio show a couple of months ago and the presenter was very positive. I had some interesting e-mails after the show from listeners. No one had anything bad to say.
One was from an upset Pakistani lady whose husband had run away with a man and was quite devastated by the experience. I guess most of the listeners were just relieved that it wasn't their child live on air!
I have not been targeted by anyone, thankfully. However, I did read somewhere that getting a fatwa as a writer is a great career move! I would like to point out that my novel does not condemn any religion. It's about a journey that the character Ali goes through in order to find a balance between the conflicting cultural values of his Pakistani family and that of the liberal Western values that he has been bought up in.DI: Some in Muslim communities assert that saying people from those communities have a right to adopt a gay identity is a form of Western cultural imperialism and Islamophobia. Your view?
AK: I disagree with this view completely. Oppression of any minority should be challenged and that's what Western culture is doing. Getting Islam to look at itself and recognize that it needs to evolve is one way of doing this. Islamophobia cannot be used to hide behind when you're treating people unfavorably and condemning them because of their sexual orientation.
DI: A concomitant question: What do you think of the emergence of gay associations like the Iranian Queer Organization, Iraqi LGBT, ASWAT, the Palestinian gay women's group, and other groups in which gay people from Muslim cultures assert their right to be gays, lesbians, and transgendered? Can such groups help change the cultural climate toward sexual minorities within those communities, or do you see them as provocateurs who bring down more repression from religious and civil authorities and hurt gay people?
AK: I think such groups have a place and may in time help change the cultural climate toward sexual minorities in those communities. I'll give an example of Peter Tatchell, a gay rights activist here in Britain. He actively outed members of the Anglican clergy who were condemning homosexuality. This was the catalyst for reform in the Anglican Church and led to the Church allowing gay clergy in its ranks.
Most recently he was at a gay rally in Moscow and got badly beaten up by the public whilst the police looked on. It brought the unjust treatment of the gay community in Russia into the public eye for the first time.
I think similar references could be made to such groups. The groups would not be set up if there were not repression already there. The groups highlight the plight of gay, lesbian, and transgendered people and provide support to those in their own countries. In time they may affect change but it will be gradual and not overnight and will need some intervention from the West.
The younger generation in my family are unfazed by my sexuality and treat me with respect. So I would agree that attitudes are changing amongst the Anglo-Pakistani community and I'm hopeful about the future. However, despite this, young gay Anglo-Pakistanis that you come across either treat you with disdain at being out about your sexuality or label themselves as straight, probably because they're not too comfortable with their own sexuality.
Kabil told this reporter he's already at work on his next novel.
"It's a story about a Muslim gay cross-dresser, but set in the context of secular Islam in Britain," he said. "This guy goes to Mosque and prays five times a day like every good Muslim. However, after final prayers, he likes nothing better than to put on his mini-skirt and head down to the gay village!"
Perhaps Kabil's next novel will finally earn him a fatwa after all.
Doug Ireland can be reached through his blog, DIRELAND.
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Web site.
Straightening Ali, by Amjeed Kabil can be bought directly through Amazon.com here.
A portion of all proceeds are donated to Al-Fatiha Foundation.
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