AN INTERVIEW WITH SUHAIYMAH MANZOOR - KHAN

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a British spoken word artist who writes about the experiences of Muslims in the west. She, and her poem “This is not a Humanizing Poem” was featured by Amnesty International in its directory of “inspiring poets and incredible poems.” Suhaiymah has also recently published a collection of her poems named “Postcolonial Banter.” FIZZAH MANSOOR SHANZAY SETHI AND A TEAM OF COLLABORATORS

The TMV had a chance of interviewing her. We talked about her poetry, her activism and her unapologetic critique of modern society. An abriged and paraphrased version of that interview is being published here.

TMV: Your website starts with a verse from Surah Nisa stipulating the need to stand up for justice even if it goes against one’s family, whether it is against the rich or the poor. That is a very powerful message. What does it mean for you to stand up for justice?

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan (SMK): The ayah is something I find really intense because the idea of submitting to Allah is so powerful in itself and that comes with a set of responsibilities. In today’s time it is much more important because we have access to resources that can help us decide what side of the coin we want to take and for me it is important to stand up with the ‘haq’ so that injustice can be exposed. As a Muslim it is a responsibility that is constantly mentioned in the Quran as well.

TMV: How did you get involved in the spoken word scene; was it just a chance encounter or was it always there, perhaps writing, as a hobby before it became official?

SMK: I have always enjoyed reading and writing, like Matilda was like my favourite story. I always wrote but around in my teens I discovered prose and poetry and then started to write it. During my second year of university I was going through this patch and got signed up for an open mic. From then on there is no looking back. I got pulled into it and found it as a perfect way to express my thoughts and opinions with no academia pressure pilling onto me.

TMV: Campus activism, and within that the Artists, have traditionally been on the forefront of - quote end-quote “radical” - political activism, be it song writers whose songs have political undertones, or authors whose novels highlight social ills or even comedians who satirize the absurdity of power. Art has, at times, been the forefront of speaking truth to power. Would you say that for you spoken word serves a similar purpose?

SMK: Definitely, spoken word does. The thing about spoken word for cultures especially like ours that aren’t European, is an uninitialized way of serving the broader community with our cultures, identities, geopolitical factors and creating a way to tell our unheard struggles.

I definitely feel that this a fundamental form of communicating, sharing, producing knowledge and talking about things that are more likely controversial. Speech is something that is a form of dialogue and that form of communication is happening with the audience so wherever there is speech there is a listener. And I see that as a political act that you can always choose to either keep quiet or speak out the truth. For me I came to a country watching slam poetry and I have always seen poetry as a language of the prisoner, the marginalised, but for me it is also the language of the Arabs and the Quran.

TMV: Even before university, but especially in university, where we have a chance to live outside the bubble of the community we grew up in, a lot of us struggle to find a place for ourselves in the midst of a society built upon very different principles than those of ourselves. Your first work I had a chance to listen to, “This is not a Humanising Poem,” I found it moving in this regard. When you say,

Love us when we’re lazy Love us when we’re poor Love us in our back-to-backs, council estates, depressed, unwashed and weeping, Love us high as kites, unemployed, joyriding, time-wasting, failing at school because if you need me to prove my humanity, I’m not the one that’s not human

I think it really strikes a chord by sending out the message that we are normal people and even if the way we act is different, that is no excuse for anyone to disrespect us. It is a powerful message. What was the inspiration behind this?

SMK: It is a bit complicated for me. When there is an act of violence by Muslims, we are essentially asked to prove our loyalty and distance ourselves from the perpetrators. It is this idea that our humanity is conditional based on our proofs of loyalty we can provide; and this is something we often end up doing to fit in. My argument is that we should not do that because it perpetuates the belief that there are

some people whose humanity should be stripped off because they are bad people. I believe that I should not be asked to prove my humanity and should not be asked to fit in. The binary of good and bad Muslims is something that is problematic itself because if others have the privilege to choose the side of the coins then why can’t we as Muslims? No matter how reprehensible a human is we should not have a right to dehumanise them. And that is something that exists in Islam because our belief is that only Allah is allowed to make distinctions and reprimand people. That is solely His right not ours. As a Muslim community when we try to fit in the stereotype of good Muslim, we give these people making the rules a further excuse to marginalize ourselves.

TMV: We live in a world marred by poverty and injustice, but in many cases also by more subtle things like persistent anxiety and lack of morale and despair. A sort of hopelessness not only with all that is wrong in the Muslim world from Burma, to Kashmir to Palestine to the DPRC and Congo but also in our societies, like the rise of the surveillance state, austerity, the demolition of the welfare state. How do you retain hope in this scenario?

SMK: People ask me if I really believe in a world without prisons and without nation states, and what I say is that it’s not about whether it’s possible, but whether im willing to fight for it. I know this world is temporary and we will all face Akhira, and it’s really worth doing my best as much as possible because there is nothing to lose. There is all this violence going on around the world and losing hope would mean to not believe in Allah, because you’d be saying that you don’t believe in purpose or meaning. We’re not going to be changing our conditions if we’re not hopeful; those who have ambition and hope and imagination are the ones who change things. If we believe the heart is transformable, then we must believe the world is transformable, and to doubt this is to doubt the power and might of Allah. Islam is hope.

TMV: Finally, to conclude, perhaps the hardest question of the day. What advice would you give to young muslimahs who are also interested in spoken word poetry and feel that they lack the confidence or perhaps do not ‘fit in’ in the media scene in the west.

SMK: I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing, Matilda was my favourite story as a child. I think when I was in my teens, I found that support for my work online, and so I would just write for myself and share it. I watched a lot of slam poetry from the US, and the only reason I ever shared my poetry in the first place was because I was having a hard time, and the nurse’s advice to me was to do something I wouldn’t normally consider doing, and that was slam poetry. When I did perform, I felt so exhilarated by it, and it was hugely cathartic. It was this alternative way to express my feelings, like an alternative epistemology and there was no burden like how academia has where you need to prove your opinions, like on racism.