Tariq Mehmood
Tariq Mehmood is an award winning novelist and documentary film-maker. His first novel, Hand On the Sun (London: Penguin Books, 1983), dealt with the experience of the resistance to racism by young migrant to the UK of the 1970s and…
A suicide bombing is being planned in a residential street in Manchester. Behind it lie Saleem Khan’s vivid memories – some full of regret and yearning, others humorous and yet others overshadowed by the surreal brutality of the war in Afghanistan.
Tariq Mehmood is an award winning novelist and documentary film-maker. His first novel, Hand On the Sun (London: Penguin Books, 1983), dealt with the experience of the resistance to racism by young migrant to the UK of the 1970s and…
SPECIAL OFFER TO MARK US DEFEAT IN AFGHANISTAN : Song of Gulzarina + You’re Not Here for 50% discount: Coupon Code: usdefeatafghan
A suicide bombing is being planned in Manchester, UK. Behind it lie Saleem Khan’s vivid memories – some full of regret and yearning, others humorous and yet others overshadowed by the surreal brutality of war.
In the 1960s, he leaves his lover, his job as a teacher and his home in rural Pakistan and travels to Bradford, a town seething with racism where Asians are ‘Pakis’ and their labour is cheap. He finds a job working in a mill on an all-Asian night-shift, becomes an active trade unionist and, when the mills close down, he drives a taxi. He gives up his religion and eventually falls in love with an English woman.
But in the 1980s Pakistan draws him back. Now regarded as a smart ‘abroadi’, he gets involved as the English-speaking partner in his cousin’s transport business. When a truck driver he knows does not return to base, Saleem Khan sets out to find him and unwittingly gets drawn across the border and into the killing fields of Afghanistan. Here, among Russian soldiers, Saudi Arabian Sheikhs, American Pirs, prostitutes and the holy warriors of the Mujahadeen, who take their orders and weapons from the United States, he meets Gulzarina, the woman whose life and experiences in a war without end allow him to finally make sense of his own.
Tariq Mehmood has written a powerful tale and his voice in the current political climate is important. Through a strong sense of the spoken word, an under-heard narrative gains momentum. This book is pure entertainment but it is also a cautionary tale. A question embedded in a Song. What happens when people are ignored and suppressed for too long? Where does that energy go? It is the reader’s gain that this particular writer has put his own spark into Song for Gulzarina. https://muscattales.com/2016/11/21/speaking-in-bombs-book-review-song-of-gulzarina-by-tariq-mehmood/
SKU: | N/A |
---|---|
Categories: | Fiction, Imperialism, Political Freedom & Security, Political Science, USA |
Tags: | Afghanistan, England, Fiction, love, Pakistan, political, racism, war, war on terror |
Weight | N/A |
---|---|
Dimensions | N/A |
Book Format | Print Book, PDF |
The book Lenin150 (Samizdat)[i] is both educative as it is inspiring. It is educative as through the reflections of the various authors on Lenin we get to understand certain aspects of his ideas and tactics. Most importantly, the authors have tried to highlight the relevance of Lenin’s ideas on our situation today. It is inspiring as it exposes the connection that exists between revolutionary intellectuals and organisers all across the world who, through their reflections on the theories and ideas of Lenin, demonstrate their understanding of the need to work for a better society. —Lewis Maghanga. https://maghanga.blogspot.com/2022/04/lenin150-samizdat-review_26.html
PUBLISHED to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Lenin’s birth and conceived in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, Lenin 150 (Samizdat) is an outstanding collection of essays, poems and photos. …This book is a fantastically eclectic mix, yet the sheer quality of most of the writing enables a breadth of vision that’s a fitting tribute to someone who not only understood the world but was able to change it as well. Morning Star, UK
Adam Mayer celebrates a new volume on the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Lenin 150 Samizdat has a sheer diversity that takes one’s breath away. Authors young and old, queer and old-style Marxist-Leninist, women and men write about Lenin’s work, history and legacy in an anthology that also includes many African and Black voices. Mayer argues that this rich collection proves that Leninism is alive and well. Review of African Political Economy
Lenin 150 Samizdat is delightful in form and very rich in content. Just as each contributor has found something of value in Lenin, each reader will find a fresh breath in Lenin for today’s struggles. As Joffre-Eichhorn writes in his introduction, ‘no breath, no revolution’, so ‘let’s strap [Lenin] on our backs and go on marching’. Yağmur Ali Coşkun, https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19487_lenin150-samizdat-by-hjalmar-jorge-joffre-eichhorn-patrick-anderson-and-johann-salazar-eds-reviewed-by-yagmur-ali-coskun/
For all the official historiographic efforts at forging a mythologised image of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov as the austere, no-nonsense, professional revolutionary, the really existing flesh and blood Lenin understood and appreciated that the most materialist action an individual must carry out without fault to metabolise the struggle for communism is to breathe. Not just biologically respire but consciously breathe. Breathe for oneself and breathe for and with others. If it is indeed our desire to breathe new life into the long choking red star, a new oxygenic Communist politics of walking and breathing is what we must aspire to, inspire, respire and encourage.
ONLY AVAILABLE IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA
We are pleased to announce that Daraja Press will soon be making Unearthing Justice, originally published by Between The Lines, available in Africa through our partners at Zand Graphics Ltd (throughout East Africa and the Horn) and Sherwood Books (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland).
Originally published in 2019, this new edition has an Introduction by Yao Graham, TWN-Africa. The author, Joan Kuyek, is a community-focused mining analyst and organizer living in Ottawa. She was the founding National Co-ordinator of MiningWatch Canada from 1999–2009 and continues to do work for MiningWatch and for a number of communities affected by mining.
The mining industry continues to be at the forefront of colonial dispossession around the world. It controls information about its intrinsic costs and benefits, propagates myths about its contribution to the economy, shapes government policy and regulation, and deals ruthlessly with its opponents.
Brimming with case studies, anecdotes, resources, and illustrations, Unearthing Justice exposes the mining process and its externalized impacts on the environment, Indigenous Peoples, communities, workers, and governments. But, most importantly, the book shows how people are fighting back. Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and policy, or to mount a campaign to influence investors, Unearthing Justice is an essential handbook for anyone trying to protect the places and people they love.
Este panfleto aborda la pregunta: ¿cómo podemos pasar de A a B, del capitalismo al poscapitalismo? La revolución de Rinky-dink involucra acciones e inacciones que son fáciles, seguras, mundanas, sin glamour y factibles dentro de la vida de cada persona.
Howard Waitzkin presenta una intervención clara y directa para el cambio revolucionario en el sistema económico capitalista global. Cubre mucho terreno, con sofisticación, mientras mantiene la discusión en tierra. Su enfoque en las formas de facilitar un desafío al capital y construir una mayor transformación revolucionaria es crucial en esta coyuntura histórica. Esta discusión sobre construcciones creativas y destrucciones creativas es particularmente útil.
— Brett Clark, profesor de sociología de la Universidad de Utah y autor De El Robo De La Naturaleza: Capitalismo Y Grieta Ecológica, The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and Ecological Rift en inglés.
El fin del capitalismo es posible. Waitzkin nos lleva un paso más allá en el proceso creativo para esta transformación. A través de ejemplos específicos de grupos organizados dentro de los Estados Unidos y en el extranjero, este trabajo constituye una guía práctica para todos. Waitzkin alienta nuestra creatividad para actos organizados y seguros además de omisiones para trascender el capitalismo.
— Nylca J. Munoz Sosa, abogada, líder de salud pública y activista centrada en la justicia sanitaria y la descolonización en Puerto Rico.
La présente publication du Réseau Pas de REDD en Afrique (No REDD in Africa Network) a pour but de démystifier le REDD, les projets de type REDD et toutes leurs variantes, et de montrer ce qu’ils sont vraiment : des mécanismes injustes conçus pour lancer une nouvelle phase de colonisation du continent africain. Les exemples présentés démontrent clairement que le REDD est une escroquerie et que les pollueurs savent qu’il leur permet d’acheter le « droit » de polluer.
Críticas da obra:
“Uma provocante crítica à extração contemporânea dos recursos (talvez mais adequadamente, “exploração” dos recursos) na África Subsariana. Na sua convincente análise, e em momentos abrasadora, Bassey apresenta uma critica cativante e abrangente da crise social e ambiental que se vive na África” – Chatham House
“De escravos a diamantes e passando pelo petróleo, há muito que os países mais consumistas têm vindo a pilhar a África a seu bel-prazer. Bassey explica muito bem como tudo isso tem vindo a acontecer, frisando bem o que procura a África: Justiça. Leia a obra e junte-se ao apelo de Bassey” – Annie Leonard, autora d´A estória das coisas
“Um livro que explica, de forma perspicaz e eloquente, o que a África pode fazer para travar as novas formas de colonização exacerbadas pelo caos das mudanças climáticas” – Pablo Solon, ex-embaixador da Bolívia nas Nações Unidas
“É uma obra que, a par da forte denúncia que faz da ganância e do saque da riqueza africana, apresenta perspetivas de esperança” – Camilla Toulmin, presidente do Instituto Internacional de Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
“A África e o seu ambiente. Com um estilo refrescante, o autor torna as suas ideias extremamente acessíveis. Um dos mais proeminentes ambientalistas da África, faz uma análise abrangente dos desafios que enfrenta o continente, inspirando as pessoas a agir.” – David Fig, Presidente da Biowatch South Africa e autor do Staking Their Claims
“Para aqueles que ainda estão sépticos dos efeitos das mudanças climáticas, este livro vai deixa-los não apenas incomodados e preocupados, mas também motiva-los a fazer alguma coisa” – Nigerian Compass
O nigeriano Nnimmo Bassey é arquiteto, ativista ambiental e escritor. Foi presidente dos Amigos da Terra Internacional (Friends of the Earth International) de 2008 a 2012 e Diretor Executivo da Ação pelos Direitos Ambientais (Environmental Rights Action) durante duas décadas. Em 2009, foi nomeado “Herói do Ambiente” pela revista Time e, em 2010, foi co-vencedor do prestigiado Right Livelihood Award (considerado o Prémio Nobel Alternativo). Em 2012, ganhou o Rafto Prize. É atualmente diretor da Fundação Health of Mother Earth, uma organização ambientalista de reflexão e advocacia.
Insurrectionary Uprisings is a compendium of essays that explore what it will take to win a world based on love and justice. From historical writing, including Thoreau, Gandhi and Arendt, to essays that address the multiple crises we face in the 21st century, the volume brings together authors and thinkers from around the globe. With an emphasis on the quotidian violence of racial monopoly capitalism and Western imperialism, Insurrectionary Uprisings insists that the possibility of revolutionary nonviolence rests, in part, on decolonization and decoloniality and a thorough analysis of the deep and violent roots of racial capitalism, settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy. Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony at the 1964 Democratic Convention underscores the inherent violence that saturates life in the U.S., while Cabral’s “Message to the People of Portugal” challenges the working class of imperial Portugal to recognize their kinship and to form alliances with the people of Guinea-Bissau. The very different strands of activist thinkers who comprise the book centre it on the experience of the global majority.
Dictators as Gatekeepers for Europe is a detailed journalistic account of how the EU is attempting to limit mobility within the African continent as a matter of the EU’s domestic policy agenda, hence the title hinting at the many agreements (with Turkey, Libya, Sudan) aimed at blocking migrants from approaching the European continent. The new “Berlin Wall” not only encircles Europe, but also generates a proliferation of militarised borders in Africa. …To summarise, the authors argue, Europe desires protected borders and open markets. The novelty is the amount of material that this book contains about African desires and strategies, both as a continent and as single states. This, in particular, makes the work a collection of extremely valuable directions of research. In fact, Africa, if one were to simplify the continent’s intentions, is depicted as aspiring to the exact opposite of Europe, namely open borders (with the African Union aspiring to free movement within the continent) and protected markets (protected from Western corporate predatory strategies). Moreover, contrary to the narrative of aid according to which the West “helps develop” Africa, the figures quoted by the authors suggest the opposite: while Sub-Saharan Africa receives $134 billion a year in development funding, $192 billions flow out of Africa, with $46 billion in profit for major corporations and another $35 billion vanishing in tax havens (218). https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2022/02/double-book by Oana Pârvan.
The USA is divided around the wall President Trump wants to build along the Mexican border. Europe has long answered this question at its own southern border: put up that wall but don’t make it look like one.
Today the EU is trying to close as many deals as it can with African states, making it harder and harder for refugees to find protection and more dangerous for labour migrants to reach places where they can earn an income. But this is not the only effect: the more Europe tries to control migration from Africa, the harder it becomes for many Africans to move freely through their own continent, even within their own countries.
Increasingly, the billions Europe pays for migration control are described as official development assistance (ODA), more widely known as development aid, supposedly for poverty relief and humanitarian assistance. The EU is spending billions buying African leaders as gatekeepers, including dictators and suspected war criminals. And the real beneficiaries are the military and technology corporations involved in the implementation.
Originally published as Diktatoren als Türsteher Europas: Wie die EU ihre Grenzen nach Afrika verlagert.(Ch. Links Verlag, 2017), this English translation includes updated materials and analyses. Accompanying video at https://www.dw.com/en/the-gatekeepers-of-europe-outsourcing-border-controls-to-africa/av-45599271
You can read this book online for free.
Translated by: Lydia Baldwin | querzaehlen and Emal Ghamsharick
Europe delegates, shameful as it is, its dirty work on migration to African States, some of which hasten to endorse this role with servility. They hope to stay in the race and be treated on an equal footing with a Europe … In a word, colonization is draped in new clothes, but its consequences are the same as ever for people, for women, children and men who sometimes have no other way out than to flee a daily life that kills them. This is an important book for understanding these conditions.
– Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, Frantz Fanon Foundation/Fondation Frantz Fanon
Migrants die of thirst in the Sonoran desert, drown in the Mediterranean, are murdered by gangs in Libya and Mexico, and disappear forever in doomed journeys that leave no trace. When we speak of immigration policies in rich countries today, we are really speaking about complicity in mass murder. This study brilliantly exposes how so-called liberal governments in Europe are outsourcing the violent repression of migrants to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and local tyrants in Africa.
– Mike Davis, writer, political activist, urban theorist and historian; Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside
This book makes a depressing reading for any concerned African by clearly exposing how often European leaders and opinion makers continue to portray African migration with a mix of disdain, fear, racism and backward arguments. A unique contribution.
– Prof. Carlos Lopes, Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town and African Union High Representative for Partnerships with Europe.
First published in 1978, and winning the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for that year, Finding a Voice established a new discourse on South Asian women’s lives and struggles in Britain. Through discussions, interviews and intimate one-to-one conversations with South Asian women, in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and English, it explored family relationships, the violence of immigration policies, deeply colonial mental health services, militancy at work and also friendship and love. The seventies was a time of some iconic anti-racist and working-class struggles. They are presented here from the point of view of the women who participated in and led them.
This new edition includes a preface by Meena Kandasamy, some historic photographs, and a remarkable new chapter titled ‘In conversation with Finding a Voice: 40 years on’ in which younger South Asian women write about their own lives and struggles weaving them around those portrayed in the book.
A great interview with Amrit Wilson in Montreal Serai (October 4, 2020).
‘This book is a wonderful, important and necessary reminder of all the black feminist work behind us and all that is left to do.’ —Sara Ahmed, feminist writer and independent scholar, and author of Living a Feminist Life
‘Finding a Voice acquires a new significance in this neoliberal era…an indispensable archive as well as a narrative of a past that is not past but reactivated and recast…’ —Kumkum Sangari, William F.Vilas Research Professor of English and the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
‘A ground-breaking book, as relevant today as it was in the seventies – and evidence, if ever such were needed, that the struggles of Asian, African and Caribbean women remain inextricably linked.’ —Stella Dadzie, founder member of OWAAD and author of Heart of the Race
‘Finding a Voice… was affirmation that our lives mattered, that our experiences with all their cultural complexities, mattered.’ —Meera Syal, British comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress.
‘This new edition comes at a time…when we are experiencing the growth of the surveillance state and when our narratives are being co-opted and used against us. Finding a Voiceis not only welcome, it is necessary.’ — Marai Larasi, Director, Imkaan; Co-Chair of UK’s End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Amrit Wilson is a writer and activist on issues of race and gender in Britain and South Asian politics. She is a founder member of South Asia Solidarity Group and the Freedom Without Fear Platform, and board member of Imkaan, a Black, South Asian and minority ethnic women’s organisation dedicated to combating violence against women in Britain. She was a founder member of Awaz and an active member of OWAAD. She is author, amongst other books, of Dreams Questions Struggles—South Asian women in Britain (Pluto Press 2006) and The Challenge Road: Women and the Eritrean revolution (Africa World Press 1991). The first edition of Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain won the the Martin Luther King Jr award.
It is the impact of oppression, racism and class which unifies South Asian women and the book comes at a time where we see the continued rise of the far right, misogyny, issues of class and the gig economy here and across the globe being played out in the media and perpetuated by male leaders going unchallenged by the state.
These new voices confirm how groundbreaking the book has been as a reference point for south Asian women now through listening to the voices of women from four decades ago, honouring their contribution and speaking in solidarity with them. As Wilson says in her introduction, it “reclaims our collective past as an act of resistance.”
An excellent read.
‘Reclaiming our collective past’: Amrit Wilson reflects on 40 years of anti-racist feminist work
By Sophia Siddiqui ARCHIVESPOLITICS 30th October 2018
http://gal-dem.com/collective-past-amrit-wilson-reflects-anti-racist-feminist-work/?fbclid=IwAR2qF13MA82F-9hztnRg4hN8ry5EEiZ2rYUtzX4OPuG7CELOzffhCTBjm4o
J Rose
“Tariq Mehmood has written a powerful tale and his voice in the current political climate is important. Through a strong sense of the spoken word, an under-heard narrative gains momentum. This book is pure entertainment but it is also a cautionary tale. A question embedded in a Song. What happens when people are ignored and suppressed for too long? Where does that energy go? It is the reader’s gain that this particular writer has put his own spark into Song for Gulzarina.”
https://muscattales.com/2016/11/21/speaking-in-bombs-book-review-song-of-gulzarina-by-tariq-mehmood/
Daraja Press
Abeera Khan: Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, Vol. 2, no. 2, Winter 2016
A novel centred on a Pakistani immigrant’s plan to commit a suicide bombing in Manchester, England, in the wake of the War on Afghanistan, can easily be read as a familiar post-9/11 tragedy. We can assume it is a story of radicalisation, where a character reaches his breaking point in response to a series of unfortunate and unjust geopolitical events. On the outset, then, Tariq Mehmood’s Song of Gulzarina may seem like a predictable political commentary-cum-fable warning against the constraints of ideology and the violence of imperialism. However, it is both the author’s and the characters’ acute self-awareness of the familiarity of the plot, and their insistence on stressing the nuances of Saleem’s journey rather than the gravity of its end, that make for a compelling read.
[…]
Reading Song of Gulzarina as a calamitous tale of vengeance would be an easy interpretation, but it would not do the novel justice. Saleem is advised against his planned suicide bombing by an acquaintance who once similarly sought retribution: “But that peace only lasted the night of my sleep, the pain never stopped in the day. Your pain will never go, no matter what you do” (212). Later in his life, during a tense conversation with his estranged daughter, Saleem echoes this advice to her: “There is us and our past, daughter. This pain will just keep us here” (194). Saleem understands the futility of vengeance for a tragedy-ridden past, yet he still continues to plan the suicide bombing. Saleem’s mission, then, can be simultaneously understood as a broken man’s final attempt to violently confront the systems that have failed him, and a regretful man’s hopeful attempt at redemption for his shortcomings by orchestrating his own end.
http://kohljournal.org/song-of-gulzarina/
Daraja Press
Song of Gulzarina is a highly impressionable book, for it speaks directly and powerfully to the humanness of the reader. Song Of Gulzarina is an absolute worthy read. Lema Abeng-Nsah, Dunia: The Reader’s Magazine
Daraja Press
‘Tariq Mehmood’s Song of Gulzarina (Daraja Press) is a highly involving novel which looks at the life of Saleem Khan, who migrates from Pakistan to Bradford in the 1960s full of expectation and ends up contemplating suicide bombing in 21st century Manchester. The novel ranges between the north of England, where it follows acutely the different sorts of racism confronting Pakistanis, and Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the effects of war and imperialism are never far away. Mehmood deals with some of the really big questions of our time – race, class, oppression, empire and war – through the eyes of a failed father and lover who nonetheless gains our sympathies. The scenes from Afghanistan during the war with Russia are particularly vivid, and show the Mujadeen and Americans working together; later bombing, this time by Nato, helps to explain the bitter opposition to the west which has led to the growth in terrorism in our century.’
Lindsey German in Counterfire
Daraja Press
Claire Chambers, Huffington Post Mehmood is unswerving in his depiction of the racism that existed in Yorkshire mills in the 1970s as well as today’s virulent Islamophobia. After 9/11, a neighbour slams the door on Song of Gulzarina‘s Saleem with the words, ‘When are you lot going to bomb us then, eh?’ Despite the humiliation he suffers at the hands of many white Britons and his eviscerating hatred for Tony Blair, Saleem maintains a lifelong love for Carol, the daughter of his racist employer. … Mehmood’s novel is polemical and full of black humour
Daraja Press
5.0 out of 5 stars That rare breed – an entertaining political novel., 1 Mar. 2017
By Amazon Customer
This review is from: Song of Gulzarina (Paperback)
Political novels that are entertaining as well as thought provoking are a real rarity, but Tariq Mehmood has managed the trick here. The language is deceptively simple but in the telling of the story there are is a great deal of insight to be gained into an area of modern life in the UK that many of us see all around us, but never have access to – the life and loves of a Pakistani “Abroadi.”
This is a novel about alienation and identity, about a man caught between who he is, who he was, and who he wants to be. Saleem Khan leaves his village in Pakistan, his family and the girl he loves, to travel to the UK in order to make money to send home. Once away, he rapidly forgets his roots and becomes embroiled in life in Bradford at the end of the industrial era in the UK, but is unable to to either shed his past or fully embrace his new life. It’s the story of a weak man, always caught between his desires, his loves, the traditions from which he came and the life he is living now. In the course of his life, he wanders from one aspect of modern Pakistani life to the next, taking in leftist politics and trade unionism in the eighties, racial politics, the Taliban and radical Islam in both the UK and abroad. He falls in love with an English woman without ever falling out of love with his old girlfriend, and in doing so alienates himself from both. One after the other he looses or betrays all the things he loves and cares for, including, crucially, the respect of his only daughter.
It’s a convincing story, well told, that brings the reader in contact with elements of the life of a Pakistani Abroadi, that, for this white reader at least, I’d be otherwise unlikely to make contact with. That it manages to do this with conviction and still manages to be entertaining, is a credit to the skill of its author. Tariq Mumood has created a marvellous character in Saleem Khan, who is at once passionate and weak, romantic and cynical, loving and selfish, who looses his principles at the puff of a breeze, but who tells his story with unwavering honesty. His is a journey from naivety to cynicism, in which he never looses his visions of love, even though he is too weak to fulfil any of them. Very much to be recommended!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Gulzarina-Tariq-Mehmood/dp/0995222355/ref=cm_rdp_product
Daraja Press
5.0 out of 5 stars: This writer has a gift for witty dialogue, switching between registers with pitch perfect precision
By Muscat Tales
Tariq Mehmood has written a powerful tale and his voice in the current political climate is important. Through a strong sense of the spoken word, an under-heard narrative gains momentum. This book is pure entertainment but it is also a cautionary tale. A question embedded in a Song. What happens when people are ignored and suppressed for too long? Where does that energy go? It is the reader’s gain that this particular writer has put his own spark into Song for Gulzarina.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Gulzarina-Tariq-Mehmood/dp/0995222355/ref=cm_rdp_product
Daraja Press
5.0 out of 5 stars: Powerfully gripping and humorous novel that remains mysterious at the same time whilst current issues in the world!
By Matloub Husayn-Ali-Khan on 9 Feb. 2017
I was given a complimentary copy of this very powerful novel Tariq Mehmood entitled: “Song of Gulzarina” and which had taken the author 10 years to complete and in the present political climate the narrative written – not usually heard by the reader. The story encapsulated within the novel and leaves a question mark on the many situations in which people are ignored and suppressed for a long-time – or that lid is lifted and which releases that pent-up anger and resentment.The story revolves around the main character Saleem Khan a Pakistani migrant who leaves his home, his job as a teacher and his woman in rural Pakistan and settles in Bradford, England and the story line also flits between North West of England and Pakistan.
Very early on, as the story progresses – Saleem Khan gains employment at a textile mill in Yorkshire and gets involved in fighting for Asian workers right in the form of requesting better sanitary facilities. As usual, racism rears its ugly head and a white British manager Mr Anderson reacts to an incident related to the issue of unsuitable toilets and he (Mr Anderson) racially belittles the Asian workers:
“….you filthy Paki bastards always sticking together’ Mr Anderson picked up another pipe and hit Salamat Ali Teka across the face!…’’
The rest of the plot I could relate to and this was due to having similar shared experiences to the author and when he (Tariq Mehmood) wrote his first novel ‘Hand on the sun’ that also had a romantic twist in it. So, once again, love featured here in this novel as well and this time two relationships one with a lower caste woman (Yasmin) back in Saleem’s village in Pakistan and in England Saleem fall for Carol Anderson, the daughter of his boss. Both women are committed to him but Saleem ‘is committed to the cause’ and not personal and family ties or needs which both of his love interests reflect.
Spoiler alert:
Half way through the story, the metaphoric build up takes Saleem Khan back to Pakistan during the late 1980s…during the final years of General Zia’s rule and his sudden death in a mysterious Pakistan military plane crash over Bahawalpur in August 1988. The story line builds up to the carnage of the real-life Ohjri munitions dump disaster in Rawalpindi in April 1988 and his fictitious involvement with a group of US backed Mujhadeen in a fight with a camp of soviet soldiers in the Afghan mountains. Here Saleem is clearly unprepared for this precariously dangerous situation which could have easily got him and his cousin Habib killed.The stage is then set, as the jigsaw pieces of the novel come together and the essence of the book title that is encapsulated by: “Song of Gulzarina” – a sort of ‘beautiful mysterious character’ that opens up some of the pre-conceived notions of not just wars, airstrikes and landmines. But it is really about actual humanity and profound sense of spirituality and the precursor of his (Saleem’s) redemption after suffering from many tragedies including loss of his cousin Habib, Yasmin, Carol, Gulzarina’s son Habib Junior and the partial estrangement from his daughter Aisha and Saleem’s ultimate revenge through a planned suicide.
Whilst back in England, Carol Anderson, who is fully aware, of the role of the ‘goree’ mistress she finds herself playing. At page 56: Carol confronts Saleem and lays into him:
“…so you think I wouldn’t understand, eh? So you think your white bit doesn’t understand you lot, eh… and marry your village virgins, isn’t that it?…”
The novel also brings out the issue of alcoholism and love and death as part of the narrative and the usual tragedies associated with it.
The third woman in Saleem’s life is his daughter Aisha and who suffers from racial and Islamaphobic abuse from white men in a passing car and the Muslim youth outside the mosque book stall is stood there and virtually without batting an eyelid – Saleem lays into them: “How can you just carry on selling books? I ask the bearded youth, pointing a shaking finger, you ‘saw what they did to your sisters’. The youth replies: ‘all will be taken care of in the hereafter ‘- view which ignores traditional Islamic belief (which highlights the importance of balance of both – this world – Duniya, earthly matters and deny spiritual matters focussing on the next life and instead of helping his Muslim sister; uses fundamentalist religious rhetoric to do nothing is pivotal moment in the book for me personally.
The story line in the novel keeps us in suspense as Saleem Khan wanders around Longsight/Rusholme Wilmslow Road areas in the state to activate the mobile phone at any moment. There are no prizes for guessing on who is visiting Manchester and addressing a Labour party meeting at the G.Mex centre – the architect of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and in this final ending in the book shows the woman character confronts the architect of the invasion and whose son fought in Iraq and came back with loss of his arms. “You sent my son to Iraq on a lie, you bastard! You sent him on lie and he came back like this”. Finally, the woman say: “He’s a murderer and a liar”.
In the final paragraphs of the book, Saleem remembers the story when he was a child and the snake and ‘he was urgently warned to move away. As he walks, in the present tense, through Rusholme with explosives strapped to his chest, he remembers his mother telling him of how casually he played with a snake. Hence, adults were afraid of such creatures and not adults.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Gulzarina-Tariq-Mehmood/dp/0995222355/ref=cm_rdp_product
Daraja Press
5.0 out of 5 stars: A must read
By Amanda on 1 Mar. 2017
This is a powerful and moving novel that makes a poetic comment on our time, pointing us to reflect on global dynamics and how these relate to our own lives.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Gulzarina-Tariq-Mehmood/dp/0995222355/ref=cm_rdp_product
Daraja Press
by Helen Goodway
“TARIQ Mehmood’s novel The Song of Gulzarina is multi-layered and beautifully written, covering the period from 1940 to 2006 to the present and is set in Pakistan, Afghanistan and England…. Tariq Mehmood is a master of conjuring up pictures and atmospheres in words. The plenitude and veracity of the detail, be it in the ancestral village, migrant workers’ lodgings in Bradford, the mill, the claustrophobic office of cousin Habib’s Goods Forwarding Agency in Rawalpindi, the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan, the streets of Manchester. It’s all there and we are there with Saleem. The culmination of the novel includes reconciliations with Carol, Saleem’s great love, and with Aisha, his beloved but conflicted daughter. But there’s a sting in the tail.”
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/lifestyle/taleisurebook/15365394.Themes_of_migration_and_radicalisation_under_discussion_at_Bradford_Literature_Festival/?ref=erec
Daraja Press
Changiz M. Varzi Fighting warplanes with words
Tariq Mehmood′s latest novel ″Song of Gulzarina″ is an arresting tale of love, loss and longing set against the backdrop of a never-ending war. In interview with Changiz M. Varzi, the award-winning author addresses issues of identity and how racism and Islamophobia can leave an indelible mark.
https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-british-pakistani-novelist-tariq-mehmood-fighting-warplanes-with-words
Daraja Press
Green Left Weekly: Song of Gulzarina, by British-Pakistani filmmaker and author Tariq Mehmood, stands out as a unique piece of literature that intertwines personal issues such as migration, identity crisis and romance, with the impact of racism, Islamophobia and Western imperialism in the Middle East.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/song-gulzarina-racism-imperialist-and-terror-converge-pakistani-migrants-tale
Daraja Press
Song of Gulzarina is an engrossing, impassioned and thought-provoking novel touching on some central themes of our times. I think it is Tariq Mehmood’s finest work to date and I thoroughly recommend it.
Esme Choonara in Socialist Review