JEDDAH, 22 January 2004 — Pola Manzila, Baroness Uddin, is the first and only Muslim woman in the British Parliament. She is also the only Bangladeshi woman in the House of Lords.
Arab News spoke to her during the Jeddah Economic Forum earlier this week. “It’s the first time I have met Saudi women in their own context. They are an incredibly impressive group,” she said of her hostesses.
As a European Muslim, she did not have any prescriptions for Saudi women as they move toward active social participation but she offered guidance, support and the sharing of experiences because she believes they are more than capable of doing it themselves and deciding on what and how to “trigger change.” She considered it “witnessing history in the making” when she saw Lubna Al-Olayan opening the JEF and other Saudi women presenting papers.
Speaking of her experience in Parliament, Baroness Uddin expressed disappointment at the “very poor record” of the presence of women in politics and especially Muslim women and even Muslim men. “It’s very, very hard for any woman to make it through the system, but for a Muslim woman, oppression doesn’t come only from within but also from your colleagues.”
Nevertheless, she is still proud of Britain’s record of minority participation; however, she acknowledged an “overwhelming discrimination that there are not as many women as men or as many Muslim men as there should be in public life.” She called for a strong and respected Muslim leadership and better communication between Muslims especially after 9/11.
Like many Muslims in the West, Baroness Uddin said she had received “an enormous amount of letters from right-wing fascist individuals and groups saying I shouldn’t be in politics, to go back to my country, and such outrageous things.”
She believes that on the institutional level, discrimination is very apparent because the participation of Muslims in Europe and the UK is minimal and they are at the bottom of statistics pertaining to education, access to good jobs and promotions.
“There are huge repercussions.”
She said although Prime Minister Tony Blair had made important gestures to the Muslim community when he came to power, since the incursion into Afghanistan and the attack on Iraq, all the progress made had been destroyed and now Muslims must start in a new context and try to tackle global terrorism. “We’ve been targeted in a general way. Our sons may not be safe in the streets and we’re facing terrorism legislation which is very punitive,” she said.
This adds to the difficulties and challenges Muslims are facing, she said. “I’m not all that optimistic about how long it will take, but I don’t want it to take forever for change to occur.”
She became “more unhopeful” after President Clinton’s speech at the JEF because as she put it, “for someone who considers himself a friend, he said very little about how much Americans have perpetrated this sense of fear and rejection of the Muslim world.” She suggests that perhaps Clinton should speak more in his own country about his friendship with the Muslim and Arab world and maybe they can see that we are not enemies.
As for what Muslims themselves can do to present the correct image of Islam and Muslims, Baroness Uddin believes that this is a great opportunity for Muslims and though they are doing a great deal, the problem is with the media. “The media does not give me an opportunity to speak about Islam or my family and present positive views. Every active Muslim from anywhere in the world will tell you that they cannot have enough space for positive messages about themselves, let alone Islam.”
To overcome that, she urges Muslims to create their own mechanisms and utilize their own resources. “This is the attitude that will change how confident we are about our community, our society and our economy and most importantly, the skills of our people.”
