Daily Times

There we were. Eight of us huddled on the deck of a small boat. Sailing along the Yangtze River, through the majestic Three Gorges Dam. Seven of us were with Voluntary Service Overseas. Which, back then, represented the rather more respectable way of embarking upon roughly guided adventurism throughout the lonely planet. The universities where we were teaching, scattered here and there across central China’s Hubei province, had shut up shop for a few days due to the May Day break. Accompanying us was a Chinese friend, as eager as us to make the trip before the government closed access to the dam.

Around the corner from Jo’s flat was a newsagent owned and run by a Pakistani family. I couldn’t help but notice how the matriarch visibly tensed as we made our way laughing a little too raucously through the doors. Jo’s whiteness was the ‘problem’, I assumed. I was wrong

A wonderful time was had by all. Even if Li Nan Hong remained, for the most part, jaw-dropped, in sheer awe of just how much non-stop chattering and shrieking we were capable. Yet he understood that we had much to celebrate. It was not for nothing that we had been keeping a constant check on our watches – which is how we told the time back then – arguing amiably about whether British summer time had kicked in as yet.

It must have been quite the picture. A bunch of twenty-something-year-olds, momentarily oblivious to nature’s breathtaking beauty all around. Choosing instead to lean forward as one towards the small radio, furiously turning the dial in the hope of hearing the reassuring tones of the BBC World Service. We had already half-heartedly prepared ourselves for the worst and knew that Auntie could be counted upon to deliver bad news without sentiment. Ultimately, though, the best that the little shortwave radio could pick up was the Japanese equivalent. Which proved good enough, as it happened. We tuned in without dropping out. The euphoria was overwhelming. Britain was caught beneath an electoral landslide. With Blair riding high in the sky in a champagne supernova somewhere over Milbank. Leaning back to enjoy the cool breeze, it was as if we could feel this immense popular wave of hope; all set against the heady backdrop of the Britpop music scene with its reinvented images of Cool Britannia.

That was then. The promised era of a new dawn didn’t last long. How could it when we had unknowingly elected a would-be war criminal? It’s a betrayal not easily forgotten. Especially not by a generation sold out time and again by the man who was to give London back her swing.

My friend Joanne doesn’t live in London, but in Britain’s oldest town, Colchester, which boasts its own castle and remains of a Roman wall. It also, at one time, ranked high on the list of places in the country with a poor record on race relations. I can recall trips there during which I didn’t encounter a single person of colour. Yet around the corner from Jo’s flat was a newsagent, a smaller version of the ubiquitous corner shop, owned and run by a Pakistani family with the matriarch sitting behind the counter most of the time. I couldn’t help but notice how she visibly tensed as we made our way laughing a little too raucously through the doors. Jo’s whiteness was the ‘problem’, I assumed. I was wrong. For when we both made our separate ways over to the counter it was Jo whom she engaged in a bit of mindless chitchat as coins exchanged hands. Whereas all that came my way was a stony wall of silence. Even when I returned the next day in search of some sort of phone credit, all that met me was blatant frustration that ended in a sharp rebuke for failing to have a firm grip on current jargon. In the middle of which in walked her son. Suddenly her posture relaxed somewhat. They conversed briefly in Urdu before switching to English, his accent that of a pukka Essex boy. I tried to explain that having not lived in England for some time meant that I wasn’t perhaps quite up to speed with specific terminology. That sparked her interest. And she looked at me as if for the first time. I lived in Pakistan, I told her. At that, a look of what may be described as one of triumphant defiance flashed across her face. I would have to do more to ‘integrate’, she brusquely informed me before turning away.

Part of me wondered if she would have said this to me had Jo been there. But of course I already knew the answer. My friend’s whiteness was not the issue. Indeed, it was the buffer zone that afforded the shop owner some semblance of acceptance. And there was I encroaching upon this. I often wish I’d had the courage to return to that newsagent. To tell her how sorry I was for everything she must have gone through upon arriving in England’s green and, at times, unpleasant land.

Twenty years on and Blair’s legacy of Islamophobia still runs rampant today, shamelessly reinforced by the two subsequent Tory governments. To Theresa May, we say: come on, the third time’s supposed to be a charm. Isn’t it about time you let the people give Mister Corbyn a chance.

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei

Published in Daily Times, June 23rd, 2017.