British-Iraqi comic Hasan Al-Habib on growing up in the shadow of Saddam
British-Iraqi comedian Hasan Al-Habib – whose Fringe show title Death to the West (Midlands) is very much ironic – reflects on what it was like growing up near Birmingham while the UK invaded Iraq
Hello, reader of The Scotsman. You’re probably very intelligent, cultured, and well-informed. The pleasure is all mine.
Now I’d wager that most Brits (let’s be real here, the English) aren’t as knowledgeable as your average Scotsman reader. They likely couldn’t, for example, point to Iraq on a map, let alone explain its invasion. This is despite the 2003 Iraq war causing the deaths of 179 British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
I’m a British-Iraqi that grew up near Birmingham. I love where I’m from; my Fringe stand-up comedy show title, Death to the West (Midlands), is very much ironic. Yet growing up, I was expected to know all about the conflict and hold intelligent and well-informed opinions around it.
My year 7 form tutor, a French woman, asked the class following his capture: “What do you zink zey should do with Saddam?” A deafening silence followed from an unsurprisingly reticent group of 11-year-olds. All eyes turned to me, the Iraqi kid.
I’d heard of Saddam’s brutality from my parents, including his genocide against the Kurdish people. To me, the answer was clear. “I… I think he should be… executed, Miss. For his crimes cos… yeah, he… he killed a lot of people.” “Ah but ’Asan, don’t you zink zis makes you as bad as ’im!”
Growing up, this episode caused a continuing distrust of the French and the adoption of a philosophy that would take years to unlearn: “Stop being Arab.” Nothing good ever came from my Arab identity. I was getting bullied relentlessly for it and hearing on the news about how British soldiers were being killed by people like me. I was a terrorist, a barbarian: backwards, foreign, and suspicious.
One incident really emphasised the above to me. When asked by a classmate why 9/11 happened, my teacher said: “I don’t know, ask Hasan”. I wasn’t even eight yet, and she wasn’t even French. The shame I felt in that classroom was devastating. I resolved from that day onwards that, whilst I was Hasan Al-Habib by name, I would become “Hamish Allan-Habberley” by character. After all, I have a light skin tone. Surely I could be white-passing?
I did everything I could to become white British: I played football, listened to the Beatles and even stopped smiling. I had to test this. So, on holiday, I told someone at the hotel that my name was Tom. I was thrilled when they addressed me as such. “It’s worked!” I thought. Yet my success was fleeting. That same year, someone at school cornered me in the playground: “So like, where are you actually from then?” “Uh…my family are Iraqi.” “Iraqi? Mate, no offence, but why don’t you just go back to Pakistan”. I’d never seen this boy before, just as he had never seen maps. What am I, a teenager, going to do in Pakistan, Ollie? Erasmus?!
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The realisation that there was something about my appearance that people could tell meant I wasn’t actually white left me shaken. I’d spent a chunk of my nascent life pretending to be someone I’m not, and what good had it brought me? That boy didn’t know my name or my background, but he looked at me and thought: foreign. So why change how I speak and act when people will target me for how I look? What was the point? At least I don’t have to listen to Paperback Writer any more.
That same weekend in 2007, I watched a football match that changed my life. Iraq, barely out of the war, beat our arch-rivals Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the Asian Championships final, the equivalent of the Euros. I was bought my first Iraq shirt to celebrate. I remember putting it on, aged 13, and thinking: “This is the first time in my life it’s been good to be from Iraq.” I wasn’t a foreigner, killer, or terrorist; I was a winner.
Child or adult, it’s horrible to be blamed for the actions of a Government you have nothing to do with. I have Jewish friends who are experiencing that now more than ever. But we can’t stop being who we are for the sake of the prejudiced. We’ll never make them happy, only ourselves miserable. Instead, we must embrace who we are, buy tickets to my Fringe show (who said that?) and live our true identities with pride. Nothing angers those who would seek to attack you for it more
Hasan Al-Habib: Death To The West (Midlands), Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), 4.30pm, until 24 August
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