Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

While answering a question toward the end of the discussion, Yasmin decried a tendency on the panel, to “dismiss a lot of highly intelligent and engaged white people who come from all classes, who have been part of progressive politics…it’s wrong to blame everything that happens to us on white middle class power.”

Perhaps in response to the criticisms of the ‘system’ thus far, Yasmin began her speech by paying homage to London for the freedoms it has allowed her, declaring that she would not have had such freedom in any of the places she is historically and ethnically attached to.

“More freedom,” Yasmin declared, “is better than less, always, and all human societies should strive for greater freedom of expression.” Rather than being the political tool that it seems to be for Aki, art, for Yasmin, appears to occupy a sacred place; the individual’s creativity and freedom to express himself comes before the feelings of any community; “I don’t believe artists should be beholden to what communities feel about them.” Yasmin herself refuses to be a spokesperson for any community, not even for her own family. She cited the recent case of Hindu fundamentalists having the works of renowned Indian painter MF Hussain, removed from Asia House. She also gave the example of Gurpreet Bhatti and her play Bezhti:

What is deeply sad is that a bright young woman playwright has been driven underground and is no more able to do what she wants creatively. That is a scandal. I don’t care really how hurt Sikhs were.

However, Yasmin recognised the complexities within the notion of freedom, accepting that there can never be an absolute freedom of expression, only a debate about where a society draws the line. Yasmin also acknowledged, like previous panellists, that the reactions of communities are bound up with the power of an establishment which is selective in which story it allows through, for this choice “decides who may be provoked into over reaction and who may not.”

“I want to make a programme for Channel Four or BBC to look at the racism of Israelis who treat Arabs the way they do. I will be working on this and you know that in five years this programme will not be made. It will not welcome the embrace of broadcasters. If I went to them today and said I can make you yet another programme about mad Muslim men who hate you…I would be commissioned tomorrow.”

Therefore, although she did not agree with Rajeev that there is just one narrative that gets through, Yasmin acknowledged that there is often an implicit understanding of what will sell and what will not. Apart from the presentation of a certain world view, she suggested other possible criteria for bringing about the embrace of broadcasters and publishers; including that “dubious Oxbridge, white block of excellence,” and a focus on what is perceived to be ‘Asian’. For example, while Monica Ali’s book about Asians on Brick Lane was lauded, her second book, set in a Portugese Holiday village has been met with criticism, with the subtext being; “what does this woman know about a holiday village in Portugal?”

Suhayl Saadi

Citing various influences, from music to literature, from Scotland to South Asia, Suhayl Saadi consciously attempts, in his writing, to “junk the clichéd portrayals of so-called ‘Brit-Asian’ consciousness and existence, being mediated always through such simplistic tropes such as hip-hop, bhangra, mangoes, weddings and curries.” He has always tried, in his work, to “push the envelope, to delve into and puncture preconceptions, including my own.”

However, Suhayl “soon discovered that the doors of perception tend to swing shut in one’s face.” Apart from an erotic novel, which he penned under a French Pseudonym, he has had difficulty getting all his books published, and when they have been it has been with small-scale Edinburgh-based publishers rather than trans-national corporate entities.

Suhayl went on to dissect the industry, offering reasons for why the gatekeepers in publishing and book retailing do not have the “means or the will to comprehend, market or critique” alternative narratives such as his own.

One factor is the social make up of those within the industry; the fact that “they are drawn overwhelmingly from a single social class and single ethnic group.” This, according to Suhayl, is not something that is sufficiently recognised and analysed.

Suhayl suggested that an ‘imperial hang-over’ is also to blame. This is to be found amongst the large publishers, manifested as “an expectation of exoticism in anything produced by Asian writers,” and “the assumption that the writer will share the pre-conceptual world-view of the upper middle class English, who of course imagine that they are very liberal, broad-minded and tolerant and omniscient.” Suhayl also recognised the degree to which Black and Asian writers internalise the dominant norms of imperialism and suggested that they were ‘playing to the gallery.’ “It’s much more difficult,” he said, “to write about British society in ways which internally deconstruct these tropes of white dominance.”

Like Yasmin, Suhayl also mentioned the ‘Public School and Oxbridge or Ivy League’ background that sometimes seems imperative for writers, adding to this the fact that “all meaningful power in the arts is concentrated in London among what is really a very small circle of individuals and corporate entities.”

“All this suggests,” Suhayl concluded, “that it is very difficult to do something new in the face of multiple barriers and layers of structural exclusion.” However, he remained positive that exciting stuff is happening, and hoped that this was the beginning of the formation of a critical mass.

I think that in literature, important black voices will continue to seep into the public discourse, but this is likely to be in spite of, rather than because of, a very conservative and totally unaccountable and increasingly unimaginative publishing-retailing industry.

Conclusion

For Yasmin, art is sacred; the individual’s creativity and self expression are important. For Aki, art is a political tool, secondary to a cause, and it is wrong for an artist to put self-expression first, at the cost of a community.

These are very different conceptions of the role of art in a society. However what is evident from all the discussions is that even art as self expression cannot be seen as pure, disengaged from the political. Whilst everybody gathers to the chant of ‘freedom of expression’ whenever a community protests a play or burns a book, it is often forgotten that the artist’s ‘freedom’ is also limited by those who hold the reins of power, who decide what does and doesn’t get published or commissioned, who only let certain ideologies through.

There is also a third form of censorship however, suggested by Suhayl; the self-censorship of the writer who appropriates the ideologies of the ‘mainstream.’ Although Rajeev seems to be confident that alternative narratives are out there, suggesting that the problem lies only with the publishing industry, perhaps there are not yet enough and grass roots work needs to nurture new voices.

Kavita Bhanot is working on her debut novel while in transit between Birmingham and Delhi.