Interview: Sarah Joseph, Emel magazine (Evening Standard)
Sarah Joseph edits Britain's only Muslim lifestyle magazine. She says it can help show there is more to Islam than prayer and politics. By David Rowan
IT WAS a busy morning yesterday for Sarah Joseph: tea with Tony Blair, a quick interview for Newsnight, followed by a series of requests from the likes of Five Live. As the editor of a glossy "lifestyle magazine" for British Muslims, Joseph suddenly finds herself in demand to answer that cruellest of questions to emerge in the last fortnight: what might defuse the anger that prompts young Muslims to bomb their fellow countrymen?
Joseph, a busy mother of three, was rather overwhelmed by all the distractions when the Evening Standard caught up with her. She had to dash back to her magazine's east London office before returning to Portcullis House for a meeting, and a snatched sandwich did not figure in her schedule. But then Joseph, 34, is something of a dynamo: already an OBE (for services to "interfaith dialogue"), she lectures across Britain, home educates her nine-, six- and threeyearolds, and is in discussions to organise mainstream distribution for her magazine, Emel.
The Catholic daughter of an accountant and a models' agent - she recalls chasing after Naomi Campbell at 14 with her mother's business card - Joseph "embraced" Islam at 16. Two years after setting up Emel with her husband, a barrister, and £20,000 in funding, she is still to see a profit. Still, what matters to her is having the platform to remind Anglo-Muslims that, as she says in her latest editorial, "We are the West! ... We need to see ourselves and our faith as part of the solution."
She has no wish to excuse, let alone condone, the violence of 7 July. But the resentment that prompted it must, she says, be understood, however uncomfortable that may be for those in power. "You ignore the anger that's on the streets at your peril," she warns. "Unless we give people a means to voice it, we're in danger of failing to take the pressure out of this intense situation."
Partly it is a question of airing "perceived grievances" through the mainstream media, she suggests, such as concerns over Britain's engagement in Iraq. But there is also an urgent need for the wider Islamic community to address disaffected British Muslims directly, she says, reminding Muslims that they "don't have a monopoly on pain, on being treated unjustly". Rather than encourage the faithful to distance themselves from the wider community, they must be brought back into the mainstream. "My identity as a Muslim is strong," she says, "but having a strong religious identity is not contrary to being able to live in a plural, tolerant society."
BUT how far should Anglo-Muslim families be responsible for ensuring that their sons are not being radicalised by extremists? "If your son is voicing extremist views, you have to deal with that," Joseph insists. "You need to get them under a better influence. The community has to start demanding more from its leaders, its mosques. We have got to say, 'Right, enough is enough; I don't want this person teaching our young people any more'. It's about making the voices of sanity, of inclusiveness and tolerance, be heard. The increased involvement of women within our mosques is important, too."
The mainstream media can also play a constructive role. She is concerned that excessive prominence is given to extremists such as Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who yesterday suggested that voters who re-elected Tony Blair were to blame for the London bombings.
"He's a pumped-up windbag who should be denied the oxygen of publicity," she says. "Far too much airtime is given to nutcases like him. Where are the 'normal' Muslims in the media? Where are the police officers, nurses, dentists - the aspirational people who make an ordinary Muslim picking up the paper think, 'Look, they made it, I can too'? That's one of the reasons we created Emel. You need to present different faces, that aren't all spouting anti-Western diatribes."
More specifically, Joseph is concerned that The Guardian is employing an acknowledged member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has urged Muslims to kill Jews and calls suicide bombers "martyrs". Dilpazier Aslam reported for the paper on the London bombings and wrote a comment piece suggesting that young British Muslims no longer cared if they "rocked the boat". Aslam's affiliation remained undisclosed until he was outed by a weblog; the paper says it is "keeping the matter under review".
"The Guardian does have egg on its face," Joseph says. "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extreme group, which I have major issues with. It's trying to put a smiley face on hate-filled rhetoric. We have to be wary of it."
Emel - named to sound like the letters M and L, as in Muslim Life, as well as the Arabic word for "hope" - peppers its food and travel coverage with features on Muslim-inspired inventions and personality profiles. "We created a lifestyle magazine as we felt we had to normalise the image of Muslims," Joseph says. "Murder and mayhem may count as 'news', but we need to show the normality too. That tells mainstream society that we're not so scary after all, and offers role models to Muslims."
YET how can her glossy lifestyle magazine, with a print run of barely 20,000, speak to the backstreet mosques of Leeds? "It's not the answer," she replies. "I'd love to have the money to publish a magazine that addresses youth concerns. But we can show that there's a heritage to draw on. If we say Islam's only about prayer and politics, we make it a dry, theocratic set of rules with no relevance today. But if we can point out to young people that their heritage helped build Europe, we can show them that they are stakeholders in its future. Young people need to hear that."
It's far less useful for organisations such as the BBC to sweat over whether the bombers should be called "terrorists" or not, she suggests. "They try to spread terror. What else are they?"
She is also concerned that some media reporting inadvertently boosts the extremists' cause. "You mustn't give this violence the credence of calling it 'Islamic'," she says. "Labels such as 'Islamic fundamentalist' honour them far too much. You have to point out that their theology is warped."
What of those - such as Melanie Phillips on The Moral Maze last week - who suggest that the Koran actively encourages terror attacks?
"If that's what she says, then Melanie Phillips and al Qaeda are singing from the same hymnsheet and we might as well go home," Joseph replies. "Al Qaeda and its ilk are using Islam and the Koran to legitimate violence with dodgy theology - just as I could quote verses of violence from the Bible."
Joseph speaks with an insider's passion yet is measured and thoughtful, which suggests we will be seeing more of her. But how has she, prominent in her hijab, found the level of anti-Muslim hostility since 7 July?
"Oh, it's nothing like after 9/11, when I was spat at and had drunkards telling me I should be shot," she says. "There's been nothing like that this time. You see, the British have realised there are a small number of baddies in our midst, and that we've got to work together to fight them."
(Evening Standard, July 20 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
IT WAS a busy morning yesterday for Sarah Joseph: tea with Tony Blair, a quick interview for Newsnight, followed by a series of requests from the likes of Five Live. As the editor of a glossy "lifestyle magazine" for British Muslims, Joseph suddenly finds herself in demand to answer that cruellest of questions to emerge in the last fortnight: what might defuse the anger that prompts young Muslims to bomb their fellow countrymen?
Joseph, a busy mother of three, was rather overwhelmed by all the distractions when the Evening Standard caught up with her. She had to dash back to her magazine's east London office before returning to Portcullis House for a meeting, and a snatched sandwich did not figure in her schedule. But then Joseph, 34, is something of a dynamo: already an OBE (for services to "interfaith dialogue"), she lectures across Britain, home educates her nine-, six- and threeyearolds, and is in discussions to organise mainstream distribution for her magazine, Emel.
The Catholic daughter of an accountant and a models' agent - she recalls chasing after Naomi Campbell at 14 with her mother's business card - Joseph "embraced" Islam at 16. Two years after setting up Emel with her husband, a barrister, and £20,000 in funding, she is still to see a profit. Still, what matters to her is having the platform to remind Anglo-Muslims that, as she says in her latest editorial, "We are the West! ... We need to see ourselves and our faith as part of the solution."
She has no wish to excuse, let alone condone, the violence of 7 July. But the resentment that prompted it must, she says, be understood, however uncomfortable that may be for those in power. "You ignore the anger that's on the streets at your peril," she warns. "Unless we give people a means to voice it, we're in danger of failing to take the pressure out of this intense situation."
Partly it is a question of airing "perceived grievances" through the mainstream media, she suggests, such as concerns over Britain's engagement in Iraq. But there is also an urgent need for the wider Islamic community to address disaffected British Muslims directly, she says, reminding Muslims that they "don't have a monopoly on pain, on being treated unjustly". Rather than encourage the faithful to distance themselves from the wider community, they must be brought back into the mainstream. "My identity as a Muslim is strong," she says, "but having a strong religious identity is not contrary to being able to live in a plural, tolerant society."
BUT how far should Anglo-Muslim families be responsible for ensuring that their sons are not being radicalised by extremists? "If your son is voicing extremist views, you have to deal with that," Joseph insists. "You need to get them under a better influence. The community has to start demanding more from its leaders, its mosques. We have got to say, 'Right, enough is enough; I don't want this person teaching our young people any more'. It's about making the voices of sanity, of inclusiveness and tolerance, be heard. The increased involvement of women within our mosques is important, too."
The mainstream media can also play a constructive role. She is concerned that excessive prominence is given to extremists such as Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who yesterday suggested that voters who re-elected Tony Blair were to blame for the London bombings.
"He's a pumped-up windbag who should be denied the oxygen of publicity," she says. "Far too much airtime is given to nutcases like him. Where are the 'normal' Muslims in the media? Where are the police officers, nurses, dentists - the aspirational people who make an ordinary Muslim picking up the paper think, 'Look, they made it, I can too'? That's one of the reasons we created Emel. You need to present different faces, that aren't all spouting anti-Western diatribes."
More specifically, Joseph is concerned that The Guardian is employing an acknowledged member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has urged Muslims to kill Jews and calls suicide bombers "martyrs". Dilpazier Aslam reported for the paper on the London bombings and wrote a comment piece suggesting that young British Muslims no longer cared if they "rocked the boat". Aslam's affiliation remained undisclosed until he was outed by a weblog; the paper says it is "keeping the matter under review".
"The Guardian does have egg on its face," Joseph says. "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extreme group, which I have major issues with. It's trying to put a smiley face on hate-filled rhetoric. We have to be wary of it."
Emel - named to sound like the letters M and L, as in Muslim Life, as well as the Arabic word for "hope" - peppers its food and travel coverage with features on Muslim-inspired inventions and personality profiles. "We created a lifestyle magazine as we felt we had to normalise the image of Muslims," Joseph says. "Murder and mayhem may count as 'news', but we need to show the normality too. That tells mainstream society that we're not so scary after all, and offers role models to Muslims."
YET how can her glossy lifestyle magazine, with a print run of barely 20,000, speak to the backstreet mosques of Leeds? "It's not the answer," she replies. "I'd love to have the money to publish a magazine that addresses youth concerns. But we can show that there's a heritage to draw on. If we say Islam's only about prayer and politics, we make it a dry, theocratic set of rules with no relevance today. But if we can point out to young people that their heritage helped build Europe, we can show them that they are stakeholders in its future. Young people need to hear that."
It's far less useful for organisations such as the BBC to sweat over whether the bombers should be called "terrorists" or not, she suggests. "They try to spread terror. What else are they?"
She is also concerned that some media reporting inadvertently boosts the extremists' cause. "You mustn't give this violence the credence of calling it 'Islamic'," she says. "Labels such as 'Islamic fundamentalist' honour them far too much. You have to point out that their theology is warped."
What of those - such as Melanie Phillips on The Moral Maze last week - who suggest that the Koran actively encourages terror attacks?
"If that's what she says, then Melanie Phillips and al Qaeda are singing from the same hymnsheet and we might as well go home," Joseph replies. "Al Qaeda and its ilk are using Islam and the Koran to legitimate violence with dodgy theology - just as I could quote verses of violence from the Bible."
Joseph speaks with an insider's passion yet is measured and thoughtful, which suggests we will be seeing more of her. But how has she, prominent in her hijab, found the level of anti-Muslim hostility since 7 July?
"Oh, it's nothing like after 9/11, when I was spat at and had drunkards telling me I should be shot," she says. "There's been nothing like that this time. You see, the British have realised there are a small number of baddies in our midst, and that we've got to work together to fight them."
(Evening Standard, July 20 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, July 20, 2005
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