“Oh c'mon, this looks like another of your hopeless romances! We all know how Muslim men treat their women. You just wait and see: in about a year from now he will stop all the nice bits and begin to womanise you”.
This is how my sister firstly retaliated to my thrilled talking about the new love story with Iqbal. My best friend started to tease me about wearing the black suite with veil over my face typical of Taliban women: “We might see you on a different fashion wear next time you visit us”. My brother in law is still warning me: my new beloved boyfriend will try to convert me to Islam.
But this is not surprising after all.
How did I expect anybody born and bread in such an unadulterated Italian and ultra-catholic background to appreciate the concept of diversity? I felt frustrated and distant, loosing any enthusiasm in wanting to open the news to my parents, knowing that I would obtain exactly the same reaction, if not something worse!
They already knew Iqbal and I were friends: during my previous visit to Rome, about six months before, I had the chance to comment on how this new friend met at the university was an absolute bliss for my studies: he used to proof-read all my assignments, help me with house chores and pick up my little one from nursery in case I could not. On that occasion, they immediately expressed concern about how safe would be their little grandson- my three years old son, Guido - in his company. “It is not unusual to read stories of kids being kidnapped by these people; you ought to be extra careful”- my mum surprised me with her wicked fantasy. I did not know whether to laugh or cry, but then I realised that most of my family and friends in Rome believed in these stories and fears of a negative power of this “Muslim man” on me and Guido were very real on their part.
One year down the line and I visit Rome and my family again. They can see me as a very content person. I am not wearing any veil yet, Iqbal is still cleaning around the house and assisting me in everything I do and -more striking than anything else-my little Guido is the happiest and brightest kid in the bunch…not only, he is also very friendly, caring and affectionate and he never has a tantrum. “So, is this thing working well between you too?” my sister realised it was a silly question to ask just looking at my smile. Exactly what I thought from the start: I could spend hours arguing with them about their awful comments and they would never admit that there is something wrong with their attitude. They cannot apprehend their narrow-minded views because they are so utterly immersed into them.
Family and friends in Rome are now gradually changing their approach; they surely respect our relationship more, although they are still getting his name totally wrong - “Ikbus”, “Arkbil”, “Balik”, “Kibal” - I wonder how can a simple name represents such a challenge to their memorising skills? No doubt, Freud would interpret it as a clear sign of their unconscious rejection; they are not willing to accept this stranger into their life, at least not yet. One of the reasons why I avoided introducing Iqbal to my family and friends in Rome is the awareness of this rejection. The whole country is affected by an endemic and deep-rooted racism. People are still calling black people as “negros”, without feeling any urge to correct themselves. This is a country where the only occupation open to a black and brown person is in fact “working in black”.
Have you ever been in Italy? You will see one of them at each traffic light, trying to clean your windscreen, at every petrol station trying to assist you with filling up, at every pub trying to sell you flowers or cheap gadgets from China. People see them as second class human beings. There is very little acceptance of the black and brown colour skin in the first place, and a completely outrage phobia regarding anything Muslim, especially since the recent events connected with terrorist attacks.
I was fully aware of this racism inside my own family and I was not shocked to hear my mother's comment whilst staring at Iqbal's picture: “At least he is not black. He's Indian, right? His skin is very brown maybe, but he is clearly not a negro”. Of course, these are the times I just wished I was deaf!
I might be thinking like a wise woman now, able to recognise the distortions and poor consequences of an unmixed environment on people beliefs and perceptions, but I haven't been always like this. I grew up in such unmixed environment myself, so that false and distorted conceptions were the norm in my mind. Then I started to discover other countries, other cultures, other religions, other way of living, other colours. I travelled around the globe and realised how little and erroneous most of my visions were. Thinking back over a number of years (eight years to be exact), one of the main attracting features of living in the UK was for me the variety of different cultures integrated into a much wider community. Although I realised later, racism is not an alien phenomenon even here, and integration itself is yet not a reality as we'd wish it to be. Living with Iqbal has been an eye-opener regarding this aspect, as I started to notice elements of segregation which I've never noticed before (i.e. I realised with disappoint that all friends of Iqbal were invariably Muslim and of Indian origins). I guess most people want to justify segregation by saying that we usually get along better with people that are similar to us: similar background, similar beliefs (how boring is this?) and to a certain extent it might be true, but I still find shocking -and a bit sad - to go to a three hundred people's party and discover I am the only white-non Muslim item in the room (and no, it was not a wedding)!
