Days Like These

This morning my son handed me a copy of a Saturday’s paper. “Who wants the Daily Mail?” I burst out, having seen a glimpse of a pretty face on the front page. “I thought you asked newspaper,” he answered, looking aghast. Still on his bike, he had just been back from cycling to our local’s shop with his father. Furthermore, he had been aware of his mother’s peculiar tone for a mistake. “I don’t like this paper, dear,” I sighed in an apologetic tone, having realised that I should not have snapped at him in the first place.

“Why don’t you like it?” he asked inquisitively. “Because they don’t like Muslims and they’ve made fun of immigrants”. He was baffled to my being curt at him. Oh, dear, did I have to tell him that? “Why do they do that?” he continued. Here was the thing when I tried to be honest to my children: I had to be completely honest. I skimmed his guilty face. “Next time just buy me the Guardian”. He nodded in understanding, “Ok, Mum”. He turned around and rode his bike to the back of the house.

Later I was scanning the paper in the kitchen having my breakfast. In page 19, Amanda Platell’s column had a circle-shaped small photograph of new Chairman of the Conservative Party in her pink salwar khameez. More importantly, Ms. Warsi posing after the first cabinet meeting -notably the very important event- made her the instant notice being featured in yesterday’s the Times, the Daily Telegraph and of course, the Daily Mail. As a matter of fact, Platell’s remark on Sayeeda Warsi wearing a traditional Muslim garb to get herself noticed made me gulp my hot tea.

A Muslim garb? Well, Ms. Warsi happened to be a British Muslim who took a great pride on her Pakistani root. Moreover, the country is the second most populous Muslim in the world. Clearly it was easy to perceive that salwar khameez was a Muslim woman’s dress given that its modesty cut says it all. I nonetheless have noticed that Afghani, Indian and Bangladeshi women wear the same thing: were they all Muslims? As a result, this kind of inaccuracy, which had occurred in a number of occasions on this paper aroused the apparent dislike towards Muslims. Otherwise why would Ms. Platell further wrote”…Only when race, religion, and sex are second place to excellence and endeavour will women like Warsi have achieved any sort of equality”. This really irked me.

Should the sad story of an attempted suicide by the pretty face I mentioned earlier saddened me, Ms. Platell’s taunt on Ms. Warsi’s choice of outfit and how she had represented her constituents had made me loose my appetite. Strangely as it seemed to be, I remembered a pin with the imprint Hated by the Daily Mail bought from a bookshop at Old Street. Perhaps I should have worn it having been wearing a hijab (but not salwar khameez since I am Javanese). What if Ms. Warsi had put on thedupatta on her head?

Above all, I was wondering why my son grabbed the paper; did he recall that I sometimes got it (because of its Femail Magazine on Thursdays and whenever I only had £0.50 in my pocket)? Besides, I had forgotten to thank him for the paper and him having remembered to buy one.

Dear Son, thank you very much. And I will remember for not buying the paper again.