Wandering Lonely in a Crowd by S. M. Atif Imtiaz

Copies can be found on Amazon

This collection was published in 2011, bringing together a number of reflections and talks that Imtiaz had written, it has been sat on my sit on my “to read” pile for a number of years and so it must have been a hand of fate that I finally picked it up the same week as I had listened to an AKC lecture on developments in Muslim belief in the UK. The lecture was a really useful key for unlocking my engagement in these reflections, it gave a little extra underpinning.

In many ways reading this points to how much has happened in the last 5 years, for it often felt that “historical”, and sadly very little that has happened promotes signs of hope.

We get a mix of detailed political reflections and more general philosophical thoughts, and a clear indication on the need to bring both of these into play with each other.

He explores the way different groups have risen and fallen within the Muslim community, the ways in which the British government has tried to engage, and the ways in which that has been less than successful for reason of either side.

But Imtiaz also quotes Nietzsche, for example “It is more comfortable for our eye to react to a particular object by producing again an image it has often produced before than by retaining what is new and different in an impression.” and we are pointed to bigger issues about how stereotyping acts in society.

He thinks about how our frame of reference is important to what we “see”, noting Steven Spielberg gave us “the Other” both as Jaws and as ET – one “the nightmarish shark, attacking us while we are on holiday. Or the other, as cuddly alien, to be embraced and protected from the evil that lurks within ourselves.” If ET's first encounter with the human race had been Sigourney Weaver things might not have turned out so well!

One of the most interesting insight was around the legacy of Tony Blair, who “knew how to convince an audience, a country; he relied upon the trust that he asked for to win his arguments. But that was his downfall as well. It was an 'et tu Brute' moment when the country stared back into his eyes and realised that he was in fact being economical with the truth on the most serious of matters.” 

The lasting bitterness that seems to follow Blair is therefore not just a result of the Iraq war, but also, for example, about his ability to speak for the nation after the death of Princess Diana. People saw Blair as one who really cared and who shared the feeling of the people, and so when they then saw him with a different lens there was a great sense of betrayal.

This sense of “unmasking” shapes our contemporary politics – in electing Jeremy Corbyn it is clear that many labour members were explicitly rejecting the case of the other candidates that you needed an “acceptable”, an “electable”, face. While I think many similar forces are actually behind the success of Donald Trump – for some the assumption is that all politicians self-serving and do the minimum to address your problems to get your vote, so maybe it is at least best to go for the one who balls to be honest that it is all about him.