Meet the Mancunian - Talking interfaith understanding with Qaisra Shahraz

Meet the Mancunian-5.6 - Qaisra Shahraz – transcript

Intro

Welcome to the fifth season of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, social impact stories from Manchester. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your friendly host. It's a privilege and a pleasure for me to interview some of the most inspiring people working in Manchester's social impact sector and feature them on this podcast.

My guests are leaders and worker bees associated as employees, trustees, and volunteers with social enterprises, non-profits, and community groups. They share their life stories and passions with you, dear listener. My aim through this podcast is to inspire you and share a bit of good news.

My guests tackle serious concerns in Manchester but many of these are also universal themes resonating in many parts of the globe. All my guests talk about the power of collaboration and how together we are stronger. They, of course, expand on their pride in Manchester and Mancunians as well.

I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or Google, or any of your favourite podcasting platforms. You can also listen to the podcast episodes and read the transcripts on my website www.meetthemancunian.co.uk.

If you are a new listener, you can log on to www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to listen to the first four seasons of the podcast, and read more about my podcasting story. If you are a returning listener, welcome back. Thank you for your support.

Welcome to the sixth episode of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, season five.

Looking to promote interfaith understanding? We hear from Qaisra Shahraz MBE, Founder, MACFEST in this episode.

Episode 5

[00:00:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Qaisra Shahraz, MBE, founder, MACFEST. Thank you so much, Qaisra, for taking the time on a weekend.

[00:00:10] Qaisra Shahraz: Thank you so much, Deepaji. I'm delighted to be part of your podcast series.

[00:00:16] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It is lovely to hear Deepaji. It reminds me of my time in India and you know it's really nice to hear that it's such a mark of respect for somebody.

[00:00:25] Qaisra Shahraz: It is, and it's one of the best thing I love about our culture is this respect for sisterhood for brothers and for everybody irrespective of age. And I love the ji with it.

[00:00:36] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That is lovely. So tell us first about your passion for interfaith understanding. How did that come about?

[00:00:44] Qaisra Shahraz: Right, that came about nearly 20 years ago. I have friends from the Jewish world, including a professor at university and another Jewish woman who was working with me for 25 years. And for me it is just a fantastic relationship. And yet the situation when the conflict in Israel, Palestine would take place and it would be on the news and media. I felt it entered my home. It led to ill feeling anger, et cetera. It was a conflict and I thought it's like poison entering my home.

And I thought, well, I have my Jewish friends, but they've got nothing to do with that. But I know there are problems in Israel. I know the government, I know the suffering of Palestinian people, but I couldn't. I tried to divide the two. Not get caught up with that conflict and think all Jewish people or all people are the same.

And I wanted to stop myself from getting into that sort of down the line sort of reaction. So, I joined a Muslim Jewish forum. I was invited to join, and that's where it started. It was my way of building bridges, getting to know the Jewish community, promoting, understanding, and celebrating everything that we have in common.

And I've been doing that by connecting Muslim women and Jewish women in through synagogues and mosque, done it in school assemblies. Through We stand Together, another charity and through Muslim Jewish Forum, and I'm also partner with the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding in New York who also promote better relation between Muslim and Jewish people.

So that's where it started. And then I became a trustee for Faith Network of Manchester, which is a platform for all faith to celebrate, to understand each other, to be united and respect each other's faith, and get to know everyone and celebrate our different festivals and ways of life.

And above all, promote harmony and unity, and I was a co-chair for five years, so that's been continuing. It'll continue for life because I'm a peace ambassador. And you know yourself. You come from India. I'm from a region for Pakistan, and I was just talking last night. Well, we are all Indians. That's where we were. That was India, until someone drew a line and we suddenly had another identity.

So as a Pakistani novelist, British novelist of Pakistani origin, I've travelled to India many times, and I love it to have families, Indian Hindu families, in Coimbatore, in Kerala. Families mean real dear friends, similar in Aligarh and Delhi, and that's for me is real India.

And yet the situation between India and, Pakistan, the politics, create this tension and this is where people like me are really needed. Writers are before as a novel; we are ambassadors of peace and harmony. We don't want to get caught up in this. So when I go to Pakistan, I say, I love India. They look at me, I say, look, yes, there are ordinary people there. And do you remember, remember there's millions of Muslims there as well. And similarly, I would say the same about India, but as you know, the situation has really worsened in India about Muslims. So I'm totally aware of that, but I still try to maintain my reasoning.

I say, look, my best friend is Shashi Pande. She's lived with me for 10 or 15 years next door, she's my sister. So I try to hold onto the human relationship, the human element of this, and not get caught up with politics, with relationship, and above all, not let it sour my world, add poison to it. So this is why interfaith relations that were very important.

[00:04:15] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much for sharing that. Actually, this is a very similar point of view for me. I actually wrote an article on the subject, not books like you, saying that stereotypes are a form of racism because there is discrimination. And by putting an entire country or a religion or disabilities, you know, whatever you stereotype in many different ways, it's not always faith related.

And you say that person or because they're from this place, that's what, you know we come up with all kinds of negative and sometimes positive stereotypes. And I don't think that's correct. People are people. We need to assume that people are basically good and, build those human connections.

And thank you so much for sharing that. That is, that is so important. It's lovely that you've been to so many parts of India.

[00:05:02] Qaisra Shahraz: All of them are probably, you haven't been to some of them to be honest.

[00:05:05] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So, Kerala is home for me. That's my home, but Mumbai is where I've lived for most of my life. And I think Manchester is very similar to Bombay in many different ways, but we could talk about that later.

So tell us about starting MACFEST and what does it do? And I was very interested by that line, you know, promote honey, not hate, and that was a lovely little line. So tell us about it.

[00:05:28] Qaisra Shahraz: So I've been using that slogan for many years. It used to be spread hummus, not hate. I took it to Pakistan, to Indonesia, and people didn't understand the word hummus because they don't have that sort of food. It's more Mediterranean, European. So later I changed it to spread honey, not hate.

So that is still the slogan I use for MACFEST. Now what is MACFEST, it's an art and culture festival. It started from May of 2017, a very special time for tragic reasons. There was a Manchester Arena attack, and I was at that time, the co-chair of Faith Network for Manchester, and we held many vigils to commemorate the passing of 22 people who were the victims of this atrocity, including a lovely young girl.

It was horrific incident, but it brought this city together. At the same time, however, because an act, committed by a Muslim young man for whatever reason the fear of the Muslim community was that there'll be a backlash. I had a friend in Oldham wearing the hijab. I invited her to come to the vigil, to the Manchester Cathedral area.

And you know what? She was afraid to come out. She thought she would be attacked. And for me, that was a defining moment. I thought, what has this poor woman got to do with that, why is she feeling like this? Why are all the Muslims targeted? Just because some nutters, some mentally ill persons are extremists, a terrorist, and you have those in all faiths. We know that. Why do we have to pay the price for the acts of one insane person?

And that was the moment for me, the defining moment. I thought enough is enough. You know, Islamophobia has been rising across the world since September the 11th. And we've been battling with it, and that was one of my key role was to challenge Islamophobia, antisemitism, bring communities together, connect community together.

So I decided, because I'm a novelist, I've been to many festivals, including to India, Jaipur, Kerala etc. I thought, oh, an art festival using art and culture to connect communities. In particular, bring Muslims and non-Muslim together. So that was the idea.

The second mission was to take it to schools and colleges as well, because my background is in education, I've taught in schools, colleges, adults and everything, and I thought, if I, as an adult feel so vulnerable against this anti-Muslim hatred, what is it like for young children? Children, young people feeling vulnerable and being bullied about this? And I knew, the festival had to be held in schools and colleges part of their normal daily life and do it through art and culture.

My third mission was this, because, you know, Muslim communities are so diverse. There’re so many countries, so many people from four or five continents. And when do these people, communities ever come together? When is a chance to interact together? For example, when do the Pakistanis meet the Nigerians? The Nigerians meet the Turks, the Turks meet the Somalis, the Somalis meet the Bosnians, et cetera. When does that happen? It rarely happens.

So the third mission was to bring all the different Muslim communities together under one roof to interact, to get to know each other and get rid of some of the stereotyping or misunderstanding about each other, and celebrate that diverse heritage. And that's how it started.

The vision was always big because if you're going to be hosted in schools and colleges, you need to have a longer festival. The other thing was I didn't want the festival to be a Muslim only festival because the mission was to bring other people, to connect Muslim to other people of all faiths and backgrounds.

So, they're part of it, and I wanted it hosted in cultural organisation, theatres, galleries, libraries, and that was it. It. Everybody grabbed the opportunity to be part of it. All the theatres, galleries, libraries, they opened their doorway. The vision was always big in the sense, start locally in Manchester, go nationally. As we did the second year in the Northwest, we went to Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton, and then third year was supposed to be international and by jove, incidentally, through Covid we did whereas before I could invite one or two authors or artists from another part of the world because we couldn't afford it. Suddenly Zoom was available.

And we grabbed the opportunity. And would you believe we were the only organisation probably in the whole of the UK who were open for business? We delivered 73 events through Covid, can you believe it? 73, all digital. And it worked. And we needed them because that was a time when people needed to connect.

So we used art, literature, culture, you name it, we did it in so many and we went across the world providing platform in places like India, China, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, et cetera. So that's how it happened.

[00:10:17] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So basically an opportunity for you to talk about what MACFEST 2023 is going to be focused on. Sounds very interesting. It's had a great journey.

[00:10:26] Qaisra Shahraz: That's right. So in the fourth year to go back we set up a foundation, right? It was Muslim Women's Art Foundation because the other part of festival was I wanted to promote Muslim women, women in particular, because of the stereotyping was against Muslim women. So it's one of the battles I've been fighting for all decades.

For women, whether it's in literature. I wrote a dissertation called Prison of Womanhood, exploring how 300 English women writers were deleted out of history because they were not printed, they were not published. Only the men were published. So, what I'm trying to say is my interest in gender was there through throughout of my life.

So then over the years I realized that there was a lot of stereotyping of Muslim women, that they're all oppressed this and that. And I thought this is nonsense. So I've done two things to address this. One is through the festival I found, although I've had many panels to do with women, women welcomed everybody. My whole team was 80% [women]. I felt I need a bigger platform.

So since then we've set up a Muslim Women's Art Foundation, and last year we actually launched the Muslim Women's festival on the art foundation. It was amazing. We had two weeks of events, two of them digitally, but we also had live, including at, Whitworth art gallery where we had women's activities, children's activities, and we covered all forms of art, poetry, performance, music, workshop, calligraphy, you name it.

So, this year we are celebrating the Festival again of the women, but also our fifth anniversary and what we've done this year, like largely, we themed it. We have, say, youth festival where we are now hosting like 25 schools and colleges across the Northwest with panels for Children. We have March Festival where we have three events on international women day, one other university celebrating Filmmaker Raabia Hussain with the university academics, talking about Muslim women, the cultural industry.

In the afternoon, we go digitally to Kuwait talking about the Middle East women on their journalism, their stories, and then in the evening, For example, we have an academic talking about 300 years of Muslim women travellers. Can you imagine that? So this is just a flavour of it.

And then soon after that, it's the month of Ramadan. So this is why the festival is long from February to July because it's themed. So youth, women, Ramadan, International, and now we have a new one, festival of Libraries and Museum because we've always hosted libraries for something or other, a museum. So this time I package it together. So we go around the world, we got something from Chicago University talking about manuscripts. We got something from Dubai, the biggest library, The Open with a museum talking artifacts. And we invite many, many speakers, Muslims or non-Muslim who celebrate some aspect of Muslim art, culture or heritage.

[00:13:20] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Sounds fascinating and I look forward to attending some of the events. It does definitely sound like something for the calendar.

You're also a very well known author as you showed me the books in your library, of course. But tell us about that and how did you get into writing?

[00:13:38] Qaisra Shahraz: Yeah, it's very strange. I started at the age of 14, would you believe? And I could barely write English essays then, and yet I want to be a writer. I think it started from my love of books, literature. I loved my first book I read- first adult book was Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. I went on to do the A level.Then I wanted to do a degree in English literature, so I think I started writing officially at the age of 19 as a student. But it took decades. Decades. My full-time job was always in the teaching world. I was a qualified teacher, a teacher trainer & later became an Ofsted inspector, so that was my bread and butter where the money came from.

Side by side was this writing career, which how shall I say, I potted along with it. It was a poor sister. You only wrote some time. I didn't even call myself a proper writer until my first novel was published after many, many years. So I specialised in short fiction.

I wrote short fiction for a decade, then novels, then script writing, et cetera. Writers can be lucky. And I was lucky with one story. The very first story I wrote, 'a pair of Jeans' was picked up by a German publisher as a school text, and this was before I had written hardly anything apart from three, four stories published in this.

An ordinary collection stories and that has become prescribed reading for 30 years in Germany. It led me to visiting Germany, being hosted by Germany. When people ask me, oh, do you make money out of writing? I said, no, not at all. Because I've been published in India for example in three languages, Indonesia, where it was a bestseller for 15 years. The point is you don't make much money out of it because of, you know, the, the money matters or whatever, the translation of money into different currencies. But if I made a little bit of money, it would be from Germany because, they would host me and you know, pay for my lectures and you get some royalties.

To go back to my novels, 'The holy woman' has been sort of bestselling, particularly in Turkey and in Indonesia. It's a powerful love story, but also a serious book. I use my books, my novels as vehicles to talk about women's lives, and that's what I feel passionately about, particularly because I live in the West.

I have had all the privileges of this world education, freedom, access to work, and I love all of that. But because I come from a developing country where I know women do not have the same privileges as me, or the circumstances are so different, I'm very much aware of the inequalities in women's life. So I have spent all my life trying to address these inequalities, whether it's through teaching someone to write their name for the first time as I've done through education, lifelong learning, or whether to raise awareness about their issues through my novels, like my first novel talked about the wearing of the veil, trying to explain to the Western readers what is it for women who wear it, you know, it is not what they think is a form of oppression. Many women around the world wear it because they want to wear as part of identity.

And I also talked about patriarchalism. Second novel, I talked about rape as an issue. And third novel talked about my revolt. Typhoon was the, the one I talked about, rape, revolt, about racism, about intercultural marriage, about generational gap et cetera. And then I have another book a collection of stories, 10 stories from around the world called ‘The Slave Catcher and the Concubine’, and literally cover all topics from the division of India - Pakistan to the Holocaust in Poland to the invasion of the Incans by the Spaniards, to the migration in the Emirate. And through stories like my own, like 'A pair of jeans', talking about the migrant experience. So all of that has been going on. I've also used my background is scriptwriting. I have a master's degree.

As a script writer, I had to learn how to write scripts for television. I wrote a 14-episode drama series produced by PTV in 2023. Why did I do that? I hardly benefited financially, actually. In fact, I invested my own money. The cost was such, but it was the best media if you want to explore social issue drama.

You know this, in all, especially developing countries, drama is the biggest vehicle to promote social awareness issues. And in the first one I explored the issue of women and work and by the disparity of family lives. And in the second one, which is not produced yet, I talked about domestic violence and also cancer raising awareness about smoking and other things.

So that's been my life basically, and writing books. But at the moment, I've not written anything for five years probably. I'm still potting along with my fifth novels set in Morocco and France. But MACFEST has kept me busy.

[00:18:24] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Now this is, this is really interesting that you're using your books to kind of educate and you know like you said, it's about drama.

So what are the challenges on this journey? There must be some, quite a few that you've had to get past, and if you can share, share one or two that, and how you overcame them.

[00:18:42] Qaisra Shahraz: Challenges… I think one of the challenges I can relate to was when I set up at a late time in my life is a time when I should be sort of retiring, easing away from work, and suddenly I'm gone full blast into full-time mode. The work I do is like the equivalent of three jobs six to seven days a week, sometime 18 hours a day when it's really busy.

And it’s a work of passion. It's like you set up your own idea and a business and you carry in a way that you never clock off. So that's been a challenge, trying to manage other aspects of your life while trying to do everything that you have to do. And then the problem also with my brain is you keep having new ideas, new initiatives, and you keep pursuing those.

So life becomes busier and busier, and is trying to manage all aspects. And then the writing, I have forgotten myself as a writer in this process. I'm celebrating other people around the world. But the writer Qaisra has been put aside. So that's been the challenge, really. My own personal career has suffered as a writer.

And then challenge of your funding. You know, most of my work in the first two years was voluntary. Hardly any payment, but to go ahead still, whether you receive payment or not was that, and then of course, the challenge of being a Muslim woman, I've personally not been discriminated against personally, but you know, as a migrant in England, the challenge is there always of racism, of stereotyping and that always something for me that I feel strongly about and l like to address in whichever way, and particularly the challenge of Muslim women being stereotyped throughout the world.

And I've taken that challenge. Would you believe I've interviewed over a hundred women from around the world to show and I've done it in India. I've done it in Indonesia and Singapore and Germany and England to show that all Muslim women are not the same. We are so different. We are a product of different environment, education, class, culture, education. How can we all be the same? So that has been one of the challenges which I'm succeeding. I'm using my platform for MACFEST. I'm using it as Muslim Art Foundation and to myself as a role model. And then trying to train, mentor, support women along the way.

[00:21:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing those. It's a lot that you have on your plate, and I can totally understand you're having to temporarily put your writing on the side, but hopefully that'll come back very soon.

[00:21:11] Qaisra Shahraz: I hope so. Yes. I'm still stuck. I potter along with it sometime, but still need more time for it.

[00:21:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Fair enough. What impact would you say you have made through MACFEST in these five years? And congratulations on the fifth anniversary.

[00:21:26] Qaisra Shahraz: Thank you so much. I think we've achieved an awful lot. We've won five awards for this work, including a commendation award from the University of Manchester for making a social difference and the Queen’s Volunteer Award. So basically, impact has been connecting communities.

We have really, and we put arts in the heart of Manchester. We connected and brought hundreds and hundreds of communities together, groups, and particularly providing a platform for minority groups from all background to explore whether it's poetry, art, form, or culture and heritage. And by doing so, giving them their identity, their self for self-esteem, their pride in promoting their heritage.

I think we have achieved a lot and we'll continue, hopefully. Also, we engage thousands and thousands of young people, students in schools and in art and culture activities. And by doing so, we have promoted diversity in that school, and we have enriched the experience and lives of thousands of people. And then of course because of Zoom and digital, we have engaged provider platform for those artists, creators who would never have a chance, to take part in an international event like ours.

[00:22:41] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you. And yes, you have achieved a lot and that's amazing.

And I want to now ask you about the MBE. Tell us about that and why were you nominated? Because you're my first guest with an MBE that I'm actually interviewing.

[00:22:53] Qaisra Shahraz: Okay. That was for services to cultural learning, like MACFEST promotes culture and gender equality. The work I've done with women all my life and which I'm still continuing, so that's what it was. Services for cultural learning and gender equality. And I received the award two years ago from Prince William because the Queen was ill at that time.

[00:23:16] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's amazing. So the Member of the British Empire, isn't that right?

[00:23:20] Qaisra Shahraz: That's right. MBE. That's right. Yes.

[00:23:23] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So how can interested people reach out to you and learn more? How can they know about MACFEST and how can they know about your books?

[00:23:30] Qaisra Shahraz: Right. Okay. My books are on Amazon. The first novel is ‘The Holy Woman’. If they can't remember my name, go for the Holy Woman. Second is a sequel, ‘Typhoon’. You have to read in the right order and. I love my books, particularly ‘Typhoon’ and ‘Revolt’, of course. And then the stories are mentioned, a collection of stories, a ‘A pair of Jeans’ and others. And ‘The Concubine and the Slave catcher’.

In terms of MACFEST, we have a website called MACFEST, Muslim Art & Culture Festival. We have a brochure there. We have our email. People can get in touch through there and they can book our events through that website. I also have my own website Qaisra Shahraz. All my work is there, whether it's with MACFEST, whether it's Muslim Women Art Foundation, or learn about my stories or about my books.

[00:24:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So thank you so much for sharing that. And then could you tell us about what advice would you have for people looking to do something similar in another part of the world or another part of the UK? Like you said, shining a light on interfaith understanding, shining a light on the plight of Muslim women or not the plight? I would say the empowerment of Muslim women. How could they get started?

[00:24:41] Qaisra Shahraz: Right. First of all, they have to have genuine passion for it because if you have passion for something, nothing can stop you. Then obviously be prepared for hard work. It's not easy to achieve something. There are always hurdles on your way, and particularly when you're in an environment, which is not supportive.

So if you're trying to promote interfaith work in an environment where they're against connecting without faith, it's going to be a real challenge, but all the more reason for it. So be resilient, be strong-willed, be sensitive and understanding and do it. And particularly if you're a woman yourself. Reach out to the other woman.

Every woman is an individual person. She has a human right to the same things as I would have say, in a better situation. Help, be supportive and reach out to them and give back, but also gain help from other people. Share your skill, expertise. I do a lot from MACFEST, but then I can't deliver it all by myself.

Well, I have a wonderful team, which is like a family. We all collectively do that. And if you have a team, how shall I say, enrich them, skill them, value what they bring to it, and delegate where you can.

[00:25:54] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Great tips and I'm sure that will be very useful for anyone who's considering getting into anything that they're passionate about, not just inter-faith understanding. An opportunity now for you to talk about anything else that I haven't asked you about.

[00:26:10] Qaisra Shahraz: I think we have covered most of the things really. As I say, we have our fifth anniversary. I hope people will come and join. It's going to be a wonderful day. And then we have an opening ceremony on the 18th of February, which probably will be too late for this podcasts but yes. Everybody please promote unity. There's nothing better than unity and harmony, and above all keep mind open. There's nothing more dangerous than mindset, which are so narrow or dangerous that they're only promoting hatred. So our slogan is spread honey, not hate. So if you can spread sweetness is far better than try to spread hatred.

And if somebody does, even if it's your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your friend, challenge them say it is wrong. Do not be a silent, passive, accepter, or observer. It's your duty as a human being. Irrespective to the fact it might be difficult to challenge your daddy, your uncle, or whatever. Challenge them, it's not right. What is wrong is wrong. Have the moral compass to address it.

[00:27:14] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I like that very much and that shout out to, you know, gently challenge to speak up and not just be an observer, a passive observer.

[00:27:23] Qaisra Shahraz: This is the same thing I say to those school children, say when it was a Muslim or Jewish children. I say challenge each other. If somebody's speaking against the Jews, you challenge say, no, that's wrong. If somebody's speaking against a Muslim... So I use that context. To explain to you because it's very, very important, because one thing pretending outside, oh, I'm against this and this, or I support you, this, and at home it's a different story.

We are hypocrites. Why? It has to start at home. Do it with your loved one, with your own family, with your own children, and, and before, oh, I forgot to mention, I have a phrase, get out of your own box. Challenge yourself. First of all, if you don't challenge yourself, it's going to be harder to accept yourself. Otherwise, you'll be a hypocrite.

And I, how shall I give you one example? I challenged myself. I was in Peru as a writer and it was a totally different world where the religion was different, the beliefs were different. They worshipped the Earth, it was Mother Maya. They worshipped the mountains.

And for me it was a total contrast to what I've been brought up to believe. And I got out of my box. I said, Qaisra, this is their way of life. This is their belief. I have to learn to respect it. Just because it doesn't fit into my world, my faith, my belief does not mean I ridicule it. I dismiss it. That is wrong.

So I'm often challenging myself because.... There's scenes where we'll never be comfortable fully, but that's our problem, not someone else's problem. And out of that comes respect. Respect others irrespective of who they are, what you are.

[00:29:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you and absolutely very, very important. And I think going to different places of worship and just, you know, having that sanctuary and taking that meditation moment is also another wonderful way to experience different cultures. So, absolutely totally agree.

So I'm going to come to the signature questions that I ask all my guests.

Can you first describe a Mancunian or the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase?

[00:29:27] Qaisra Shahraz: Oh my goodness. Respecting everybody and living harmoniously together, well integrated.

[00:29:32] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a great way to say, and it's a very welcoming community here, so absolutely agree with that.

[00:29:39] Qaisra Shahraz: That's right.

[00:29:40] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and could be somebody from the past or somebody who's currently around.

[00:29:47] Qaisra Shahraz: Oh my goodness. Who could there are, there are many people, I think Emily Pankhurst, we are proud to have her living in Manchester. She's for women's right. The suffragette. Absolutely wonderful.

And then as a fellow writer, we have Elizabeth Gaskell, we have Elizabeth Gaskell house, and we are hosted for MACFEST there. They're inspirational. She was a woman writer, but who reached out to the poor, who challenged society. For example, there was a book about Mary Barton who had a child, I think, out of wedlock. And she wrote her story to highlight what it is like for the lower class, the working class, the people who were not so privileged. And for me, she's an excellent role model for us. And she put Manchester on the map for us as a human being. So, you know, helping, supporting, going against the grain of society's expectations and their etiquette. But also, as a hugely successful writer.

The thrill I felt in knocking on her door. There's a beautiful house and there's a doorbell, and first time I went I thought, my God, Elizabeth pressed this bell one day, once upon a time. And that was an amazing experience. You need to go and visit yourself.

[00:30:56] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I haven't actually been, so I think it's one for my bucket list here. I am still a new Mancunian, exploring the city, and I'm always loving hearing these tips.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:31:11] Qaisra Shahraz: Health is the most important issue really, and being very positive. I'm a very, very positive person. And positivity in all forms, in all aspect is a wonderful way to deal with whether it's, say somebody's got a cancer in the family, being positive in your outlook helps.

I think absolutely health is one of them, but having access to education and freedom. And I really value that and my heart goes out to those women particularly, who don't have access to education because education literally transforms lives. And then the freedom to do what you want to do, where to go, how to have freedom to work.

People don't realise what an important aspect of your life that is, and if you don't have it, what terrible things it can do to you. Does that make sense?

[00:32:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It does make sense. Yes. And I can understand from living in different cultures. I had a period of time where I stayed for two years in Saudi Arabia. While it's changing a lot, there were restrictions that you had to get used to and that was…

[00:32:15] Qaisra Shahraz: …and that brought

[00:32:16] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: …a hard adjustment.

[00:32:17] Qaisra Shahraz: Yes. I found that when I went long time ago and it brought it home to me, the difference. So I really value that. And because I travel a lot to other countries, I'm very, very sensitive and I'm so glad I'm so sensitive because it makes us more human and empathetic and we never forget the rest.

And hopefully try what you can in your own way to improve and empower other women to be in the same situation as yourself. And be confident. People don't realise how important it is to be confident. Confidence is the root of so much, and lack of confidence is also the root of so many problems.

[00:32:55] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: You're packed with advice, so thank you so much for sharing that.

What's the most important superpower that you'd like? If you could get one? If there's one superpower I could, you know, I could grant you, what would that be?

[00:33:08] Qaisra Shahraz: Long life for my father and my husband and, you know, one's got health problem, the other one is in his 85, and I want to spend more time with them.

[00:33:18] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's fair enough. That's a good one. I hope that could come and I send my best wishes for both of their continued good health.

[00:33:25] Qaisra Shahraz: Thank you.

[00:33:26] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: No problem. Thank you so much, Qaisra. It's been a real pleasure. I've learned so much from talking to you, and it's amazing what all you are involved in and how much impact you're making to kind of create that interfaith understanding and to empower more Muslim women to take that centre stage. So that's wonderful. Thank you so much.

[00:33:48] Qaisra Shahraz: Thank you so much, Deepaji.

Outro

Qaisra, Thank you for talking to me and my listeners. I really enjoyed learning about promoting interfaith understanding today.

Dear listener, thank you for listening to the sixth episode of season five of the Meet the Mancunian Podcast, social impact stories from Manchester.

I hope you enjoyed it. And it motivates you to follow your own dreams and passions. Please do consider visiting the website, www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to leave me some feedback or suggestions on what causes resonated with you or ones that you would like to see featured here. I really welcome listener feedback and will do my best to incorporate your suggestions in future episodes.

Next week, the Meet the Mancunian podcast talks to Mellissa Johns about supporting disabled creatives. Tune in on Tuesday, 30 May, 2023 to hear the next episode.

You can follow the podcast on social media as @Meet the Mancunian on Instagram or Facebook or as @MancunianPod on Twitter. It would be lovely if you can share or leave a comment. Please do also consider introducing this podcast to a friend or a family member.

You can also sign up for my new newsletter on www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. No spam, weekly episode round ups, bonus content and a preview of what’s coming up next on the podcast.

Thank you so much.