Word: manzoor
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Harsher criticism still comes from Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Leicester-based Muslim Forum. He agrees that efforts to quash extremism are needed, but says they should come from within the Muslim community. Though the government says it financed ICE at the urging of British Muslim leaders, Moghal is skeptical of that claim. "What the government is hoping to get is a state-compliant Islam - it will not happen...
...Britain's High Commission for Pakistan, where the Pakistani flag will fly at half-mast for three days in mourning, diplomatic official Manzoor ul-Haq echoed the Prime Minister's sentiments, saying he thinks the elections should - and will - continue as planned. "The people of Pakistan have great courage," he says, "and they will be able to bring everything under control. We appeal to the people of Pakistan to remain calm. The election process should continue and be allowed to reach its logical conclusion...
There's nothing new about such tales of hardship and pop-culture dreaming, of course (Saf's older sister swoons to Hopelessly Devoted to You from Grease). But in Manzoor's telling, every sigh comes with a different inflection. This is a boy who kisses the Koran before wishing for a ZX Spectrum computer, and was so innocent in adolescence that he thought a "blue movie" was one that made you cry. When he and his best friend, a Sikh, head off to their first Springsteen concert, they go armed with the vegetable samosas and chapatis their mothers have cooked...
Such writers as Hanif Kureishi have pushed immigrant longing against the liberations of rock 'n' roll before, but never with the sweetness and forgiving candor of Manzoor. The night he discovers Springsteen, thanks to his Sikh buddy, he had spent the evening massaging his father's feet. The effect of "The Boss" is so galvanic that his pal actually shaves off his beard and abandons his ritual turban. But Manzoor himself never has the heart to turn his back on his parents entirely, noting with typical wryness: "By high school my friends were starting to drink and I was starting...
...book goes on, the Springsteen associations are never explored as intensely as they might be, given that songs like Independence Day and My Father's House map out a worldwide atlas of the tangles between father and son. And in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Manzoor gives up a bit on America and its hopefulness, as his hero (on his album of reconciliation, The Rising) seldom does. But by then Manzoor has already showed us how to live as something more than just a Briton, a Muslim or a Pakistani. At a concert in New Jersey once, an American...