I read this interesting article in The Observer. Shazia Mirza is a British stand-up comedian, whose act mainly revolves around her muslim upbringing/family. She was in Denmark a couple of weeks ago and 'she was invited on to Deadline, their version of Newsnight . 'They asked me where I thought Saddam was hiding his weapons of mass destruction. As if I'd know. I said up his wife's burkha, because no one would think of looking there.'
There is an element of frustration (as well as pleasure) in her response to all this. While she acknowledges that there is a dearth of Muslim spokespeople - 'they think, "We've got a man with one eye and one hook, who else have we got? Oh, a female comedian"' - she also sees it as lazy journalism. 'The real challenge would be to see me as a great British entertainer.' '
I thought that was funny. And maybe also typical of a certain trait in (many but not all) Danes: we like putting people in boxes, and Shazia Mirza ended up in the 'Muslim'-box.


posted by charlotte at 18:27 - comment