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Autobiography
Publisher:
Cappelen Damm
Release year:
2021
«Honest, touching, but a little naive.»
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Abid Raja tells his life story in «My guilt». From the time he was born at Ullevål Hospital in 1975 until he became Minister of Culture and Gender Equality in 2020. It has become an honest, strong and, I must admit, touching story. But I would like to see that Raja did not always explain his life as a result of contradictions between Pakistani and Norwegian culture.
Although he has told about violence and the fight for love in the media in the past, it makes an impression to read his story in context. For “My Sake” is about his liberation from a conservative Muslim honor culture to create his own identity as a Norwegian-Pakistani. First on his own, and later with his beloved Nadia and their three children.
After reading the book, I am left with a feeling that the battle is not over. For throughout history, Raja is pursued by new setbacks, problems and challenges.
Horrible boxing sensation
Child welfare
Perhaps the strongest impression is made by the brutal depiction of growing up in Iladalen in Oslo. Raja was born with anal atresia, a rare malformation of the rectum that results in neither bowel movements nor promping. His father in particular looked at him as a disgrace, and the descriptions of how he beat up the little boy make an impression. At one point, his father took him to Pakistan, where he had surgery to insert an iron ring into his rectum to solve the problem. Instead, it hurt worse.
But it does not get better when he tells about the abuse of a teacher. One thing is the reactions from the family. But when he is taken care of by the child welfare service and placed in a child welfare home, it leads him into violent crime, homelessness and suicidal thoughts. On one occasion he is close to killing a man by throwing a large stone at his head.
The way out of the disability will be a collaboration between the child welfare service, Raja and the parents. It is not the only example that he writes insightfully and knowledgeably about living at the intersection of a Muslim and a Norwegian culture. Like Shazia Majid’s “Out of the Shadows”, Raja’s “My Guilt” is an important contribution to understanding modern, multicultural Norway. While Majid tells the story of the translated immigrant women, Raja describes her own, her friends’ and her wife Nadia’s experiences.
Tough Nadia
I would like to summarize these experiences and Raja’s considerations in a witty sentence. But one of the book’s strengths is that Raja never resorts to simple explanations. For example, it becomes clear when he meets the great love of his life Nadia, and they marry.
First, Raja appears to be a really conservative, old-fashioned man compared to Nadia. He imagines that Nadia will be his when they get married. In the wedding ring, he has even had “Abids Nadia” engraved in her ring. She, on the other hand, appears as a progressive and radical young woman. She is training to be a psychologist, quotes the feminist Simone de Beauvoir and does not consider herself her husband’s property and jewelery.
Merciless self-surrender
On the contrary, she confronts her husband and his parents. She is shocked by his conservative extended family in Pakistan and refuses to take his last name. In the end, she makes Raja reluctant to go to a psychologist. Going into therapy becomes a turning point in his self-understanding and leads to some perhaps a little easy-going philosophical considerations. But with the portrait of Nadia, the depictions of her reactions and views, “My Guilt” becomes truly thought-provoking.
Poor sperm quality
Here it is not as simple as the Muslim woman being subordinate and oppressed to the man. Instead, Nadia’s perspective leads to a number of similarities between Pakistani and Norwegian men. For example, in Raja’s description of his reactions when he discovers that he has poor sperm quality.
“I was half human, could not have children, could not be a father, could not make the family that Nadia and I had always wanted. Our family dream had been shattered. My father no longer had to tell me this. His sentences had long since become my thoughts. “
I know from my own experiences and circle of acquaintances that even for so-called ethnic Norwegians, poor sperm quality and the discovery that you can not have children, can lead to a smashing of the self-image not unlike what Raja portrays. It can give one the feeling of not being a perfect man and lead to the loss of children that last a lifetime.
Raja’s portrayal is therefore an example of him mixing his biological and Pakistani father with some ideals of masculinity that transcend cultures and religions. Or to put it simply. In the quote, he corrects the baker for the blacksmith when he immediately blames his father for his shameful thoughts and his shattered self-image. In any case, it is one of the places I miss that our Minister of Culture and Gender Equality had included other explanations than the family and cultural ones. It would make his story of his liberation stronger and more thought-provoking.
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