By Christine Rayner
Children should not be overly protected from the problems of the world today. They are tough and ask great questions, says the young people’s author Onjali Rauf.
The writer — whose best-selling book The Boy at the Back of the Class tells the story of a refugee who finds peace and a kind, supportive friend when he arrives at a UK school — shared her views on faith, politics and the role of the media, at the Religion Media Festival at the JW3 centre in north London.
Ms Rauf, a campaigner for the rights of women and refugees, explained that The Boy at the Back of the Class arose from time spent working in the camps of northern France in 2015. She was moved to help by the image of a soldier carrying the body of a Syrian boy who drowned off the Turkish coast from a migrant boat.
This tragic story, which she relates in the schools she visits, set off “a series of ripple effects” in her life, leading to what she calls her “Tintin moment”, inspired by the boy reporter in stories by Hergé (real name Georgés Prosper Remi). She began to question why governments were breaking international human rights laws in their treatment of refugees.
Ms Rauf introduced the audience to Snowy, a soft toy replica of the dog who accompanies Tintin.
She grew up in a family with few books, but when she found a book of his stories, she was entranced by the wide array of characters from other nations shown on its pages — “from Egypt, from Saudi Arabia, from China, from other parts of the world where my Uncle Jamil could be in the background”.
After many conversations with her mother about the stories, Ms Rauf concluded that although Tintin was not a superhero, he had powers in the questions he asked as a journalist.
She said: “It’s the questions and the courage that come with asking those questions and the quest to find the truth. And that is what I always linked journalism with the quest to find the truth behind a mystery behind an answer. And of course, that takes Tintin on these madcap adventures, often meeting very, very stupid people.”
Tintin’s legacy, Ms Rauf believes, “centres on the courage to ask your question, to move forward and try to find the answers”. She urges the children she meets to question everything, to break out of boxes being created for them, or others.
While in the refugee camps, she met a heavily pregnant woman who had fled the horrors of Afghanistan and ended up in Dunkirk, where she was struggling to survive in dreadful conditions.
Ms Rauf and her colleagues returned to the UK to raise money to pay for the woman to give birth in hospital, but while they were there, they heard the baby had been born three days early. Fearing the worst, Rauf was thrilled to learn that the refugees living around the woman had pooled their meagre resources to ensure the woman gave birth in an ambulance.
The story of the baby’s birth in the camp was the inspiration for her first book about a boy called Muhammad who arrives at a UK school and is fortunate to meet someone who overlooks his obvious poverty and trauma and just wants to be his friend.
Rauf believes children are frequently underestimated for their strength of compassion and she has been moved by how her book affects them. She praised the teachers who took the time to listen to their pupils’ questions and who encouraged them to set up charity fundraising activities to help refugee causes.
One pupil was so moved by the home secretary Suella Braverman’s determination to deport migrants to Rwanda that she wrote to Queen Elizabeth demanding she opened up rooms at Buckingham Palace to support homeless people. The Palace replied that the royal family did not get involved in political matters, but the child has continued to lobby for practical solutions, Ms Rauf said.
She also talked about the dangers of putting people into convenient boxes, especially those relating to faith. She said: “When you’re a so-called minority religion, it can often be boxed in something that’s quite fearful, fearfully spoken about and often really not humanised. And when it comes to trying to break that box it tends to be a kind of pathway. The religion and the faiths guide us into how we can break those boxes for ourselves, and also break those boxes for other people.”
Ms Rauf, who founded the women’s rights organisation Making Herstory to tackle the abuse and trafficking of girls and women in the UK, visits schools to discuss the issues and is constantly impressed by the questions asked by children about war, discrimination, and the plight of migrants.
She said a regular question from young people she meets was: “Why is it that grown-ups are reacting to some refugees in one way, but not to other refugees in the same way?”
As a child, Onjali Rauf questioned why she did not learn in her history lessons about people from other countries, including India, Africa, Indonesia, or Singapore.
“Why was it we studied van Gogh in art, or Einstein in science, or Shakespeare in literature, but we never studied Aphra Behn, who was also a poet and playwright of her time [the 17th century]?” she asked. The questions posed by a young Onjali led her on a journey that has continued with thoughts over her place in society “as a person, as a woman of visible faith and of the Islamic faith”.
Questions continue to be posed by Ms Rauf as she goes about her busy life as a campaigner for women’s and refugee rights: “Why is it that border officers at airports will take extra time to go through things in my suitcase and my headscarf, but nobody else’s? Why is that I still have to carry around labels that have nothing to do with me?”
Ms Rauf finds strength and peace in her role as a broadcaster: “There is something wonderful about having just this moment on radio, where no one can see you, no one can judge you straight away; there isn’t this visible thing to present yourself with. They can’t put their own words and their own ideas onto you, there’s no projection going on. It’s just a radio voice coming out to you. Nobody knows who you are, really.”
She had advice for the journalists at the conference, warning that politics frequently shaped the news and it was the role of the media “to crash those boxes created, to break those bubbles”. She ended with the wish for journalists “that some of what I say will resonate with the stories that you create for us”.
Ms Rauf’s second book focuses on domestic violence and arose from a personal tragedy when an aunt was murdered by her partner, despite years of attempts by the family to keep her safe. She says she hates the term “domestic” because it allows wrongdoing to go on behind closed doors. “It’s not a private thing, it’s a community thing and there are women dying every single week and we still don’t do enough about it,” she said passionately.
The talk ended with reference to Onjali Rauf wearing a headscarf and how it made her “a woman of visible faith”. She said she had made the decision to cover her head when she was 17 and went on a pilgrimage and still experienced varying reactions, although most were positive.
