The Conflict of Identity

By Ismaeel Hoque

When asked to write a piece on my identity, I felt unworthy. In my mind I had the herculean task to represent the Bengali diaspora and the children of all migrants. This sense of imposter syndrome comes from personal doubts partly to do with my dyslexia and partly due to questions about whether I can truly call myself Bengali or, in a more forgiving take, simply part of who I am as a second-generation Bengali. It stems from the person who I look at with incredible fondness and jealousy, my younger self. Through the upbringing and influence of my parents and the loving influence of my grandparents, I look back at videos of me fluently speaking Sylheti Bangla with my family, a skill I’ve sadly lost over time. It was lost to the realities of growing up. Going to school meant learning English and practicing it at home. This combined with being surrounded by English from the street signs to tv and a diverse friendship group naturalised English as my main language. I now grip onto what little Bangla I have and hide my receptive bilingualism. How can someone who can barely speak the language speak for the diaspora? It is one of many questions that came to mind when asked to write this piece. However, the answer lies in the mission of the British South Asian Dialogue Forum. A safe space for all South Asian voices of the diaspora, it invites people to speak on the matter, including what I believe are more marginalised voices, that of my fellow Bengali, Sri Lankan, Afghani, Nepalese, and Bhutanese brothers and sisters, as well as the customary Pakistani and Indian voices. The Forum takes the old medium of journalism but modernises and democratises it via Substack. It is in this innovation I find comfort. The identity of the Bengali and South Asian diaspora can be found not in my sole work but in the combination of works found on this Substack and beyond. I hope and pray what follows is an unabashed and honest account of my identity, a few hundred words that document a unique but also a quite similar history to my peers. I hope to come some way in understanding my identity as a British South Asian Muslim.

It’s fascinating I concluded my introduction as being a British South Asian Muslim. Who gave me the titles of British South Asian Muslim, British Bengali and British Muslim? Certainly not me. As humans and immigrants, we are branded and retrofitted to these groups in all walks of life, from our media to the forms we fill out. We are socialised into thinking we are British first, and then our heritage and religion come second. I may tick this box on a job form, but this is most certainly not the case. As mentioned above, I had a strong but limited Bangla influence on me. I spoke fluent Sylheti with my family. Bangladesh influenced the food I ate and the clothes I wore. Still to this day curries such a dhal (lentils) and tenga (sour fish curry) forms the majority and preferable part of my diet. When I dare to venter out of my comfort zone and try cooking pasta, I end up creating a rich heavy sauce mimicking a curry and rice dish. Though initially strong, my sense of being Bengali was diluted by a multitude of factors, one of them being moving away from Tower Hamlets, the traditional home of the Bengali diaspora in London. More influential to me was an Islamic upbringing instilled by both parents. My father would take us to the mosque every weekend. Our first time abroad was not on umrah (pilgrimage) to the holy city of Makkah at the age of five. It would take another five years for me to visit back home in Bangladesh at the age of 10. With holidays to Arab resorts sprinkled in between. This, I believe, encapsulates my identity thus far. The young Ismaeel had a strong Islamic identity with a smaller but significant tinge of Bangla. Primary education had the standard impact on me; it was not till later that my education took a significant hold on my identity. If we are to go back to the labels I spoke of earlier, I would no doubt be a Muslim Bengali.

At risk of sounding pompous and self-gratifying, the last paragraph makes me come across as a slight radical throwing off the English yoke, eschewing any British sense of myself. This is obviously not true; I had a deep-rooted support for England in sport. However, it was my time during my latter secondary school education and career in sixth form that I developed a more sophisticated idea and sense of my personal Britishness. This is what I believed created the two great pulls. I had the traditional pull of a practising Muslim with a Bengali background. With now a secondary pull of this idea of feeling British. This new idea is best personified through my love of history. My love for the CBBC show Horrible Histories had, by this point, matured into a romance with British history. I had a fondness of the Hanoverian Monarchs; I explored the British Industrial Revolution and its colonial consequences and overall dived deeper into topics being taught in the classroom. I also began to feel connected to London as a city. As I grew up, I was able to explore the city more, appreciating all it has to offer, and thus far I have somewhat explained my sense of Britishness; however, I have not explained why I call my identities a pull. Again, this is best explained through history. When saying we, I was and still am referencing the British. During A-level history, studying India's path to independence, I saw the sub-continent of my ancestors as naturally my own. Rather humorously and confusingly, I often found myself answering history questions as if I belonged to both sides. This dichotomy therefore leads to the two pulls of my life, which I still contend with to this day. These pulls didn’t have time to settle till they got put to the test. My gap year saw the rise of two conflicts. The current stage of the decades-long conflict in Israel and Palestine saw me embracing functions of British democracy such as the right to protest. Furthermore, the student-led protest in Bangladesh saw the removal of Sheikh Hasina. Saw me questioning the events through multifaceted lenses. I sometimes found tension in answering questions about what different political events meant for Ismaeel the Muslim, Ismaeel the Bengali and Ismaeel the Brit. Thus, explaining the pulls in terms of my identity.

Thus far I have spoken about obvious factors influencing my identity, again going back to a tick box exercise on a job form. However, what that doesn’t ask about is possibly a factor more influential than the aforementioned pulls, people. My parents, friends and teachers are all part of me. But it is the story of my grandfathers that takes light. One an orphan, both exiled by circumstances from all familiarity, toiling day and night. It is not them but me who enjoys the standard of opulence they created. Some might argue that not speaking my grandparents' language is a shame, but the greater tragedy would be to forget them entirely. When spending time with my family, I must remember they were forced away from theirs. When in food markets tasting a fusion of cuisines, I must also taste the deficient diet they eat. When on a boat taking off my diving suit, I must remember the sweat they took off after a gruelling day's work. Identity is acknowledging who you are but also appreciating it. Once appreciating the different pulls of identity, they are no longer relegated to the back of our brains but become promoted, coursing through our veins, influencing our every action.

At university being away from my family and my natural habitat has led me to reflect on who I am as a person; uninterrupted by the influences of home, I’ve come to recognise the very pulls I’ve described above. Now realising them, I can come to terms with them, explore them and be at ease with them, allowing them to interact. This was best seen when I achieved a lifelong dream of mine, inviting my non-Muslim friend to break fast with me during the month of Ramadan. As I continue my journey in exploring my identity, I hope I do get stories like this where I can express equal measures of my identity pulls. Furthermore, university, in my opinion, is a seminal time in all people’s lives in formulating, understanding, and solidifying a person’s identity. University and this article have allowed me to integrate and explore myself at a deeper level. Naturally we are not the same people in every environment. I don’t act the same way in front of my family as I do with my friends. Around different people I see the different pulls of my identity take over. However, with more exploration with my identity through this article, the shared should lead to the change to the narrative of identity I have presented thus far. The reason I’ve framed identity as a conflict is because these emotions are still fresh and unfamiliar. They feel raw, so they manifest as tensions. However, with deeper exploration and understanding, this identity conflict and its pulls can change to become an accepted and positive phenomenon in our brains, interacting with each other and bolstering them. This should then translate into actions that are informed by our identity. Ultimately making identity less of a conflict and more of a source of harmony.