Inside the mind of a terrorist

The journey of a would-be suicide attacker, within and without, reveals the story behind the news story I can see across the whole city from here. Everyone is sleeping contentedly, indifferent to the crimes of their land." The land in question is post-9/11 Britain. And debut novelist Sunjeev Sahota's protagonist, Imtiaz Raina, has decided he wants to avenge British/Western crimes against "his" people. In Ours are the Streets, Sahota takes us on a fascinating — frightening even — journey into the mind of a would-be suicide attacker. Imtiaz, born and brought up in Sheffield, England — about as far away as you can get from the Hindu Kush range — wants to die a "martyr". Before he sets off on his final journey, Imtiaz wants his loving parents, his English wife and their little daughter to know the reasons for his momentous decision. Through his final words, he wants them to feel what he feels. The crimes that need to be punished, the humiliations that need to be avenged. Above all, he wants to be understood by those he loves. "… [D]on't listen to what the newspapers and TV will have said about me. None of it is true. They don't know me," he informs his daughter Noor from the grave. Imtiaz's longing for acceptance by those he considers to be his people is adeptly portrayed by Sahota in the dialect of the English Midlands ("time's sempt to have flown by", "I were always getting invited", etc). When he brings his dead father for burial to Pakistan, he finally feels he has arrived home. He begins to move in militant circles. Vying with fellow extremists to prove his resolve in the training camps of Kashmir, Imtiaz convinces himself that he believes in the cause. From then on, there is no looking back. "… [S]omeone [in Afghanistan] asked me whereabouts in England I were from. And I remember how it took ages for Sheffield to float into my head, as if I'd had to first remember a whole other person, and a whole other life," Imtiaz reflects. In the end, Imtiaz comes across as a tragic character and not a brutal terrorist, as he goes to great lengths to explain. Sahota's research on Islamic terminology is solid — for instance, the narrator uses the word "revert" instead of the conventional "convert" to describe someone who has embraced Islam. Most conservative Muslims would use the word "revert". The same, however, cannot be said about other aspects of his research. For instance, Sahota refers to Tata, Bajaj, Hero Honda, etc in Pakistan. Alas, these Indian vehicles are unavailable in that country! And then we have "moti" in Moti Lal being translated to "fat" as opposed to "pearl". But these glitches take nothing away from the novel. Sahota does not delve much into the details — political ideology, inter-racial relations, security crackdowns, the planning of attack. His novel is not meant to be a thriller. As he observed in an interview with Weekend Review, "I wanted to try and better understand those internal forces by writing from the viewpoint of a young man who has decided to die." The idea is to explain, to let Imtiaz give his side of the story — the story behind the news story. Ours are the Streets By Sunjeev Sahota, Picador, 256 pages, £12.99 From : Omar Shariff Deputy Editor, Weekend Review