專訪英國板球明星Moeen Ali
Moeen Ali的大鬍子或是之前參加比賽穿戴聲援巴勒斯坦的手環(Free
Palestine),遭到英國右派報紙的批判。右派質疑他太過宗教,不應該在公領域中過於強調。
另外他也談到對伊斯蘭、英國認同與中東局勢的看法。
I do let people touch it."
Moeen Ali is not just referring to
but stroking – what else? – his glorious beard. The England cricketer grabbed
the headlines over the summer, on both the front and the back pages, for his
dazzling performances against India and Sri Lanka - and, also, for his striking
visage.
England fans have dubbed him 'The
Beard That's Feared', a slogan that has inspired both T-shirts
and Twitter hashtags.
Newspapers such as the Mail and
the Independent
have compared Ali to the bearded, Victorian-era cricket legend WG Grace.
"Let’s be honest, it’s hard to
take the eyes off that long, lustrous beard," noted a recent profile
of Ali in the Sunday Times. Writing in the
Independent, columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown referred to the
cricketer’s "Taliban beard".
Does the focus on his facial hair
bother Ali? "It doesn’t bother me too much, to be honest with you,"
he says. "Some of the stuff is quite funny. People have their opinions
about everything. I've been called worse."
Indeed he has. Some commenters on
BBC Sport’s Facebook page in February, for example, responded to
Ali’s England team call-up by mocking the Birmingham-born all-rounder as
"Bin Laden".
Ali sees his beard, which he first
grew at the age of 18, as an "identity thing". Is he then, in his own way, trying to rebrand the big Muslim
beard? Perhaps, as the beard that should not be feared? "Yeah,
definitely. That’s whole beauty of it. If I can play, and change the mind of
one person about being a Muslim player and having a beard, then I'll feel as if
I've done my job."
I meet Ali in the lobby of a plush
hotel near London’s Tower Hill, a few days after England’s recent Test Series
victory over India. The 27-year-old cricketer looks relaxed and rested in a maroon hoodie and grey tracksuit
bottoms.
I have to lean forward in my seat
to hear his answers to my questions. To call Ali soft-spoken would be an
understatement. He talks quietly, slowly and
deliberately; carefully thinking through each statement, each answer.
Cricket is his life. It always has
been and, he suggests, always will be. Encouraged by his sport-obsessed father
and uncle - Pakistani-born twin brothers who married twin sisters - the young
Moeen played and practised daily in his back garden, which was soon converted
into a training ground. "We had a big cabbage patch and we put a net down
[over it].. and me and my brothers trained there and that’s how we learned our
cricket."
Ali is the third of four children -
he has two brothers, one younger and one older, and an elder sister. His
brothers, Kadeer
and Omar,
have played for Worcestershire and Herefordshire while two of his cousins, Kabir
and Aatif,
have also played cricket for county teams. (Kabir, according to
CricInfo's George Dobell, "had a cricket ball placed in his cot
the day he was born").
Is cricket in his family's DNA?
"I dun no. My dad absolutely loves cricket and [so did] his brother."
Don’t most Pakistani fathers love
cricket? "My dad is very different to other Pakistani dads," he
responds. "It was almost like he knew we were going to play
[professionally] and he committed 100% to the cause, which I feel a lot of
British Asian parents, when they see their child is a good player, they don’t
push him as much as my dad did. My dad sacrificed everything he had [for
us]."
A trained psychiatric nurse, Munir Ali
quit his job to start coaching his kids full time. Today,
he runs an academy called MA Cricket in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham, where
Moeen grew up.
Was there any other career path he
would have considered? "No. From nine, I started playing cricket. From 11,
I knew this is what I’m doing."
What about his 11-month-old son Abu
Bakr (who Ali named after the first Muslim caliph)? "My wife wants him to
be an ‘aalim’ [religious scholar] and so do I, to be honest. But I’m obviously
going to let him play cricket and enjoy it."
Cricket, explains Ali, "means
so much to me. I started as a professional at 15 and I feel I've learned a lot
more through cricket than others have [learned] outside of cricket. It teaches
you a lot about life and staying grounded. If you think you’re on top of the
world it can bring you back down."
The all-rounder was 14 when
terrorists attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11 and 18 when terrorists attacked the
London Underground on 7/7. Would the Ali of 2001 or of 2005 ever have believed
that a proud, practising, big-bearded Muslim such as himself would one day be
playing for England and listening to the fans chant his name?
Ali reveals that he wasn't, in
fact, a practising Muslim as a teenager. "I never for once thought I’d be
religious sort of person at that sort of age. At the time I was very relaxed
and chilling out.. I never thought I'd be playing for England
with a big beard."
So what changed? As a teenager, he
says, "I had a lot of questions in my head about why we're
here, and I searched around, I looked into other religions." At a cricket match, aged 18, Ali bumped into a former Christian who had converted to Islam. "I asked him why he had become a Muslim.. I said to him:
‘Why would you follow a religion which has [forced] marriages and all these
wrong things?' And he said, ‘That’s not your religion, that’s from your
culture, your Pakistani culture’ and from there we just started talking."
Almost a decade later, Ali is a
changed man. He prays fives times a day and fasts for 30 days every Ramadan. Many British Muslims found it difficult to fast for up to 19
hours a day during Ramadan, in July, so how was he able
to fast while playing competitive cricket? Ali chuckles.
"I think if I was in an office I would find it harder, to be honest with
you. Because you’re probably used to snacking but when I'm playing cricket it
keeps me busy. I’m out in the field."
How many days, total, did he end up
fasting while playing? He pauses to do a mental calculation. "20
days." Another pause. "I just got used
to it. It’s something that keeps me stronger."
I mention to Ali how the former USA
basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon,
a devout Muslim, used to often point out to
reporters that he played better, and scored more points, during the
month of Ramadan. The England cricket star nods vigorously. "Yeah, that’s
exactly how I feel when I'm fasting. I actually score more runs and I do
better.. Probably because I'm more focused."
How important, today, is his Islamic
faith to him? "It’s everything to me. It means so
much to me. My relationship with the creator, following the prophet.. This is
where we Muslims have gone wrong. We stopped following the Quran and the
'sunnah' [the life example of the prophet] and have been deluded by the
world."
So it's the spiritual side, rather
than the practical or even political side, of the faith that appeals to him?
"Definitely," he replies. "People get involved not just in politics but in groups and
sects and.. forget the main reason why we’re here: to worship Allah."
But should Ali, perhaps, be more
like former England cricket captain Nasser Hussain?
An England player who just happens to be Muslim, rather than an England player
who wears his Islam on his sleeve? Would it be wiser,
in terms of his career progression and public profile, to downplay his faith
and religious identity? He looks offended. "I just
feel if I do that I won’t be true to myself. I get asked a lot of questions
about my beard, about my religion, and I feel I have to answer them. Be honest
with [people]."
Not everyone wants such honesty,
however. "You're
playing for England, Moeen Ali, not your religion," declared
the headline to a Telegraph piece in June by the sports writer Michael
Henderson. The all-rounder shrugs when I read out the quote to him. "At
the end of the day, I'm a Muslim and it doesn’t bother me what someone like him
[says]. It doesn't bother me one bit.”
Does he see himself as an ambassador
for Islam? His answer is refreshingly self-aware. "I think a lot of people do see me as like a role model or as
an ambassador."
But isn’t there an unbearable
pressure that comes with being a role model, an ambassador? "There
is," he replies, before adding that it also helps him "to be on my
best behavior".
I can't help but mention the name
of Monty Panesar,
England's first Sikh test player, who was fined for
urinating on bouncers outside a nightclub in Brighton in August
2013. From hero, as they say, to zero.
He shrugs. “Whatever is meant to be
is meant to be,” says a philosophical Ali. He continues: “I feel myself [to be]
quite a strong character.”
On the second day of the third Test
with India in Southampton, on 28 July, Ali took to the field wearing two
wristbands with the messages "Free Palestine" and "Save
Gaza" on them. At the time, the Israeli air assault on the Gaza Strip was
into its third week, with more than 1,100 Palestinians having been killed and
hundreds of thousands left homeless.
The match referee wasn't happy with
the England all-rounder and nor was the International Cricket Council (ICC),
whose rules say players shouldn't wear any messages relating to
"political, religious or racial activities" during matches. An ICC
spokesman later told BBC Sport
that Ali had been "warned not to wear the bands again".
So why did he do it? Ali is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and has helped
raise money for the Ummah Welfare Trust, a Muslim charity with a particular focus on the crisis in Gaza. "I do feel
strongly about that kind of stuff, not just for Gaza but any sort of
humanitarian cause.. It does make me sad that these kinds of things happen. I
always feel quite emotional about these sort of things. It’s very sad to see
the [Gaza] videos and all that kind of stuff."
On the issue of the wristbands, he
explains: "I didn’t realise it was going to be such a big thing, to be
honest.. Maybe my ignorance."
It was a "big thing",
however, with the wristbands prompting global coverage of the England cricket
star and a backlash from some sections of the press - and even some of the
player's peers. "No one has
gained from Moeen Ali's wristbands," read a headline on the
Telegraph's website. "He's been a silly boy," former England bowler Steve Harmison said. "He's a
cricketer, it's a cricket field and he shouldn't be wearing that. He has been a
bit silly and naive."
Sitting in the hotel lobby, a month
later, Ali tells me how it wasn't planned as a premeditated or political
statement on his part. "I just had it on [in the dressing room] and didn’t
take it off."
Did none of his fellow players, none
of the members of the England coaching staff, spot them on his left wrist and
warn him to take them off beforehand? "No one."
In fact, the England Cricket Board
(ECB), unlike the ICC, backed Ali's decision to wear them and subsequently
issued a statement saying: "Moeen has done nothing wrong."
"I didn’t actually know [the
ICC rules]," Ali reveals. "I knew there was some sort of thing but
it’s not something I really was thinking about. I had them on and went out to
bat and they were on... I saw other players wearing other
stuff [such as] 'Help For Heroes' and the rest."
Is there a double standard, given
England players are allowed to wear the logo of the military charity, Help for Heroes, on their shirt collars?
He dodges my question. "I think people just saw it as a political view but
I didn't mean it as a political view. But, fair enough, if it’s [against] the
rules."
I try again. Is it inconsistent,
unfair even, to allow cricketers to show their support on the pitch for some
causes but not others? There’s a long pause from Ali. "Um, I dunno. We’ve
worn Help For Heroes, it’s a good cause… it doesn’t really affect me too much.
I don’t want to say too much."
Ali restates his position: "It
was humanitarian and I've thanked the ECB for backing me and letting me wear
it."
Despite the ICC’s reaction, notes
Ali, "I had it on and a lot people were aware it and I got the message
out. So it's fine."
Ali wasn't, of course, the only
public figure to take a very visible stand on Gaza. Baroness Warsi, the senior Foreign Office
minister, quit the
government in protest over the UK's failure to condemn Israel's air
assault on the Palestinians of Gaza. Warsi, like Ali, is a Muslim of British Pakistani descent and, like
him, has been repeatedly accused of putting her faith ahead of
her career. "She took a choice and it’s a brave choice, and
I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision," he says, before adding: "She’s
made people aware of the situation, of Gaza, and I think it’s a good
thing."
Referring to the blockade of Gaza,
Ali says that "to be under siege in this day and age.. I can’t believe it
actually happens, to be honest". The cricketer tells me wants the
"killing to stop. On both sides."
Is he worried about being smeared
as a Hamas supporter or as an apologist for terrorists? "I don’t feel like
that one bit.. I don’t support any group.. I see the children, the women, the
people just getting murdered, it’s very sad. They’re who I support and who I
back. It’s not the group fighting somebody. I’m supporting the people and
trying to make people aware."
As a self-professed ambassador for
Islam, living, working and playing amongst non-Muslims, how does he explain the barbaric behavior of the so-called ‘Islamic
State’? How does he convince his non-Muslim friends and
colleagues that the behaviour of IS (or ISIS) is un-Islamic, even anti-Islamic?
Ali paraphrases a famous verse from
the Quran: "Killing one person is like killing the whole of humanity and
saving one person is like saving the whole of humanity." He continues: "To be honest, throughout my cricket
career, since I've had a beard, I've had to explain a lot of things to people.
I try and say, ‘This is not Islam, this is just being people brainwashed or
whatever’.. If you look at Islam, it condemns this sort of thing."
In recent months, around 500 British Muslims
are estimated to have gone out to fight for extremist groups in Syria and Iraq,
such as IS and the Al Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al Nusra. The killer
of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff is believed to be a Brit. How worried is Ali about the prospects of more young Muslims from
the UK travelling to the Middle East, in the coming weeks and months, to fight
and kill alongside violent extremists?
“It is a little bit worrying,"
he says. "As Muslims we need to understand the ruling behind [whether]
guys can go [to fight]. From my understanding.. we’re not
allowed to go and fight.. We’ve got to be patient as Muslims.. It doesn’t mean sit back and let it happen. It’s a tough one.
We've got to be stronger as Muslims; concentrate on prayer
and following the ‘sunnah’." He adds: "The strongest weapon we have as Muslims to is to make ‘dua’
[prayer]. We’ve got to be stronger, better Muslims."
Does he have a piece for advice for
any young British Muslims thinking of going out to fight in Iraq or Syria, on
behalf of a jihadist group such as IS?
"I would strongly advise them
not to go," he says, adding: "I obviously understand they’re in a
situation where they’re quite hurt about seeing these sorts of things,”
referring to the killings carried out by the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
Nevertheless, “you could be on your way there and get caught and be in jail for
so long... It’s a shame."
Is he worried, at all, about the media
coverage of Islam and Muslims in the UK? Do the papers
cover his faith fairly or unfairly? "Unfairly, I’d say.
I think it’s changing and slightly getting better." However, he argues, "we do get given more of a bad name. If something happens with Muslims, it’s always ‘This Muslim has
done this’ and never ‘This person has done this’. The
word ‘Muslim’ has to be in there. If it was a non-Muslim, it wouldn’t matter
what religion he was. [The media] is a little bit biased."
Has he had any rows over his
religion with his fellow cricketers? "No, there’s been times where maybe
the other guy has got heated.." He stops himself. "Not England
players, [players on] my county side." Ali says he
prefers to keep calm. "I try and control my anger. I don’t really get
angry."
Cricket is a team sport. Ali,
however, is the sole Muslim on his team. It must be difficult being part of a
team but unable to go out pubbing or clubbing with his team mates, due to his
Islamic faith. Does he feel lonely? "I don’t feel like that at all,"
he says, which surprises me a little. "If anything when I see the state of
the [other players] the next day, I thank God I'm not into that sort of
stuff."
Ali tells me a story about how he
was standing on the pitch being racially abused by drunk fans "a long time
ago" and he turned to his fellow players and said: "This is exactly
why we don’t drink. These guys are out of control."
How much did that racist and
Islamophobic abuse bother him? "When I first
started, I was green and I took it more personally. Over time, I got used to
it."
Now, Ali tells me, he experiences
very little abuse or hate. The world of cricket is much more open and tolerant
than a decade or two ago. "I'm very, very fortunate.. [Worcestershire] have given me a prayer room, time to pray, they
understand fasting, they always seem to help me and, if anything, they
encourage me [to practice Islam]."
Ali is frustrated that his fellow
British Asians, especially members of the older generation, don’t seem to
realize how racism in cricket is, largely, a thing of the past. "If you
work hard and you perform, then no one can stop you." (A fortnight after
our interview, however, Ali was booed by India supporters at a Twenty20
international in Birmingham; his father described
the booing as "disgraceful" while Ali himself said
it may have been because "my background is from Pakistan" but hoped
that "over time we can change” fans' attitudes.)
What would he say to members of the
British National Party or the English Defence League who claim there is an inevitable and irreconcilable clash
between British or English values, on the one hand, and Islamic values, on the
other? "I would totally disagree. I am a Muslim, yes, but I
am also very English. People don’t realise how proud I
am to be representing my country or being from Birmingham." His home city,
where he was born and brought up, is an essential part of his identity, he
says. “I don’t feel at home until I’ve come off the motorway at Birmingham.
Then I know I'm at home."
Was he ever tempted to play for
Pakistan? "It never once crossed my mind. I’m very proud of playing for
England and representing my country."
What about his friends and family?
Do they - as Tory politician Norman Tebbit (in)famously demanded - support
England, rather than their countries (or their parents' countries) of origin,
and thereby 'prove' that they're integrated and patriotic? "My granddad
supported Pakistan and always wanted Pakistan to win or do well," says
Ali. "My grandmother is English, is white, so my dad is
mixed race. My dad has always wanted England to do well, in
football and cricket, but when Pakistan is playing anyone else, then we all
want Pakistan to do well."
Ali admits, however, that a number
of young British Pakistanis have told him in recent months that they have only
started supporting England since he started playing – and winning - for
England. Smiling, the all-rounder tells me how he bumped into a British
Pakistani who went on pilgrimage to Mecca and, standing in front of the sacred,
cube-shaped Kaaba building, says he "prayed for England to do well".
To those British Pakistanis who
don’t pass the so-called Tebbit test, Ali’s message is direct and
uncompromising: "Being English, being born in England,
this is our home and we should be supporting our home country."
What if Scotland votes for
independence on 18 September? Would that bother an
England player of Pakistani descent such as himself? Ali reveals himself to be
a proud unionist. "I think it’d be a shame. Only because.. in my lifetime
we’ve always been one. It’s always been the UK – Scotland, England, Wales,
Northern Ireland. It’d be a shame if it happens."
So what’s his message to
pro-independence Scots? He grins. "Stay with us. Definitely. It’d be
nice."
Being British, says Ali,
"means a lot to me. I feel very proud when people ask me where I’m from. I
can raise my head and say I'm very happy I was brought up in a country where I
was very fortunate, where we have limited problems."
Growing up in the UK, he tells me,
"has given me a lot of opportunities. I probably wouldn’t be in this
situation if I hadn’t been born here or raised here."
Ali says he’s both "very happy"
and "very proud" to call himself English and British. Does he call himself mixed race, too? "My grandmother was
white, so that makes me a quarter white," he replies, before explaining:
"I don’t see colour as an issue. I see everybody as being
the creation of God. We’re all brothers and sisters in
humanity."
Over the course of the summer,
British sports reporters have referred
to Ali’s "surge to cult status"; a Reuters profile
was headlined "Proud Muslim Moeen emerges as cult figure".
How odd does it feel to suddenly be
described as a "cult figure"? "It’s crazy," he says, with a
laugh. "I don’t like to see myself as a big person or let people treat me
differently." Nevertheless, he tells me, "my younger cousins come
over to visit now and before I was ‘brother’ or ‘uncle’. Now it’s like: ‘Is
Moeen Ali here?’ They call me by my full name for some reason." He laughs
again.
Across the course of my interview
with him, whether we're discussing IS or Hamas, sport or Scotland,
Ali seems to exude calm; he is much more mature than most
sports stars in their twenties. As David Leatherdale, chief executive of
Worcestershire, where Ali plays country cricket, has aptly put it:
"He is a very down to earth guy. Cricket is very much his focus. As an
individual he’s quite laid back."
Does the "laid back"
England star have a plan, I wonder? Where does he see himself 10 or 20 years
from now? He looks pleased that I’ve asked this question of him before we
finish the interview.
"My biggest goal was to play
for England. Done that. Now it’s to play for England as long as I can. One of
the biggest things I’d like to achieve is to encourage other people of faith, any
sort of faith, to play cricket, or professional sport, and follow your
faith."
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