When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the evolving identity of what it means to be British in a multicultural society.
Riz Ahmed expresses how his perspective on identity has shifted over time. Initially feeling the need to categorize himself as British-Pakistani, he now embraces a broader conception of British identity that includes diverse representations, such as himself and others in the public eye. His statement highlights the changing narratives around national identity, particularly in multicultural societies, where people of different backgrounds can embody what it means to belong.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about multiculturalism at a community event.
I get good references from a wide range of music. Something who's been a good influence in the last few years is Qawwali music. If you listen to a Qawwali singer like Aziz Mian - he's like James Brown. Qawwali is like Pakistani gospel-jazz. It's emotional, but it's also improvised, and it's all about that sacred-and-profane tightrope.
No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true.
Rehearsing a scene beds a role into you. But sometimes, if you over-rehearse it without unearthing any new meaning in it, you can suddenly forget your lines. You realise that you are on a stage, not in the real world. The scene's emotional power, and your immersion in it, disappears.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and cherish one chip on your shoulder than it's taken off you and swapped for another. The jewellery of your struggles is forever on loan, like the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the crown jewels.
I'm an actor. Since I was a teenager, I have had to play different characters, negotiating the cultural expectations of a Pakistani family, Brit-Asian rudeboy culture, and a scholarship to private school. The fluidity of my own personal identity on any given day was further compounded by the changing labels assigned to Asians in general.
To say that I'm healed, uh, would be to imply that there's an endpoint. And I think healing is something that we all do, that we'll all continually do, for the rest of our lives.
We are continuously living a new life, and when the old and the new do not fit nicely together, the old - no longer able to contain the new - should be discarded.
Some believe that the only way to remove the authoritarian regime and replace it with a democratic one is through violent means. I would like to set the precedent of political change through political settlement, not through violence.
While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.
It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own.
Peaceful, lawful protest - if it is effective - IS innately disruptive of “business as usual.” That is WHY it is effective.
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