{"id":9333,"date":"2013-08-19T07:34:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T07:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9333"},"modified":"2013-08-19T07:35:16","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T07:35:16","slug":"is-paki-bashir-actually-racist-paki-basher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9333","title":{"rendered":"Is ‘Paki Bashir’ actually racist Paki basher?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fringe\"<\/a>Jeff Mirza, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in Essex, was questioned over the use of the term in his act \u201cMeet Abu Hamsta and Paki Bashir\u201d at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Britain.<\/p>\n

The complaint came from another man of Pakistani background, who claimed he was upset by a poster for the show, which attempts to \u201creclaim\u201d the use of the racially offensive term.<\/p>\n

Mr Mirza, 49, was dressed in character as a butcher, called Paki Bashir, when he was questioned at the police station on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. He was warned that he could be arrested and charged if he continued to use the poster, although he is continuing to do so.<\/p>\n

Mr Mirza said: \u201cHow on earth can I be accused of racism against my own community?\u201d<\/p>\n

His act centres on jokes about Pakistan and the wider Islamic world. His main character, Bashir, tells the audience he loves his family, \u201cotherwise of his workforce\u201d and says of Pakistan: \u201cWe also have a thriving gay community and they are also known as clerics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other characters include Hamsta, a Saudi said to be al Qaeda\u2019s ambassador of the arts in Luton. There is also Jameela, a woman in a burka, who tells how she was widowed when her first husband blew himself up as a suicide bomber at the third attempt.<\/p>\n

Mr Mirza was questioned after a man took a leaflet which he was handing out on the High Street in Edinburgh and went to a police station. \u201cI followed him into the station and \u2026 told him my daughter at the age of four had been racially abused and for many years after I had been angry when I heard that word.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a few years ago I realised that I am a Paki and I should be proud of that. Pakistan means Land of the Pure and what\u2019s wrong with that?<\/p>\n

“I have been called Paki so many times that the only thing for me was to turn it around and make people laugh with me. Black people use the N word as a sort of reclaiming it in songs and on TV and I have never seen any of them arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

A police spokesman said: \u201cPolice have a certain amount of room to give guidance and in this case it has been decided that there will be no further action.\u201d – The Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Mirza, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in Essex, was questioned over the use of the term in his act \u201cMeet Abu Hamsta and Paki Bashir\u201d at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Britain. The complaint came from another man of Pakistani background, who claimed he was upset by a poster for the … Continue reading “Is ‘Paki Bashir’ actually racist Paki basher?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3,123],"tags":[5263,5262,157],"class_list":["post-9333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-world","tag-edinburgh-fringe","tag-paki","tag-racism"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/fringe.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9336,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9333\/revisions\/9336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}