As a Radio 4 addict, my mind, emotions, ire, empathy and ‘are you kidding me?’ meters are triggered on a regular basis, but not often by ‘Desert Island Discs’. However, the last one I heard got the brain moving, and the emotions too.
The guest was Nadiya Hussain, last year’s winner of The Great British Bake-Off. I am a fan of the programme anyway – and who wouldn’t be – but this one stirred me more than usual.
This wasn’t a high flyer in academia, business, the arts, politics. Here was an ordinary woman, a devoted wife and mother – bright, articulate, but an ordinary woman. She was pushed into the limelight by her husband spurring her application, and blossomed over the weeks to become a more publicly confident winner.
That, however, wasn’t the most interesting aspect. She has subsequently been praised as being one of most important positive forces in inter-racial and inter-religious relations in this country. By being herself, and a Muslim, and succeeding. She has received, as you would expect, some negative activity from the neanderthal end of the internet, but overall a huge positivity.
This reminded me of a story from a week or so ago of Irom Sharmila Chanu, an Indian woman who has been on hunger strike for 14 years. Her reason – the draconian laws put in place to deal with peaceful protest, and the killing of innocent people by government forces. She has since decided that, as there is widespread awareness of the situation throughout India, it is time for a more direct approach and is standing for election.
And that reminded me of a third, and possibly even more impressive ordinary person. Malala Yousafzai was a child when she was thrown onto the world stage for being shot for wanting to be educated. She is now known worldwide, working with the UN to extend her aspiration to every girl in the world as a right.
And having watched ‘Suffragette’ last night something else has just occurred to me, these are all women.
It is easy to sit back and shrug and accept the ‘I am no-one. What can I do?’ approach to all of life’s little – and not so little – areas of unfairness. And then you look at these three, and thousands upon thousands of others, who have said no to the status quo.
Two from the ‘developing world’ – I hate that term, all three women, and yet real social and cultural revolutionaries.
And definitely anything but ordinary.
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