In the background, the sun sets over the Himalayan mountains framing the intricately drawn villages of the Kashmir valley, where Sabba Khan’s family are from. In the foreground, though, Khan is walking with her mother through Queen's Market, in east London. It’s a telling juxtaposition, central to Khan’s moving graphic memoir The Roles We Play, the end of a chapter which starts with her asking: “Where is home, Mamma?”
It’s a question that is as much rhetorical and symbolic as it is literal. Two thirds of today’s British Pakistani diaspora can trace their origins back to Mirpur in Azad Kashmir (on the Pakistan side), a place that suffered mass displacement after the Mangla Dam was built in the 1960s, submerging homes, lands and livelihoods.
Khan’s parents came to England shortly afterwards, “doing jobs that the whites thought themselves above”. It was in London that Khan was born, the youngest of five children growing up dealing with ancestral ties and racial tension, the trauma of migration and the soothing - yet sometimes suffocating - balm of the family home.
It’s this constant push and pull between tradition and modernity, family and self-determination which gives The Roles We Play a poignant power. An architectural designer, Khan's trade certainly informs her art as she interrogates the importance of space, both physical and mental, in emotive illustrations that range from comic strip-like narratives to sweeping panoramas, self-portraits and infographics.
If The Roles We Play feels like an extended, artistic therapy session, then that might be the point - although it’s also a universal, wry, exploration into the dilemmas, traumas and comforts that every child of immigrants will recognise. The accompanying playlist, featuring everyone from D’Angelo to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Radiohead, deepens the experiences still further.
“It started off as a personal exercise,” she explains, “and the more I showed the chapters to people, the more encouragement I got, the more I realised it could be a safe space to talk about things that are quite difficult to approach; my family, the diaspora experience, my own struggle for self-acceptance.”
Khan often likens her experiences to being one of constantly trying to please other people, whether that be her family, the expectations of the country in which she lives, or the Kashmiri Muslim community. She calls it code switching, and the book asks both her community and the country to look beyond racial stereotypes and expected behaviours.
“It’s important for my generation and the ones to come to give ourselves the space to ask what is beautiful and uplifting about our communities, too,” she says. “My aunt said to me: ‘Sabba, we are great explorers, we’ve travelled across many lands, we’ve accommodated so much, we’ve grown so much. We’re constantly adaptable.’
“And I see that in my own family. I’ve seen my parents start off bringing their children up in a very rigid structure of arranged marriages to the point where there’s me, marrying outside the Pakistani community. That just speaks to the fact that a lot of our communities aren’t closed off and segregated – we are highly agile, flexible, incredibly embracing.”
The beginnings of her relationship with her partner is beautifully explored in the book. There’s an intensely personal section where she not only realises the depth of her love for him – “who could have known that a temporal love of this world would bring me closest to the divine” - but also the jealousy she felt because he, as a white man, was automatically “welcomed, accepted, loved and respected by everyone.”
She wonders whether she would have met him had she not taken the decision to remove her hair covering in her twenties – “it had grown louder than me,” she writes – and knows that the answer is no.
“It was such an obvious symbolic gesture to de-purdah – maybe even a bit easy,” she says. “But I do hope that people are able to create those moments where they can define and position themselves in society in a way that works for them; it doesn’t have to be as visible as what I did.”
What The Roles We Play does explore really intelligently is that seismic decisions like de-purdah don’t immediately have to be binary; it’s not a rejection of religion, tradition or family as much as a chance to engender a deeper awareness of self.
“I was definitely on a journey of dismissing everything,” she says. “But then, I’d also feel really uncomfortable and a bit disrespectful to everything that had come before me. There is a certain arrogance and self-righteousness in saying, ‘All these people are wrong, I’ll show them the right way.' At every point, I would remind myself of the sheer power of what my family have achieved, and constantly remind myself of their context, their situations, the things that they were grappling with and how they've shaped and defined them.
“It’s almost like I am here, and able to critique things, and have therapy and these conversations with myself through this book because they afforded me that privilege. So definitely, spirituality and faith are an incredibly powerful tool to offer hope, a thread to hold onto when things are unpredictable, unreliable and unknown.”
The act of drawing has that power for Khan, too. She didn’t grow up with access to comics, but became intrigued by the graphic novel section of Central Saint Martins’s library, where she was studying architecture. She’s slightly embarrassed to admit that her gateway into the form was Craig Thompson’s best-selling Blankets, but actually the comparison is apt; both are in part about growing up in families in which religion plays a significant role, where the protagonist comes to some kind of accommodation with their relationship to spirituality.
That’s the beauty of The Roles We Play – a deeply human response to a situation in which, suffocated by the "mothering" of both her community and herself, Khan was constantly shape-shifting, trying to fit in, being judged. She broke the cycle through love, art and understanding.
“At first, I wanted people to cry with me and share in my pain,” she says. “Now, I want to give people a window to see into the beautiful complexity of life.”
The Roles We Play is out in bookstores on July 15
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Bundesliga fixtures
Saturday, May 16 (kick-offs UAE time)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (4.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Freiburg (4.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin (4.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn (4.30pm)
Augsburg v Wolfsburg (4.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach (7.30pm)
Sunday, May 17
Cologne v Mainz (4.30pm),
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich (7pm)
Monday, May 18
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen (9.30pm)
Gulf Under 19s
Pools
A – Dubai College, Deira International School, Al Ain Amblers, Warriors
B – Dubai English Speaking College, Repton Royals, Jumeirah College, Gems World Academy
C – British School Al Khubairat, Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Dubai Hurricanes, Al Yasmina Academy
D – Dubai Exiles, Jumeirah English Speaking School, English College, Bahrain Colts
Recent winners
2018 – Dubai College
2017 – British School Al Khubairat
2016 – Dubai English Speaking School
2015 – Al Ain Amblers
2014 – Dubai College
PRESIDENTS CUP
Draw for Presidents Cup fourball matches on Thursday (Internationals first mention). All times UAE:
02.32am (Thursday): Marc Leishman/Joaquin Niemann v Tiger Woods/Justin Thomas
02.47am (Thursday): Adam Hadwin/Im Sung-jae v Xander Schauffele/Patrick Cantlay
03.02am (Thursday): Adam Scott/An Byeong-hun v Bryson DeChambeau/Tony Finau
03.17am (Thursday): Hideki Matsuyama/CT Pan v Webb Simpson/Patrick Reed
03.32am (Thursday): Abraham Ancer/Louis Oosthuizen v Dustin Johnson/Gary Woodland
A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
