Standing up for brown
Many living in Asian countries migrate to the West in the hope of improving their standard of living and giving their children a better life.
Nazeem at a news conference earlier in the week
Immigrant parents most often expect their children to excel in the new country and perform academically in order to have successful careers.
Nazeem Hussain’s parents were no different. They migrated from Sri Lanka to Australia, where Nazeem was born and bred, and he studied hard to qualify as a lawyer. But he abandoned that successful career to become a comedian.
Happily, Nazeem’s new career brought him not just success but fame beyond the family’s wildest dreams. His critically acclaimed TV show ‘Legally Brown’ has received much commendation as a series which pushes boundaries –highlighting as it does the burning issue of racism in Australia.
In Sri Lanka this week to perform his show tonight at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre, he told the Sunday Times that although his parents would have preferred for him to be ‘successful’ in the traditional sense, they are his strongest supporters today.
Nazeem himself finds it difficult to process the fact that he is a professional comedian and that his work as a comedian is what currently pays the bills, especially considering that most people whom his mother informs of her son’s profession think she is joking.
Racism is a recurrent theme in Nazeem’s humour. Nazeem feels that most Asian, or ‘brown’ children growing up in Australia yearn to be Caucasian because of the social status and other privileges this affords.
This inherent racial bias has inspired him to reaffirm his Asian identity and has become the basis of his comedy.
A firm believer in the healing power of laughter, Nazeem feels that comedy which addresses social issues is a great way to tackle controversial topics which aren’t usually spoken of.
Issues which would otherwise cause heated arguments are navigated through quite effortlessly with humour because people absorb the message well and are more receptive than when approached through any other medium.
He therefore uses comedy to oppose ‘white privilege’ and feels that stand up comedy is an act of protest which is an excellent ‘way to speak the truth to power’.
He illustrated the many instances in which stand up comedy was used by repressed communities both as a coping mechanism and as a peaceful, nonviolent means to get their point across and admires the excellent way in which it’s used in America to speak of many issues – from racism to homophobia to gender apartheid.
Commenting on white privilege, or the inherent benefits experienced by Caucasians in Western countries, Nazeem says that the biggest issue faced by activists is getting people to acknowledge that it exists.
“It’s like trying to explain a concept to someone who has no point of reference because they have never experienced it in their lives.”’
Every problem has a root cause and Nazeem feels that the root cause for racism in Australia is the fact that the country was founded on racism – the suppression of Australian Aborigines, an issue never properly addressed that has paved the way for racism against other minorities, he feels.
Politicians play the race card to cause mass hysteria and successfully win votes and this tactic is commonly used to distract Australians from the real issues – for instance, poor Caucasians are told that the reason for all the issues they face are Muslims who steal their jobs and threaten their way of life.
Many Muslims start feeling marginalised as the very officials who are supposed to oppose racism and represent them promote an agenda which benefits the politicians alone.
This alienation is what causes the radicalization of Muslims in the West, is Nazeem’s opinion. Australians should unite against officials who attempt to distract citizens by creating disunity among them and instead demand for better solutions for social issues.
“It’s a very tricky time to be a Muslim in the West and I think that it’s going to become worse before it becomes better, especially with the rise of ISIS and the global war on terror,” says Nazeem.
Excited to be performing in his motherland for the first time Nazeem says that he never imagined that he would return to Sri Lanka to perform.
Having last visited in 2008, he feels that Sri Lanka has changed dramatically since then -the lack of military presence on the streets and the fact that people seem more content with the way society functions.
Sri Lankans possess the greatest sense of humour, make many self-deprecatory jokes and are what he calls a ‘story telling people’, he notes.
He applauds the cultural diversity of Sri Lankan society -most Sri Lankans are much more tolerant and embrace their multi-cultural identity in a way which most Australians do not, he feels. One of the sad side effects of growing up abroad, he says, is that he didn’t learn to speak Sinhalese or Tamil.
He understands Tamil after hearing his parents speak and is taking Tamil classes to remedy that.
One aspect he feels Sri Lankans should eradicate completely is the South Asian obsession with white skin; something which he feels has stemmed from a subconscious colonised mindset, he says citing the plethora of fair-skinned people on billboards and the constant demand for skin whitening products as proof of this.
Nazeem recalls a comment which a Bollywood actress had made about a successful producer; that the producer was ‘so good that he could make even an African look beautiful’ – a comment which he vehemently opposed.
So what can we expect from him tonight? No jokes about the social and cultural issues in Sri Lanka – Nazeem explains he isn’t interested in doing so for the simple reason that he considers it arrogance on his part to comment on a situation which he doesn’t have sufficient insight about.
But rest assured, there’s much to discover in Nazzem’s special stand-up act. ‘Nazeem Hussain is Legally Brown in Sri Lanka’ will be held today at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre at 7.30 p.m.