Ambreen Sadiq is a boxer. She’s a former UK
national champion, has her own business teaching students how to box and
coaches in her spare time. A play telling her story is being shown at
the Edinburgh Festival.
What's more, she’s only 20 years old. Oh, and a Muslim.
Sadiq has faced serious prejudice from the British Muslim community,
her neighbours, her school friends and even some members of her family.
They have objected because of her religion, her sex - even what she
wears.
“My dad’s family are
Pakistani Muslims and they’re very into their community,” she says. “It
was all 'you’re bringing shame into the culture’ because I'm an Asian
Muslim girl. If I was a boy it wouldn’t matter.”
Sadiq's parents, though, are supportive. Indeed, it was her younger
brother and dad who got her interested in boxing in the first place,
after they started doing it at the local gym.
'You're bringing shame to us'
The problem was with her aunts and uncles.
Sadiq tells me about her first boxing fight, when she was 15-years-old.
Her extended family came to support her and, the day after, her parents
threw her a party. But because her dad was away, her uncle stepped into
the patriarchal role and approached her.
She remembers every word he said.
“You've done really good but it's your first and your last fight. You
shouldn't do anymore because you're bringing shame to the family,” Sadiq
recalls.
“I was like, 'I've been training for two years and at
my party you tell me I can't fight'. I said: 'I'm sorry this is what I
love'.
"Obviously, they weren't happy about it.”
The
prejudice didn’t stop there. So successful was Sadiq, that her boxing
was featured in local newspapers and even a Channel 4 documentary. The
whole community knew about her.
“[Neighbours and people from the
mosque] would come up to me and say 'you’re doing really good'. Then
they'd go up to my mum and dad and say, 'what are you letting her box
for?'”
At school it was even worse. “People said 'you're a transsexual,
you're doing a man’s sport, you’ve got muscles like a man',” she says.
“I got bullied quite a bit.”
When her sister made a Facebook fan page, Sadiq even received death threats.
'Why do people want to kill me?'
“I thought, 'what have I got myself into?'” she says. “The negative
side was more from other women. I had loads of them saying that I was
making them look bad."
Sadiq says that the reaction from other women was worse than that from Muslim men.
"The negative side was from women. I had loads of them saying that I was making them look bad."
Muslim men took a mixed view. Some told her to keep going. But many confronted her and asked her what the hell she was doing.
"I was quite scared. I thought, 'what have I done that's so bad that people want to come and kill me?'
There can be little doubt that it's Sadiq's status as a Muslim woman
that's caused so much controversy. So does she think that her religion,
or gender, plays a bigger role?
“A lot of Muslim people say it's
about religion," she says. "But I think it's more about the culture and
how people have been brought up. Men and women are treated equally [in
the religion]. In the culture, it's like the women should be at home
cooking tea. The men put the food on the table.
READ: Islamophobia: why do so many young men hate Muslim women?
“It's like a stereotype: people grow up and see their mum at home and
dad going to work. If you don't do that, it's different and it's not
allowed. [Boxing]’s stereotyped as a male sport - people are punching
each other in the face and trying to knock each other out. They see
fighting as a boys’ thing.”
But it isn't just her religion and
gender that's caused Sadiq problems. The other issue the Muslim
community has taken with her boxing is her clothing - the fact she gets
into the ring wearing shorts and a vest.
It shows her arms and
part of her legs. Even though Sadiq isn’t a “strict practising Muslim”
and doesn’t wear a headscarf, her extended family was still up in arms.
'I don't want to look sexy'
“I told
them, I'm not going in to look sexy - it's a uniform,” says Sadiq. “I
even asked [the Amateur Boxing Association] to change it and let me wear
tracksuit bottoms. But they said no. I have tried to change it.”
Luckily, her fellow boxers support her.
“I've dropped [knocked out] a couple of lads in my time,” she laughs.
“The boxing boys are more understanding as to where I come from. They
treat me like I'm a bloke really. I don't think I've ever got comments
from the boxers in the gym. All the local lads come and support me.”
Her siblings – three sisters and a brother – are all behind her,
too. They don’t miss a single match. But ithe lack of support from her
wider community - although it has improved a bit since the early days -
still bothers her.
“The hardest thing is not getting support
from the Muslim community and the Asian community. It's getting [the
message] out there that Muslim girls can do something different.”
She thinks everyone reacted so badly, at first, because it was a shock:
“They didn't expect to see a Muslim girl box. It's like, oh my god, a
woman's doing something. She’s not staying at home and just being a
housewife.”
Now, Sadiq’s story is being told in a play.
No Guts, No Heart, No Glory
is being performed at the Edinburgh Festival and is the product of
Sadiq's work with five Muslim female boxers, aged between 16 and 22. It
comes as the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow saw female boxing included as
a sport for the first time.
'You have to put yourself first'
“It’s great that I can get my story out there,” says Sadiq. She wants to
spread the message that Muslim girls can do whatever they want –
whether dance, ballet, boxing, or football. “I think girls should be
doing anything they want to be doing,” she insists.
Boxing was
her saviour and helped her deal with racism. “I got bullied, people said
your mum’s a Portuguese this, your dad’s a Paki this,” she says. “I
took my aggression out on the [punch] bag. It helped me to be a happier
person.
"Boxing for a female is so different, so the fact I was breaking down barriers pushed me on.”
Now, she's calmer: “When I train I do sometimes get my aggression out,
but now I love doing it,” she says. “I've never been so passionate about
any other sport.”
She tells me that even if her family hadn’t supported her, she would have pursued boxing anyway.
“I still would have done it” she says. “I don't think I’d be the person
I am today if I didn't box. If you don't have that support it's a lot
harder but it's that chance you have to take for yourself. You have to
put yourself first.”
And if she met another young Muslim girl in that position today? What would she tell her?
“I don't want to say 'go against your family's wishes'. That's quite
rude. But it's making that choice as to whether or not you want to do
it. It's such a hard question to answer because you don't want to
disrespect anyone's feelings. Everyone's situation’s different.
“Anything that you do, there are going to be people that are negative
and don't like it. You have to decide: do you want to do what you love,
or do you want to please other people?
"Don't let anyone get in the way of your dream no matter who it is. Parents should respect their daughters’ feelings.”
No Guts, No Heart, No Glory
By
Radhika Sanghani
