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Shazia Mirza: I find it very difficult these days to have an opinion that I care about… But I was horrified by the story of these girls. I really felt like I had something to say about it. I felt like I could relate to them in some way. I think this is the first time in the 12 years I've been doing stand-up that I've actually written a show that I really want to do.I don't believe that people go and join ISIS because they're angry about a war in Afghanistan when they weren't even born to witness it. I used to teach in Tower Hamlets, around the corner from where the girls used to go to school, and they never talked about religion, but they always talked about boys.
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I feel that I was forced to say things in the past. When I first started, I was the only Asian woman in comedy, and I felt so much pressure immediately to represent all Asians, speak for the community, explain why wars are happening—to explain things that a) I know nothing about and b) I wasn't a developed enough comedian to deliver.A lot of the early reviews for The Kardashians Made Me Do It used words like "brave." You've referred to ISIS as the "One Direction of Islam." Are you nervous about putting yourself out there with this material?
All the early reviews of my show were written by white men, all of them, and a lot of them don't understand what I'm talking about. And you can't blame them for that, because why would they know? As I say in the show, they say that they want to hear the things I'm talking about, but in actual fact, I feel like they don't want to hear it from me. They want to hear it from Stewart Lee and Mark Thomas—straight, white men they can relate to.Speaking of straight white men, David Cameron's "language fund" to teach Muslim women English seems to have made your show even more relevant.
The Muslim women I know speak better English than the English people I know who have been born and brought up in this country. I kind of understand David Cameron: He's a white, upper class male. It's a very particular life that he's lived. Where during his life has he met a lot of Asian or Muslim women and known them? Probably never.
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So does Frankie Boyle…Last year, you spoke about "liberation" on Radio 4 and said: "I know Muslim women who are head-to-toe covered in black, who are very liberated in their thoughts and actions, but one might look at them and think they're imprisoned." You got quite a few complaints after that—were you surprised?
Yes. I have a whole section in my show about that. I said exactly what I thought: I think the burka is very liberating because you don't get judged for your sexuality. A lot of women equate liberation with covering themselves up but still having a free mind.I don't know any women who have been forced to wear it. I know a lot of women who wear it, and their husbands don't like it. My father never liked my mother wearing it—and my dad is a pretty culturally strict, Pakistani man. I know very few women who wear the burka. I have a friend who wears a niqab, and that's her choice.You called your show The Kardashians Made Me Do It. What do they have to do with jihadi brides?
I didn't want to call it that. I wanted to call it The Road to al-Baghdadi, but the Tricycle Theater putting the show on wouldn't let me because it was really worried that ISIS was going to turn up.Are you scared of that too?
Everybody's scared. You'll never know the truth as long as there's fear, which is exactly what ISIS wants. I think the theater worried somebody would turn up and kill people for putting the show on. Which is not out of the realms of possibility… They thought it would end up on Twitter, and, of course, ISIS is always on Twitter.So why did you go for the Kardashians name instead?
When the three girls from Bethnal Green went to join ISIS, their sister said, according to the Home Affairs Select Committee, "I can't understand why she's gone—she used to watch the Kardashians, you know?" That's what she told the government! I couldn't believe it! But I could understand. She was trying to say—look, she was normal. She watches the Kardashians like everyone else.Shazia Mirza is touring the UK in The Kardashians Made Me Do It, including a stint at the Soho Theatre, London, March 1-5.