RAMADAN IN NORTH KENSINGTON

Breaking the Fast

Last night I was at Al-Manaar, the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, in North Kensington, sharing their iftar meal. I'd been invited, along with Toby, my PDT colleague in the Project, by the Chief Executive of Al-Manaar, to whom we've been talking about possible future collaboration. Toby couldn't come, but I flew the flag. I checked with BBC Weather, which said sunset in Maida Hill was 9.18pm, so I didn't need to turn up too early, but was still there before 9pm. It turned out that 9.21pm was going to be the moment when the call to prayer was recited and the fast could be broken, which was an intriguing difference. Whose sunset? Or sunset where exactly? While we awaited the crucial moment two men were press-ganged into telling us what Ramadan meant to them, which was not as helpful as it might have been, but very well-intentioned.Tables were set with bottles of water and plates of dates, which is the traditional first thing you take, and then there was a lavish buffet waiting at the end of the room. The mosque chairman insisted that you didn't need to be invited, and the iftar meal is there to be shared by anyone who turns up, any night during Ramadan, but that's one of those invitations you can issue without fear, knowing that the reticent English will never take you up on it. One mosque member did tell me, though, that he made a point of bringing people in, including a couple of homeless people, which is great. So the call to prayer came, and we ate our dates and drank our water. I was frankly astonished at the restraint of my Muslim neighbour, who only had two dates and a few sips of water; I could have stuffed myself with those dates, and my last meal hadn't been at 4am.


Among the Faithful

I was not surprised to see the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea there, rather more surprised to see the Deputy Mayor as well (who turns out to be a churchwarden from Notting Hill), but I found myself sitting with a bunch of other guests who had all been invited by a member of the mosque who is also a councillor. They had been invited because of their activity in the Labour cause last week, which made me a bit self-conscious to be sitting with them, but then amusingly another guest asked me whether they were all members of my church! They reacted with great delight when Emma Dent Coad, the newly-elected MP, (who is also councillor for Golborne ward, in which the mosque is situated) walked in, and then got embarrassed in case they'd behaved inappropriately by cheering and clapping. I don't think anyone was offended, as we weren't doing anything particularly pious at that point, but it was a moment when cultural incomprehension was palpable. The really interesting thing for me was to meet some of Jeremy's Army, because as well as the recognisable Labour Party stalwarts there were the fabled young people, in this case smart, posh, well-educated women in their twenties, for whom the manifesto had really made sense, and who had been prepared to go and stand outside polling stations or run around knocking up last Thursday. This is genuinely a new phenomenon, and a refreshing change from the prevailing cynicism which has characterised political debate for ages. And that's why Kensington has the unthinkable, a Labour MP. There are still people going around with silly grins all the time, because they never believed it would happen.


Posh Enough For Poussin

We all duly queued up for the very generous buffet, and of course had to guess what everything was. There were two adjoining trays full of chicken, but quite different; one looked much more insipid than the other. So, my smart young neighbour and I both went for the more colourful dish. I extracted some chicken and exclaimed, "Goodness, it's a whole little bird!" to which my neighbour responded, "Oh my God, it's poussin!"
That's what they were like!