Lighting the way

Fazal Rahim

Martyn meets...Fazal Rahi, man of the people, community stalwart and... taxi driver
PEEL away the layers of Fazal Rahim’s life and you will discover a gentle, selfless man of the people who oft-times drives a taxi in order to pay the energy bills at a community centre he owns in Werneth.

That centre, in Cambridge Street, used to be a Halal butcher’s and grocery business run by Fazal and his brother, Khan, but for many years has been at the hub of the community.

Fazal made the conversion from his own funds, plus a small contribution from the SRB6 regeneration fund, and the people who run the centre do not pay any rent.

This information sort of trickled out of a man I have known for nigh on 10 years, for he not so much hides his light under a bushell as digs a huge hole and buries it.

Which is a contradiction in itself for this man is a leading light in the Festival of Light, which has become such a beacon of social integration right here in Oldham that Fazal and his mentor Father Phil Sumner have travelled to Europe and the Americas to preach the gospel of religious cohesion as practised in the borough.

Such has been the journey of discovery for a young lad who arrived wide eyed and if not legless then certainly dumbstruck in Bradford as an uneducated 13-year-old.

His father had been working in the Yorkshire mills when he, his mother and brother turned up in the Ridings in the winter of 1975.

For a teenager who had grown up in the North-West of Pakistan, in the Punjab region which was home to the fabulously successful sporting lineage of world-class squash, hockey and volleyball players, Bradford was a forbidding place.

“Ethnically I am a Pashtun, the area where the Khans — Jahangir and Janshir — came from to dominate the world of squash. It was remarkable that they came from just one village and they weren’t the only ones from that village who were world class at sport. There were many others.”

Fazal smiles his gentle, knowing smile at my suggestion that he too has world-class abilities, if not in sport then certainly in other areas, for this self-effacing father of five is a quiet man who simply gets on with it.

My words, not his. In all the years I have known him, and in the hour we spent together for this profile, he never once spoke of his own remarkable achievements.

These were not so much teased out of him, but extricated, chivvied nuggets, little treasures and trinkets to be stored in a special place lest they be lost.

So how did he fetch up in Oldham in 1986, a lad from the North-West frontier?

Having arrived in Bradford, his uncle — a wholesale supplier to Halal butchers — took the youngster under his wing.

“My uncle was a huge influence on me. I remember him taking me to Scotland where he met the farmer who supplied his cattle. We were in the Scottish highlands and my uncle, a very gentle man, was there swearing with this Scotsman whose accent I could not understand.

“I was shocked to hear my uncle swear, but they were laughing and joking and were obviously much more than business acquaintances.”

This business acumen clearly rubbed off on the impressionable Fazal and he and his brother Khan invested in the butcher’s and grocery business in Oldham which, for 10 years, they ran.

“It was more a community centre than a business — it was the hub of the area with a real mix of Asian and white people in the shop every day.”

The roots of Fazal’s future are to be found in this decade, for he formed bonds with the community which endure to this day and he was soon taking time away from the business to act as a volunteer interpreter — he is is fluent in Pashto, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindku and English — at the Freehold Community Development Project.

This work became his passion and when brother Khan decided to take time out to visit his Pakistan homelands, Fazal closed the business, created a full-blown community centre and took up community work.

He purchased a Hackney carriage licence — which he still holds — to allow him to devote more time to his increasing commitments within the community.

“When the energy bills come in for the centre I do a few shifts,” he laughed, adding: “The place remains one of the few unfunded centres in Oldham, although we are very grateful to receive 80 per cent council tax relief. This is a huge help.”

Early in 2000, sensing an undercurrent in Oldham around youth issues, he upped sticks and took his young family to Oxford but lasted only six weeks.

“The problems were just the same with drugs and the like. I quickly discovered the connection issues and economic challenges were no different than in Oldham. Oxford wasn’t a better environment, not at all.”

Back in Oldham, living in the flat above the former shop, came the weeks and events that have since shaped his life. He was driving his cab the night the Oldham riots kicked off.

“I sensed an undercurrent and many of the drivers went off rank, saying they were afraid. But I wasn’t afraid, not all, I knew I could talk to people. As I listened to the reports on my car radio I knew these were momentous times.

“I received a call from a friend in Hong Kong asking if I was ok? He was watching television and told me that ‘Oldham was burning’ but I reassured him that I was working in my cab.”

One of the abiding memories that Fazal has cherished and held on to was the support he shared with his customers in the cab.

“One of them actually hugged me that night.”

And so began a dialogue and Fazal, who at the age of 14 had been elected treasurer of a mosque in a rented room in Bradford, had a role to play.

That role continues today as a part-time worker with the Oldham Inter-Faith Forum.

Based at the Presbytery at St Patrick’s Church, he is determined to make a difference to racial and cultural issues in his adopted home town.

He has played a huge role in the creation of the Festival of Light, an annual crescendo of all that is good among the many faiths in the borough.

I well remember the first, in the now-demolished Pennine Way Hotel, when hundreds of people crowded into the ballroom space for an evening of shared payer and understanding.

I was asked to host the evening and spent a good hour rehearsing the traditional Muslim greeting ‘Assalaam u Alaykum’ — peace be on you — and the Hindu equivalent, ‘Namaste’.

Fazal looked me foursquare in the eye and laughed out loud at the memory of that momentous evening.

“We were all so nervous about you — we were praying, literally, that there wouldn’t be any inappropriate religious jokes!”

I am happy to report that I passed with flying colours and the event was such a success that it continues to flourish and thrive to this day, although without my singular contribution.

Such has been the effect of drawing together the beliefs of Christianity alongside the teachings of Muslim and Hindu faiths — ‘and we always involved the Jewish faith, too’ — the model has been transported across continents.

Fazal and Father Phil have spoken at conferences in Barcelona, New York and Rio Grande, Brazil. The Barcelona invitation came from Unesco while the event in Brazil was hosted by the World Conference for the Development of Cities.

Fazal is not naive enough to believe that all the cultural problems and differences that festered and exploded in 2001 have gone away, but he fervently believes — and is heartened by — a belief that people across Oldham are beginning to respect and understand that there are differences and similarities.

And so he continues to work his 20 hours a week at the Presbytery, spend time at the community centre he funds and also get his hands dirty at Oozewood Motors in Royton, which he owns.

Not forgetting that when the centre’s energy bills come in he gets behind the wheel of a cab.

It is a measure of the progress that Oldham has made that he once again feels confident enough to work the evening shifts. He gave up driving a cab when he was robbed, his attacker holding a knife to his throat.

Let’s not kid ourselves that this might not happen again, but thanks to the selfless devotion of people like Fazal Rahim at least we are making progress.



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