EVENT: In person discussion of book, “My Name Is Not Harry: A Memoir” by Haroon Siddiqui
PANELISTS: Author Haroon Siddiqui, Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Professor Karim H. Karim, and Zahra Premji (emcee)
WHERE: Ismaili Centre Vancouver
WHEN: Sunday, January 21, 2024, 2:30 PM
TO ATTEND: Please click Register

By MALIK MERCHANT

After a journalistic career spanning almost half-a-century, including the final 37 years at Toronto Star, Haroon Siddiqui retired from the paper with a parting column published on April 1, 2015 reflecting on his life as a journalist at the Star and how Canada has changed since he arrived in the country in 1967. He recently published his memoir, My Name Is Not Harry (September 2023), which will be the focus of discussion on Sunday, January 21, 2024, at the Ismaili Centre Vancouver. With the likes of Honourable Beverley McLachlin, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Professor Karim H. Karim from Carleton University, joining the award-winning journalist, the event promises to be enlightening and informative. CBC’s Vancouver news anchor Zahra Premji will act as the emcee.

While I was familiar with the Globe and Mail in London, England, because the Saturday edition was available at Dillon’s Bookstore in London, I did not know anything about the largest selling newspaper in Canada, the Toronto Star, until I visited Toronto in November 1978, for Mawlana Hazar Imam His Highness the Aga Khan’s first mulaqat (meeting) with his Ismaili Muslim community in Canada. His Highness is the 49th Hereditary Imam of the Ismaili Muslims and the direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him and his progeny). Ismailis began arriving in Canada in large numbers after their expulsion with other Asians from Uganda in 1972.

For the historic visit I was welcomed to stay at my cousin’s place in Don Mills, close to the present location of the Aga Khan Museum, the Ismaili Centre Toronto and the Aga Khan Park. My cousin subscribed to the Star and, if I my memory serves me right, the paper got delivered in the afternoon, unlike newspapers in London, UK, where delivery would be very early in the morning. The Star’s coverage of the Aga Khan’s visit was lively, and I took back with me to London several reports.

Siddiqui, who arrived in Canada in Montreal during Expo ’67, was recruited by the Star after a ten-year stint at Manitoba’s Brandon Sun. Writing a special piece for the Sun in the issue of October 3, 2023, Siddiqui says that the decade at the paper “was the best thing that could have happened to me personally and professionally. It made me a Canadian journalist and let me experience the vast expanse of the Prairies and their rolling hills, and beyond, to the Rockies, the West Coast, and parts of the North that I’d have known only fleetingly had I remained in Southern Ontario.”

The Brandon Sun had a circulation of 15,000 and was regarded as the Cadillac of small newspapers in Canada. Siddiqui notes that the paper “was well designed, too, winning awards, including the prestigious Inland Daily Press Association and Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism Award, the only Canadian newspaper so honoured.”

This ten-year experience led Siddiqui to a long and fruitful 37-year career at the Toronto Star where he says he was initially “dumped in the newsroom and forgotten.” In the ensuing years, Siddiqui went on to establish himself as a great and respected Canadian journalist winning several awards and distinctions including, most recently, the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s (CJF) Lifetime Achievement Award. The 2023 award recognized his decades-long groundbreaking career in Canadian journalism and his commitment to diversity, journalistic integrity, and social justice. The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, the 26th Governor General of Canada, and a member of the CJF’s Lifetime Achievement Award Jury noted in her (jury) statement that “Haroon Siddiqui is a trailblazer of astonishing vision and compassionate decency. Nuanced and brilliant, he is unique in the pantheon of great Canadian journalists.” The CJF award cemony was held on June 13 at Toronto’s prestigious Royal York Hotel.

I first arrived in Canada in 1981 in Edmonton and then made Ottawa my home in the autumn of 1983. The Saturday Star became my newspaper of choice. Why? It had introduced a special standalone section on motoring called Wheels, and I had always loved cars, as did my late dad whose dream car was to own a Jaguar! My strong — and long — love affair with the Star introduced me to Haroon Siddiqui’s columns! Whenever he wrote about Islam and Muslim countries, he did so with purpose, and I admired him for that.

In 1992, on the Aga Khan’s third visit to his Canadian Ismailis, Siddiqui conducted an excellent interview with him for the Star in which he raised interesting questions including Salman Rushdie’s highly controversial and offensive novel, The Satanic Verses (September 1988). Rushdie had stirred an immense amount of anger and unrest among Muslims all around the world. Indeed, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini even issued a death sentence on Rushdie through a fatwa (edict), and the author went into hiding for ten years. When he showed up at a book event in London, one of my friends took Rushdie’s entire collection of books he owned for signing. Rushdie jokingly remarked whether there was a concealed weapon in the large pile he was carrying! Nanowisdoms, which is dedicated to the writings and speeches of Ismaili Imams, carries excerpts from Haroon’s interview with the Aga Khan (please read it HERE.)

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I must admit I haven’t followed Siddiqui’s columns in recent years, to the extent that I did between 1985 and 2010, due to important family engagements. However, on a recent visit to a Calgary Indigo, I was pleased to see Siddiqui’s new book prominently displayed on a book stand near the main entrance. I was drawn to the book title’s sincere proclamation My Name Is Not Harry. At once, the title reminded me of a message that I had come across in my father’s archive notes in which the Aga Khan, during a meeting in 1961 in London, had asked his Ismaili Muslim followers to preserve and be proud of their Muslim heritage. He asked them to use Muslim names that had been given to them at birth, and not to adopt Western names. Of course, we have numerous examples today of Muslims abbreviating their names for the sake of simplicity or using Latinized names to conceal their Islamic identity!

Well, we have a proud and sincere Muslim by the name of Haroon — and not Harry — who is taking to the stage on Sunday, January 21, 2024 at the beautiful Ismaili Centre Vancouver. He will no doubt offer his words of wisdom to fellow Muslims and Canadians as well as everyone who loves newspapers and journalism.

Being in Calgary, I will miss the event but I hope Ismailis in and around Vancouver will support this important community initiative. To register for the event and to read profiles of the panel members, please click Book Discussion: My Name is Not Harry.

The discussion with Haroon Siddiqui will be of interest to everyone around the world, and it is hoped that a video of the complete program will be made available online soon after.

Date posted: January 19, 2024.

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