Natalie
Hey Bec. What did you do today?

Rebecca
I worked on my pilot script. You?

Natalie
I worked on my book.

Rebecca
Well, that’s a perfect segue.

Natalie
And you know we like those.

Rebecca
For our conversation today with Zarqa Nawaz.

Natalie
The creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie, who’s got both a book and a show out in the world at the same time.

Rebecca
Today we are sitting down with Zarqa Nawaz, who created the CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West. She wrote, directed, and produced episodes for the show, and it premiered to record ratings in 2007, going on to win a Gemini that year. The show was also nominated for the Best Television Series (Comedy) at the 2007 Director’s Guild of Canada Awards. Internationally, Little Mosque won awards for Best International Television series and Best Screenplay at the 2007 Roma Fiction Fest. Her memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque appeared on The Globe and Mail’s bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humor, the Kobo Emerging Writer’s award, and the Saskatchewan Fiction Award. In recognition for her contribution to the world of arts, she received the Brampton Walk of Fame in 2019.

Natalie
Nawaz’s new self-titled web series ZARQA, in which she stars, writes, and produces, launched this May on CBC Gem. She also recently released her new novel, Jameela Green Ruins Everything a satire about a disillusioned American Muslim woman who becomes embroiled in a plot to infiltrate an international terrorist organization, and in the process reconnects with her loved ones and her faith. Thanks so much for being here.

Zarqa
Thanks for having me.

Rebecca
So in an article for Maclean’s, you talk about seeing Muslims in film, and that we only see stereotypical stories. You say, “It’s always the life of a refugee, a terrorist, an oppressed woman, and you don’t see the ordinary.” So in terms of storytelling, what is the inherent value of just depicting the ordinary?

Zarqa
Well, it’s stereotyping Muslims. So when you think of Muslims, you only think of them as victims or terrorists — you don’t see them as normal people, the way you see white people as normal people. So this impression of something really horrible or something really sad enters your mind. So if you’re a white woman and you look at an brown Muslim woman, immediately you think, “Oh, her husband must be beating her.” Which a lot of my friends — white friends — will say, “Oh, your husband’s nice, he must be one of the few men who don’t beat you,” or you know, “One of the few good ones.” Every time. Even if it’s a white woman who has gone through a really traumatic experience with her own husband, will not see that it’s a universal issue — she racializes brown women as having only one experience with brown men. It’s a terrible way of looking at a community in one stereotypical way, and that comes from only seeing stories that show women in only one way — which is usually the women are being oppressed, and the men are the oppressors. That’s a dangerous thing in society when you only associate certain attributes to certain groups of people, and you can’t see them as fully-formed human beings.

Natalie
With that idea of ordinary in mind, there was a student and I just this past week who were working together on his term essay, and he really wanted to explore how mundane details and storytelling open up space for a reader to understand something magical or even divine hidden in those details. His name’s Mohammed, and I’m giving him a shout-out because he knew that I was interviewing you today, and he was excited that it was bringing his question to the table. So Mohammed, this one’s for you. But do you relate to that student’s thinking in your own work, this idea of the divine being found in the mundane?

Zarqa
Yeah, I mean, I’m a practicing Muslim, and faith is a really important part of my life. It’s the lens through which I see everything, and it was a lens through which I wanted to explore even the story of Jameela Green Ruins Everything, because we live in a very secular world, and the entertainment world does not like stories about faith. They’re not digestible — particularly about Muslims and Islam, and then to go against the grain and talk about how Muslims feel about faith, even moreso. So for me as a filmmaker and as a writer and a television producer, it’s important to push back and say this is how a lot of the world goes through their life — is through faith, through the lens of faith. We have to be ok with telling those stories, and understanding how faith affects people. So that’s why I put those prayers in Jameela Green. A lot of the chapters begin with each person and talking to God and telling God about their problems and their fears and their worries, because that’s how I begin my day. Because we pray five times a day, we do it all day long. So we have this what we call ‘dukkha’ or this God consciousness, where it’s never lost. We are connected to the divine 24 hours a day, all day, because we are praying all day. We’re always thinking, “Ok, when’s the next prayer? After this, I’ve got to pray.” Our lives are organized. When I’m traveling, I’m like, “Ok, I’ve got to find a safe space, I’ve got to pray.” Now I’m starting to do it more in public, because it used to be a little more, you know, scary before. And so there’s this God consciousness that as practicing Muslims we have, and I don’t want it to be strange, or kind of cringy in my work. I want it to be an organic part of my work, where it’s just normalized.

This is how a great majority of people in this world go through life connected to their creator. That’s why I wanted an indigenous presence in my work, because it’s another group that also has a strong connection to their creator, and it’s inherent in their identity, and I wanted to explore the relationship in my web series with a Muslim woman and an indigenous woman and their relationship with each other, and how they view the world through their lens of faith and spirituality. I feel like it goes against the grain, and you’re going to be less popular than other people — the traditional story is somebody who rejects their faith, rebels, and their faith is what oppresses them. But I feel that’s not the real story out there, and we need to start working against that stereotype in that narrative and shift it, because it’s a big part of the world, and I feel the media isn’t great at depicting that, or is very uncomfortable depicting that. So I want to do it in a non-preachy, non-judgmental way, and just do it in an organic, natural storytelling way — that this is a character, that it’s a fundamental part of their life, and show it as a natural part of how they think and walk and deal with the world.

Rebecca
We grew up Christian — our father’s a pastor, and we are practicing, but it does feel like a really scary aspect to reveal. I mean, so many horrible things have been done in the name of Christianity, so I feel this mix of desire to express your way of saying it, God consciousness, but I also feel fear and shame at the same time. Do you struggle with that, just feeling afraid?

Zarqa
Yeah. I mean, the stereotype of Muslims is Islam is a terrible religion that oppresses people, and terrorism, and women and oppression. And so I think it shocks people when they find someone who finds feminism or equality or justice in their faith, and believes in that strongly, and it gives them strength — and they’re not afraid to depict it through their work. I think that’s important because people are afraid to do it. Media itself is afraid to take on those stories, and they don’t know how to do it. I feel like if there’s so few of us out there, then it’s important for those of us who have crossed over to continue the work, because the work reaches people in ways that other work doesn’t. I had a lot of people who read the book and said, you know, “It gave me strength, gave me perspective, it helped me see things in a way that I couldn’t before. I needed to read this so I could get over a difficult time in my life.” I mean, that’s why I’m doing it — because I feel like there’s a hole in the industry, and it has real meaning and purpose. For me, making entertainment just for the sake of entertaining is hollow. It has to have a real purpose, and that is to help people. Even if they don’t believe in God, that belief in something that helps them out of despair and gives them a sense of, “You can’t wallow in it, you have to come out of it and believe in hope,” and to see a character who’s wallowing in despair even though she’s Muslim, and then she meets an imam (in Jameela Green Ruins Everything) and the imam teaches her to look outward and start to focus on helping other people so that she can put her own life in perspective — I think those are important lessons. For me, it comes from my spiritual practice, but even if you don’t have one those lessons are still universal and can be applied outwardly.

Natalie
In that same Maclean’s article that we mentioned off the top, something you did say was that TV shows matter to how we humanize people. In that you’re both an author and a creator for television, you’ve got these two specific projects on the go. So is there something about television as an art form that you find especially or specifically humanizing, compared to what you’re doing with Jameela Green?

Zarqa
Both mediums, writing and television, are important in different ways. Television is just more visual. You can see Muslim women wearing hijab, and going out into the world, and men who dress like Muslims. It probably has a stronger visual component. Books are more internal, and you go into people’s minds and their feelings and what they’re thinking. So those are two different avenues, and I think they’re both critical. We both need more Muslims writing, and people reading books about Muslims, and we need more Muslims on television, who are visibly Muslim, who are seen, because they help people. If you’re never going to meet a Muslim in your life, you’re likely going to just see one on television or just read about one in a book, and that helps you connect to that community. That might be your only connection to that community. It’s important that that material gets out there. It just can’t always be the news, and these horrific stories. These are the only places that we can connect to other people, and it’s the same with Muslims. I may not know someone who’s Korean, but having watched Kim’s Convenience, that has opened up that whole world for me — parents and children and their lives and their world. That is probably the next best thing to actually knowing someone, so I feel like these are powerful mediums to enter worlds that we may not have access to normally. I think that’s why it’s important to have diversity in entertainment, because those may be the only places that we meet people — because it’s not possible to meet everyone, especially racialized communities, depending on where you live. It’s really important to give access to everybody to as wide a range of people as possible. Up to now, it’s been very limited to white people, but I feel like now it’s opening up to other groups of people, and that’s really critical if we are going to get to know each other and learn about each other’s lives, and our foibles and our cultures.

You know, at the end of the day, human beings are just human beings, and we have these superficial differences. But at the end of the day, we do exactly the same things, and we have exactly the same types of relationships. Parents and children, and people in our communities — the matriarch, the rebellious teenager, the patriarch. All of these are archetypes that are universal to every culture and sexual identity. They’re all the same, but we don’t get to see them expressed in different colours of ethnicities, and that’s why it’s really important to make those stories so people can see that. Because a lot of people think, “Well, this group only does these things, and therefore they’re dangerous, and we have to fear them and lock them up and deport them,” and it’s a terrible thing. Then people need to see that that group has the same values and experiences that the majority have, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. So that’s why it’s really important that we are exposed to more diverse television and more diverse books and stories.

Rebecca
So just going back to this connection we have as women of faith, but that also means reconciling our heartfelt connections to our own faith stories in the face of institutional religious failure. So one of the ways we navigate the challenges and our own questions that come up is through our sisterly relationship, and we were just curious about your go-to practice. Do you have your own sister, or who do you unpack this crazy world with?

Zarqa
Yeah, I actually don’t have a sister — I have two younger brothers. But I have four kids, two girls and two boys. It’s been interesting as they’ve grown up, because they’re all in their 20s now. Once your kids hit that age (they range in age from 22 to 28), that relationship flips from parent-child to almost… you become more equal as people, because they become adults, and they have their own view of the world. So I do a lot of my unpacking with my own kids, because they know me really well, and they understand my foibles. I talk to them a lot about the stresses and strains of the career that I’m in, and they talk to me about their just making it into the world. They’re all in university, and they’re trying to become professionals. They have all these anxieties about making it and success and relationships. We talk to each other about those things, about the importance of failure, the importance of building resilience, and how life can’t always be about success after success after success. I think it’s good that we talk to each other about it and they’ve seen my career, because it’s been a decade since Little Mosque on the Prairie, and then these two projects — so it gives sort of an illusion of success to people. But they know how hard I’ve had to struggle for ten years to get the next project off the ground, so when they get sad — if they don’t get their job, or they don’t get the degree they wanted, or get to go to the university they wanted, I say to them, “Listen, I was supposed to become a doctor. For four years, I went to the University of Toronto, and I got a BSc, and my whole life was going to be medicine, medicine, medicine. And when I didn’t get into my professional school, it was like my whole life blew up in front of my eyes, and I was convinced of utter and total professional failure.” Then to picking up the pieces, going to journalism school, learning about that skillset, and then starting to make films, and then slowly building that career up.

And so we talk to each other. I can give them lessons — you know, I’m a 54-year-old woman, I’ve gone through this whole cycle of career changes and failures and successes, and I can talk to them about that. Then they’re like, “Ok, you’ve got to take it into perspective. You can’t react to everything. Sometimes you just have to put your blinders on and just go forward and do the work and not be obsessed with social media.” You know, you get caught in that whole cycle of, “Who loves me? Who doesn’t like me? How many followers do I have? Why aren’t I getting more? Why does this person have more? Why aren’t I more successful?” So it’s a nice back-and-forth between the two generations — between my experience and then their perspective on the world. I feel like this generation is just more in touch, and they know so much more about the world than I did growing up. I feel like they have a lot to teach about empathy and about caring for others — and they’re just more, I don’t know what the word is… woke, or more sensitive, or more aware. It’s a good back-and-forth to have in the family, because I feel like it’s built in. They’re kind of like, weirdly, my moral compass because I veer off into all sorts of crazy tangents, but they’re always there. I always take one of them with me whenever I go on a trip, because they’ve got to keep me organized.

Rebecca
I have a 13-year-old right now, so she’s definitely not in the mentor role yet. Did you have that challenging teen phase of rebelling against mother?

Zarqa
I think, weirdly enough, because their mother has been so, like, ‘always reacting’ — the stuff I write is very autobiographical, right? I am a very impulsive, bitter, vindictive, thin-skinned person, and I’m always freaking out about everything. So I think that forces children to turn out very differently than you. They have all been more in the parenting role from the beginning, and I’m more of the person who needs to be parented. And so we have this relationship where they’re like, “What is she up to? What is she doing?” — checking in on me. I think that’s interesting in my mind, because children turn out very different from their parents, and they react to them psychologically, and you almost can create a certain type of child by the way you behave. If I’m with my sister-in-law, who’s super, super, super-organized, and our children were really young, I would literally turn my brain off and go, “I don’t need to bring the diaper bag, I will just latch myself onto her because she’s handling it all.” She tells me that because she’s super-organized, her children are less organized — so because I’m so disorganized, and such a wildcard emotionally, and a little bit off the beaten track, they’ve turned out to be much calmer and more stable as people. I’ve just noticed that you can actually create a yin yang, depending on your own personality. I don’t know if that’s true for you.

Natalie
Speaking of the home and home life, it was interesting for me that when I first read about ZARQA as a show, I obviously thought, “Ok, this looks like it’ll be funny, that’s great.” But there was something that immediately resonated for me as a person who was divorced and remarried, and life is… you know, it’s great that things have moved forward, but that story has very definitively shaped who I am now. I have yet to see, to be honest, a nuanced presentation of that part of my story in film in a way that makes me feel seen. That’s fine, because not every story’s going to be shown in that space, or on TV or wherever to be shown, but I really did immediately go, “Oh, ok, that’s kind of cool — that not only is this woman divorced, she’s also not, like, 27.” There was just something real — that as a 43-year-old woman, I was like, “Ok, I feel like I can connect with elements of the ordinariness of this person’s life in a way that might not be ordinary for someone else.” That was a wonderful way to feel immediately welcomed into the show. Was there anything about divorce for you in this one, that you were just like, “This has to be part of her story”?

Zarqa
I’m not divorced, so my poor husband is getting a lot of flack. But I didn’t want to do another story about a married Muslim person, and family, and go down that standard sitcom route of an intact family, because we’ve seen that so much already. I wanted to explore divorce from a Muslim woman’s eyes. One, there’s a lot of divorced people in my life that have gone through something similar, that are very close to me. The idea of it came from when I was reading all these really angry thinkpieces when this movie The Big Sick came out, and they were so angry. I never even got around to watching the movie, because I was so busy reading these articles, and they were so outraged. The women were like, “Why is it…” (in those days — it was 2017) “if there was a man of colour, and it was a romantic comedy, if he’s going to date brown women, they have to be these undesirable, less attractive, kind of damaged women who are just social outcasts. They’re just there for comedy, to date and sweep aside until the white trophy princess, that’s really the one that you want.” They were so angry. The germ of the idea went into my mind, I thought, “God, if that happened to a character, it would be interesting that she would try to do the exact same thing to her ex.” He’s going to try to throw in her face this half-her-age young yoga instructor stereotype — that she would instead take agency over her life and say, “Well, I’ll meet you with your white stereotype trophy with my white stereotype trophy.” I was thinking, “What could be nice that she could turn in his heart? Especially if he’s a podiatrist, right? That he’s always wanted to be a brain surgeon, because they’re the top.” I think brain surgeons and heart surgeons are at the top of the medical…

Natalie
Pyramid.

Zarqa
And I thought that would be so funny, if he always had had this insecurity in his heart about being a podiatrist.

Natalie
That’s great.

Zarqa
And so I thought — she’s like, “I’m coming, I’ll be there,” because you can see all the horrible emails from his horrible friends who are like, “Oh, does your ex know? Will she bother showing her face? Will she have the guts?” And then she goes, “Yeah, I’ll show up, and I’m coming with Brian brain surgeon.” Because I felt like that whole thing about: in society, women ageing, what is our value? Even though we say that we’ve moved beyond that, and it’s all about personality and success and careers, I still feel very much this society’s focus on youth and beauty. I still see the same obsessions everywhere, I don’t think has changed all that much — and that women feel that pressure as we age. All my divorced friends tell me even if you dumped your husband or you initiated the divorce, the moment he remarries there’s this feeling of loss and this feeling of judgment and this feeling of, “Am I not good enough?” There’s this feeling. I thought I wanted to go into that and capture it, and say, “What do you do if you just ramp it up and she gets overcome by these emotions, and she does a crazy thing on social media and tells everyone? And it’s too late, like it’s out there, and now she has to deal with it.” What are the repercussions to her? And what if she actually succeeds? What if she actually gets the guy, and what if he actually wants a real relationship with a woman who’s not ready to have it? But the thing is, now the only way she’s going to get him to be her revenge arm candy is to go through the machinations of dating him. What if he’s culturally different than her, and she doesn’t really like the dates? Then what if the dates end up causing even more chaos than she started? If she had never done anything to begin with, it would have been fine, but now they’re getting worse and worse, and her life is spiraling out of control.

So I wanted to explore a woman who has agency over her romantic life, and doesn’t take it sitting down — takes it fighting, and how that agency gets her into a lot of trouble. I like examining flawed female characters who take their life into their own hands and propel it in different ways. Because for a long time in old sitcoms, the husband was the goofy one, and the wife was always like, “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t do that.” You know, like Everyone Loves Raymond — she was the straight person who’s always like, “Tsk tsk.” I like the fact that we’ve changed that now, and it’s the women who can be the Lucille Ball character. Because for a long time, she was the only one, the one who was causing chaos wherever she went. So I wanted to do the Muslim version of that. I want it to be the Muslim Larry David, you know? Who goes out and just causes chaos, and is just so internally possessed and obsessed with themselves, and not aware of the world, and only worried about taking care of themselves and their own needs — that they forget about people around them. That goes against the grain of what being a woman is, and being a mother. We always have the emotional baggage in a family. But what if the woman is like, “I don’t care! I’m going to do what I want!” and everyone around her is like, “What are you doing? You can’t be doing this?” Because it goes against all that we’ve been taught as women.

Rebecca
And she just says what she wants. That part is so funny about white people and birding — I didn’t know. I was like, “Oh, right, maybe that is a white people thing.” How did you think of that? That’s so funny.

Zarqa
I live in Saskatchewan, and when I was working as a journalist, whenever our ratings fell for radio, I remember they would always say, “Oh, do Birdline. Just open up the call line, and everyone will ask questions about birds.” I would just be laughing — the lines would just light up, and everyone would be obsessed with the birds. I just thought that was so funny. I would be talking to them, I go, “You realize that this whole thing about birding is very white, and very culturally specific,” — because they were always like, “Why can’t we get diverse audiences?” I go, “Well, maybe… maybe we’re attracting a certain audience.” It was so funny. I just thought, “Oh, this is hilarious. I can’t not ignore this — birding as a culturally specific type of vocation.” I just thought, “Oh, I have to do something with the birding.” Then the whole idea that you could have cross-cultural birders. There was a story… wasn’t there a story in New York where there was a…

Natalie
Yeah, he’s got his own show now.

Zarqa
There was a black birder, right? I wanted to do a cross thing where you take birding, and then you call the police on another Muslim woman for birding, and then this racial profiling. I remember that story, it was in my mind — about a black birder, and I just thought, “Oh, that’s too funny. Obviously people who are not white bird too, and wouldn’t it be funny if somebody called the police on somebody else, because they’re mad at them about something unrelated — then the whole racial issue?” I love taking issues like that and then twisting them and turning them and creating something brand new. Does he have his own show now?

Natalie
Well, I just saw… I swear I read a tweet. We’re going to have to put this in the show notes, Bec, because I’m going to have to go research this, but I swear I just saw something on Twitter about him now getting back into Central Park (this is post-the Karen ridiculousness) and actually being given his own spotlight now for birding. So I just think there’s just something so beautifully full circle in the whole deal, about how great that is that that’s been worked into ZARQA, too. My gosh.

Rebecca
Oh yes, a little housekeeping. Don’t forget to rate, review, or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like what we’re doing here on Sister On!, your feedback really supports this reframing project of ours. Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter, which comes with a free recipe from Nat. And we have a new segment for our Patreon subscribers: mini-episodes, which we call Life-Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. Check us out over on our Patreon, and consider a donation if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Sister On!

Ok Zarqa, so your book was Cityline’s book club pick just recently — what was that experience like for you?

Zarqa
Oh my God, I couldn’t believe it when she told me she was walking past it and saw it, and then read it and loved it and decided to make it her pick. I was like, “Oh my God.” It was amazing. This is a very unusual book, as you can well imagine — a satire about ISIS. When it went out into the world, I was like, “I don’t know how people are going to react!” You know, in some ways, it’s a beach read, it’s got this hilarious cover. But at the same time, it’s about a botched American foreign policy. It’s a veiled satire about ISIS, and no one’s ever done that before. So I kept telling my husband, “There’s going to be all these 13-year-old girls reading this, thinking it’s just this hilarious story about who knows what, and then suddenly they’re reading about Afghanistan and the Taliban, and the history, the Russian invasion,” and my husband’s like, “Well, maybe it’s good. Maybe 13-year-old girls need to read about this stuff, and if that’s the only way you can reach them…” Because I remember talking to the marketing people, I go, “Do people know what this book is about, given the cover?” I think that they were a little bit stumped, because it’s so much about so many things all at once, layered upon each other. So they were like, “Well, we’re just hoping the right people will find it.”

Rebecca
Did you have an editor trying to tell you to take out some threads?

Zarqa
No, I didn’t. It took a long time for it to get published. My original publisher didn’t want it, and they said no. (They had published my memoir.) When someone says no to you, and you’re trying to get your first novel out, that means you won’t get an advance and you won’t get an editor to work with you. So then I hired editors privately, over a period of six years, and each one would give me their idea. Some of the editors were like, “This is just too crazy over-the-top, you you shouldn’t even be going to the Middle East.” But really, that was such an important part of Jameela’s journey. I kept it in, and I just kept going and going and going. Finally, by the sixth year, the sixth editor was like, “Yeah, how long have you been working on the book?” I go, “A long time.” She goes, “This is one of the best manuscripts that someone has given to me, in terms of cohesiveness and focus. You’ve clearly worked on this a long time, and figured it out.” She goes, “I have a few points for you, but I think you need to return it to your agent and send it back out.” And I did, and the agent was like, “Wow, I don’t know what you did, but it seems much more polished.” Then she sent it out, and then within days it sold in the US and in Canada. They just loved it, they sent me this incredible letter about how much they loved the book and their favourite scenes, and I just couldn’t believe it. They were just going on and on about it, and I was like, “Wow, this is amazing.” And they had very little to say — they go, “This is a very clean manuscript.”

Rebecca
You’re like, “Yeah, it should be.”

Zarqa
And it’s such a competitive industry. It just tells you that, if you’re going to write a book (especially if it’s your first novel), you have to submit an almost perfect manuscript, because you’re up against so much, right now — competition. And then the original title of the book was The Rise and Fall of Dick, and they said no to me. I fought them for a long time, and it’s just that the marketing people were like, “No, the wrong images will come up when people Google this book.”

Natalie
And you’re like, “Yeah — purposefully.”

Zarqa
Yeah. People were just heartbroken. They’re like, “Oh, that’s terrible, we love, love, love this title.” So they changed it, and then I was worried it was too YA — I’m like, “Well, now it seems really YA, and will the right audience find it?” And so I just sent it out, and now it’s circulating in the world, and people are finding it and talking about it. Some Muslims are divided on the whole issue, because I am talking about terrorism in a comedic way, and so the community is divided on this subject. Some people feel we should never ever again use the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘terrorism’ in the same sentence. And my attitude is like: no, I think that when non-Muslims do it, they have a certain intentionality towards it, but when Muslims do it, we are taking it to a new level, and we’re talking about it in a different way. I feel very strongly that we need to give the humanity back to that stereotype, because there are still people in this world who are being affected by it. There are a lot of young women who were teenagers when they had joined ISIS, because they thought they were joining a group that was going to give them a better life, and they were going to go to a place of social justice and fairness. They themselves were going through a difficult time, or lived in a country where there was an intense Islamophobia or a failed… you know, the Arab Spring had failed. They didn’t know it was a cult-like group, and they deserve fairness and accountability as a white woman would.

What’s happening is countries are stripping them of their citizenship, and some of them have had babies and children and they’re being raised in refugee camps. Bring them to trial, sentence them, punish them, but you can’t just Guantanamo Bay everyone when you don’t want to deal with it. You can’t just send people off somewhere and just pretend they don’t exist, and just put your head in the sand, because these are human beings and there should be due process. I feel like if you don’t bring a humanity to these stories, and bring a historical and political context to these stories, it’s easy for all of us to just say, “They don’t deserve to be treated as humans, because they’re not really humans. Let’s just forget about them.” That’s the purpose of talking about terrorism in a different way, and I feel that we need to talk about it in a different way. We need to stop avoiding it. There’s a responsible and intelligent way of doing it, which doesn’t promote stereotypes. The community is split about this issue, because it’s the first time we’re dealing with it like this. But that’s why I feel intentionality is really important — to say why you did it, what your intentions are. I’m not saying I haven’t made mistakes in the book. We’re all human, and we all have blind spots, and I’m willing to acknowledge those blind spots.

Rebecca
So have you had some of those pointed out to you?

Zarqa
Oh yeah. If you read Goodreads, they’re very… I’ve actually stopped reading those, because I just feel like I’m willing to talk to people and engage with people who have something intelligent and critical and constructive to say to me. I’m willing to hear that, but it’s just this whole, ‘it shouldn’t be done, period’ attitude — I don’t think it’s as valuable to me.

Natalie
I think every author we’ve ever interviewed on here has said that exact thing. They’ve stopped reading Goodreads, so I think you’re in good company, just to say.

Zarqa
Yeah, it’s good for your mental health not to go down that path.

Natalie
And I think you’ve kind of just answered my second question, because what I was going to ask was: this book, which has a real meaning and depth to it, and yet it’s funny. There’s a lightness to it that you said you wanted to achieve. So I was curious how you struck that balance, but I think that maybe part of that must be just your intentionality. I mean, it’s the intention with what you set out to do, but also the conversations you want to create in the wake of it.

Zarqa
A lot of Muslims are upset with me because they felt like the character Jameela was very angry at God, and the world, and Islam, and then they immediately turned off the book. They were like, “Oh, another book that demonizes Islam and Muslims.” I was like: listen, when you have a book, unlike a television show you have to have an emotional arc. The character has to start somewhere and end somewhere different, and learn something and grow. For some people, they couldn’t see that this was part of her arc, and they were upset, and they gave up on the book early. There’s nothing you can do about that. I think because we’ve had such a negative media interaction, we get overly sensitive sometimes and don’t see the forest because of the trees. They got lost in the first couple of chapters and felt like I was leaning too heavily on stereotypes or negativity, and they didn’t want that.

But I think as a community, we have to become a bit more sophisticated in how we consume stories and narratives, and realize that we have to have the full range. It can’t always just be like, up here — you know, everything being good and wonderful. Accepting that we also have to view people’s flaws, and understand that people have to go through emotional and spiritual journeys. That’s hard for some people in the community, and that’s fine, but I can’t be obsessed with that. So I’ve decided just to listen to people that I trust, who have good intentions for me. I have critical feedback, which I think is important because I think all of us aren’t perfect as writers, and make mistakes — and that’s human, there’s nothing wrong with that. We can’t make perfect books, we shouldn’t be aspiring to do perfect things. I think we should aspire to the best we can, and then to learn from our mistakes and to make things better the next time around.

Rebecca
That’s inspiring. I think you’ve touched on what I was going to ask you, because I had attended your session, ‘Acting Muslim — Representing Our Authentic Stories.’ That was really, really well done. But then this was a question that you asked, so I wanted to ask you: what, or who, are your influences? Or who do you draw on for strength?

Zarqa
That’s a good question. I love Shonda Rhimes. What she has done in the Bridgerton series, especially second season — just amazing. I mean, there’s so few women of colour who own their own production companies. Mindy Kaling, also. I know that she has bought the rights for my friend Uzma Jalaluddin’s book Ayesha at Last, I believe? Or was it Hana Khan Carries On? One of the two books — I think it’s Hana Khan Carries On. That’s what I aspire to, to own my own production company, help other creatives make their shows, to make sure that diverse writers get a chance in their story room, diverse directors get a chance to direct. I want to build capacity in Saskatchewan and bring up the professional technical crews, as well as the creative side, and I want to be a leading force in that world. In order to do that, I have to own my own IP and create my own stories. I can do it here, strangely, in Saskatchewan, and it’s so wonderful to be here and to be able to live that dream.

I think it’s important for you to make sure that my dreams are modest. Right now, to focus on a second season of the show — and not, you know, to have a whole slate of ten different projects. Just, you know, “I have the bandwidth for this.” I still have a lot to learn in terms of owning a production company, and understanding all the different pieces, and who I have to hire to help me with the different pieces. You can’t be a lone wolf in this industry. It’s just too big, and you need to surround yourself with people and hire the best people. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. You have to go through it to figure it out and go, “Oh, my God, I didn’t know there was such a person who did this job and that job and this job.” And so I learned so much by making a web series. It was only ten minutes and six episodes, but it was a wealth of experience, and I want to do it again and make it longer and learn from my mistakes and make it better and keep going with that, and to be able to create opportunities for other writers and directors while I’m going forward.

Rebecca
So much more that you learned since even doing Little Mosque — like, this whole experience was…

Zarqa
Yeah, it was incredible. Little Mosque, I was just the writer in the room. I didn’t understand what it took to put it together, like hiring crews. And then to live in a province with… we lost a tax credit for ten years, and so we lost all the technical crews to other provinces. Then not to know how devastating that’s been, and how long it’s going to take to build them back up, and where you have to hire people and import them — because you just have to, or it’s not going to work out. Those were the things I didn’t know and understand, which I’m hoping to fix this time around.

Rebecca
I like your idea of just: it’s a good thing to just keep this thing in mind. Like, “I’m going to do a second season,” as opposed to saying, “I want my ten slate project now.” That’s, I think, a good lesson for artists and people out in the world, that you can move at a pace that you can manage, and that’s a good way to move through the world.

Zarqa
Yeah. I’m really worried about spreading myself out too thin, then failing, or not being able to focus on the project. You know, people are like, “You should adapt your book,” or, “You should make your series into like a half hour.” And I was like, “You know what, let’s go slowly. I’m not ready for that. I need to build capacity.” If I was just a creative, it would be one thing, but I want to own my IP, and I want to own a production company. There are very specific reasons I want to own and maintain the ownership. That’s very critical for women of colour, but you also need to really learn a lot, and so I’m teaching myself as I go. It’s important that you learn the machinations of building a company, so that you won’t fail. Because you don’t get all the money at once, right? All the funders hold it back, and you have to borrow money. You have to have gap financing, and you have to build on that. People aren’t going to trust you with all this money as you get bigger, unless they’ve seen success already. You have to have a proven track record. So I’m trying to create a track record, so when the time is right to make a half hour, people will look at my history, and, “Well, she did this and this and this, and she did it on budget, and she brought it in on time, and she was successful — so now we can trust her.” People have told me this.

White guys, they can fail and people just give them opportunities over and over again, like the guys who make Game of Thrones, I believe — I was reading on Twitter, they were on a panel and they had only done short films, and suddenly they got the rights to this book, and they got to show run Game of Thrones. And they actually failed with the pilot. They had to reshoot it. You get a second chance, but I don’t feel as a woman of colour that those opportunities will be given. As someone joked with me, “They be messing up again.” They’ll be giving it to them, because they can’t be doing it right. So my attitude is: do it right each time, because you don’t get that second chance. There’s a very critical lens looking at you, and so I can’t afford to fail, so I’ve got to do it right, which means taking my time and learning all the steps and being really good at them.

Rebecca
Can we do a speed round with you, quick quick? Ok, question number one: what’s the last new skill you learned?

Zarqa
I’m learning how to do reels on Instagram. I don’t know how these people do it every day — they’re just like, “Zing zing zing zing zing,” — gone, right? And I’m like… it takes me a whole day. But you’d think as a filmmaker, it wouldn’t be that hard, because it’s all the same skills — editing and mixing. But I’m finding that people are really imaginative and creative on Instagram, and it’s amazing. So I’m trying to learn that skill, so that I can make better reels.

Natalie
Ok, what’s a common myth or something that people misunderstand about your profession?

Zarqa
Huh, that’s a good one. There’s so many things. People don’t understand that the writer doesn’t own the project. They think, “Oh, you own Little Mosque. So why can’t you sell it to me?” They call me and go, “We’d like to air it on our little thing. Can you give it to them?” I’m like, “I don’t own it. Someone else owns it.” They don’t understand the relationship between the creators and the producers, and who owns IP and intellectual property — they have no idea. So they just assume that if you can create something, you also own the production company and you’re handling it all, and you know everything and have everything under your control. They don’t realize there’s a million people around you who also have a say in it — that maybe the broadcaster owns it. They don’t understand licenses, and how they only have a couple of years. How the whole industry works, I think people really have no clue.

Rebecca
Ok, on a lighter note, what’s the funnest thing you did today?

Zarqa
Today? Oh my God, what would it be? Today, the most fun… I would say talking to my family. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m so obsessed with my career that I have to visibly… when they talk to me, I have to actually say to myself, “You have to listen.” Today actually, my son was saying something very profound to me about his future, and I managed to look at him and absorb what he was saying, and not just nod but actually repeat and add to the conversation and make him feel heard, which is really a big challenge from you guys.

Rebecca
To just be really present, because you’re juggling so much.

Zarqa
Yeah, I’m not present as a human being.

Natalie
Ok, well we only have three more questions for you, and we promise you they’re speedy. So how would your kids describe you? Three words.

Zarqa
Oh, my God, that’s easy: impulsive, vindictive, shallow. Unfocused — I can go on. You should just talk to them.

Natalie
I really don’t believe that, but ok.

Rebecca
Oh, that’s funny. Would your husband describe you that way, too?

Zarqa
He would also say there’s nice qualities. He goes, “You do care about some people sometimes.” Yeah, but I have to make a conscious effort to not think about myself all the time, and not feel sorry for myself. I remember listening to the CBC Radio, and a man was talking about the Central African Republic and the drought for four years, and I was like, “Ok, so there are people who have bigger problems than me.” I have to keep reminding myself, “I don’t actually have problems. They’re made up, they’re manufactured. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re fine.” You have to listen to other people who are living in horrifying conditions because of global warming, and they can’t grow anything, and there’s massive shortages of food, and I’m like, “That’s a real problem — that you are not currently facing. And you should be grateful for what you have.” That’s a hard lesson to learn. I think it was my publicist in the US who was saying someone had told her, “You can’t hold anxiety and gratefulness together.” I was like, “But somehow I manage to.”

Rebecca
You’re like, “Yes, you can.”

Natalie
“In fact, I do. So there.”

Rebecca
Ok, what do you need to be creative?

Zarqa
I think time. Space to think. I just need a quiet moment, where you can just absorb something and be able to let it bloom in your head. Every single thing that I’ve done in my life, it’s been one thing that struck — you know, it’s like a match, and you’re like: that would be amazing to expand on. Then you just need time to manifest it into some sort of project. But there’s usually one thing. Every project usually grows from one idea, one sort of something — and then I’m like, “Oh my god, that’s amazing. What if? What if this person got hit by an ambulance?” Then the story goes from that ‘what if’ moment.

Natalie
Ok, last one: what’s for dinner tonight?

Zarqa
What’s for dinner every night: chicken, in some form. It’s such a versatile animal. Thank you for creating that. It takes on a myriad of flavours.

Natalie
I love it. Zarqa, thank you so much for taking this time with us. We really do appreciate getting to have such a thoughtful, nuanced, really spread-across-the-gamut kind of convo, which is wonderful. Because that’s what art is, isn’t it? It is across all these different platforms that you’re doing, and we’re excited to get to be a part of the story right now with you.

Zarqa
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Rebecca
Yeah. It’s really fun, and I look forward to following your work — season two.

Natalie
Yes. Absolutely.

Zarqa
Thank you.

Rebecca
Thank you.

Natalie
Ok, wonderful. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Zarqa
Bye.

Natalie
Ok, bye.