On exile: The Dissident Club

Branch social media officer Nika Talbot began the conversation with Taha saying: “it's a fabulous book – I read it over the weekend. It's funny, it's a bit cool. It's quite emotional, and it made me laugh several times out loud… The Dissident Club, Nika summarised, “is Taha’s story of growing up in an Islamist family, becoming an atheist, and his fight for freedom of expression and religion.”

In exile, he's also been a visiting fellow at the elite university Sciences Po and has written for international news outlets such as the Washington Post, the Guardian and Foreign Policy.

In Pakistan in 2014 he was reporting for leading international media publications, including the New York Times and the Guardian. But he had to flee his homeland seven years ago after surviving a kidnapping and assassination attempt – allegedly carried out by Pakistani army officials. In 2019 he was informed by the French and American authorities that his name was on a Pakistani state-sanctioned kill list’.

Nika asked why Taha had chosen to use the graphic novel format to tell his story.

Taha explained that when he arrived in France in 2018, he was contacted by publishers and agents who had read about the kidnapping and assassination attempt.

“So, I started writing a small synopsis to present it to some good publishers. I showed the first few pages to a friend - a French journalist, who said 'your story is very visual. Have you ever thought of doing a comic book?' I was like, no, I don't know anything about comic books.

“But,” observed Taha, “as comic books are 'the ninth form of art' in France. They're very well supported by the government, and graphic storytelling is becoming bigger and bigger. So, I started meeting cartoonists, and eventually I met Hubert Maury.”

Taha told us that “When I was growing up, my parents moved to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan for work. The 1970s and 80s were a period of Islamisation -- in Pakistan with general Zia al Haq, or with the dictator in Saudi Arabia backing the Wahhabi and Salafist movements, my father got radicalised in that process. He banned comic books.

“So, I thought: to talk about my life in a comic book would be an act of resistance.

“For the French version, I had to rely on translators. The English one is really my voice. I think.

“The story that I tell in the book is of a very conservative religious household. In [Saudi Wahhabi] Islam, to draw humans, or to draw living things is not something that a person should do it's only the creator's job. You can draw nature. There were these Islamist colouring books in the house.

“There are some parts of the book which are... a bit blasphemous. I think I'll have a very tough time trying to get distribution in Pakistan.”

Nika recalled Taha writing of being an “accidental journalist” after going to business school.

“In Saudi Arabia my father was working in the pilgrimage business – the religious tourism business that we have with Hajj and Um rah, when Muslims come from all over the world. He wanted me to have a business degree and join him.

“I didn't want to do that; General Musharraf was the dictator of Pakistan when I was graduating. I remember a small sort of press conference that happened because Shaukat Aziz, who was the Prime Minister at the time, went to my university, and he was considered to be this... technocrat solution for Pakistan. We were just asking questions. It was toward the end of Musharraf 's dictatorship he had liberalised the media, in the hope that this would somehow counter the narrative [of Pakistan] that India was building internationally.

“But at the end of his reign the media came after him. So, I graduated in an environment where the media was asking questions. But, growing up in a radical Islamic household, we were told that questioning is not allowed.

“As a 17-year-old, you have so many questions. I was like, 'OK, I'm going to try to find something in that.' A job that opened up with a financial analyst, covering the markets for CNBC Pakistan, which is an American network. That was a big problem in my household. But working for television was a complete no-no, but I had them convinced that it was a finance-related job.

“Some 20 years ago I realised that the story is not in just the economy, but political economy. I wanted to do more political journalism, and this was the time when the dictatorship was ending, Benazir Bhutto [prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996] had just come back to Pakistan and was then assassinated.

“The early years of my journalism had a lot of terrorism, and a lot of accusations directed at the military. That was an entry point into investigating Pakistan, and eventually that's why I had to leave Pakistan.

“Then I had nothing. I had to start over. I really wanted to get out, because I didn't feel safe, I felt like I would be killed any day. I was completely paranoid – and rightly so, after surviving that kidnap experience, and I had severe PTSD. The first year or two was quite difficult.

“I thought that maybe I'd stay in France for a bit, relax, and then maybe in Pakistan things will calm down... But gradually I started enjoying the independence I had in France, and the freedom to speak freely.

“In my first year in exile I was contacted by American intelligence, and then by French intelligence, they each mentioned that they had a state-sanctioned kill list, and my name was on that kill list. They told me to be careful even going to any countries friendly to Pakistan, in the Middle East, or China, or Turkey.

“This was in late 2018, and Jamal Kashoggi had just been killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The intelligence assessment was that the Saudis were going to get away with that – which they did, in many ways.

“That is when I decided that perhaps I'm never going to go back to Pakistan. So, I might as well build something in France.

“People told me: don't look back, start anew, do not try to relive your experiences or relive your trauma. But I wanted to continue doing what I left behind. I would to get people like me, exiled dissidents, together to continue their work. That's where the Dissident Club comes from, the bar in Paris that I have run for the last 5 years. Last year we represented over 50 countries. We have events almost every day, debates, roundtables, book launches, exhibitions, music, documentary projections.

“I also teach and try to have a very active social media profile. I try to continue my journalism, but not the field, more analytical work and a lot of press freedom work.

“I did a crowd funding, and I raised around €10,000 to launch a “deep media” platform. The idea is that the Dissident Club should be accessible to people who cannot physically come there but can visit virtually. And we're partnering with a radio station in Paris that will be doing a weekly show from the bar. The focus will be on the transnational repression we're seeing increasingly in Europe, in the West, that dissidents are not safe anymore, they're being threatened.

“Recently an Azerbaijani political activist was killed in France. Another was stabbed – someone who I had hosted at my bar. Chinese dissident friends of mine have been attacked, harassed and intimidated.Families back home also get coerced and blackmailed, and that's another form of transnational repression.

“My mother recently sent me a message when she found out that the book has come out. She said that she would like to read it. My dad has no idea. I asked a few people if they were willing to take it to Pakistan. A lot of people advised me not to – it could be dangerous.

“There are some drawings which might be considered blasphemous, the blasphemy law is used as a political tool to silence people.

“One of the things that I really wanted the book to document is this idea about what it means to have freedoms today. From the perspective of a Western audience, where those freedoms are already existing, but we don't even have them to begin with. One of the feelings that I tried to evoke in the book is about not taking freedoms for granted, especially freedom of religion, freedom of speech.

“The book has come out in five languages... I wish it could. one day, come out in Urdu, my native language in Pakistan and it could become part of school curricula.”

A member asked why Taha went to Paris.

Right after he was attacked, Taha said, he didn't have much time to think about where he could go: “I wrote to my friends and journalist networks, and the French network was the fastest to come back to me. They helped with the visa, they provided me with an apartment, and then the European Union human rights defender programme got involved, which gave me a relocation grant.”

Winning the Prix Albert Londres, “which is like the French Pulitzer Prize,” in 2014 “really helped, because that journalism award is very well known in France”.

The Freelance thanks Taha for coming all the way from Paris to speak to the branch in person. His book is available at this link. The website for the Dissident Club Bar is thedissidentclub.org in case any members want to visit – Taha says we are all welcome.

© Pennie Quinton