Nazir Afzal

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is the solicitor and former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England, Nasir Afzar. Born in Birmingham to parents who'd emigrated to the UK from Pakistan in the early 1960s, he grew up experiencing racism on a daily basis. His father told him not to expect justice in this life, yet his remarkable career has been spent in its pursuit. During his 24 years at the Crown Prosecution Service, he led the fight to bring the perpetrators of some of Britain's most notorious crimes, particularly violent offences against women and girls, to justice. His case file includes the Rochdale grooming gangs, numerous so-called honour killings, and the prosecution of the disgraced former broadcaster Stuart Hall.

Presenter1:28

His commitment to uphold the law without fear or favour has earned him an OBE and an interesting mix of enemies. He's been on an al Qaeda hit list and the target of abuse from the far right.

Presenter1:40

He took early retirement from the CPS in 2015 but remains as busy as ever, chairing the Catholic Church's new safeguarding body and advising the Welsh Government on issues of gender-based violence. He says, I have hope in the power of the individual. Each one of us has it in them to save lives. In the days I have left, I intend to save more.

Presenter2:02

Nazir Afsar, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Nazir Afzal2:04

Hello, Lauren. It's a privilege and an honor to be with you.

Presenter2:06

Now, in his ear, you're a lawyer. Two of your heroes, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, are also lawyers, but you say you don't like them generally. Why is that?

Nazir Afzal2:16

Uh because lawyers love their own language. We have our ultraviolets and we have a bit more Latin we throw in. We are full of words, quite frankly, that want to distance ourselves from the people that we're meant to be providing support and advice to. And I don't like that. I prefer to speak as I would expect to be received.

Presenter2:35

And what about Gandhi and Mandela? Were they just so heroic that they transcended your natural antipathy towards lawyers? Or did you like their approach to the job?

Nazir Afzal2:43

I think when you're growing up, we didn't have any role models. And we had about two television channels. The only lawyer I knew was Perry Mason on TV. The only doctor I knew was Dr. Kildare. You know, so they were lawyers that transcended what they did. They used law as a tool for change. And both of them did. And they inspired me to think, well, actually, I can use law as a tool for change. And I hope that in some small way I've been able to do that. And they clearly set the path that I wanted to go on.

Presenter3:11

Nazia, much of your work requires empathy and an ability to listen to victims, to witnesses, and to police officers too. Did those soft skills come naturally to you when you were starting out?

Nazir Afzal3:23

You're not trained in law school to be sensitive, to show empathy, to demonstrate humanity even. Hopefully you've got it, but it's absolutely essential that you're able to listen, that you're able to understand. You never really understand a person until you can put yourself in their shoes, inside their skin and walk around in it. And I have always wanted to do that. And, you know, I've cried a lot during my legal career because these people have been touched by real, real pain. But at the same time, I get tremendous satisfaction in giving them something that they probably lacked before, which is justice.

Presenter4:03

Of course, we're going to hear your music choices, and I'm about to ask you for your first. Now, I happen to know that you did a bit of moonlighting as a club promoter and DJ back in the nineties.

Nazir Afzal4:13

How would you

Presenter4:13

How would you describe your style when you were tearing at the decks?

Nazir Afzal4:16

I promoted a couple of clubs in North London when I first moved to London, in Camden, and between 7 and 9pm when hardly anybody was in the room, I decided to test out my DJ skills. And the best advice I think I've ever received about DJing was from the late, great Andy Wetherall, who came to see me once. And he said to me, Nazir, give it up.

Presenter4:34

He wants to be.

Nazir Afzal4:39

And you'll be pleased to learn it didn't last very long, but this song always got people dancing.

Speaker 44:45

I'm the cream of the crop, I rise to the top, I never eat a pig cause a pig is a cop, but better yet a terminator, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, tryna play me up like this if my name was Sega. But I ain't going out like no perp, bitch. Keep the one style of yellow when I might switch it. I'm bumping around, then bump up it down. Without your head, name your wake-up in the dawn of the day. I'm coming to get ya, I'm coming to get ya. Spitting out lyrics, homie, I want ya. I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out your seat and jump around, jump around.

Speaker 45:14

Say

Presenter5:16

House of Pain and jump around. We can dedicate that one to Andrew Weatherall then this year ourselves.

Nazir Afzal5:21

We should.

Presenter5:22

So Nizir, let's go back then. Your parents were from Pakistan and during the Second World War your father Mohammed worked for the British Army. He was a caterer and by nineteen sixty he was stationed at a military base in Cyprus. And something happened to him there that changed the course of his life and ended up bringing him here.

Nazir Afzal5:30

Yes, it can be.

Nazir Afzal5:41

Somebody stole his money. It's as simple as that, which at that time I think was £1,700, which in 1661 was tens of thousands the equivalent. And that person returned to the United Kingdom. And my father said, I'm getting my money back. I've worked for this for the last 10, 20 years. He came back. He never told me how he got the money back. But he did get his money back and thought, hang on a minute, look, I've spent 20 odd years working, supporting the British Army. I'm now here. They're desperate for people to come and work here. My three eldest brothers have been born. I wasn't born yet. He thought, here's an opportunity for them to be educated and to give something back to the country where they have wanted to build their lives. And so he brought my mother over. A year later, I was born. And he worked in a factory where he was earning seven pounds a week. And he then developed this enormous skill of networking with the community. They looked to him because he had English language skills to engage with the authorities, to write letters on behalf of people who were new immigrants. He didn't have to take on that responsibility and neither did my mother. But both of them took on this extraordinary responsibility where they felt a duty to those who had come over and those who were now making a life in the United Kingdom.

Presenter6:47

Bah

Presenter7:00

And yet at the same time they didn't have much confidence in the authorities something your father made very clear to you, didn't he?

Nazir Afzal7:07

I was beaten so often. On one occasion, I was beaten by three guys who used my head as a footballer. I came home and my father attended to my wounds. And my 13-year-old boy, I was desperate for him to do something, tell the police, do something. And he said, there's no justice. Nobody's prepared to listen to us. And I had to challenge him on that. But at that time, he was right. And the idea that people from minority communities would be listened to was anathema to minority communities. And so I was taken by what he wanted to do, which is to provide a voice to those who were unheard. And in many, many respects, that's how I built my career doing the same thing. And I can clearly see where it came from. It came from him and from her.

Presenter7:47

I think

Presenter7:51

You described your mother once as a force of nature.

Nazir Afzal7:54

She was absolutely extraordinary. I mean, she passed away last year, Lauren, and you know, I spent during lockdown, I spent various weeks visiting her in Birmingham and massaging her legs and then realized for the first time, she was 92, how small her feet were, size threes. And it struck me, why didn't I know this about my mother? And it's because to me she was a mountain.

Nazir Afzal8:19

You know, she was enormous presence. And there was one family, for example, that wanted to marry their daughter off really early, 14, 15 year old girl or something. And she strides down the street and has this conversation with the mother and saying, How dare you do that? Your child can contribute so much more if you let her finish her education. And I was listening. There's me, a six, seven year old listening to my mum say this. Of course it had an impact on me.

Presenter8:46

It's time for your second track, Nazir. What are we going to hear?

Nazir Afzal8:48

We're going to hear Kate Bush, this woman's work. Obviously, with my mother's passing last year, when I was spending time with her, knowing that she was going to pass away, this song reminded me so much of what she had done and what she kept on doing without complaint. She never complained at all about the fact that she was bringing up, you know, six boys and a girl, how she was supporting everybody else in the community. And yet, you know, I don't think I showed her the love. that I wanted to show her. And this song is about saying, you know, her work was never done. And I think we should always reflect upon how important the women in our lives are, and certainly the women in my lives have been, and my mother has been, most of all.

Speaker 49:32

I should be crying when I just can't let it show. I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking. All the things we should've said that I never said. All the things we should've done that we never did. All the things I should've been doing.

Presenter10:02

Kate Bush and this woman's work. Sonazir Afsal, you were born in Small Heath, Birmingham, in 1962, the fourth of seven children. Paint me a picture, if you would, of life at home with the Afsals.

Nazir Afzal10:15

Two up, two down, tiny little garden. It was chaos, but absolutely adorable. You felt a part of something. People were shouting and screaming and laughing and it was just extraordinary. You couldn't imagine silence in that household. It never happened. And that buzz of family and community has stayed with me all of my life.

Presenter10:42

Naseehy, when you were eight, the family took a trip to Pakistan to your parents' home village, your first time visiting. What did it feel like getting to know the country?

Nazir Afzal10:51

It was an extraordinary journey, 30 days in a van, a transit van across Europe and Asia, arriving in the northwest frontier of Pakistan. And it was just phenomenal. Six months of immersing myself in traditions, in culture, in my extended family. It was brilliant. And then, of course, terrible things happened on the way back. We were returning across Europe and Asia. My seven-year-old cousin Yasmin, who was with me, got ill around about Germany. And, you know, we didn't know. My father was desperate for us to get home. He had his whole family in this van. And she got so ill that a day or so later, in just coming into Belgium, she died.

Presenter11:17

Germany and

Presenter11:30

She died of dehydration, didn't she?

Nazir Afzal11:31

Dehydr, which these days, a couple of pills, you know, but you couldn't Google that back then, could you? So suddenly I'm at Ostend port and we're being going on a ferry to get back to England. And my mother hands me my cousin and puts her in my arms and says, Look after her, she's sleeping. And I'm carrying her body, without knowing that, across the Channel and arriving in Dover until the authorities take her. I looked at her face, I stroked her hair. Lauren, nobody's gonna die in my watch again. That's what I felt, and that's what I've always felt.

Presenter12:05

Nizya, let's take a minute for some more music. This is your third disc. What are we going to hear and why?

Nazir Afzal12:11

It's why should I cry for you by sting? My father passed away from a series of strokes, and for several weeks I had now moved into various important roles and I was really busy. But I was lying to myself actually. I didn't want to see him in the state that he was now in that hospital, and so I didn't go. And then one morning, for some reason, I wanted to go to Birmingham. I had to go. I turned up at the hospital. He looked at me, he smiled, and he passed away.

Nazir Afzal12:43

It was almost like he waited.

Nazir Afzal12:46

He waited for me to turn up before he would leave the surf, and

Nazir Afzal12:52

I couldn't cry. I know that he wouldn't want me to cry. You know, I loved him, as the song says, in my fashion.

Nazir Afzal13:01

And this song reminds me that all of us have suffered a lot of loss in the last year or so, but that the person that has left you would not want you to cry for them.

Speaker 413:12

Sometimes I see your face

Speaker 413:17

Stars seem to lose their place.

Speaker 413:23

Why must I think of you?

Speaker 413:29

Why must I?

Speaker 413:33

Why should I Why should I cry?

Presenter13:40

Sting, and why should I cry for you? Nazir Afsal, you were considered the clever one in the family, and I know that your older brothers looked out for you. How did they do it?

Nazir Afzal13:50

The situation in the 70s was perilous really. A lot of unemployment and you know my older brothers and my father were working and my mother were working extraordinarily hard but they were allowing me to just study. You know I'd be down the library pretty much every day. You know she was my Google librarian and I was learning and I was being allowed to learn and that I think is a privilege that I've never forgotten.

Presenter14:15

But school itself was stressful for you and you were bullied. Why do you think you became a target?

Nazir Afzal14:21

I think it's because, you know, I wasn't really engaging with people. You know, I I'd lock myself away to study and stuff. That meant that people really weren't getting to know me apart from one or two people. And there were many occasions in which I was being bullied. Whenever I played rugby, the moment I got the ball, somebody would shout

Nazir Afzal14:41

Get the packy and I'd have to throw the ball as far away as possible to protect my life. There were other occasions. I remember my mum bought me a new blazer, but rather than wait till September, she gave it to me in June, so before the end of term. And I turned stupidly turned up in my new blazer in the last week of term. And these guys just simply grabbed it and ripped off the sleeve. I went home. I didn't tell my mum this, and I don't think she ever knew. But I got her needle and thread and sewed that little sleeve back on.

Presenter15:13

So you didn't you couldn't tell your mother that could you tell your parents about any of it?

Nazir Afzal15:17

I couldn't tell my parents any of it. I think it was protecting them, but also I suspect a feeling a sense of, I don't know, guilt. That somehow, you know, they've given, they're shielding me, they're providing me with all the support they've done. I can't give them a burden. I can't share what's happening to me. And sadly, actually, Lauren, thinking back over that was the case for the next 40-odd years, that I really didn't talk to people about how I was feeling. And I think it's important for me to say that's not a good thing, but it's how I think I managed to survive.

Presenter15:52

I think we better hear disc number four. What have you chosen, Lizzie?

Nazir Afzal15:55

I've chosen UB401 in 10, a Birmingham band. We're in the early 80s now, as far as this tune is concerned, and 10% of the population are unemployed. The line in it about a statistical reminder of a world that doesn't care still resonates today. I lost my brother to COVID. He's more than a number. Every piece of paper that I ever dealt with as a prosecutor is a person, and this song really tells me and reminds me regularly that we should always see the person and not just the number.

Speaker 416:27

The one in

Speaker 416:29

I'm Mirony I never wanted

Speaker 416:32

Even though I don't exist

Speaker 416:35

Nobody knows me, but I'm always

Speaker 416:39

Statistical minder of world identity

Presenter16:58

1 in 10, UB40. Nazia Afzal, after your training, you started working as a defense lawyer, but it didn't suit you. Why not?

Nazir Afzal17:07

I just couldn't do it. There was one occasion actually where I'm advising a rape suspect in a police station before his interview. And this is before tape recorded interviews that you've seen in Line of Duty. In those days, you took a statement from the victim. And so I've given him a copy of the statement the police provided to me. And I can see this guy literally getting off on rehearing and re-rehearsing what he had done allegedly to that woman. And his reaction to reading what she said.

Nazir Afzal17:40

Just was the icing on the cake in my mind. You know, I couldn't say to him, plead guilty because he wasn't going to. He was going to drag her through the courtroom as he ultimately would have done. And that's his right, absolutely. But why should I be party to that? I wasn't going to be party to that. So I walked out the door, literally, and handed my notice almost immediately afterwards. I'm not doing this anymore. I can't.

Presenter18:00

He resigned.

Nazir Afzal18:06

Do this. Good for people who can, and we do need people who can do that, but it wasn't for me.

Presenter18:12

We'd better have some music, then. This is disc number five. What have you got?

Nazir Afzal18:16

I've got Set You Free by Entrance featuring Kelly Lorena and I apologise to all my fellow tube travelers in the mid-90s because literally the way I got myself in the mood when I'm on my way to court and I was in court four or five days a week was to listen to some trance or some dance or some hip-hop or some jungle and as loudly as it's possible to listen to it and it was necessary I mean there are no big tunes about justice or law are there Lauren and so I chose music that really got me energized that would have me bouncing around inside of me and outside the courtroom and this song got me in the mood

Speaker 418:53

When we touch each other

Speaker 419:00

In a state of ecstasy

Speaker 419:07

One is not so last forever

Speaker 419:13

Oh their love can set you free.

Presenter19:23

Set you free, Entrance with Kelly Lorena. Nazir Afzal, in two thousand three you were appointed the Director of Prosecutions for London and turned your attention to so-called honor-based violence. And you said that being a man and a Muslim was helpful when taking on these crimes. Why?

Nazir Afzal19:39

Because the women's groups, the groups that were working with survivors, said to me two things. One is, no man is talking about this subject, Nazir, and secondly, no man is talking about it with government. And so it gave me an opportunity, using whatever influence I had, to engage with government, the Home Office, and all the other departments. And it also gave me an opportunity to engage with men who are the perpetrators in the main of this type of behavior and to call them out on what they were doing to women and girls in our country, in our communities, in fact, in the world. And somehow it was easier for me, it may not look that way, but it somehow easier for me to go to a particular environment, whether it's a place of worship or a community center, and to have it out with people about what they were doing that meant that people were being harmed, women were being harmed, than it would have been for a woman in those same circumstances.

Presenter20:30

You were involved in some incredibly harrowing cases, including the killing of Banaz Mahmoud, a young Kurdish woman who was murdered by members of her own family because she fell in love with a man they didn't approve of. It took many years, but you did eventually bring successful prosecutions against her killers. For you personally, are successes like that bittersweet?

Nazir Afzal20:51

100%. I would rather that nobody was harmed. It was never in my job description that I would have to bury somebody. In Bernard's case, the charity, the Kurdish Women's Association, because the family were responsible for her death, they took it, the charity took it upon themselves to bury her and to have a memorial for her, which I attended. You know, recently, not long ago, I went there again to her grave in South London to remind myself why it is that I do what I do. I do not want people in graves. I do not want people having to suffer. I want people to learn from the mistakes that we made. And there were mistakes made by a number of agencies that allowed people like Bernards to die.

Presenter21:36

How did you cope with the details of that and being immersed in it and also being personally connected? As you say, I know you you contributed to her gravestone, you were there attending her funeral.

Nazir Afzal21:48

You you have to remain professional. It's sometimes very difficult. As I said uh right at the outset, there are occasions in which I've cried. I try not to cry in the presence of other people, but sometimes you can't avoid to do that. But it's important that my humanity comes out, that I'm not a robot, that I have a daughter, that we have children, that we want our families to be safe and secure, as people like Banaz and Heshu and Sajda and Sajid and Gita. They're etched on my brain, Lauren. The names of the victims are etched on my brain. I have prosecuted.

Nazir Afzal22:27

Thousands of homicides of all types, of all communities. I have prosecuted thousands of rape cases and serious harm cases, and the victims don't leave me. But they shouldn't leave me, because if they did leave me, I wouldn't be doing them a good service.

Presenter22:45

It's time to hear your next piece of music, Nazir. What's it gonna be?

Nazir Afzal22:48

It's Women in Chains by Tears for Fears. People can read anything they like into it, but for me it's about the fact that women have been put in chains, that we men and it's men all the time sadly that want to restrict the choices that women make.

Speaker 423:17

Walmart and J.

Speaker 423:20

Warmer chair.

Speaker 423:29

Come to me to great white home.

Presenter23:35

Woman in Chains, Tears for Fears and Olita Adams. Nazir Afsal, in 2011 you moved to Manchester and you were appointed Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England. Around this time you were made aware of gangs of mainly Pakistani men operating in Rochdale who were grooming vulnerable and underage girls for sex. In 2009 the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to press charges when the first victim made her allegations. What made you take the rare step of reversing that decision?

Nazir Afzal24:06

The view of the police and prosecutors at that time was that the victim was so broken and that no jury would ever believe her somehow. That was the view taken anyway by those who dealt with the case back then. But I thought, hang on a minute, I believe her. You know, I watched the video disclosures. And there was a problem because we had decided not to prosecute based on her evidence. How could I put this? Now we had 47 victims and we had nine perpetrators. How could we put this before a court? How could we say to a jury, remember as a jury, we want you to believe this victim. We didn't believe her, but we want you to believe her. Well, this was when I made it very clear that what we do is we admit we got it wrong. She didn't get it wrong. We as an institution got it wrong. The police got it wrong. We got the whole issue of grooming gangs wrong. We need to put it right. And that's how you build confidence. And that's how we're able to build the case and put the case before a jury. But it was really, really painful to a lot of agencies to realize how poor they had been. Everybody responsible for the safeguarding of these young girls had failed them.

Presenter25:08

So there was pushback from the agencies and a reckoning to be had there, but also bringing the prosecutions did bring you into conflict with some members of the South Asian community. What kinds of reactions were you coming up against?

Nazir Afzal25:21

I did a Rotsdale town hall event where I'm speaking to 300-400 people and I'm telling them that it beggars belief that a 59-year-old man is driving around with a 14-year-old girl not of his ethnicity. Why didn't anybody say anything? And somebody stands up in the room and says, do you want us to be grasses? And I said, no. I want you to be good neighbours. That could be your daughter. That could be your friend's daughter. You have a responsibility more widely. And so I was doing this challenge. The great news is the vast majority of people absolutely understood it and they were as shocked by this as anybody else. The thing that I wasn't prepared for, Lauren, was the attacks on me by the far right. Now, some people seem to suggest, well, because I've raised this case and prosecute this case, that they should be carrying me on their shoulders. But they didn't like that. They didn't like the fact that somebody who was brown had brought this prosecution because I damaged their narrative, which everybody that's brown is a bad guy. And their followers came for me. I had far-right thugs outside of my house. I had to teach my children how to use the panic alarm that had been placed in the house. My kids could only go to school in a taxi for three months because that was a safe and secure thing for them. My whole family was under attack. That must have been terror. Terrifying. 100%. And we had done everything. I had done everything right in that case. So why was I being subjected to this? Well, it was only because of the colour of my skin. There's no getting away from it. These people were determined to destroy me and they came very close to destroying me. Mentally, it took its toll. And there was a long, long period of time afterwards where I questioned doing the job. And the great news is that as always, my response was, actually, let's do the job even more.

Presenter26:56

In twenty twelve, nine men were convicted of sexually exploiting the young girls. Sitting in the courtroom on that day, what were the emotions you felt hearing the verdicts come in?

Nazir Afzal27:08

There's no elation. There is satisfaction that the job has been done properly and correctly. There is satisfaction that more victims and witnesses will now hopefully come forward and they too will get justice. There is satisfaction that we can do our job better and learn from our mistakes of the past. So I don't have any elation. I've never celebrated a successful case because, as I said, nobody should be harmed in the first place.

Presenter27:36

Do you keep in touch with any of the victims that you've helped?

Nazir Afzal27:40

I have no

Nazir Afzal27:42

Nobody more important in my life than the victims and survivors that constantly ring me up. I'm so glad they do. I'm glad they email me to tell me how they're doing. There was one case, which was the Stuart Hall case, which people may recall, the BBC presenter. He was found guilty of the abuse of 12 women and girls and not guilty of one. I went to see the one he was found not guilty of and I said to her, I'm really sorry that I couldn't give you closure. And she looked me in the eyes and she said, you gave me closure the moment that you believed me. My recovery started the moment that you believed me. That has never left me.

Presenter28:18

It's time for your next track, Nazir Afsal. What is it, and why are you taking it to the island?

Nazir Afzal28:22

I am selecting the song One, which is by you two, but it this is the version where Mary J. Blige is on lead vocals. There are a few things in life, Lauren, that can't be improved by being a woman on lead vocals. So no disrespect to Bono. This is a song that means a great deal to me.

Speaker 428:48

Love is a higher law. You asked for me to enter, but then you make me crawl. And I can't keep holding on to what you've got. Cause all you got is her love.

Speaker 429:07

One man!

Presenter29:10

one. You two with Mary J. Blige. Nizir Afsal, you started out determined to make a difference, and you've done that in so many ways. Do you ever allow yourself to feel proud of your achievements?

Nazir Afzal29:25

My children keep me grounded. Whenever I feel any sense of um pride I remember I I did this brilliant presentation to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister and Down Street and I came home floating on air as if somehow I was God's gift. I don't know what I felt. Opened the door and my four-year-old at the time just threw up on my shoes.

Nazir Afzal29:44

And

Nazir Afzal29:45

That brought me down to where I needed to be.

Nazir Afzal29:48

Yeah. Uh

Presenter29:48

How do you think you'll coop on the island?

Nazir Afzal29:49

Very badly. I love my own company, but I love the fact that I'm able to, I don't know, at least see other people and engage with other people in some way, some from some distance. The the thing that really fills my heart is when I'm talking to a large group of victim survivors or NGOs, whatever it may be, I love being in their company because they are the greatest people in the world. And the fact that they wouldn't be there is something I'd miss terribly.

Presenter30:14

Are you practical?

Nazir Afzal30:15

Uh

Nazir Afzal30:17

I can knock up a shelf, I can do a bit of DIY. I wouldn't say that I'm garden rescue material, but I'm certainly capable of putting a few things together. But you know, let's put it this way, I think I won't last very long.

Presenter30:31

All right, well, one more disc before we send you there, Nazir. What's your last choice and why?

Nazir Afzal30:36

This is Tracy Chapman talking about revolution and we've talked a lot about how we can deliver change and it's so important that we recognize that each one of us has a responsibility. That we often say, oh, I don't know, it's too much, it's too big, somebody else can deal with it. There are so many examples where one person has changed one other person's life and that is a revolution for that person. Remember that. And this song really brings that home to me. It may be a whisper, as Tracy says, but actually, it can be so, so loud.

Speaker 431:09

Don't you know, we're talking about a river Douche on the sounds.

Speaker 431:17

Don't you know how talking about a revolution sounds like a whisper?

Speaker 431:25

While they're standing in the world airline

Speaker 431:30

Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation.

Speaker 431:34

Wasting time in the amphoraidines, sitting around.

Presenter31:41

Tracy Chapman talking about a revolution. So, Naziah Afzal, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Quran and the complete works of Shakespeare. You can take another book of your choice with you. What would you like?

Nazir Afzal31:53

I would select Harpales' To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a story of racial injustice. It's a story of justice. Full stop. There's so much in the book about how we handle conscience and how we handle courage. And there's a great line. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway. That is the most courageous thing.

Presenter32:12

You can also have a luxury item to make your stay more enjoyable on the island. What will that be?

Nazir Afzal32:17

I've gone for an acoustic guitar because I did teach myself how to use one. Don't give me any sheet music because I can't read it. But it's I would love to be able to strum a few tunes while I'm out there.

Presenter32:26

And finally, which one of the eight tracks that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you had to?

Nazir Afzal32:32

This woman's work by Kate Bush because it reminds me so much of the most important woman in my life, my mother, who passed away last year.

Presenter32:42

Nazir Afsal, thank you so much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Nazir Afzal32:47

Thank you.

Presenter33:04

I hope you've enjoyed my conversation with Nazir.

Presenter33:06

We've cast away many lawyers to our island, including former Judge Heather Hallett, Clive Stafford Smith, Brian Stevenson and Kimberly Motley, and also Nazia's old boss Sakir Starmer. He's there too. You can find their episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds.

Speaker 333:36

Hello there, I'm Simon Armitage. I'm just heading down the garden path, so this might be a good moment to tell you about the new series of my Radio 4 podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed. This shed, actually. And the shed's been quite a lonely place this past year for fairly obvious reasons, so it's great to be able to plump up the plastic cushions, set up an extra fold-away chair, and natter about life and creativity with talented and thoughtful people. Guests include the Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen, broadcaster DJ and gardener Joe Wiley, and Smith's guitarist Johnny Mart. Put your ear to one of the many knot holes in the wall by searching for The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed on BBC Sounds.