Motion of Condolence
The next item of business is one that we would all prefer not to be holding: a motion of condolence following the death of Bashir Ahmad MSP.
One of my early duties as Presiding Officer was to introduce Her Majesty the Queen to the members of this third session of the Scottish Parliament at a reception that she gave for us in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. With 43 new members, getting everyone's name right was not the easiest of tasks. As I approached one group at that reception, I noticed two men who were resplendent in the national dress of Pakistan, but I completely failed to recognise Bashir Ahmad as one of them. We sorted it out quietly between us and I duly introduced him to Her Majesty. Later, I went back and apologised to him for my error.
Many members—including myself—would possibly have been none too pleased if that had happened to them, and might quite justifiably have made their feelings known in no uncertain terms. Bashir, however, went to great lengths to put me at ease, to the extent that it almost seemed that he was apologising to me rather than the other way around. That, I suspect, was the very essence of Bashir Ahmad: unassuming, forgiving, patient and kind. He seemed to me to be the very epitome of the gentle man, in every sense.
I also suspect that he harboured not one ounce of malice towards anyone else, politically or otherwise, and it was clear to me that that absence of malice was accompanied by modesty that was anything but false. Yet, that gentle, modest and unassuming man has blazed a trail in becoming the first Asian MSP to grace the benches of our Scottish Parliament. Those who will follow his lead will do so in the certain knowledge that their forerunner set the finest of examples—one that they would do well to emulate.
In saying goodbye to Bashir, Parliament is saying goodbye to a good friend who made a great mark on this place in a sadly curtailed term of office. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with his wife and family, many of whom we are honoured to have with us in the gallery today.
I call on the First Minister to speak to and move the motion of condolence.
As-salamu alaykum.
In the Islamic funeral rites, it is common for the imam to ask the assembled congregation for forgiveness on behalf of the deceased for any wrongs or injuries that were done by that person. That is obviously as it should be, because in all the great religious traditions, forgiveness, like self sacrifice, is at the centre of the order of things—and so it was on Saturday, at the funeral prayers for Bashir Ahmad, at the Central mosque in Glasgow. Appropriate though that appeal certainly is, I have probably never known anyone less in need of it than Bashir.
For 15 years, it was my privilege to know this man. He did no one knowingly any injury, harm or hurt; rather, he left everyone who met him feeling that bit better about themselves and about life. That is a major quality for any human being to have, but in a politician, it is priceless. As Burns put it:
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.
Born in Amritsar in pre-independence India, Bashir came to Scotland as a young man with little English and few prospects. Through hard work and dedication, he worked his way through a career on the buses to become a successful businessman and five-times chair of the Pakistan welfare trust. He was triumphant when elected in his beloved Pollokshields to Glasgow City Council and then went on to make history as the first Asian member of our Scottish Parliament.
All—indeed any—of that would be a matter of great pride, and Bashir was a proud man. However, his was not pride in himself: Bashir's pride was for family, community and country. He was fiercely proud of his family: his wife, Mrs Naseem Ahmad, to whom we send our deep condolences, and his seven children, who are with us today in the gallery—Sajid, Atif, Rosie, Uzma, Saima, Sumbla and Bushra, whose wedding I had the great privilege of attending just before Christmas—and the 11 grandchildren. That family was Bashir's pride and joy. He was also proud of his faith and his community.
All of us, when we enter Parliament, embrace a duty of care to our constituents, but Bashir had carried such a duty all his life. At the burial service in Cathcart cemetery on Saturday, I stood beside a man whose younger sister had died tragically last month, leaving behind a young family. Not only had Bashir visited that family as their MSP, he had been to the graveside no fewer than three times.
When someone is the first to make a mark in any job or profession, or to sit in a Parliament, their character becomes enormously important. The Muslim community and, indeed, the community of Scotland, were hugely fortunate in the character and the calibre of our first Asian MSP. He will set the standard and the mark for those to come.
Bashir had great pride in his adopted country: he was probably the most patriotic Scot I have ever met. Since he came to Scotland in 1961, he embarked on a near-half century mission—a campaign—to repay a simple debt of kindness that was offered to a young penniless immigrant by a Glasgow bus driver who took Bashir to a place of refuge and safety.
The attempt to repay that debt led Bashir into the occasional scrape. A few years ago, he and I stopped at Harthill service station, where we came across a young Polish worker who was encamped there for a few hours, and who had no English and only a scrap of paper with the name of an Edinburgh lodging house. Bashir was delighted, and seized the opportunity—in what seemed like an exact replica of his own visit to Scotland all those years ago—to drive the young Pole to Edinburgh. We arrived at midnight, but as we got to Edinburgh, the young man became increasingly agitated. We later found out that he had good reason for not wanting to return to the Edinburgh lodging house, and the last we saw of him he was hightailing it up Leith Walk. However, the intention and the thought were there.
Bashir could see no wrong in Scotland: to him, our manifest faults were incidental to the essential goodness that he had witnessed and experienced. Through his life and work, Bashir repaid his debt to Scotland in full. His faith was extraordinary—I wish I could be half the First Minister that Bashir thought I am. If this country could be just half of what Bashir thought we could be, we would be a great nation indeed.
When Bashir launched Scots Asians for independence at the Scottish National Party conference in 1995, he developed a phrase of which he was so fond that he worked it into every available speech since. He said: "It isn't important where you come from; what matters is where we are going together as a nation."
Let that stand as his epitaph.
Inshallah.
With great sadness and great pride, I formally move,
That the Parliament expresses its deep regret and sadness at the death of Bashir Ahmad MSP; offers its sympathy and condolences to Bashir's family and friends, and believes that as the first Scots-Asian Member of the Scottish Parliament, and a man of faith and dignity, his contribution to Scotland's democratic process and community relations over many years leaves a hugely positive legacy for all of Scotland.
I am grateful for this opportunity to extend the sympathies and condolences of every Labour member of the Parliament to the family of our colleague and brother Bashir Ahmad in this, their time of loss. I also express our support for our SNP colleagues in their bereavement. We all feel sadness for the loss of Bashir, but to lose one of your own number is a special hurt indeed, as we know from experience in this part of the chamber.
It is a truth that, when someone we know dies, we often find out things about them that we did not know before, but wish we had. I learned from the published tributes to Bashir that he began his working life in this country as a bus conductor. I did, too. I wish I had known that, because we ex-bus conductors consider ourselves special people indeed, with a particular bond. I wish that I had had the chance to compare notes.
Bashir used that special start in life rather better than I did, becoming a very successful businessman who was highly regarded in his adopted home city of Glasgow and beyond. Those of us who were privileged to be at his funeral on Saturday were left in no doubt as to the affection with which he was regarded by all of Glasgow, especially the Muslim community of that city, and how profoundly his passing is felt by it. His time in the Parliament was all too short. Like, I suspect, many members here, I wish that I had known him better. When one met him in the corridors or lobbies of Parliament, the warmth of his smile and the generosity of his greeting lit up the whole place.
Bashir has a special place in the story of the Scottish Parliament. He was the first Asian Scot and the first Muslim to be an MSP. At the opening of the Parliament, another who was to be taken suddenly from us, Donald Dewar, spoke of the echoes of Scotland and its past that could be heard in the chamber. He said:
"This is about who we are, how we carry ourselves. In the quiet moments … we might hear some echoes from the past. The shout of the welder in the din of the great Clyde shipyards; the speak of the Mearns … the discourse of the enlightenment".
When Bashir Ahmad took his oath as an MSP in Urdu, he wove into that tapestry of "who we are" another of Scotland's authentic voices, which had been missing until that moment. Its cadence was never strident—indeed, Bashir's was perhaps the gentlest voice in this place—yet it will echo through the chamber for as long as men and women meet here to seek a better future for the country that Bashir clearly loved so much. That is a fine legacy for a good man.
The Scottish Parliament is still young, but history will chronicle particular events of singular importance in its development. Among them will undoubtedly be the election to Parliament in 2007 of Bashir Ahmad, our first Asian MSP. Although he was a committed member of the Scottish National Party and an unstinting champion of its cause, I feel that I can use the phrase "our first Asian MSP" because he had an influence in Parliament and beyond that transcended party-political boundaries. His presence made Parliament a better place, and the pride in his achievement was a collective pride that was shared across the parties.
Yes, he was a diligent, conscientious and effective MSP and his service on cross-party groups in the Parliament illustrated his wide span of interests in political and parliamentary activity, but it was the way in which he conducted that activity that attracted universal respect and affection. He was the embodiment of dignity and courtesy—gentle in demeanour and gracious in attitude. He was a man who, on meeting me on the Glasgow underground, was more concerned with carrying my suitcase than with getting himself to a formal dinner to meet the First Minister.
We shall all miss him. His wife and family are very much in our thoughts and prayers, but they should be proud and take comfort in the knowledge that Bashir Ahmad was a fine ambassador for politics and politicians. His mark on Parliament is a lasting one, not just because of his legacy as an MSP, but because of the challenge that his presence in this Parliament has laid before all the political parties to reflect better the diversity that is today's Scottish society. What better way to remember him than that we, the political parties, should be determined to succeed in that objective.
Bashir Ahmad never struck me as a politician's politician. He was rather better than that. He was a man of sincerity, dignity and manners—a genuine gentleman. In many a walk from the Parliament chamber back to the office after a vote, we would discuss marriage—the need for marriage and the importance of it. He gave me that polite and cheerful lecture in the most understated of ways on a number of occasions. He was referring to my then girlfriend, and I finally got the point.
His achievement as Scotland's first Asian member of the Parliament will be to encourage people of all backgrounds, faiths and thoughts to tackle politics and public life. The party of which he was a member deserves credit for putting him here. On a day of reflection, I cannot be the only party leader observing that his presence should apply across politics. However, Bashir Ahmad was no identikit politician—he was not just another man in a dark suit. Perhaps the greater legacy, at a time when people can find politics to be too much of the same, is to appeal to people who are outside the orthodoxy of modern public life. That would be a worthwhile change indeed.
The First Minister has called Bashir Ahmad a great patriot—I do not doubt that he was. We are a stronger Parliament, country and people if we can revel in our Scottishness but reflect it in the diversity of 21st century Scotland. Bashir Ahmad epitomised that. From the Liberal Democrat benches, I express my sorrow at his passing, our condolences to his family—who join us today—and our hope and desire that that genuine gentleman will be, in memory, a beacon of hope across politics and throughout the country. Scotland is a sadder place for his passing.
I offer my condolences and those of the Green party to Bashir Ahmad's family and friends and all his colleagues. Previous speakers have reflected on Bashir's gentleness and politeness and his quiet nature, which are characteristics that are perhaps not found in politics as often as they should be. However, as the First Minister reminded us, before his contribution to Parliament, local government or business, Bashir Ahmad—that polite and quiet man—was on the Glasgow buses. I would never want to question the character of bus drivers in my city, but even those whom I know well might agree that Bashir's qualities of quiet courtesy would be as remarkable in that field as they are in the political arena.
Each morning in Glasgow, I board a bus. In recent years, I have shown my bus pass to as diverse a range of drivers as could be. There have been Asian—probably first, second and third generation—African, North American, South American and Polish drivers. I have heard accents from every part of the United Kingdom and from far beyond. Not all those bus drivers will choose to spend their whole lives in Scotland, as Bashir did, but all those communities, accents and voices are part of Scotland. Bashir's election to the Parliament was a reminder not only of the truth of that diversity, but of the time that it has taken for that diversity to be reflected here.
In his first speech in Parliament, Bashir said of tartan day that it
"must reflect people's many experiences of Scotland."
He continued:
"It is not about heather and haggis, or even software and silicon chips; it is about the reality for all the people I represent".—[Official Report, 27 June 2007; c 1199.]
In respecting his memory, let us all recommit to ensuring that, every day, all Scots in our diverse society can feel part of the Parliament and our political life and that they will in the future be able to speak proudly with their voices in this, their Parliament.
Salaam alaykum.
Bashir Ahmad's sheer humanity and love of life shone out of his face. I did not know him well, but I knew him to be the good man of whom others have spoken. Tavish Scott said that he was not "a politician's politician", but I take issue with that because, before a tight vote, he knew how to speak to this politician. Even more important than that, he gave me Panjabi tablet. I was bought and sold on Bashir Ahmad.