9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
When I was a child,[br]I knew I had superpowers.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That’s right.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I thought I was absolutely amazing because[br]I could understand and relate to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the feelings of brown people like[br]my grandfather, a conservative Muslim guy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and also I could understand[br]my Afghan mother and Pakistani father,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not so religious but[br]laid back, fairly liberal.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And of course I could understand and[br]relate to the feelings of white people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the white Norwegians of my country.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You know white, brown,[br]whatever, I loved them all.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I understood them all even if they[br]didn’t always understand each other

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They were all my people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My father though was[br]always really worried.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He kept saying that,[br]even with the best education

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was not going to get a fair shake,[br]I would face discrimination,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
according to him, and the only way[br]to be accepted by white people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
would be to become famous.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now mind you, he had this conversation[br]with me when I was seven years old.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, while I’m seven years old he said

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
'Look, so its either got to be sports[br]or its got to be music.'

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He didn’t know anything about sports,[br]bless him, so it was music.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So when I was seven years old[br]he gathered al my toys, all my dolls,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and he threw them all away.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In exchange he gave me a crappy little[br]Casio keyboard, and singing lessons,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and forced me to practice for hours[br]and hours every single day.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Very quickly he also had me performing[br]for larger and larger audiences,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
bizarrely I became almost a poster child[br]for Norwegian multiculturalism.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I felt very proud of course because[br]even the newspapers at this point

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were starting to write[br]nice things about brown people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so I could feel that[br]my superpower was growing.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So when I was 12 years old walking home[br]from school I took a little detour

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because I wanted to buy[br]my favourite sweets called 'salty feet'.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I know they sound kind of awful,[br]but I absolutely loved them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They are basically these little[br]salty licorice bits, in the shape of feet.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And now that I say it out loud I realise[br]how terrible that sounds,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but be that as it may,[br]I absolutely loved them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
On my way into the store, there was this[br]grown white guy in the doorway

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
blocking my way, so I tried to walk around[br]him, and as I did that he stopped me,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and he was staring at me,[br]and he spit in my face and he said

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
‘Get out of my way you little black bitch,[br]you little Paki bitch, get out of my -

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
go back home where you came from.’[br]I was absolutely horrified.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was staring at him, I was too afraid[br]to wipe the spit off my face,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
even as it was mixing with my tears.[br]I remember looking around,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hoping any minute now a grownup[br]is going to come and make this guy stop.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But instead people kept hurrying past me[br]and pretending not to see me.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was very confused because I was thinking

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
‘Well, my white people come on,[br]where are they? What’s going on?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
How come they’re not[br]coming and rescuing me?’

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So needless to say I didn’t buy the sweets[br]I just ran home as fast as I could.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Things were still ok though, I thought.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As time went on, the more[br]successful I became,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I eventually started attracting[br]harassment from brown people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Some men in my parents community felt that[br]it was unacceptable and dishonorable

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for a woman to be involved in music,[br]and to be so present in the media.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So very quickly I was starting to[br]become attacked at my own concerts.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I remember one of the concerts, I was[br]on stage, I lean in to the audience,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the last thing I see is [br]a young brown face,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the next thing I know is some sort[br]of chemical is thrown in my eyes.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I remember I couldn’t really see,[br]and my eyes were watering,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but I kept singing anyway.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was spit in the face in the streets[br]of Oslo, this time by brown men.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They even tried to kidnap me at one point.[br]The death threats were endless.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I remember one older bearded guy[br]stopped me in the street one time and said

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
‘The reason I hate you so much is that[br]you make our daughters think

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they can do whatever they want.’

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A younger guy warned me[br]to watch my back, he said

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
‘Music is un-Islamic[br]and the job of whores,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and if you keep this up you are going to[br]be raped and your stomach will be cut out,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so that another whore[br]like you will not be born.’

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Again I was so confused.[br]I couldn’t understand what was going on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my brown people now[br]starting to treat me like this.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
How come?[br]Instead of bridging the two worlds,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I felt like I was falling[br]between the two worlds.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I suppose for me,[br]spit was kryptonite.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So by the time I was 17 years old[br]the death threats were endless,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the harassment was constant.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It got so bad at one point[br]my mother sat me down and said

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
‘Look, we can no longer protect you,[br]we can no longer keep you safe,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so you’re going to have to go.’

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I bought a one-way ticket to London.[br]I packed my suitcase, and I left.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My biggest heartbreak at that point[br]was that nobody said anything.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I had a very public exit from Norway.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My brown people, my white people,[br]nobody said anything.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Nobody said ‘Hold on, this is wrong.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Support this girl, protect this girl[br]because she is one of us.’

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Nobody said that. Instead I felt like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you know at the airport,[br]on the baggage carousel,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you have these different suitcases[br]going round and round,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and there’s always[br]that one suitcase left at the end.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The one that nobody wants.[br]That nobody comes to claim.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I felt like that. I’d never felt so alone.[br]I’d never felt so lost.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, after coming to London,[br]I did eventually resume my music career.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Different place, but unfortunately[br]the same old story.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I remember a message sent to me saying[br]that I was going to be killed,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that rivers of blood[br]were going to flow,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that I was going to be raped[br]many times before I died.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
By this time I has to say I was actually[br]getting used to messages like this.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But what became different was that now[br]they started threatening my family.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So once again, I packed my suitcase,[br]I left music, and I moved to the US.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I’d had enough. I didn’t want to have[br]anything to do with this anymore.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I wasn’t going to be killed for[br]something that wasn’t even my dream,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it was my father’s choice.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I kind of got lost, [br]I kind of fell apart,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but I decided that what I wanted to do is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to spend the next however many years[br]of my life supporting young people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and to try to be there in some small way,[br]whatever way that I could.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I started volunteering for various[br]organisations that were working

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with young Muslims inside of Europe.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And, to my surprise what I found,[br]was so many of these young people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were suffering and struggling.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They were facing so many problems[br]with their families and their communities,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who seemed to care more about[br]their honour and their reputation

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than the happiness and[br]the lives of their own kids.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I started feeling like maybe I wasn’t[br]so alone, maybe I wasn’t so weird.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Maybe there are more[br]of my people out there.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The thing is what most people[br]don’t understand,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that there are so many[br]of us growing up in Europe

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who are not free to be ourselves.[br]We are not allowed to be who we are.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We are not free to marry, or to be[br]in relationships with, people we choose,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we can’t even pick our own career.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is the norm in[br]the Muslim heartlands of Europe.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Even in the freest societies[br]in the world, we are not free.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Our lives, our dreams, our future,[br]does not belong to us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it belongs to our parents,[br]and their community.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I found endless stories of young people,[br]who are lost to all of us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Who are invisible to all of us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but they are suffering and [br]they are suffering alone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Kids that we are losing to forced marriages,[br]to honour based violence and abuse.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So eventually I realised, after several[br]years of working with these young people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that I will not be able to keep running,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I can’t spend the rest of my life[br]being scared and hiding,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that I’m actually going[br]to have to do something.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I also realised that[br]my silence, our silence,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
allows abuse like this to continue.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I decided that I wanted to put[br]my childhood superpower to some use,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by trying to make people on[br]the different sides of these issues

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
understand what it's like to be[br]a young person stuck

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
between your family and your country.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I started making films,[br]and I started telling these stories.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I also wanted people to understand

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the deadly consequences of us[br]not taking these problems seriously.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So the first film I made was about Banaz.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She was a 17 year old[br]Kurdish girl in London.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She was obedient, she did[br]whatever her parents wanted.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She tried to do everything right.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She married some guy[br]that her parent’s chose for her,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
even though he beat[br]and raped her constantly.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And when she tried to go[br]to her family for help they said