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What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids
-
Not SyncedWhen I was a child,
I knew I had superpowers. -
Not SyncedThat's right.
-
Not SyncedI thought I was absolutely amazing
because I could understand -
Not Syncedand relate to the feelings
of brown people, like my grandfather, -
Not Synceda conservative Muslim guy.
-
Not SyncedAnd also, I could understand
my Afghan mother, my Pakistani father, -
Not Syncednot so religious but
laid-back, fairly liberal. -
Not SyncedAnd of course, I could understand
and relate to the feelings of white people. -
Not SyncedThe white Norwegians of my country.
You know, white, brown, whatever, -
Not SyncedI loved them all. I understood them all,
-
Not Syncedeven if they didn't always
understand each other, -
Not Syncedthey were all my people.
-
Not SyncedMy father, though,
was always really worried. -
Not SyncedHe kept saying that
even with the best education, -
Not SyncedI was not going to get a fair shake.
-
Not SyncedI would still face discrimination,
according to him, and that they only way -
Not Syncedto be accepted by white people
would be to become famous. -
Not SyncedNow mind you, he had this conversation
with me when I was seven-years-old. -
Not SyncedSo while I'm seven-years-old,
he said, look, -
Not Syncedso its either got to be sports,
or its got to be music. -
Not SyncedHe didn't know anything about sports --
bless him -- so it was music. -
Not SyncedSo when I was seven-years-old,
he gathered all my toys, all my dolls, -
Not Syncedand he threw them all away.
-
Not SyncedIn exchange, he gave me a crappy little
Casio keyboard and singing lessons. -
Not SyncedHe forced me, basically, to practice
for hours and hours every single day. -
Not SyncedVery quickly, he also had me performing
for larger and larger audiences, -
Not Syncedand bizarrely, I became almost
a kind of poster child -
Not Syncedfor Norwegian multi-culturalism.
-
Not SyncedI felt very proud, of course.
-
Not SyncedEven the newspapers were starting
to write nice things about brown people, -
Not Syncedso I could feel that
my superpower was growing. -
Not SyncedSo when I was 12-years-old,
walking home from school, -
Not SyncedI took a little detour
because I wanted to buy -
Not Syncedmy favorite sweets called Salty Feets.
-
Not SyncedI know they sound kind of awful,
but I absolutely love them. -
Not SyncedThey're basically these little salty
licorice bits in the shape of feet. -
Not SyncedAnd now that I say it out loud,
I realize how terrible that sounds, -
Not Syncedbut be that as it may,
I absolutely love them. -
Not SyncedSo on my way into the store,
there was this grown white guy -
Not Syncedin the doorway blocking my way.
-
Not SyncedSo I tried to walk around him,
and as I did that, he stopped me -
Not Syncedand he was staring at me,
and he spit in my face, -
Not Syncedand he said, get out of my way
you little black bitch, -
Not Syncedyou little Paki bitch,
go back home where you came from. -
Not SyncedI was absolutely horrified.
I was staring at him. -
Not SyncedI was too afraid to wipe
the spit off my face, -
Not Syncedeven as it was mixing with my tears.
-
Not SyncedI remember looking around,
hoping that any minute now, -
Not Synceda grown-up is going to come
and make this guy stop. -
Not SyncedBut instead, people kept hurrying past me
and pretended not to see me. -
Not SyncedI was very confused
because I was thinking, -
Not Syncedwell, my white people, come on!
Where are they? What's going on? -
Not SyncedHow come they're not
coming and rescuing me? -
Not SyncedSo, needless to say,
I didn't buy the sweets. -
Not SyncedI just ran home as fast as I could.
-
Not SyncedThings were still okay, though, I thought.
-
Not SyncedAs time went on, the more successful
I became, I eventually started attracting -
Not Syncedharassment from brown people.
-
Not SyncedSome men in my parent's community
felt that it was unacceptable -
Not Syncedand dishonorable for a woman
to be involved in music -
Not Syncedand to be so present in the media.
-
Not SyncedSo very quickly, I was starting to become
attacked at my own concerts. -
Not SyncedI remember one of the concerts,
I was onstage, I lean into the audience -
Not Syncedand the last thing I see is
a young brown face -
Not Syncedand the next thing I know
some sort of chemical is thrown in my eyes -
Not Syncedand I remember I couldn't really see
and my eyes were watering -
Not Syncedbut I kept singing anyway.
-
Not SyncedI was spit in the face in the streets
of Oslo, this time by brown men. -
Not SyncedThey even tried to
kidnap me at one point. -
Not SyncedThe death threats were endless.
-
Not SyncedI remember one older bearded guy
stopped me in the street one time, -
Not Syncedand he said, the reason
I hate you so much -
Not Syncedis because you make
our daughters think -
Not Syncedthey can do whatever they want.
-
Not SyncedA younger guy warned me
to watch my back. -
Not SyncedHe said music is un-Islamic
and the job of whores, -
Not Syncedand if you keep this up,
you are going to be raped -
Not Syncedand your stomach will be cut out so that
another whore like you will not be born. -
Not SyncedAgain, I was so confused.
-
Not SyncedI couldn't understand
what was going on. -
Not SyncedMy brown people now starting
to treat me like this -- how come? -
Not SyncedInstead of bridging the worlds,
the two worlds, I felt like I was -
Not Syncedfalling between my two worlds.
I suppose for me, spit was kryptonite. -
Not SyncedSo by the time I was 17-years-old,
the death threats were endless -
Not Syncedand the harassment was constant.
It got so bad, at one point my mother -
Not Syncedsat me down and said, look,
we can no longer protect you, -
Not Syncedwe can no longer keep you safe,
so you're going to have to go. -
Not SyncedSo I bought a one-way ticket to London.
I packed my suitcase, and I left. -
Not SyncedMy biggest heartbreak at that point
was that nobody said anything. -
Not SyncedI had a very public exit from Norway.
-
Not SyncedMy brown people, my white people,
nobody said anything. -
Not SyncedNobody said, hold on, this is wrong.
-
Not SyncedSupport this girl, protect this girl
because she is one of us. -
Not SyncedNope. Nobody said that.
-
Not SyncedInstead, I felt like,
you know at the airport, on the baggage -
Not Syncedcarousel you have these different
suitcases going around and around -
Not Syncedand there's always that one suitcase left
at the end, the one that nobody wants, -
Not Syncedthe one that nobody comes to claim.
-
Not SyncedI felt like that. I'd never felt so alone.
I'd never felt so lost. -
Not SyncedSo, after coming to London,
I did eventually resume my music career. -
Not SyncedDifferent place but unfortunately
the same old story. -
Not SyncedI remember a message sent to me
saying that I was going to be killed -
Not Syncedand that rivers of blood were going
to flow and that I was going to be raped -
Not Syncedmany times before I died.
-
Not SyncedBy this point, I have to say,
-
Not SyncedI was actually getting used
to messages like this, -
Not Syncedbut what became different was that
now they started threatening my family. -
Not SyncedSo once again, I packed my suitcase,
I left music and I moved to the US. -
Not SyncedI'd had enough. I didn't want to have
anything to do with this anymore. -
Not SyncedAnd I was certainly not
going to be killed for something -
Not Syncedthat wasn't even my dream --
it was my father's choice. -
Not SyncedSo I kind of got lost.
I kind of fell apart. -
Not SyncedBut I decided that what I wanted to do
is spend the next however many years -
Not Syncedof my life supporting young people
and to try to be there in some small way, -
Not Syncedwhatever way that I could.
-
Not SyncedI started volunteering for various
organizations that were working -
Not Syncedwith young Muslims inside of Europe.
-
Not SyncedAnd, to my surprise, what I found
was so many of these young people -
Not Syncedwere suffering and struggling.
-
Not SyncedThey were facing so many problems
with their families and their communities -
Not Syncedwho seemed to care more about
their honor and their reputation than the -
Not Syncedhappiness and the lives of their own kids.
-
Not SyncedI started feeling like maybe I wasn't
so alone, maybe I wasn't so weird. -
Not SyncedMaybe there are more of
my people out there. -
Not SyncedThe thing is, what most people
don't understand is that there are so many -
Not Syncedof us growing up in Europe who
are not free to be ourselves. -
Not SyncedWe're not allowed to be who we are.
-
Not SyncedWe are not free to marry or to be in
relationships with people that we choose. -
Not SyncedWe can't even pick our own career.
-
Not SyncedThis is the norm in the
Muslim heartlands of Europe, -
Not Syncedeven in the freest societies in the world,
we're not free. -
Not SyncedOur lives, our dreams, our future
does not belong to us, -
Not Syncedit belongs to our parents
and their community. -
Not SyncedI found endless stories of young people
who are lost to all of us, -
Not Syncedwho are invisible to all of us but
who are suffering -
Not Syncedand they are suffering alone.
-
Not SyncedKids we are losing to forced marriages,
honor-based violence and abuse. -
Not SyncedSo, eventually, I realized,
after several years of working -
Not Syncedwith these young people that
I will not be able to keep running. -
Not SyncedI can't spend the rest of my life
being scared and hiding and -
Not Syncedthat I'm actually going
to have to do something. -
Not SyncedAnd I also realized that my silence,
our silence, allows abuse -
Not Syncedlike this to continue.
-
Not SyncedSo I decided that I wanted to put
my childhood superpower to some use -
Not Syncedby trying to make people on the different
sides of these issues understand -
Not Syncedwhat its like to be a young person stuck
between your family and your country. -
Not SyncedSo I started making films
and I started telling stories. -
Not SyncedI also wanted people to understand
the deadly consequences of us -
Not Syncednot taking these problems seriously.
-
Not SyncedSo the first film I made was about Benaz.
-
Not SyncedShe was a 17-year-old
Kurdish girl in London. -
Not SyncedShe was obedient, she did
whatever her parents wanted. -
Not SyncedShe tried to do everything right.
-
Not SyncedShe married some guy that
her parents chose for her, even though -
Not Syncedhe beat and raped her constantly.
-
Not SyncedAnd when she tried to go
to her family for help, they said, -
Not Syncedwell you got to go back,
and be a better wife. -
Not SyncedBecause they didn't want
a divorced daughter on their hands -
Not Syncedbecause, of course, that would bring
dishonor on the family. -
Not SyncedShe was beaten so badly
her ears would bleed, -
Not Syncedand when she finally left and she found
a young man that she chose -
Not Syncedand she fell in love with,
the community and the family found out -
Not Syncedand she disappeared.
-
Not SyncedShe was found three months later.
-
Not SyncedShe'd been stuffed into a suitcase
and buried underneath the house. -
Not SyncedShe had been strangled,
she had been beaten to death by three men, -
Not Syncedthree cousins on the orders
of her father and uncle. -
Not SyncedThe added tragedy of Benaz's story
is that she had gone to the police -
Not Syncedin England five times, asking for help,
telling them that she was -
Not Syncedgoing to be killed by her family.
-
Not SyncedThe police didn't believe her
so they didn't do anything. -
Not SyncedAnd the problem with this is that
not only are so many of our kids -
Not Syncedfacing this problem within their families
and within their families' communities, -
Not Syncedbut they're also meeting misunderstandings
and apathy in the countries -
Not Syncedthat they grow up in.
-
Not SyncedWhen their own families betray them,
they look to the rest of us, and when -
Not Syncedwe don't understand, we lose them.
-
Not SyncedSo while I was making this film,
several people said to me, well Deeyah, -
Not Syncedyou know, this is just their culture,
this is just what those people do -
Not Syncedto their kids and
we can't really interfere. -
Not SyncedI can assure you being murdered
is not my culture -- you know? -
Not SyncedAnd surely people who look like me,
young women who come -
Not Syncedfrom backgrounds like me,
should be subject to the same rights, -
Not Syncedthe same protections as anybody else
in our country, why not? -
Not SyncedSo, for my next film, I wanted to try
and understand why some of our -
Not Syncedyoung Muslim kids in Europe are drawn
to extremism and violence. -
Not SyncedBut with that topic, I also recognized that
I was going to have to face my worst fear, -
Not Syncedthe brown men with beards.
-
Not SyncedThe same men, or similar men, to the ones
that have hounded me for most of my life. -
Not SyncedMen that I've been afraid of most of my life,
men that I've also deeply disliked.
- Title:
- What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids
- Speaker:
- Deeyah Khan
- Description:
-
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 20:11
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for What we don't know about Europe's Muslim kids |
English subtitles
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