What we don’t know about Europe’s Muslim kids and why we should care | Deeyah Khan | TEDxExeter
-
0:12 - 0:17When I was a child,
I knew I had superpowers. -
0:17 - 0:20That’s right.
-
0:20 - 0:25I thought I was absolutely amazing because
I could understand and relate to -
0:25 - 0:30the feelings of brown people like
my grandfather, a conservative Muslim guy, -
0:30 - 0:35and also I could understand
my Afghan mother and Pakistani father, -
0:35 - 0:39not so religious but
laid back, fairly liberal. -
0:39 - 0:43And of course I could understand and
relate to the feelings of white people, -
0:43 - 0:46the white Norwegians of my country.
-
0:46 - 0:51You know white, brown,
whatever, I loved them all. -
0:51 - 0:55I understood them all even if they
didn’t always understand each other -
0:55 - 0:56They were all my people.
-
0:56 - 0:59My father though was
always really worried. -
0:59 - 1:03He kept saying that,
even with the best education -
1:03 - 1:09I was not going to get a fair shake,
I would face discrimination, -
1:09 - 1:12according to him, and the only way
to be accepted by white people -
1:12 - 1:14would be to become famous.
-
1:15 - 1:19Now mind you, he had this conversation
with me when I was seven years old. -
1:20 - 1:23So, while I’m seven years old he said
-
1:23 - 1:26'Look, so its either got to be sports
or its got to be music.' -
1:26 - 1:30He didn’t know anything about sports,
bless him, so it was music. -
1:30 - 1:34So when I was seven years old
he gathered al my toys, all my dolls, -
1:34 - 1:37and he threw them all away.
-
1:37 - 1:44In exchange he gave me a crappy little
Casio keyboard, and singing lessons, -
1:44 - 1:49and forced me to practice for hours
and hours every single day. -
1:49 - 1:53Very quickly he also had me performing
for larger and larger audiences, -
1:53 - 2:00bizarrely I became almost a poster child
for Norwegian multiculturalism. -
2:00 - 2:05I felt very proud of course because
even the newspapers at this point -
2:05 - 2:07were starting to write
nice things about brown people, -
2:07 - 2:11so I could feel that
my superpower was growing. -
2:11 - 2:16So when I was 12 years old walking home
from school I took a little detour -
2:16 - 2:19because I wanted to buy
my favourite sweets called 'salty feet'. -
2:20 - 2:21I absolutely loved them.
-
2:21 - 2:26On my way into the store, there was this
grown white guy in the doorway -
2:26 - 2:34blocking my way, so I tried to walk around
him, and as I did that he stopped me, -
2:34 - 2:39and he was staring at me,
and he spit in my face and he said -
2:39 - 2:43‘Get out of my way you little black bitch,
you little Paki bitch, get out of my - -
2:43 - 2:49go back home where you came from.’
I was absolutely horrified. -
2:49 - 2:53I was staring at him, I was too afraid
to wipe the spit off my face, -
2:53 - 2:58even as it was mixing with my tears.
I remember looking around, -
2:58 - 3:04hoping any minute now a grownup
is going to come and make this guy stop. -
3:04 - 3:09But instead people kept hurrying past me
and pretending not to see me. -
3:09 - 3:12I was very confused because I was thinking
-
3:12 - 3:17‘Well, my white people come on,
where are they? What’s going on? -
3:17 - 3:19How come they’re not
coming and rescuing me?’ -
3:19 - 3:24So needless to say I didn’t buy the sweets
I just ran home as fast as I could. -
3:24 - 3:26Things were still ok though, I thought.
-
3:26 - 3:30As time went on, the more
successful I became, -
3:30 - 3:35I eventually started attracting
harassment from brown people. -
3:35 - 3:40Some men in my parents community felt that
it was unacceptable and dishonorable -
3:40 - 3:46for a woman to be involved in music,
and to be so present in the media. -
3:46 - 3:54So very quickly I was starting to
become attacked at my own concerts. -
3:54 - 3:58I remember one of the concerts, I was
on stage, I lean in to the audience, -
3:58 - 4:01and the last thing I see is
a young brown face, -
4:01 - 4:06and the next thing I know is some sort
of chemical is thrown in my eyes. -
4:06 - 4:09And I remember I couldn’t really see,
and my eyes were watering, -
4:09 - 4:11but I kept singing anyway.
-
4:11 - 4:16I was spit in the face in the streets
of Oslo, this time by brown men. -
4:16 - 4:22They even tried to kidnap me at one point.
The death threats were endless. -
4:22 - 4:26I remember one older bearded guy
stopped me in the street one time and said -
4:26 - 4:30‘The reason I hate you so much is because
you make our daughters think -
4:30 - 4:33they can do whatever they want.’
-
4:33 - 4:36A younger guy warned me
to watch my back, he said -
4:36 - 4:39‘Music is un-Islamic
and the job of whores, -
4:39 - 4:44and if you keep this up you are going to
be raped and your stomach will be cut out, -
4:44 - 4:48so that another whore
like you will not be born.’ -
4:48 - 4:52Again I was so confused.
I couldn’t understand what was going on, -
4:52 - 4:55my brown people now
starting to treat me like this. -
4:55 - 4:58How come?
Instead of bridging the two worlds, -
4:58 - 5:02I felt like I was falling
between the my worlds. -
5:02 - 5:06I suppose for me,
spit was kryptonite. -
5:07 - 5:11So by the time I was 17 years old
the death threats were endless, -
5:11 - 5:12and the harassment was constant.
-
5:12 - 5:15It got so bad at one point
my mother sat me down and said -
5:15 - 5:19‘Look, we can no longer protect you,
we can no longer keep you safe, -
5:19 - 5:20so you’re going to have to go.’
-
5:20 - 5:26So I bought a one-way ticket to London.
I packed my suitcase, and I left. -
5:26 - 5:31My biggest heartbreak at that point
was that nobody said anything. -
5:31 - 5:33I had a very public exit from Norway.
-
5:33 - 5:38My brown people, my white people,
nobody said anything. -
5:38 - 5:39Nobody said ‘Hold on, this is wrong.
-
5:39 - 5:45Support this girl, protect this girl
because she is one of us.’ -
5:45 - 5:48Nobody said that. Instead I felt like,
-
5:48 - 5:51you know at the airport,
on the baggage carousel, -
5:51 - 5:54you have these different suitcases
going round and round, -
5:54 - 5:56and there’s always
that one suitcase left at the end. -
5:56 - 6:00The one that nobody wants.
That nobody comes to claim. -
6:00 - 6:06I felt like that. I’d never felt so alone.
I’d never felt so lost. -
6:06 - 6:11So, after coming to London,
I did eventually resume my music career. -
6:11 - 6:15Different place, but unfortunately
the same old story. -
6:15 - 6:19I remember a message sent to me saying
that I was going to be killed, -
6:19 - 6:22and that rivers of blood
were going to flow, -
6:22 - 6:26and that I was going to be raped
many times before I died. -
6:26 - 6:29By this point I has to say I was actually
getting used to messages like this. -
6:30 - 6:34But what became different was that now
they started threatening my family. -
6:34 - 6:40So once again, I packed my suitcase,
I left music, and I moved to the US. -
6:40 - 6:45I’d had enough. I didn’t want to have
anything to do with this anymore. -
6:45 - 6:49And I was certainly not going to be killed
for something that wasn’t even my dream, -
6:49 - 6:51it was my father’s choice.
-
6:51 - 6:58So I kind of got lost,
I kind of fell apart, -
6:58 - 7:00but I decided that what I wanted to do is
-
7:00 - 7:05to spend the next however many years
of my life supporting young people, -
7:05 - 7:10and to try to be there in some small way,
whatever way that I could. -
7:10 - 7:14So I started volunteering for various
organisations that were working -
7:14 - 7:18with young Muslims inside of Europe.
-
7:18 - 7:24And, to my surprise what I found,
was so many of these young people -
7:24 - 7:27were suffering and struggling.
-
7:27 - 7:30They were facing so many problems
with their families and their communities, -
7:30 - 7:34who seemed to care more about
their honour and their reputation -
7:34 - 7:37than the happiness and
the lives of their own kids. -
7:37 - 7:42I started feeling like maybe I wasn’t
so alone, maybe I wasn’t so weird. -
7:42 - 7:46Maybe there are more
of my people out there. -
7:46 - 7:48The thing is what most people
don’t understand, -
7:48 - 7:52is that there are so many
of us growing up in Europe -
7:52 - 7:57who are not free to be ourselves.
We are not allowed to be who we are. -
7:57 - 8:05We are not free to marry, or to be
in relationships with, people we choose, -
8:05 - 8:07we can’t even pick our own career.
-
8:07 - 8:11This is the norm in
the Muslim heartlands of Europe. -
8:11 - 8:14Even in the freest societies
in the world, we are not free. -
8:14 - 8:18Our lives, our dreams, our future,
does not belong to us, -
8:18 - 8:21it belongs to our parents,
and their community. -
8:21 - 8:28I found endless stories of young people,
who are lost to all of us, -
8:28 - 8:30Who are invisible to all of us,
-
8:30 - 8:33but they are suffering and
they are suffering alone. -
8:33 - 8:38Kids that we are losing to forced marriages,
to honour based violence and abuse. -
8:38 - 8:43So eventually I realised, after several
years of working with these young people, -
8:43 - 8:46that I will not be able to keep running,
-
8:46 - 8:50I can’t spend the rest of my life
being scared and hiding, -
8:50 - 8:53and that I’m actually going
to have to do something. -
8:53 - 8:57And I also realised that
my silence, our silence, -
8:57 - 9:00allows abuse like this to continue.
-
9:00 - 9:05So I decided that I wanted to put
my childhood superpower to some use, -
9:05 - 9:09by trying to make people on
the different sides of these issues -
9:09 - 9:12understand what it's like to be
a young person stuck -
9:12 - 9:16between your family and your country.
-
9:16 - 9:19So I started making films,
and I started telling these stories. -
9:19 - 9:21And I also wanted people to understand
-
9:21 - 9:26the deadly consequences of us
not taking these problems seriously. -
9:26 - 9:30So the first film I made was about Banaz.
-
9:30 - 9:33She was a 17 year old
Kurdish girl in London. -
9:33 - 9:37She was obedient, she did
whatever her parents wanted. -
9:37 - 9:40She tried to do everything right.
-
9:40 - 9:42She married some guy
that her parent’s chose for her, -
9:42 - 9:45even though he beat
and raped her constantly. -
9:45 - 9:48And when she tried to go
to her family for help they said -
9:48 - 9:51‘Well, you’ve got to go back
and be a better wife.’ -
9:51 - 9:54Because they didn’t want
a divorced daughter on their hands, -
9:54 - 9:57because of course, that would bring
dishonor on the family. -
9:57 - 10:01She was beaten so badly
her ears would bleed. -
10:01 - 10:06And when she finally left, and she found
a young man that she chose, -
10:06 - 10:10and she fell in love with, the community
and the family found out, -
10:10 - 10:15and she disappeared.
She was found three months later. -
10:15 - 10:22She’d been stuffed into a suitcase,
and buried underneath a house. -
10:25 - 10:28She had been strangled,
she had been beaten to death, -
10:29 - 10:35by three men, three cousins,
on the orders of her father and uncle. -
10:35 - 10:37The added tragedy of Banaz’s story,
-
10:37 - 10:44story is that she had gone to the police
in England five times asking for help. -
10:44 - 10:46Telling them that she was going
to be killed by her family. -
10:46 - 10:50The police didn’t believe her,
so they didn’t do anything. -
10:50 - 10:52And the problem with this,
-
10:52 - 10:55is that not only are so many of
our kids facing these problems, -
10:55 - 10:59within their families and
within their families communities, -
10:59 - 11:06but they are also meeting
misunderstanding and apathy -
11:06 - 11:09in the countries they grow up in.
-
11:09 - 11:13When their own families betray them,
they look to the rest of us. -
11:13 - 11:18And when we don’t understand,
we lose them. -
11:18 - 11:22So while I was making this film,
several people said to me -
11:22 - 11:24'Well, Deeyah, you know
this is just their culture, -
11:24 - 11:28this is just what those people do to
their kids and we can’t really interfere.’ -
11:28 - 11:33I can assure you,
being murdered is not my culture. -
11:33 - 11:37And surely people who look like me,
young women who come -
11:37 - 11:41from backgrounds like mine,
should be subject to the same rights, -
11:41 - 11:45the same protections,
as anybody else in our country. -
11:45 - 11:48Why not?
-
11:48 - 11:53So, for my next film, I wanted
to try and understand why -
11:53 - 11:57some of our young Muslim kids in Europe
are drawn to extremism and violence. -
11:57 - 12:00But with that topic,
also recognised -
12:00 - 12:03that I was going to have
to face my worst fear. -
12:03 - 12:07The brown men with beards.
-
12:07 - 12:13Similar men, to the ones that have
hounded me for most of my life. -
12:13 - 12:16Men that I’ve been afraid of
most of my life. -
12:16 - 12:21Men that I’ve also deeply disliked
for many many years. -
12:21 - 12:25So I spent the next two years
interviewing convicted terrorists, -
12:25 - 12:27jihadis and former extremists.
-
12:27 - 12:31What I already knew,
what was very obvious already, -
12:31 - 12:36was that religion, politics,
Europe’s colonial baggage, -
12:36 - 12:40also Western foreign policy failures
of recent years, -
12:40 - 12:42were all a part of the picture.
-
12:42 - 12:46But what I was more interested
in finding out, was what are the human, -
12:46 - 12:49what are the personal reasons
why some of our young people -
12:49 - 12:52are susceptible to groups like this.
-
12:52 - 12:57And what really surprised me,
was that I found wounded human beings. -
12:57 - 13:03Instead of the monsters that I was
looking for, that I was hoping to find -
13:03 - 13:09quite frankly because it would have been
very satisfying, I found broken people. -
13:09 - 13:14Just like Banaz, I found that
these young men were torn apart -
13:14 - 13:18from trying to bridge
the gaps between their families, -
13:18 - 13:21and the countries that they were born in.
-
13:21 - 13:24And what I also learnt is that
extremist groups, terrorist groups, -
13:24 - 13:28are taking advantage of
these feelings of our young people, -
13:28 - 13:32and channeling that cynically,
channeling that towards violence. -
13:32 - 13:34‘Come to us!’, they say.
-
13:34 - 13:38‘Reject both sides, your family and
your country, because they reject you. -
13:38 - 13:41For your family, their honour
is more important than you, -
13:41 - 13:45and for your country, a real Norwegian,
Brit or a French person -
13:45 - 13:50will always be white and never you.’
-
13:50 - 13:53They are also promising our young people
the things that they crave, -
13:53 - 13:57significance, heroism, a sense of
belonging and purpose. -
13:57 - 14:04A community that loves and accepts them.
They make the powerless feel powerful. -
14:04 - 14:09The invisible and the silent
are finally seen and heard. -
14:09 - 14:14This is what they are doing
for our young people. -
14:14 - 14:18Why are these groups doing this
for our young people and not us? -
14:18 - 14:29The thing is, I’m not trying to
justify or excuse any of the violence. -
14:29 - 14:32What I am trying to say,
is that we have to understand -
14:32 - 14:37why some of our young people
are attracted to this. -
14:37 - 14:39I would like to also show you,
-
14:39 - 14:44these are childhood photos
of some of the guys in the film. -
14:44 - 14:51What really struck me is that so many
of them - I never would have thought this, -
14:51 - 14:55but so many of them have
absent of abusive fathers. -
14:55 - 14:57And several of these young guys ended up
-
14:57 - 15:03finding caring and compassionate father
figures within these extremist groups. -
15:03 - 15:08I also found men brutalized
by racist violence, -
15:08 - 15:13but who found a way to stop feeling like
victims by becoming violent themselves. -
15:13 - 15:18In fact, I found something
to my horror that I recognised. -
15:18 - 15:25I found the same feelings that I felt
as a 17 year old, as I fled from Norway. -
15:25 - 15:33The same confusion, the same sorrow,
the same feeling of being betrayed. -
15:33 - 15:38And not belonging to anyone.
-
15:38 - 15:43The same feeling of being lost
and torn between two cultures. -
15:43 - 15:45Having said that,
I did not choose destruction, -
15:45 - 15:48I chose to pick up a camera,
instead of a gun. -
15:48 - 15:52And the reason I did that,
is because of my superpower, -
15:52 - 15:56I could see that understanding
is the answer, instead of violence. -
15:56 - 16:02Seeing human beings, with
all their virtues, and all their flaws, -
16:02 - 16:06instead of continuing the caricatures
of us and them, the villains and victims. -
16:06 - 16:11I had also finally come to terms
with the fact that my two cultures -
16:11 - 16:12didn’t have to be on a collision course,
-
16:12 - 16:16but instead became a space
where I found my own voice. -
16:16 - 16:18I stopped feeling
like I had to pick a side. -
16:18 - 16:22But this took me many, many years.
-
16:22 - 16:24There are so many
of our young people today -
16:24 - 16:29who are struggling with these same issues,
and they are struggling with this alone. -
16:29 - 16:32And this leaves them open like wounds.
-
16:32 - 16:36And for some, the world view
of radical Islam -
16:36 - 16:40becomes the infection that festers
in these open wounds. -
16:40 - 16:44There’s an African proverb that says
-
16:44 - 16:49‘If the young are not
initiated into the village, -
16:49 - 16:54they will burn it down
just to feel its warmth.’ -
16:54 - 16:58I would like to ask to Muslim parents
and Muslim communities, -
16:58 - 17:01will you love and care for your children,
-
17:01 - 17:03without forcing them
to meet your expectations? -
17:03 - 17:06Can you choose them,
Instead of your honour? -
17:06 - 17:10Can you understand why
they’re so angry and alienated, -
17:10 - 17:12when you put your honour
before their happiness? -
17:12 - 17:17Can you try to be a friend to your child
so that they can trust you, -
17:17 - 17:19and want to share with you
their experiences, -
17:19 - 17:22rather than having to seek it
somewhere else? -
17:22 - 17:25And to our young people,
tempted by extremism, -
17:25 - 17:31can you acknowledge that
your rage is fuelled by pain? -
17:31 - 17:35Will you find the strength to resist
those cynical old men, -
17:35 - 17:38who want to use your blood
for their own profits? -
17:38 - 17:42Can you find a way to live?
-
17:42 - 17:46Can you see that the sweetest revenge
is for you to live a happy, -
17:46 - 17:50full and free life, a life defined
by you and nobody else? -
17:50 - 17:55Why do you want to become
just another dead Muslim kid? -
17:55 - 17:59And for the rest of us, when will we
start listening to our young people? -
17:59 - 18:03How can we support them
in redirecting their pain -
18:03 - 18:06into something more constructive?
-
18:06 - 18:11They think we don’t like them, they think
we don’t care what happens to them. -
18:11 - 18:13They think we don’t accept them.
-
18:13 - 18:16Can we find a way to
make them feel differently? -
18:16 - 18:20What will it take for us
to see them, and notice them, -
18:20 - 18:25before they become either the victims
or the perpetrators of violence? -
18:25 - 18:28Can we make ourselves care about them,
and consider them to be our own, -
18:28 - 18:34and not just be outraged when the victims
of violence look like ourselves? -
18:34 - 18:40Can we find a way to reject hatred,
and heal the divisions between us? -
18:40 - 18:43The thing, is we cannot afford
to give up on each other, or on our kids, -
18:43 - 18:47even if they’ve given up on us.
We are all in this together. -
18:47 - 18:53And in the long term, revenge and violence
will not work against extremists. -
18:53 - 18:57Terrorists want us to huddle
in our houses and fear, -
18:57 - 18:59closing our doors and our hearts.
-
18:59 - 19:03They want us to tear open
more wounds in our societies, -
19:03 - 19:07so that they can use them
to spread their infection more widely. -
19:07 - 19:13They want us to become like them,
intolerant, hateful and cruel. -
19:13 - 19:21The day after the Paris attacks, a friend
of mine sent this photo of her daughter. -
19:21 - 19:25This is a white girl and an Arab girl.
They’re best friends. -
19:25 - 19:29This image is the kryptonite
for extremists. -
19:29 - 19:34These two little girls,
with their superpowers, -
19:34 - 19:40are showing the way forward towards
a society that we need to build together. -
19:40 - 19:47A society that includes, and supports,
rather than rejects our kids. -
19:47 - 19:50Thank you for listening.
- Title:
- What we don’t know about Europe’s Muslim kids and why we should care | Deeyah Khan | TEDxExeter
- Description:
-
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 19:58
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