What we don’t know about Europe’s Muslim kids and why we should care | Deeyah Khan | TEDxExeter
-
0:12 - 0:16When I was a child,
I knew I had superpowers. -
0:18 - 0:19That’s right.
-
0:19 - 0:20(She laughs)
-
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 - 0:54I understood them all even if they
didn’t always understand each other -
0:54 - 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 still face discrimination, -
1:09 - 1:12according to him, and that the only way
to be accepted by white people -
1:12 - 1:14would be to become famous.
-
1:14 - 1:19Now mind you, he had this conversation
with me when I was seven years old. -
1:19 - 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, yeah, and singing lessons, -
1:44 - 1:49and he forced me basically 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 - 1:56and bizarrely I became almost
-
1:56 - 2:00a kind of 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. -
2:12 - 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'. -
2:19 - 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 - 2:54I was staring at him, I was too afraid
to wipe the spit off my face, -
2:54 - 2:58even as it was mixing with my tears.
I remember looking around, -
2:58 - 3:04hoping that any minute now a grownup
was 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 - 3:16"Well, my white people come on.
Where are they? What’s going on? -
3:16 - 3:19How come they’re not
coming rescuing me?" -
3:19 - 3:22So needless to say
I didn’t buy the sweets. -
3:22 - 3:24I just ran home as fast as I could.
-
3:24 - 3:27Things were still OK though, I thought.
-
3:27 - 3:30As time went on, the more
successful I became, -
3:30 - 3:35I eventually started also attracting
harassment from brown people. -
3:36 - 3:41Some men in my parents community felt that
it was unacceptable and dishonorable -
3:41 - 3:47for a woman to be involved in music,
and to be so present in the media. -
3:48 - 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 - 4:17I was spit in the face in the streets
of Oslo, this time by brown men. -
4:17 - 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 - 4:59How come? Instead of bridging
the worlds, the two worlds, -
4:59 - 5:02I felt like I was falling
between my two worlds. -
5:02 - 5:06I suppose for me,
spit was kryptonite. -
5:07 - 5:10So by the time I was 17 years old
the death threats were endless, -
5:10 - 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 - 5:18"Look, we can no longer protect you,
we can no longer keep you safe, -
5:18 - 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 - 5:37My brown people, my white people,
nobody said anything. -
5:37 - 5:40Nobody said; "Hold on, this is wrong.
-
5:40 - 5:44Support this girl, protect this girl
because she is one of us." -
5:44 - 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 - 5:59The one that nobody wants.
The one that nobody comes to claim. -
5:59 - 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 - 6:28By this point
I have to tell I was actually -
6:28 - 6:30getting used to messages like this.
-
6:30 - 6:35But what became different was that now
they started threatening my family. -
6:35 - 6:41So once again, I packed my suitcase,
I left music, and I moved to the US. -
6:41 - 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 - 6:50it was my father’s choice.
-
6:53 - 6:58So I... 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 - 7:09and to try to be there in some small way,
whatever way that I could. -
7:09 - 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 - 7:26were suffering and struggling.
-
7:26 - 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. -
7:38 - 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 - 8:02We are not free to marry,
-
8:02 - 8:05or to be in relationships
with people that we choose. -
8:05 - 8:07We can’t even pick our own career.
-
8:07 - 8:10This is the norm in
the Muslim heartlands of Europe. -
8:10 - 8:14Even in the freest societies
in the world, we're 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 who are suffering and
they are suffering alone. -
8:34 - 8:36Kids that we are losing
to forced marriages, -
8:36 - 8:39to honour based violence, and abuse.
-
8:39 - 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. -
8:54 - 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 -
9:12 - 9:15stuck between
your family and your country. -
9:15 - 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. -
9:27 - 9:29So the first film I made was about Banaz.
-
9:30 - 9:33She was a 17 year old
Kurdish girl in London. -
9:34 - 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 - 9:46even though he beat
and raped her constantly. -
9:46 - 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 - 10:13and she disappeared.
-
10:13 - 10:16She was found three months later.
-
10:16 - 10:22She’d been stuffed into a suitcase,
and buried underneath a house. -
10:25 - 10:29She had been strangled,
she had been beaten to death, -
10:30 - 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 - 10:43story is that she had gone to the police
in England five times asking for help. -
10:43 - 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 - 11:05but they are also meeting
misunderstandings and apathy -
11:05 - 11:09in the countries that 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 you know 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." -
11:29 - 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 me,
should be subject to the same rights, -
11:41 - 11:45the same protections,
as anybody else in our country. -
11:45 - 11:47Why not?
-
11:47 - 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,
I also recognised -
12:00 - 12:03that I was going to have
to face my worst fear. -
12:04 - 12:07The brown men with beards.
-
12:08 - 12:12Similar men, to the ones
that 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, you know, Western foreign
policy failures of recent years, -
12:40 - 12:42were all a part of the picture.
-
12:42 - 12:45But what I was more interested
in finding out, was; "What are the human, -
12:45 - 12:49what are the personal reasons
why some of our young people -
12:49 - 12:52are susceptible to groups like this."
-
12:52 - 12:58And what really surprised me,
was that I found wounded human beings. -
12:59 - 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 - 13:49will always be white and never you."
-
13:49 - 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. -
14:11 - 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? -
14:20 - 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 - 14:36why some of our young people
are attracted to this. -
14:37 - 14:39I would like
to also show you, actually, -
14:39 - 14:44these are childhood photos
of some of the guys in the film. -
14:45 - 14:48What really struck me is
that so many of them -
14:49 - 14:51-- 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. -
15:05 - 15:08I also found men brutalized
by racist violence, -
15:08 - 15:12but who found a way to stop feeling like
victims by becoming violent themselves. -
15:12 - 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 - 15:32The same confusion, the same sorrow,
the same feeling of being betrayed. -
15:34 - 15:38And not belonging to anyone.
-
15:38 - 15:43The same feeling of being lost
and torn between 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 - 15:51And the reason I did that,
is because of my superpower, -
15:51 - 15:56I could see that understanding
is the answer, instead of violence. -
15:56 - 16:00Seeing human beings,
with all their virtues, -
16:00 - 16:02and all their flaws,
-
16:02 - 16:06instead of continuing the caricatures
of us and them, the villains and victims. -
16:06 - 16:10I had also finally come to terms
with the fact that my two cultures -
16:10 - 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 - 16:21But this took me many, many years.
-
16:21 - 16:23There are so many
of our young people today -
16:23 - 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.
-
16:33 - 16:35And for some, the world view
of radical Islam -
16:35 - 16:40becomes the infection that festers
in these open wounds. -
16:41 - 16:44There’s an African proverb that says;
-
16:46 - 16:49"If the young are not
initiated into the village, -
16:49 - 16:53they will burn it down
just to feel its warmth." -
16:53 - 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 - 17:09Can you understand why
they’re so angry and alienated, -
17:09 - 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 - 17:26And to our young people,
tempted by extremism, -
17:26 - 17:31can you acknowledge that
your rage is fuelled by pain? -
17:32 - 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 - 18:00And for the rest of us, when will we
start listening to our young people? -
18:00 - 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 - 18:39Can we find a way to reject hatred,
and heal the divisions between us? -
18:39 - 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. -
19:14 - 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. -
19:30 - 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 - 19:48A society that includes, and supports,
rather than rejects our kids. -
19:48 - 19:49Thank you for listening.
-
19:49 - 19:52(Applause)
- Title:
- What we don’t know about Europe’s Muslim kids and why we should care | Deeyah Khan | TEDxExeter
- Description:
-
Aged 17, Deeyah fled from Norway confused, lost and torn between cultures. Unlike some young Muslims she picked up a camera instead of a gun. She now uses her camera (and her superpower) to shed light on the clash of cultures between Muslim parents who prioritise honour and their children's desire for freedom. She argues that we need to understand what is happening to fight the pull to extremism.
--
At TEDxExeter 2016 our speakers encapsulated the idea of movement, that grappling with humanity’s toughest questions requires first a vision, a dream, and then action.Video Production Chromatrope (http://chromatrope.co.uk/)
Production Manager Andy Robertson (http://www.youtube.com/familygamertv)Deeyah Khan is a critically acclaimed music producer and Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary film director. Her work highlights human rights, women's voices and freedom of expression. Her skill as a multidisciplinary artist led her to film and music as the language for her social activism. Born in Norway to immigrant parents of Pashtun and Punjabi ancestry, the experience of living between different cultures, both the challenges and the beauty, dominates her artistic vision.
Her 2012 multi-award winning documentary Banaz: A Love Story chronicles the life and death of Banaz Mahmod. Her second film the Bafta-nominated Jihad involved two years of interviews and filming with Islamic extremists, convicted terrorists and former jihadis.
Deeyah is the founder of social purpose arts and media production company, Fuuse which works to create intercultural dialogue and understanding by confronting the most complex and controversial topics, and sharing alternative views and excluded voices.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 19:58