Yassmin’s Story

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  Strength is like a flame – it has the potential to be a bushfire that drives people away or a campfire that brings people together. It’s all about finding the appropriate intensity.

  Chapter 11:

  Learning to Lead

  ‘The only thing I’ve learnt at school is how to throw a right hook!’ I said defiantly to the forty or fifty people who had turned up to hear me speak at the Socialist Alliance headquarters in the Valley. This was one of the first real speeches I had ever given and I wasn’t nervous; I knew what I had to say. I was exaggerating, of course – I’d never been in an actual physical fight because of my race, religion or political views, but I was stretching the truth to what I thought people wanted to hear. I certainly spent a lot of time at school defending Islam, but always with words, never with fists. My classmates liked to question me disdainfully about Islam being a terrorist religion and I would have to suppress my eye roll, smile and painstakingly explain that no, in fact we were not taught to kill all the infidels. But it never got to fisticuffs …

  Perhaps it’s no surprise that after being constantly asked to explain my personal beliefs I got involved in political organisations outside of school. There was one that consumed a lot of my time, energy and passion as a teenager, my true activist beginning: the ‘Fair Go For Palestine’ movement. Online petitions and World Vision forums weren’t quite doing it for me, and I wasn’t allowed to attend the large NGO events, run by groups like Amnesty International, because they were usually held in the city at night. My father was concerned for my safety, and didn’t approve of the drinking and illicit substances that might be going around at protests.

  To allay those concerns, I volunteered with organisations from the Muslim communities, like Al-Nisa. The ladies from Al-Nisa encouraged my participation in groups like Fair Go. I trusted their judgement and got involved. It was nice to branch out from activities that were only about our community and rally against global injustices and feel like I was part of a movement. Because many of the people in the movement were also from Al-Nisa, my parents knew that there would be no alcohol; they also understood that the issues we protested would be relevant to our family, rather than those chosen by a ‘well-intentioned-but-misguided’ Western view, as my father would often say. Whether it was people advocating for organisations that travelled to African nations to deliver a service that the locals hadn’t asked for, or even the Northern Territory Intervention, my father often referred to Western interventions that damaged communities as something we had to be wary of – and not replicate ourselves!

  The Fair Go For Palestine (FGFP) crew fit the bill. Mum would happily drop me at the houses of the organisers so we could discuss the issues facing Palestinians, ways to fundraise and how ludicrous we thought Israel’s policies were. A few of the organisers were Lebanese, and so when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, the FGFP crew was mobilised to make some noise.

  I purchased one of the shirts, not quite understanding the wording written on the back. What was an ‘anti-semite’? Who knew? I wasn’t one, I thought, and no one told me otherwise, so I wore this and other slogans with half-baked knowledge but fully cooked conviction.

  Oh, the simplicity of being angry about an issue you only partially understand.

  With this, my era of being a street activist began. My friends were protesting so it seemed like the right thing to do, even if I wasn’t exactly sure of why. Yelling at the world was a satisfying way of releasing pent-up emotion: yelling in the streets at an imagined enemy that was all around us. We would meet up at one of our houses and get prepared there, then travel to the starting point of the event, usually a park, where we would collect banners, buy badges for our bags and shirts and gee each other up before we hit the streets. A change of banners and we could have been preparing for a music festival or a soccer match. It goes to show how the desire to be part of a tight friendship group, bonding over an exciting activity and being involved in an event that kicks up the adrenalin, is something that is common to us all.

  I started off attending incognito: not yelling too loudly, just absorbing everything around me, but a couple of protests in and I was wearing the shirts, yelling the slogans, marching up the front, holding the banner and making myself heard. By my third protest I decided I needed to get up and say something, to be useful, to share my anger at the injustice in the world. I felt like I had something to say and I was keen to share it – I just didn’t know what it was yet. Even though the specifics of my message were hazy, I instinctively felt that if I was given a platform, I should take it.

  In some ways this moment was the catalyst for an attitude I have embraced throughout my life – if there is a microphone available to you, use that opportunity to say something. You may never get that chance again. If you’re from a marginalised group, using that platform is profoundly valuable because it’s likely a voice such as yours has never been heard from it before. I subscribed to this policy for years, until I couldn’t physically utilise all the platforms I’d been given and had to become more selective. Up until then, though, I was indiscriminate in where I chose to share. These days, I’ve learnt that being effective means being discerning about where you choose to lend your voice, and that my credibility, which is what allows me to influence change, is something I must guard in every way possible.

  ‘Anyone else have something to say?’ the man with the microphone asked the 150-strong group that had just marched, asking the government to support Lebanon and, for good measure, to back the Palestinians as well. I had carried a banner at the front and was feeling the power of being part of a movement course through my veins.

  I motioned for the mic.

  What was I, a fifteen-year-old, going to tell a pack of passionate protesters?

  I’d had some experience with public speaking, but this was not the same as debating. I had to draw on a different skill, one that came from my Sudanese roots.

  In a collective culture, every family is a big crowd, so everyone gets informally trained to speak in front of a sizeable audience, and as a child you learn how to cajole grandparents, parents and cousins using different intergenerational influencing styles. I’d seen enough family drama by this point to understand that, as a speaker, the emotions you drew out of people were often more important than what you actually said. Growing up in a communal culture is actually a lot like being part of a volunteer organisation – people have different roles and responsibilities, decisions need to be negotiated and agreed on by a majority or even by consensus, and there are unspoken rules you need to pick up on to be able to effectively function.

  Spending time in Sudan frequently meant I was able to acquire some of these abilities, like how to deal with different generations in the one ‘organisation’. I found ways to share space and make my voice heard when everyone wanted the floor and also instinctively began to understand how to have influence when people have different motivations and drivers. So, as I bounded up the stairs and turned to look out over the protesters, I might not have known what I was going to say, but I knew exactly how I wanted to make people feel.

  ‘Everything that needs to be said already has been …’ I started nervously. I paused. ‘But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth repeating!’ The crowd roared their appreciation as I ran through phrases I’d heard during the day, injecting impassioned fervour into the delivery. It was a performance; I had found my stage. ‘We won’t let the government get away with this!’ I yelled into the mic, gesticulating wildly. ‘They stand by while young children die!’

  It was only a few minutes, but they were enough for me to understand the power in a crowd. I knew that I had said the ‘right’ things, and by doing so in such a public manner, I had proved that I belonged. The connection and impact I had that day as a teenager with nothing but passion says something about the nature of protest and its dependence on emotion over information; how well I knew my content didn’t matter in the face of my fervour. At the time, I believed passion was enough. Today, my t
hinking has changed. Passion plays a role in driving change, but depth and knowledge are important for meaningful, lasting transformation, and that takes time and dedication. Every movement needs a combination of all the different types of people: passion people, doers, thinkers, deep divers and implementers. Bill Moyer, an American activist, talks about four specific roles that are needed in any movement – citizens, rebels, social change agents and reformers – and how without all of the elements, change is incomplete. This does not stop people from moving between these roles; I started out as a rebel and now fit somewhere in between social change agent and citizen. The role I am in changes as I do, but the constant is my desire to make things better.

  It amazes me that I had such gumption. The naivety of youth is so potent. I’m glad I went through the ‘vocal activist’ experience and had the freedom to explore that mode of change without fear of long-term reprisal from the broader community. It did a number of things: I gained grassroots credibility, learnt from the experiences of those who had spent decades in the activist space and I saw what life was like as protester.

  Being part of a physical movement of people was intoxicating, and I understand why others dedicate their lives to being activists. You become part of a world untainted by the realities of our status quo and the restrictions that we have placed on ourselves. Part of me misses the ideological purity at times, but as with every path there are pros and cons. Life is about picking what is right for you at certain points in time and not looking back in regret. Every experience I have had has led to new, occasionally different types of opportunity. Grasping these opportunities is how I have grown and evolved, allowing me to lay down a solid foundation on which to build – and every engineer knows a concrete foundation is strongest when reinforced with some steel, a bit of something different.

  Later that day, a fellow protester from the Socialist Alliance approached me to congratulate me on my speech and offer me an opportunity.

  ‘We’d love to do an interview with you for our newspaper,’ he said. ‘Would you be interested in speaking at one of our events?’

  I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Newspapers! Speeches! How awesome. This wasn’t debating class anymore, this was real. I gleefully relayed the good news to my parents, who were lukewarm in their support, but I knew I would show them.

  ‘What’s the address, Yassmina?’ Dad asked as we drove into Fortitude Valley. It was a weeknight and the Valley was the ‘dodgy’ part of town.

  ‘There!’ I pointed at a door plastered with posters and graffiti.

  ‘Hmm, okay.’ My father didn’t sound impressed. ‘Yallah – let’s go.’

  A small sticker next to the door handle printed with the Socialist Alliance logo announced that we were in the right spot and we followed carpeted stairs down to a much larger open space that looked like an underground hideout. The walls were covered with posters of old men and multicoloured flags; I wasn’t sure what it all meant but it felt like I was joining something exciting.

  ‘Yassmina, do you know who these people are?’

  ‘Who?’ I asked Dad distractedly, eyes roaming around the room, taking in the threadbare couches, desks overflowing with paperwork and an area set up with chairs and a lectern.

  ‘Do you know who Karl Marx is?’

  ‘Who, Baba? Baba, what are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Yassmina, that is Marx –’ Dad pointed at one of the posters. ‘Do you know what he stands for?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Yassmina, you should go home and read his work. It is important that you understand the viewpoints of these people before you support them.’

  ‘Whatever, Baba. I am sure he’s all good.’ I trusted these people; they’d taken me into their fold, right? I had protested alongside them and they had embraced me. They gave me badges for my bag, let me know what the right slogans were and had now asked me to speak to the whole group. I was in!

  I’m ashamed to say that I embellished my problems with discrimination and being accepted in society to gain approval from the Socialist Alliance group. I played up to their expectations in my speech, when we were protesting and at any opportunity. It was my way of showing that I, too, understood the anger and I, too, belonged. That guilt has sat with me for a long time, but I wanted them to take me in, and they were angry, so I thought I should be angry as well.

  I was a young teenager looking for a place and I joined the first group that made me feel important. This was before the age of Facebook. It was fortunate that I joined a relatively harmless group, and had parents who encouraged me to think critically about who I was following and what I was getting myself into. What if I had been drawn down a completely different path? It’s important that as a society we don’t demonise kids who are looking for a place to belong, but recognise what is really going on. I lived in a time when I was semi-free to make mistakes without them being held over my head. Sure, we joked about our phones being tapped, but it’s not like it is now. Surf the wrong sites too many times, hang out with the wrong people or follow the wrong religion, and you might find your house being raided. Or, you know, just be a brown guy, and you might find yourself on the front page of the state’s newspaper, described as a terrorist. All part of the life of a regular ol’ brown person in Australia. Criminalising people at a young age puts them into the justice system and legitimises their anger.

  Groups like Daesh are particularly cunning in the way they target people, tailoring their recruitment strategies for every individual with whom they interact. They focus on the young, the marginalised and those looking for meaning in a place where they don’t feel they belong. And there are people who feel like they don’t belong. If you are born and bred (or, like me, simply raised) in Australia, you have nowhere else to call home. But imagine this: whenever you turn on the news and there’s a picture of someone who looks like you, that person is being called a terrorist. Kids at school tell you that you don’t belong, or to ‘go back to where you came from’. The country you call home invades the country your parents came from and there is nothing you can do about it. Your family back home is terrified for their lives and suffering from the fear and violence that comes with warfare, but there is no space for that conversation in the Australian landscape – you’re accused of defending the terrorists. You protest but no one listens.

  These events become part of a cycle, a story of identity and lack of belonging. We cannot underestimate how important identity and belonging are, and what young people will do to find them. We need to provide the right kinds of support so that people don’t see the attraction in sacrificing everything for a path that may lead to destruction. My support network was strong enough to protect me, but not everyone is as lucky as me.

  The Socialist Alliance loved my angry talk, but I never returned to their HQ, partly due to the chat I had with my father in the car on the way home.

  ‘Yassmina, you have to think about the kind of people you associate with and what kind of change you want to make,’ he said to me.

  ‘Those Socialist Alliance people are doing what they need to –’ I started to protest, but Dad cut me off.

  ‘Asma3i [listen]. People like that are on the fringe of society. They’ll yell and yell and yell but no one will listen to them because they are considered too alternative, not connected to reality. If that’s what you want to do, then fine. But if you want people to listen to you, people who have the power to change things, then you have to think about how you’re seen.’

  That conversation was immensely influential, shaping the decisions I made about my chosen career path and affecting my choice concerning the types of organisations I would volunteer for in the future. It biased me towards believing in more traditional modes of transformation, like influence through boards, although that is something that may change with time. The conversation certainly reflected my dad’s world view, which had been imprinted onto mine – a view that privileges further education, security in life and a stable profess
ion, because a safe and secure life is so important for migrant parents.

  I am now in the role of changing things from the ‘inside’, learning and understanding the system that requires changing and then looking at ways to transform it. I’ve embraced my chosen path and although I understand that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it’s one that I am comfortable with for now. There may come a day where I am not okay with that choice. If that day comes, I’ll find another path, Inshallah.

  A second reason to rethink my mode of activism came shortly afterwards when the principal of my school stopped me one morning after our weekly assembly. ‘I saw you on TV the other day,’ he said, his voice betraying nothing. ‘You were at the protest on the weekend?’

  It turns out my antics on the front row of the march were broadcast on national TV and the news item had caught the eye of some students and their parents. I could vaguely remember yelling towards some cameras while we were marching. Who knew they were actually filming?

  ‘A few parents have phoned me, concerned. In fact, one family called me up saying that if we had students like you in the school they would actually take theirs out.’

  ‘Oh gosh, sir!’ I was shocked. I hadn’t realised my actions were going to somehow have implications for my other identity, my driven, fairly law-abiding academic self. Then I started to feel annoyed. What did ‘students like me’ mean: Muslims? Protesters? Why didn’t these parents care about the injustices in the world? Hearing people had complained seemed to give legitimacy to the impression some of the Al-Nisa crew’s rhetoric – that the mainstream just didn’t quite get it. If parents were telling their kids that people like me shouldn’t be at their school, what kind of attitudes were their kids going to grow up with? One of my friends told me her mother had complained to the school about me wearing the hijab. Even our friendship wasn’t enough to break her mother’s prejudice, which gives you an idea of how powerful negative media and stereotyping can be.