Yassmin’s Story

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting my train of thought.

  ‘Who – me?’ I asked stupidly as I stopped and turned to look at him. ‘Did you want me to get you something?’

  ‘Oh no, no.’ He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and began to wipe his hands. ‘I’m from Romania, you know, and I’m pretty religious.’

  I nodded, unsure where this was going.

  ‘I see that your family is doing very well; you guys have a lot of trophies?’

  He pointed through the archway to the living room. The back wall had a stack of bookshelves and the top half was dedicated to our family achievements: my father and mother’s graduation certificates, my younger brother’s soccer trophies, and in the centre, the large Suncorp Young Queenslander of the Year award.

  ‘Ah yeah, we like to keep busy,’ I said, suddenly nervous. I didn’t like talking about our achievements with strangers; it feels too close to boasting.

  ‘Usually I wouldn’t ask someone so young, because we haven’t always had much life experience. But you’ve clearly done some things, right? That’s why you won that award. Okay, here’s my question. What’s the most important lesson you’ve ever learnt?’

  I was bowled over, my mind suddenly wiped blank, as the painter walked back to the entrance doorframe and began working again, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Oh, wow, I don’t know,’ I said, after a pause. ‘There are a lot of lessons I have learnt. A really important one is to listen to those around you, to learn from others.’

  This often came up in conversations around the dinner table when we talked about how society could do better and what we need to do to make the world a safer, fairer place. I continued the train of thought, talking to the painter as he coated the doorframe in smooth, even strokes. ‘When you listen to people, they often tell you what they want, which is so much better than telling them what you think they need. There have been so many people before us, so we’d be arrogant to believe we’re the first to think of something, to feel a certain emotion or think a certain way. If we can learn from the past, and also recognise that we are ultimately a small, temporary part of a big picture we can barely understand, maybe we can discover more.’

  He smiled and nodded, apparently ready to close off the conversation, but I wasn’t quite ready to walk away. I was spiritually hungry now, my appetite unsated. ‘What about you, then? What’s the most important lesson you’ve ever learnt?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he said. ‘Mine is that you should always have faith in God.’

  My stomach clenched. That should have been mine, I thought. I should know that!

  ‘Trust in God, because he always has a plan for you. If something has not happened the way you want or expect, it is because God has another story written for you. Everything is as it should be, so we should just have faith.’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He was right, I thought. Everything is as it should be. Given that I had just come back from my error-ridden trip to the UK, it was a fitting reminder to have faith.

  This conversation resonated with me, so I began to ask those around me the same question. People replied with all sorts of lessons: ‘Age does not bring wisdom,’ said one taxi driver, his beard as white as Gandalf’s. ‘Be honest and be yourself, because then you won’t have to remember what you said,’ was the response of an impressive-looking sailor when we met at lunch with the Queen of England. ‘Believe in yourself and your own capacity and the capacity of others,’ said Gary Turner, an award-winning teacher I met at another event.

  Some of the most profound answers came from people without official titles. ‘Do not resist change,’ said a lady named Eleanor, who sat next to me at a friend’s birthday party. ‘Learn to serve – do things for others without expecting anything in return,’ was another from Brody, a friend’s partner.

  Every now and again, I remember how temporary this life really is, and how humble we must be. There is an arrogance that we can sleepwalk our way into something, thinking we deserve it, when in many cases what we have achieved can be traced back to an accident of birth.

  Time and time again, I would come back to this idea of listening to others. My life has been shaped by mentors and sponsors, from casual acquaintances who gave the smallest pieces of advice, through to those who have given so much of their time and more. I don’t think I can ever give the mentors in my life enough thanks and recognition for all they have provided. We are the product of the people around us.

  At the ceremony for my 2010 Young Queenslander of the Year award, one lady warned me to stay connected with the community, to ensure I have support and stay grounded.

  ‘I think you’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Look how many people came with you.’

  I had invited my family and friends, my old principal and school teachers – everyone who had played a part in my journey.

  ‘They care about you and support you. Your community is here! Treasure that and make the most of it.’

  Her advice still rings in my mind. Today I would be reluctant to invite so many friends to such an event, which is partly about ensuring I stay humble. One of the downsides of the nomadic life of a rig-worker is that you don’t spend very much time in people’s everyday lives, so the number of those with whom I have daily interactions has decreased significantly and my inner circle has become smaller. It’s a price I pay for the life I’ve chosen, but I make an effort to stay in touch with others who have supported and mentored me.

  My mother was the OM – Original Mentor: the one who taught me to read, write, add and subtract before I started school. My father was my ideological mentor, who taught me never to trust the news and who constantly reminds me to stay true to my heritage. Mama and Baba are my weathervanes. I think I will always depend on them in one way or another, even though I now realise that some of our opinions differ.

  I didn’t have a teacher who was a significant mentor until grade nine, when Mr Carlil, the cool English teacher, taught me about critical literacy and gave us flexibility to choose our own work. I couldn’t get enough of it. ‘If you want to do something different to the task that has been given, show me why it’s relevant. If you can prove its relevancy to me, then you’ll probably be able to do it!’ This style fit me perfectly. My design and technology teachers also played a big role in my early years.

  The true mentoring started when I began university, because to be mentored effectively I needed some idea of where I was going and the ability to connect with the right people.

  I met my appointed BHP Billiton mentor for a lunch at a café in the city, and I remember being awed by the fancy restaurant and by the luxury that, because he was paying the bill, I could order whatever I wanted. This was a new world for someone from a family that considered fish and chips a decadence. He had no idea how to deal with me and said as much. I was a loud woman with lots of opinions and ran some youth organisation, yet I wanted to do engineering?

  I loved having someone to bounce ideas off who would tell me whether I was totally barking up the wrong tree; someone to give me perspective. Brendon gave me a viewpoint I couldn’t have accessed any other way, and it was invaluable.

  Sometimes I wasn’t so lucky with finding and securing the mentor I wanted. In second-year university I attended a three-week engineering course in France (my first overseas trip alone!). It was a university-sanctioned event, which was the only way my parents allowed me to go, and even then it was a huge deal. We went on field trips to different companies, including UNESCO, L’Oreal, Coke and even a defence outfit. I couldn’t believe my luck when I met a woman in an engineering-based role in UNESCO, who did some pivotal innovative work with groups in developing nations. I need this lady in my life! I thought. I walked up to her at the networking event and simply said: ‘I admire what you do and would love to learn from you. I want to explore whether there would be any possibility that you could mentor me.’

  There was not even one iota of a chance she was interested. Her face sai
d it all. Perhaps I didn’t look like an accomplished person – I was going through a weird hijab phase, for sure. I felt small in that moment and, sure enough, I never did hear from her. But that didn’t stop me trying that technique again. It may not have been successful with that individual for a number of reasons – she had no idea who I was, and I was simply being opportunistic, which may not have appealed to her personally – but sometimes that approach works!

  Other times, finding a mentor or sponsor can happen organically, and those occasions are special. One of my favourite people is a lady named Julie McKay, executive director of UN Women Australia. She was a fellow participant at an event that I attended in Malaysia – my first ‘diplomatic’ conference (called ‘Track II diplomacy’, so cool!). We were part of a leadership program and I didn’t speak to her much during the official events, but remember admiring her eloquence. Things changed when we decided to go for a wander around town together, just to leave the hotel and check out Malaysia.

  We bonded through tea and conversation in Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur. I had just met one of my most vocal sponsors. A few weeks later, Julie suggested I find someone to nominate me for the inaugural 100 Women of Influence Awards run by Westpac and the Australian Financial Review. I didn’t rate my chances but I ended up being one of the two Young Leader winners, and the youngest woman on the list. Julie then introduced me to my current mentor, Michael Rose, a lawyer who tells it to me like it is, who is more than happy to introduce me to people who can make things happen and who always reminds me to stay grounded. I owe a lot to these people.

  Mentoring and sponsoring is also about opening doors for others, which I suggested in my TEDx talk. All my mentors and sponsors who have opened doors for me are people who come from completely different demographics. If I had stayed within my community I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities, because people in the Sudanese community have yet to reach those highest levels of penetration and influence within the wider Australian society. By connecting to people with levels of influence in the existing structure, I am able to find my way through it.

  There is a difference between mentoring and sponsoring. Mentors will guide you and provide advice, whereas sponsors are people who will put themselves on the line on your behalf – recommend you for a job, advocate for your pay rise, introduce you to the right people. Sponsors are gatekeepers. I find that it is useful to have both, sometimes in the same person.

  Not only have people opened doors for me for the sake of work and progress, but also to give me the chance to meet some random and interesting folk. I’ve played soccer with Cathy Freeman in Suncorp Stadium; she was lovely and the grass was so green and springy, even in the middle of the drought! I wanted to ask her if I could borrow her running suit – it was semi hijab friendly – but I chickened out in the end, telling myself that it probably wouldn’t fit.

  I attended lunch with the Queen once, and when William and Catherine came to town, I was one of those invited to a reception with them at Government House. Mum dropped me off at the event but she got lost on the way there, so we rocked up within a minute of the doors being closed. I was the last person to enter the room, so when the speeches ended and the prince and duchess walked over to start chatting to people, I was standing nearest to them, right near the door. I was the first person who Kate approached, and so all the cameras were on us. Images of me talking to her were beamed around Australia and the world. I got messages from friends saying things like: OMG, we saw you with the duchess. WTF, who are you? Hilarious, right?

  Even though I’m not a monarchist, when Kate complimented my necklace I almost gave it to her – almost. Both Kate and William were able to make you feel like you were the only person in the room, and they asked questions that showed they ‘cared’. They struck the perfect balance between being grounded and being royal, and were all round very likeable. That said, I was reluctant to like them because they represent a system that someone like me can never hope to penetrate. The unearned elitism rankles.

  The last encounter I will mention is with the Big O. Obama! I had the opportunity to shake his hand when he last visited Australia, and I was stoked because he is certainly the coolest POTUS. I don’t know if he has been the most effective. Do I think he delivered on his promises, particularly when it comes to the Middle East? Perhaps not, but there is no denying he is one of the great orators of our time and he has a unique ability to bring a sense of humour to the presidential office. I definitely feel he was a little surprised to meet a ‘sister’ at the event, because he took an extra few moments to chat when we met. Me and Obama are tight, is what I’m saying!

  I would have loved to have met Madiba. Although it is fantastic to meet Western leaders, there is something special about meeting someone who was able to transcend the troubles of the African nation, move past the colonial hurts and bring people together in a way that no one believed was possible. It may sound corny, but I don’t think it would be a stretch to say every single African, whether living in Africa or in the diaspora, has a special place in their heart for Madiba.

  Go talk to your painter. You don’t know what kind of wisdom you will hear.

  Chapter 21:

  The School of Life

  Have you ever had your fundamental beliefs about your role in society challenged? I never thought it would be so confusing. I’ve been trying to reconcile what I saw and experienced there with my experience growing up in Australia as an Aussie chick, but I’m definitely still figuring it all out …

  This is an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote in 2011, shortly after returning from a four-month stint in Sudan. I’d never been a victim of the identity crisis issues that were said to plague third culture kids; I considered myself ’Straylian through and through. From the way I talked, to my mates and my choice of sports, I never had to think about whether I identified as Aussie until someone asked me if I did, post 9/11. I loved that I could walk into a workshop at a mine site in central Queensland as a hijabi-wearing, Sudanese-born gal and, because I grew up here, I could instantly relate to the old mates working maintenance. This is my country, these are my people. Right?

  I felt comfortable with the choices I’d made and that gender played no part in my role in society: my degree, career, and even my sport (boxing: as feminine as they come). My father never seemed too concerned, although he was delighted whenever I went out in a dress – he’d grin and pinch me on my cheek, his one true sign of affection. He let me do what I wanted sports and career wise, as long as I showed that I cared about it and was doing a good job.

  Boy, was I in for a treat when I got to Sudan.

  ‘This is the perfect time for you to keep an eye out then.’ My aunt smiled at me. We had met by coincidence in the international terminal of the Brisbane airport, both waiting for Emirates flights.

  I was reclined on a couch with my feet up on the table, an act of disrespect I knew my parents would have rebuked me for, making it all the more enjoyable. My white ‘Soul’ by Ludacris headphones covered the cotton headscarf draped over my afro while I read a fantasy novel on the Kindle I’d received for my twenty-first birthday just a few days earlier. My legs had dropped instantly to the ground when my aunt sat down opposite, as I unconsciously assumed the form of an attentive young Muslim girl.

  ‘Perfect time for what?’ I asked, slightly bewildered.

  ‘Now that you’ve finished your engineering studies, you can find someone in Sudan to be your husband. It’s about time, Yassmin; these things become harder as you get older.’

  I cringed, realising this did actually look like a trip to find a husband. That couldn’t have been more wrong. I had always planned to spend time in the land of my birth, but it wasn’t until I submitted my final year mechanical engineering thesis that it occurred to me to take a break before I started my job, to enrich my understanding of who I was and where I came from.

  It was the beginning of summer in Sudan, the worst time to visit, as I was repeatedly informed by family memb
ers, but it was the perfect chance to spend a few months there studying Arabic before this next chapter of my life. This was an opportunity to rekindle a relationship with my extended family and immerse myself in the language that would have been my mother tongue. This trip wasn’t just about hanging with my cousins; this was about connecting to my roots, my parent culture, and proving to my father that I hadn’t become too Western. It was the Muslim-girl equivalent of finding yourself backpacking around South America.

  The only university I could find that had a website with a functioning phone number was the International University of Africa, so I signed up to study Arabic at their campus, fortunately only a short walk from my grandmother’s house.

  It had been more than three years since my last visit and I’d still been relatively naive then, my decisions dictated by my parents as I learnt what it meant to be an adult. Now I was a university graduate with a job waiting for me back home. My relatives hadn’t seen me in that time – it was far too costly for them to visit Australia – so that first month was a bit of a readjustment for all of us.

  At first, I found the cultural differences funny. I loved being the odd one out, flying in the face of what was acceptable – just being me. I wasn’t accustomed to the cultural expectations placed on me, even though I understood and accepted the bare bones of it all, like how to dress, how to behave when we had guests, how to make good tea and serve it to the family after meals, how to speak to elders. It was the discrepancy between the roles of men and women that frustrated me and the unwritten rules that I was expected to adhere to without being told why they existed. Apparently, the way I walked, sat, talked and laughed was unfeminine and undesirable for a respectable Sudanese woman, as were the issues I wanted to discuss – politics isn’t for women!