One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  ‘Have you told them they’re not allowed to play with the others?’ she enquired.

  Bayan and Mustafa would not have such things said about them! They signed the girls up for ballet, gymnastics and handball. Ali, who was now in a kindergarten, had already begun football training.

  They themselves attended matches, shows and tournaments, and volunteered for community tasks. At first the Rashid children took their own chicken sausages along to eat at sporting events, but one day they simply didn’t bring them. Kurdistan felt further and further away.

  The children went to church with the rest of their school class at Christmas, and Bayan hung advent stars in the windows like everyone else. Bano said she was a devout Muslim, but when somebody asked her if she was Sunni or Shia, she did not know. ‘I believe there’s a God,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what He’s called, that’s all.’ And after attending church with her class, she said, ‘If God knows there is only Him, there’s no need to say it through the priest.’

  As pupils from a minority background, the Rashid children were excused from lessons in New Norwegian, the country’s second official language, which is based on rural dialects. But the proposal only made Bano indignant. ‘If you get a letter in New Norwegian, you have to answer it in New Norwegian,’ she asserted, quoting the general rule. When the teacher praised the fluency of a composition she had written, she was cross. ‘Why say that to me in particular? I started New Norwegian the same time as everybody else in the class.’

  If her parents moaned at her or weren’t happy with something she had done, she would retort that lots of immigrant parents had to go and fetch their children from the police station.

  ‘Mum, we’re not like the ones who don’t want to integrate. The future for us means good jobs, coming home to nice dinners and opening the fridge to find it’s full. You complain about the cost of sandwich fillings and us staying in the shower too long, but Mum, at least we always have food and water,’ she would say consolingly whenever her mother was worried about making ends meet. ‘We’re not ashamed of having a messy house because the main thing is that we children aren’t being neglected. And our sofa and dining table are just as nice as everyone else’s.’

  It was important to be ‘like everyone else’. The family had to have the same furniture, the same clothes and the same kind of sandwiches in their packed lunches. That is to say, the same or better. Bano was so pleased when her mother bought her sister a Bergans jacket. ‘Mum, only Lara and one other person in her class have got a Bergans jacket. The others have just got the ordinary brands. I’m so proud she’s got an expensive jacket!’ she exclaimed to Bayan, who had been lucky enough to find the smart jacket in a sale.

  Mustafa’s applications had finally borne fruit. The social security office rang and offered him a temporary caretaker job at Grindbakken school in the west of Oslo. And just then, Bayan got a work experience place as a nursery assistant, which after a few weeks turned into a part-time job. But their wages did not allow for any luxuries.

  Bano then did an abrupt about-turn and decided the family was buying too much.

  ‘We’re buying happiness,’ she said. She told her classmates the same thing and imposed a shopping ban. No one was to buy clothes, chocolate or even a roll in the canteen for a week. Her friends found it easier to buy things surreptitiously than to argue with her. Bano was so stubborn.

  Bayan and Mustafa called their oldest daughter their guide to Norwegian society.

  ‘When you go to visit other people, the first thing you have to say is “What a lovely house you’ve got!”’ Bano advised them. ‘Houses are what count in Norway.’

  ‘The best thing you can do is buy your own house,’ she insisted. When they bought a terraced house, Mustafa was very pleased to get it for less than the valuation, because all the other houses in the street had sold for more than the asking price.

  ‘But Dad,’ said Lara, ‘why do you think the Norwegians didn’t bid more for the house? We must have been cheated.’

  Hmm, thought Mustafa. The house proved to have various defects, like damp in the basement, and it required a lot of renovation. But he was a mechanical engineer after all and doggedly set to work.

  Bano was day-dreaming about how they would do up the basement so the three children could have their own living room, bedrooms and even a little office. Things could always get better. She complained, for example, about the kitchen floor being two different colours. When Mustafa tried to sand and polish the floor it took him so long that he had to return the sander before he had finished. The sitting room had no skirting boards and there were wires hanging loose in her bedroom.

  ‘You ought to be pleased with your room, Bano,’ her father said. ‘You’ve got the best room, much bigger than Lara and Ali’s.’

  Craving conformity, she reproached her parents for her name. Bano, what sort of name was that? Nobody else had it. When they told her they had contemplated calling her Maria, she complained even more.

  ‘Oh, Maria, why didn’t you call me that? I know several people called Maria! I could have been like everyone else.’

  * * *

  Their residence permit kept on being renewed on humanitarian grounds, but only for a year at a time. It wore the family down, not knowing if they would be able to stay in Norway. They were part of a group known as Temporary Residents with No Right to Family Reunification.

  When the time came for Bano to start secondary school, and they still had not heard if they would be allowed to stay, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She was the family member best able to follow the news and she kept them all up to date with events. She was going to put the family’s situation to the Norwegian state, she decided, and looked up the government’s contact details in the telephone book. She rang the number of the local government department and asked for the minister.

  They did not put her through.

  ‘You have to be eighteen to talk to the minister,’ the eleven-year-old later told her parents. ‘The department said so.’

  Then in 2005, when Bano turned twelve, Lara ten and Ali seven, they were finally granted citizenship, along with several hundred other Iraqi Kurds. The head of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration subsequently had to resign when it emerged that the directorate had exceeded its remit and issued too many residence permits. The Rashids were among the lucky ones. And so, in February 2009, after ten years in Norway, the whole family became Norwegian citizens.

  Bayan made a special meal and bought nougat ice cream, and they were all allowed to eat as much as they wanted.

  * * *

  Sport was an important part of becoming one of the others. Bano spent many hours on the bench at handball matches because she was clumsy and missed the ball so often. But one day, flat-footed and a little overweight, she thundered through the opposition’s defences and scored. From that point on, there was no stopping her. She loved being on the attack, snatching the ball and scoring goals. After each goal the trainer would shout, ‘Home, Bano, home!’ But defending was too boring.

  Bano had no time for anything boring. But if there was something to be won, she turned up. When there was a competition among the pupils of the Nesodden schools to see who knew their peninsula best, she did her research on local history. Bano, the outsider, got through to the final.

  She wanted to be best on the court, best in the class and as well dressed as everyone else. She wanted to join the gang of popular girls and be as Norwegian as the Norwegians.

  But a new interest was gradually taking over.

  ‘You’ve been with me for the handball all these years, now you’ve got to come into the Labour Party with me,’ Bano told her parents when she joined the AUF in Year 10.

  Bayan obliged her and when Women for Nina was set up, a campaign to elect Nina Sandberg – the woman on the bus – as mayor, Bano, Lara and Bayan all joined.

  The commitment Bano had shown on the handball court now transferred itself to the AUF. She eventually became
leader of the little local group on Nesodden.

  When she was seventeen, she had her first piece published in the daily Aftenposten. In it, she expressed her concern about the Progress Party and its leader Siv Jensen’s use of the term ‘Islamisation by stealth’.

  ‘I know full well that Siv Jensen only came up with this term as a scare tactic. She is well aware that we have had immigration here for thousands of years and it all worked out fine,’ she began, adding that the vast majority of people who move to a country adapt to its culture and way of life. ‘It just takes a little time. If Jensen really is afraid of Muslims, she should look at the birthrate among Muslim women in Norway. It has fallen significantly. This is an example of the way people who live in Norway adapt to Norway.’

  She asked people to see immigrants as a strength instead, and make full use of their resources. ‘Oslo would doubtless grind to a halt if anyone opted for an immigrant-free day,’ she wrote.

  ‘The second-largest party in the country not only discriminates against me. The Progress Party also allows itself to discriminate against employees, women, the long-term sick and gays. Most people fall into one of those categories. Do most people really think that as long as the price of petrol comes down a bit, they can put up with a bit of discrimination?’

  The signature Bano Rashid (17), Nesodden AUF was to feature several times on the youth pages of Aftenposten. ‘Put pictures into people’s heads as you write,’ Hadia Tajik, a talented young politician of Pakistani descent, had taught her in an AUF course. Bano tried to.

  There was another matter close to her heart.

  ‘No one in the whole world has been able to convince me women are the weaker sex,’ Bano wrote. ‘It is no coincidence that 80 per cent of Norway’s top leaders are men and that Norwegian women only earn eighty-five kroner for every hundred earned by men. This despite the fact that 60 per cent of Norwegian students are women. These are figures that we find hard to swallow, living in the best country in the world.’

  She also had some advice to offer her sisters. ‘Unlike traditional feminists I do not think it is a question of we girls sticking together. We girls must divide up! It is not actually a great tactical move to gang together. It only makes us fearful of everything and everybody outside the gang. We must move forward on our own. We must have the confidence to look up to the woman at the top, and allow ourselves to think we are amazing.’

  * * *

  Towards the end of the summer, Bano was invited to go to Alvdal by her friend Erle and her mother Rikke Lind. They took the train into the mountains and then walked for hours over the fells to the old hunting cabin. There, life was simple. They fetched water from the creek and cooked at a wood-burning stove. Bano was overjoyed, always keen to do the longest treks, reach the highest summits. In the evenings, which had started drawing in now midsummer was behind them, Rikke let the girls have a small glass of red wine each. They sat talking late into the night. Bano kept turning the conversation toward politics, to Erle’s annoyance. Her mother held a post as under-secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. She was the one who had suggested Bano and Erle join the AUF. But whereas Erle soon lost interest, Bano became local leader.

  ‘The fact that we no longer have a woman Prime Minister is making itself felt nowadays,’ said Rikke. ‘Gro did things much more consciously. She was good at inspiring us, her younger colleagues.’

  She told Bano and Erle about the times she had met Gro, and how good the older feminist had been at seeing other women and pulling them up with her.

  This made Bano thoughtful.

  ‘Rikke, how can I get your life?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s hard work, you know!’

  ‘I’m not joking. How can I be like you? I want a house as big as yours, a good job like yours, friends as interesting as yours,’ Bano went on. Rikke and her husband gave wonderful parties at their big house by the sea on Nesodden. And Bano was never shy about asking things she wondered about, like how much they earned and what their house cost.

  ‘Well then Bano, I’ll tell you,’ answered Rikke. ‘A good education, that’s the most important thing.’

  ‘What should I study, then?’

  ‘Law or political science. Take all the courses you can, make the most of learning for free. Take debating technique, leadership of meetings, rhetoric.’

  That summer evening they made plans for Bano’s life. She should get herself nominated to stand in the local elections in Nesodden in 2011, Rikke suggested.

  ‘Do you really mean it?’ Bano could not contain her enthusiasm.

  Rikke nodded. Her own mother had made a class journey, leaving a strict Christian home behind and moving alone to Oslo, where she became a radical lawyer, the first one in the family to go through higher education.

  ‘But Bano, why do you keep going on about being like Mum? You’d never be satisfied with being an under-secretary!’ declared Erle.

  They smiled.

  Bano wanted everything, Lara often said. Not enough, but everything.

  ‘Who’s the most important person in the country?’ Bano asked. ‘Who gets to decide most?’

  ‘The Prime Minister,’ responded Rikke.

  ‘Perhaps it’s not realistic to try to be Prime Minister,’ pondered Bano. ‘But it would be realistic to be Minister of Equality. Then I can liberate women from oppression!’

  The August night felt as soft as velvet. Dark wine lingered in the glasses. Bano was growing up.

  Don’t Make Friends with Anyone Before You Get There!

  The community liaison officer in Salangen looked through her lists.

  The minors among the asylum seekers were placed in reception classes at Sjøvegan School. Many of them made poor progress. They struggled with several subjects, particularly Norwegian, as they had little contact with the local population. The centre for asylum seekers was virtually a separate world up on the hill, way up by the skiing trails.

  It was not that the asylum seekers were unwelcome. Attitudes to the refugees had steadily improved after a shaky start.

  When the stream of refugees into Norway suddenly increased in the second half of the 1980s, the authorities were quite unprepared. Accommodation was suddenly required for several thousand individuals. Efforts were made to identify disused buildings. Ski resorts and tourist centres that had fallen out of favour were considered suitable, and the mountains filled with people from Africa and Asia.

  If any of the refugees felt like prisoners in remote isolation and ran away from these hotels, the Norwegians reacted in a variety of ways. Some shrugged and said hah, so that’s how they thank us! ‘We take our holidays there, but it’s not good enough for them, oh no!’ Others were more understanding: ‘They’ve fled from war zones, after all, so they might be traumatised and panicked by the wide open spaces.’

  A centre for asylum seekers opened in Salangen in 1989. It was not long before the first refugees ran away and headed south, refusing to come back. The Somalis set little store by the northern lights or the wonderful opportunities for skiing among the willows in the forests above the centre.

  No, they stayed in their rooms, hung about in the corridors or sat on the stairs smoking. Soon there was trouble. First between the Tamils and Somalis. Then between the Iranians and Kosovo Albanians. Arguments, pushing and shoving escalated into stabbings and threats to set fire to the centre.

  The local press offered continuous coverage of the conflicts. There was finally something in the district worth reporting on. The townspeople followed events from a distance.

  When the centre had been open for a few months there was the first scuffle between us and them. Fists, pool cues and knives were used.

  A brawl outside the pub in Salangen led to criminal proceedings against both the Norwegians and refugees involved. Thirty people were formally interviewed in connection with the case; the county sheriff took a dim view of fighting.

  ‘Our investigations reveal that Norwegian youngsters have been play-acting
to blacken the reputation of the asylum seekers,’ declared the sheriff. ‘It’s part of young men’s lives to prove themselves in front of girls,’ said his subordinate.

  The young Norwegians told the local press that the asylum seekers had surrounded them, beaten them up and held bread knives to their throats. The refugees, for their part, claimed the partying Norwegians had threatened them, saying they would get killed if they did not leave the pub.

  ‘There’s a lynch-mob mentality in town now,’ one of the protagonists told the local paper. ‘I think the safest thing would be to send the asylum seekers away from Sjøvegan as soon as possible.’ The young man was pictured from behind, with a denim jacket and mullet hairstyle.

  ‘Racial hatred in Sjøvegan,’ wrote Nordlys. ‘Asylum war in Salangen’ ran the headline in Troms Folkeblad. Arne Myrdal of the Stop Immigration Party rang the interviewees to offer support.

  ‘Young Norwegians will have to show they have been brought up better than the asylum seekers,’ said the town’s mayor, adding that it might have been a mistake ‘to let the asylum seekers straight out into Norwegian society’ as soon as they arrived.

  ‘The reception centres should be in bigger towns,’ asserted two school pupils interviewed by the local press. Salangen simply was not large enough for an asylum seekers’ centre.

  Sjøvegan Upper Secondary School tried to defuse what Nordlys called ‘the racial hatred that has also found a breeding ground in Salangen’. The school arranged a public debate between local residents, asylum seekers and the council. One of the young Norwegians on the panel addressed the refugees in the hall: ‘You immigrants bring diseases, violence and drugs with you. Why do you come here? Is it just to get a better life?’

  A girl rose from her seat and said she thought there must be something wrong with the Norwegian boys’ self-image. Were they afraid the foreigners would come and take their girls from them?

  People went home. The town had divided into two camps.

  Something had to be done. Events were organised. There were get-to-know-you evenings and football matches to help people bond. The asylum centre invited people in for cultural evenings at which the refugees performed dances and songs for the locals, while the residents of Salangen in turn provided children’s choirs, traditional fiddle concerts and the Sami singer Mari Boine, who merges the indigenous music of her roots with jazz and rock. An evening course was started for volunteer befrienders, who were to be the link between the refugees and the permanent residents.