Resistance
As part of the project we have made two short films with people who have been criminalised under the rubric of counterterrorism interventions, and refused citizenship or had their passport cancelled and/or children taken into care as a result. These films, titled ‘The eyes of Aliyah’ and ‘Aaden and the Spider’, give voice to our research participants. Please watch and share!
The Eyes of Aliyah
Aaden and the Spiders
Eyes of Aliyah (with French subtitles)
Aaden and the Spiders (with French subtitles)
Racism, Rights, Resistance
As part of our poetry event in York we asked four poets to respond to the themes of our project. Here is Hodan Yusuf’s poem that she wrote especially for the event and kindly shared with us.
* This poem is the copyright of Hodan Yusuf and cannot be reprinted without the permission of the author*
Racism Rights Resistance
================
Fellow Travellers
================
Frantz Fanon
Wrote the canon
On why you and I
Are excluded
So, let’s not be deluded
Me and you
It’s our hue
And our creed
By which we are judged
Not our deeds
Racism
Rights
Resistance
My Race
My Rights
And Resistance
Resistance
Against those
Arresting my Rights
Because of my Race?
This Face?
This Dress?
This belief?
God.
I’m in disbelief!
Racism
Rights
Resistance
The race
To provide
Assistance
To those whose
Rights
Are withheld
Facing Resistance
Because of their Race
Exclusion
Walls
Borders
Wealth hoarders
Barking orders
“Stay away!
Stay in your dinghy
Your thingy
Your boat
In this moat
Pulling up the drawbridge
Drown
We don’t care
Just stay THERE !”
But
I’ll resist
Their projectile death wish
In the words James Baldwin
And my brother Dean Atta
“I’m nobody’s nigger” either
And
I’m nobody’s terrorist
None’s Ninja Paki
Black Iraqi
I’m no Pirate Somali Skinny
I’m nobody’s un-endearing
Overused
Terms of abuse
I refuse.
I REFUSE
Resistance
Did you build a fence to keep
ME out?
Did NATO just declare WAR
On me
In my dinghy?
Destitute and afraid?
Did you fill your column inches with
Unabating hate?
Did you give up
on fostering discussion
Where we can maybe relate?
If you believe in God
who made Adam
Then I am the daughter of Eve
And if you believe in Darwin
Well I guess you evolved
from Eve.
Either way
The only real race
Is the human one
The rest are
just
constructs of division
Contemplate that
for just one moment
Envision
========
Tired
========
I am tired
of speaking to you
and humanising myself
to you
Reminding you
daily
that
I am your human sister
That my blood is red
too
My children are born from
Wombs
too
That they emerge
Naked and helpless
too
And they cry
for the first time
a lungful of a shared
air
too
I am tired of reminding you
that I have a father
Too
who looked after me
and took me to school
And I have a mother
who raised me
combed my hair
cooked the best food
too
I am tired of telling you
I have siblings
That I played ball with
Nurtured pets
with
And
rode bikes with
Too
I’m tired of telling you
Just how tired I am
And
Just how bad the place
we left
was
and still
Is.
I’m tired of
running
I’m tired of
fleeing
I’m tired of the
dehumanising
Racism
and the
Desecration of
My Rights
==========================
Take a Seat
==========================
And
Listen.
Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met before.
But I have something
very important to tell you.
I am your sister
I am
Your
Human
Sister
My skin may be
A different hue
But when I’m cut
I bleed like you
Don’t make show you
When I burn
My skin
Despite its melanin
it singes just like yours
Don’t make me show you
Now
I’m not so sure
If you are
Human
At all
When you shoot
At me
As I flee
From those
shooting
At me
Who is playing a game
Of blaming?
Not me?
This is CRAZY
And mad
And
Real
Deadly.
Those images you see
On your television screens
Are not cartoons of animation
When barrel bombs and
Drones
Decimate our hospitals
Schools
Streets
Towns
Those are not illusions
When you hear our people
Scream
They are not actors
Pretending for the screen
The abject horrors
Are Crazy and Mad
And Real
Deadly.
=========
Roll Call
=========
The uncivilised
Then colonised
Those oppressed
So repressed
Poor victims
They’re terrorists
A bunch of migrants
Swarms
Shoot them
Stop them
Hate them
If you don’t know my name
Don’t baptise me with yours
If you don’t know my worth
Don’t make me ingratiate
My noble self
As [your] serf
If you don’t know my name
Learn it
Before you speak it.
It’s on my birth certificate
I am your human sister.
=============
See the Sea
=============
I used to paint the sea
when I was a child in school
With rich colours of pastel blues
Turquoise shades
Golden sand dunes
and yellow suns
Distant Black birds
Like little letters v’s on the horizons
That was before
the Bombs
and
the Bloodshed
Before a time
When family sat around tables for dinner
Laughing as they fed
When blankets were used
To keep us warm at night
Instead of body bags
To wrap up our dead
The sea is not so pretty
And Serene
I found
When you are cold
And sick
When you’ve thrown
Everything you owned
Well, what was left of it
Overboard
Not so pretty
or calm
When you’ve witness
Every kind of wrong
And you’ve had to give your
fellow travellers
a burial at sea
Men overboard!
Women overboard!
Babies overboard!
I used to love the seaside
Now
I just want to be landlocked
And safe.
Safe from drowning
Safe from bombs.
Safe from rape
Safe from wrongs
Safe from hunger
Safe from snipers.
Safe from…safe from.
Safe from injustice
Safe from abuse
Safe from insults.
Safe from racism
Safe from… safe from.
Before you call me
An illegal immigrant
Refugee migrant
Crisis causing
undocumented person
Remember
I am a human being
And the troubles I flee from
Have their roots
In YOUR corridors of power
Now
Cometh the hour
I’m your human sister
And you can’t choose family
So deal
with Racism
And my Rights
And the Resistance
=========
I Made It
=========
I made it
With or without your help
I made it
To safety.
I made it.
With God’s Help I made it
I rested my bones
And made myself a new home
Furnished
With Memories
Some make me weep
Others lighten my load
And make me smile
Reminding me of
Times gone by
I’ve met good people
Conscientious
Folk
Who concerned themselves
With my Rights
And Resistance
Worked for the greater good
And
Understood
The Race we shared
Was Human
And God showed me
Mercy through them
I had more children
And met new
Challenges
I made new friends
Who had a similar story
Perilous journey
Lost loves
And
Lost lives
High costs
But at
What price?
Unmarked graves
Of Fallen men
And fallen women
Babes in arms
And Exhausted children
If they
Cannot speak
From six feet under
Those of us who made it
Will shout over this hateful thunder
Enough
Severed ties
And
Broken bonds
Men in grey suits
with
Selective souls
“Smugglers and routes
Migrant Crisis
And
ISIS”
Broken records
And mantras
While we sleep
With the fishes
Somebody tell me what this is?
Enough
Human debris
Washing up
On the Beaches
Is that how low
Our reach is?
We Will speak
For those whose
Deaths haunt us
We will live
And we will thrive
We’ve come too far
To not survive
The Human Race
Is One
And
The Rights you afford yourselves
Must be Won
For All
But until
Then
Insistence on
…Resistance
-Hodan Yusuf