TO celebrate the Year of Young People, every week in 2018 The National is giving a platform to young Scots. This week, 26-year-old Pinar Aksu.
PEOPLE move for many reasons. Some move for better life, a better future. Some have no choice but to move. When forced to move, you leave everything behind – your home, family, friends, food, culture … without knowing the future, people have to make a new “home”.
And in this new journey, people are given labels: asylum seeker, refugee, migrant, illegal, destitute. Every label has a different meaning and different consequences. Sometimes people have no option but to carry these labels. It could be for a brief time or forever.
I have been using Theatre of the Oppressed methods for more than six years now, using theatre as a tool to raise awareness. With our World Spirit Theatre group, we have been creating community theatre that explores integration and the asylum process from the perspective of those experiencing it directly, and celebrating the contribution of asylum seekers and refugees to Scottish communities.
As our team gathered to talk about ideas for our new play, together with Elly and Neil from the Citizens Theatre, we all shared stories, experiences and questions we have been asked. We found there was one question which was our absolute favourite: Where are you really from? From time to time, we all get asked this question. “Oh you have an interesting accent!”, “Oh I love your country, its really warm”. People are always keen to ask this question first. It may be a way of knowing a person, to make connections, or it may to used as a way of judging someone.
The current government is spreading false information, blaming asylum seekers, refugees and migrants for the government’s problems and mistakes, trying to turn neighbours against one another.
“Taking our jobs”. “Taking our benefits”. The real problem is the capitalist system. The same system that creates unemployment and homelessness. The same system that fails to represent the people.
The important thing is, we as the people, use our creativity to challenge the system. With our new play, Where Are You Really From?, we are exploring identity, culture, labels and stories of migration.
It does not matter where people are from. What matters is who a person is and their actions. It is important to see all people as a human beings, not to judge them by their country of origin or by their accent. At times, we all seem to forget what we have in common and we (sadly) begin to concentrate more on our differences.
We all need to remember why people move. We all need to remember how we all have moved at some time in our history. We all need to remember that asylum seekers, refugees and migrants are people with experiences, stories, hopes and fears, not numbers with name tags – human beings.
Where Are You Really From? is on at Kinning Park Complex on June 22 and forms part of Refugee Festival Scotland, which starts today and runs until June 24. See refugeefestivalscotland.co.uk
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