Can Your Exile Be Your Home

[Music]

many of us

are looking for peace prosperity and

freedom

and for that about 250 million

migrated by june 2019

sacrificing time family and home more

than 25 million

of them were force displacement

and there some of them risked their

lives

and some of them didn’t make it those

who made it

brought in eagerness

manpower diversity

the department of business innovation

skills

research into the impact of immigrants

on uk businesses

it found that the newfound the new first

generation immigrant brought in

knowledge a new way to solve problems in

a global outlook

this is manpower diversity

and this led to the expansion of many

businesses

some of those who made it were einstein

freud tesla sergey brin

the co-founder of google steve chen

and javed karim the founders of youtube

nevertheless almost every immigrant

will arrive to the new land

knowing hardly knowing anybody

they will struggle with racism

prejudice the social norms

face a cultural shock

struggled to fit adapt and settle

to take the new place as a home

especially if they felt

unwanted this is the story of almost

every

immigrant hello

my name is richard macleod and i’m a

first generation immigrant

my story started about four decades ago

in 1975 war broke

in home lebanon

pushing hundreds of thousands of

lebanese away from home including my

father

with a bit of struggle he managed to

find a contract

in saudi arabia saudi arabia was going

through

its black gold era

it was rural and still developing in

many ways

but to that it was perfect because it

was close

close in many ways including that it was

arabic and also islamic

that meant to that that we wouldn’t grow

far from home

like many other immigrants

my family saw the friendship

of other lebanese families

and together they formed the lebanese

community

this allowed him to experience some

familiar social norms

and help with an integration in the new

land

me as a child with my sisters and

brothers we didn’t need any of this we

went to the playground

met the kids played with them formed a

friendship

regardless of their creed nationality

color race

we quickly adapted to the new social

norms

and we quickly mastered the local accent

11 years later in 1986

we moved back to lebanon and in my own

homeland and for the first time

i had my cultural shock

it was ironic but with the support of my

family

only took me five years to suffer and

adapt in my own homeland

in 1998 i graduated as an architect

and soon after that i got my business

and got married

in 2001 i had to flee lebanon i had to

fly

from lebanon in fear for my life

sacrificing

family business and home

for safety and i ended up in the uk

it was hard at this time for me it was

really really hard

for the uk was in many ways my exile

but again i struggled with the cultural

shock

with employment education and social

norms

to fit and adapt and settle

i struggled to take the new place as a

home

mainly because i really felt unwanted

those struggles and emotions

the rejection

made me develop feelings of diaspora and

nostalgia

and finding a home became an obsession

michael allen fox talks about home

he talks about the importance of home

it’s the place where it is or was

where we felt safe where we developed

where we grew up naturally

where we felt love for the first time

and we as adults we long sometimes to go

back to that

place to mend our wounds

and to enjoy the nostalgia of those old

days

and even if the people who were living

in that place

are not there anymore it’s the wars that

enduring

and holding the memories but if the wars

is gone

it’s actually worse to us

in newcastle i volunteered with the

islamic diversity center north east

providing hot meals to homeless

it was intriguing to see that the

homeless

person they would say that we don’t feel

we exist

we we don’t have a place of our own

we don’t have an address

can you imagine if you don’t have an

address

a postcode a house you don’t exist you

don’t have a place of privacy

you don’t have a privacy and you don’t

have a place to simply

be michael allen fox again talks about

how this

is a crucial point for the homeless

and for a refugee

and missing it can instigate identity

crisis

but what is home can we make one

what makes a home is it a place

is it a community of one nationality is

it family is it a job is it success

what makes a home home and if

exile becomes home what becomes of home

this question hunted many people

including george allegaia who wrote a

home from home

an immigrant boy to englishman

also eva hoffman who wrote lost in

translation

they were both first generation

immigrant

and they were both trying to understand

this and settle in the new place

what worked for them both of them was

going back to their homeland

and closing the circle that doesn’t work

for some refugees

due to political reasons or even

sometimes natural disasters

not everybody is able to go back home

and close the circle

11 years data is still obsessed with

trying to find a home and forge a link

with the uk

i started miami with the university of

sunderland and i themed miami

around it i wanted to understand what

home

how can i make a home

i studied culture faith and identity

and i looked closer to see the

relationship between them

and architecture fashion and art i

wanted to see

if i as an architect and an artist i can

create my own home

for failing to make a link with the

place

can lead to radicalization it is serious

issue

what i found in my research that we

start developing

our identity at a very early stage of

our lives

but there’s many elements and factors

contributing to that

including the place we start our life

in

the education we received in that a

place the friendship would

we make in that place the social norms

of that

place even the taste palette

and the aroma of that place they will

all together become

whole and we’ll carry this with us for

the rest of our lives

and one interesting book i came across

in my research was arab detroit

it talks about the arabic community in

arab detroit

they it was made from different

nationalities

and it was looking into did they manage

to join the ministry and culture

or whether living as a community within

a community

but separated i found interesting

because it talks about many arab

nationalities including lebanese

but was but what was interesting when

they talked about

their own accounts of how the struggle

and settling eventually and how they

refer to themselves as

transitional generation that was a

eureka moment

for me

you see transitional

by definition means that you left one

place

and you’re going to another it’s a

period of time it’s a stage of your life

it’s never meant for you to settle it’s

meant that it will finish

once you reach your destination

this made me understand why we as a

transitional

generation we can’t settle

let me make the closer for you have you

ever moved the house

your life had to stop pack everything in

boxes

your clothes your furniture your gadgets

everything put them in boxes move to

another house

and little by little unbox

your stuff to make your

new house a home

until then until you book unbox

everything

you’re living out of your boxes you’re

feeling unsettled

this is how it feels for an immigrant in

a new land

continuing with the same analogy

if mr muhammad moved into a house and

mrs smith moved into

the next door house and they’re both

identical on the same state

how can we differentiate the two houses

they will both buy furniture white goods

and other items

to provide the same functionality but

it’s the design is the style it’s the

colors

it’s the artwork on the wall that will

distinguish both houses

we as first generation immigrant we have

responsibility

to settle and take the new place as a

home but also the hosting society and we

can do that

with customization and for that

under the supervision of doctor manuling

and mustafa amari

i’ve designed the first arabic british

mosque

in the northeast i also designed the

first arabic british script

in history for the first time

we have one script that is bilingual

this is the first time that we can use

one script to write arabic and english

and it’s okay to be your nationality

it’s been merging throughout history and

it’s still happening

we have the italian-american

irish canadian pakistani british it’s

happening every day

it’s okay and we can settle

with a bit of customization and when

exile becomes a home

it will be our second home for our

homeland will always be

home thank you

you