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