You Are Here

When I was around ten years old I used to call myself Lola. When I think about it now, I can’t really remember what stood out about the name. Only that it was a white name, and I wasn’t. I was still young enough to think that I could hide behind a name, that people wouldn’t take one look at me and know that it didn’t belong. I try to laugh it off when I think back to it now, try to pass it off as the silly fascination of a silly child. It’s a lot easier than acknowledging that even as a young child I never belonged.  

When I got to high school, it was different. I wasn’t the minority anymore – my cohort brimmed with first-generation immigrants from all corners of the world. I shed Lola and strut my way back to Nilab. Still, I did not fit. I had my people – and I loved them dearly – but I knew everyone thought me strange; an Afghan and a Muslim concerning herself with politics and injustice, it just wasn’t heard of in those days. Six years I spent chafing against the constraints of what was socially acceptable.  

When I got to uni, it didn’t necessarily become better. It was just different. I was different. Over twelve years of my life up to that point had been spent agonising over people liking me, people looking at me and seeing a like-minded person. Twelve years of my life had been spent being treated like an outsider. And so, I began the meticulous process of severing any desire for connection, for kinship, for love. If I kept telling myself I didn’t belong anywhere because I didn’t want to belong anywhere, then it couldn’t hurt me. At least, in theory. 

I’m only now trying to unlearn all that nonsense. 

There is no clear-cut advice I can give to any of you. In many ways, Australia is a lot more intolerant of diversity than it was when I was a kid. Things are getting better for some people, and worse for others. I no longer torture myself for not belonging anywhere, but that’s only because I know how intolerant Australia has become. There is no reality in which I will stop being an Afghan-Muslim woman, and so, there is no reality where the Australian community will accept me. I won’t lie and say things will get better soon, because I know in my bones it won’t. But I am here. My family is here. Everyone I love is here. And I’ll be damned if anyone tries to drive me away. 

The only thing I know for sure is that home is a feeling and not a place, and no one – no one – can ever tell you how you do and don’t feel. Home is where my friends and I laid on the floor of our office and turned on disco lights while we listened to Phoebe Bridgers, home is where my father grows his mulberry trees, home is where I sat with a hundred people and mourned my grandmother, home is here. And there is nothing and no one that could drive me away from here.  

So, the next time you pull up the news on your phone and see hundreds of comments saying that you don’t belong, remember that you are here.  

You are here. You are here. You are here. 

Words by Nilab Siddiqi.