Where Formula One, boxing and oil rigs meet

February 02, 2017 01:35 pm | Updated 01:37 pm IST

Y assmin Abdel-Magied shot to fame in 2015 after her TED talk ‘What does my headscarf mean to you?’. The video garnered 1.5 million views. One year later, she brought out her memoir Yassmin’s Story – Who Do You Think I Am? , which opened doors to literary festivals around the globe, including the recent Jaipur Literature Festival, where she spoke about cultural appropriation, identity and role of language in writing.

After attending the fest, Yassmin spent a couple of days in Chennai, giving talks in several colleges as part of an initiative by the Australian High Commission. The 25-year-old articulates her thoughts on neo-nationalism, the need to fight for equality now more than ever, besides giving a peek into her life.

You started Youth Without Borders when you were 16. What triggered it?

My parents and I moved to Australia from Sudan, just before I turned two. They always emphasised that we should be privileged to be in the place we were and in the job that we did, and that it was our job to do what we could for society. So, I always had the drive to be useful. I volunteered with different organisations, and when I was 16, attended a conference at Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane, where several youngsters spoke about organisations that they were part of. I realised that none of the organisations were interested in working together, but were competing for funding and resources. So the idea of Youth Without Borders was to get people to work together on projects, and pool resources rather than recreating what was out there. When I put forth the idea, naturally everyone thought that I was crazy, but I managed to convince three people, and after that conference, my dream took shape.

You also tried your hand at boxing, designed a motor car all by yourself, and started working in an oil rig before you were 25. What explains the diverse interests?

I just like trying new things. I started going to the gym when I was 12. My gym coach said that I should try out boxing if I wanted to be strong. I thought it was a cool idea, plus, I liked Muhammad Ali, so I tried, and ended up boxing for five years. When I was 13, I watched a movie called Catch That Kid , in which a bunch of kids robs a bank and escapes in a go-kart; that’s when I started researching on cars, and wanted to be a Formula One driver. But I realised that that wasn’t going to happen, so I thought I’ll be the designer. I finished my Engineering degree, went to the U.K. to work in Formula One, and ended up getting a job at Mercedes, but refused it because the reality did not quite match my expectation. I had to sit inside a design house in the middle of England, in front of the computer, most of the time. It was an isolating job. So I started writing about Formula One races for an online website. And, over time, built enough credibility and started going for events as a journalist. After coming back from England, I started working in an oil and gas rig.

When did you decide to bring out the book?

I wrote an essay about my experience for a publication, and it blew up. People just couldn’t get their head around the fact that there was this Muslim Sudanese woman working in an oil and gas rig in the middle of Australia. Off the back of that, I started getting calls from publishers. I thought it would be conceited of me to write a book when I was just 23, but the reason I wrote it was because growing up in Australia, I had never read a story, or seen a real person on TV, who I could relate my life with. All the stories that were written on Muslim women were those written about Muslim women and not by them. Also, I started to realise that people did not have any concept of what Muslim women were like. They would have met one, and heard stories of them being repressed. I wanted to tell people that that is not my story at all. I took it as an opportunity to show the normalcy of who we are. If you want to be a young Muslim woman who does Formula One, boxing, and wears jewellery, it is not that big a deal.

You have travelled all over the globe, giving your perspective on race, gender, politics and identity. What are your comments on the way things are unfolding with regard to these topics globally?

I think we live in a really interesting time. Mark Blyth, a political economist, talks about us moving from an era of neo-liberalism to an era of neo-nationalism. We lived in an era where everyone looked outside, where all were dedicated to building a globalised world and thought borders didn’t exist. But what we are seeing is a complete shift. Everyone is now closing their borders down, like: ‘We need to look inside, protect ourselves, protect our people, and so on’.

That in itself is not dangerous. What’s dangerous is when that trend is pitched along racial and gender lines. Yes, there are economic issues that affect people all around the world, the discontent is legitimate. But what happens is that opportunist leaders use that economic inequality as a basis to essentially justify misogyny. Social cohesion, equality and progress are things that we have to fight for, and continue fighting for. All things left on their own are not going to automatically get better. We need not be alarmists, but we should be aware that humans repeat mistakes all the time, and it is not going to take very many people; just a few people in power to take decisions that are detrimental for society. We need to be vigilant.

What are your future plans?

I have taken a few months off from my rig work. I have just started a training capacity building company for women of colour. I am also working on a new tech start-up. The tech space is also male-dominated. It needs some shaking up.

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