Mina Sharif: Foreign.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 171 with
Joanne Lockwood: the title Belonging Across Borders. And I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Mina Sharif.
Joanne Lockwood: Mina is a writer, media producer and passionate
Joanne Lockwood: advocate for building bridges between cultures through
Joanne Lockwood: storytelling and empowerment. And when I asked Mina to
Joanne Lockwood: describe her superpower, she said that it is seeing the
Joanne Lockwood: unseen and amplifying voices caught between
Joanne Lockwood: worlds. Hello, Mina. Welcome to the show.
Mina Sharif: Hello, Joanne. Thank you for having me here. I'm writing,
Joanne Lockwood: saying you're based in Canada, is that right, somewhere?
Mina Sharif: That's right. I'm in Toronto, Canada, where I. Where I was raised
Mina Sharif: as well and where I returned to in 2019.
Joanne Lockwood: And you've just got a new Prime Minister.
Mina Sharif: Yeah, we're hopeful. Yeah,
Mina Sharif: yeah. I mean, remaining hopeful is all anyone can do
Mina Sharif: politically. Former governor of the bank of England, Mark Carney, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? His economic background is quite welcome all the time. So
Joanne Lockwood: us Brits know of him very well. We used to see him on the news
Joanne Lockwood: regularly over here. So. Yeah. Well, good luck. Yeah, it's good luck. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: Mina, your journey spans two worlds.
Joanne Lockwood: So you grew up in Canada, as you just said, but you've also built
Joanne Lockwood: communities in Afghanistan. So how's that kind of experience
Joanne Lockwood: shaped your passion for creating culture and connection and
Joanne Lockwood: belonging across culture? Yeah, it's a wonderful question.
Mina Sharif: Thank you. I think my entire life might have been shaped by
Mina Sharif: that experience or by how I arrived between
Mina Sharif: these two worlds and that bridge that I live on. I was born in
Mina Sharif: Afghanistan and I was raised in Canada. My family
Mina Sharif: were refugees in exile, as many, many Afghans are all around
Mina Sharif: the world. And I did not grow up necessarily assuming
Mina Sharif: that I would have a personal and direct connection to Afghanistan. The country
Mina Sharif: itself was Always really behind the headlines of
Mina Sharif: war. And when I was growing up in Canada and as a child, I did
Mina Sharif: not necessarily have any problem with my identity
Mina Sharif: or any feeling of lacking. But in 2005
Mina Sharif: I was able to go back to Afghanistan, initially
Mina Sharif: as a volunteer, and I ended up staying for 15 years.
Mina Sharif: And when that happened, I became someone who had a childhood
Mina Sharif: in Canada that shaped me and now a good chunk of my
Mina Sharif: adulthood that was shaping me further. And I
Mina Sharif: somehow realised that I kind of live now between both worlds, neither
Mina Sharif: fully in the Canadian sort of childhood that I had been
Mina Sharif: brought up with, not necessarily fully connected anymore, and neither
Mina Sharif: was I fully connected to Afghanistan. And the way that people had been
Mina Sharif: born and raised there might have felt. I felt that I was now
Mina Sharif: in the role of observer. Whether I was in Canada as
Mina Sharif: a, you know, someone with an Afghan background or whether I was in Afghanistan with
Mina Sharif: someone as a Canadian raised background. It really offered me a lot of
Mina Sharif: opportunity to see disconnects and to see where we could
Mina Sharif: connect in ways that we aren't. And that's really just shaped
Mina Sharif: the path of, of many projects I've done and that I want
Mina Sharif: to do in my life. So I've spoken to many people over the years and
Joanne Lockwood: when you are living somewhere outside
Joanne Lockwood: of your birth community, all those, all those roots or that
Joanne Lockwood: heritage, sometimes your own sense of culture becomes
Joanne Lockwood: diluted by the new culture. How long
Joanne Lockwood: does it take you to become kind of bridged in that sort of security about
Joanne Lockwood: who you were and your heritage versus trying to also
Joanne Lockwood: embrace the Canadian lifestyle as well? Right. Well, I think
Mina Sharif: that's going to differ for different generations. Right. It would really depend on
Mina Sharif: how much lived experience you have in your, in your country of origin to begin
Mina Sharif: with. Myself, along with many others, including in the UK and all around
Mina Sharif: the world, many of us have grown up without any access
Mina Sharif: to the country that we're originally from. And so we're really kind of creating our
Mina Sharif: identity within, with bits and pieces, whether it's the example of Afghanistan
Mina Sharif: is. Is going to include headlines as part of how we piece together who we
Mina Sharif: are. War headlines. It's going to be stories that our parents share with
Mina Sharif: us, it's going to be language and food and music. But
Mina Sharif: it's. And I, I had that. And I felt connected to who, you know, my
Mina Sharif: background, what my background was. And I think once I moved
Mina Sharif: to Afghanistan, I. That's when I realised, wow, there's actually a lot
Mina Sharif: missing when, when you're trying to piece it together on your own. I
Mina Sharif: think a conclusion that I'm arriving at now is that we're not
Mina Sharif: ever going to be able to have the same connection
Mina Sharif: as maybe our parents had or that people that live in Afghanistan have to that
Mina Sharif: identity. Nor are we going to have a fully like I belong here
Mina Sharif: kind of feeling that a lot of times people in our host country
Mina Sharif: can have. And what I'd like to see is that we, instead of
Mina Sharif: falling into victimhood or anger about it, find a way to
Mina Sharif: recognise that it's almost a new category and
Mina Sharif: that we are maybe blessed to be part of more than one world rather
Mina Sharif: than ostracised from whatever world we're sitting in.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're enriching the environment you're now in with all of the
Joanne Lockwood: heritage and family and
Joanne Lockwood: culture that you bring with you. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. So what, what
Joanne Lockwood: inspired you to go back after all those years? That's a
Mina Sharif: great question, I think. And I think that also has a lot to do with
Mina Sharif: how my experience may have differed from others. And I think the great part about
Mina Sharif: it is I never planned to go back. And sometimes when things happen
Mina Sharif: as a surprise, that way it you manage your
Mina Sharif: expectations, you're not coming in with preconceived notions that others
Mina Sharif: might have had. If I had been dreaming of going back my whole life, I
Mina Sharif: would have had, you know, an entire upbringing of hopes and
Mina Sharif: expectations going in. I didn't, I went in
Mina Sharif: really with some ingrained stereotypes. I went in with
Mina Sharif: the expectation that I truly expectation that I wouldn't be
Mina Sharif: welcomed as much as I ended up being welcomed. And because of that, I
Mina Sharif: think a lot of my, a lot of my experience was
Mina Sharif: surprisingly positive. And maybe that's why I was able
Mina Sharif: to sort of maintain that and see that wait, maybe this
Mina Sharif: dual identity and dual experience is a
Mina Sharif: superpower and not the worst thing that could happen to someone. Maybe we have an
Mina Sharif: opportunity to really be a bridge between two worlds because we
Mina Sharif: are part of two worlds. I suppose my, my perception of
Joanne Lockwood: Afghanistan is, is extremely limited. Probably similar to yours before you
Joanne Lockwood: went back. I know of it like
Joanne Lockwood: many do, because of the troubles, because of the wars,
Joanne Lockwood: either the American influence, the Russian influence, Taliban
Joanne Lockwood: or various other bodies there. And most of my, I kind
Joanne Lockwood: of, if I had to picture Afghanistan with my eyes closed, I
Joanne Lockwood: would see a very rocky, mountainous desert type place with
Joanne Lockwood: men with Kalashnikov rifles running around in very sandy
Joanne Lockwood: sort of environments, presumably. And
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure that I'm completely missing the real, real day
Joanne Lockwood: to day Afghanistan. You know, the towns, the cities, the people. But that's the
Joanne Lockwood: media Bias I have. That's the pictures I see all the time.
Mina Sharif: Absolutely. And, and I think this is where a word
Mina Sharif: that I bring up a lot comes in compassion. I think that
Mina Sharif: it is the responsibility of those of us who want you
Mina Sharif: to see Afghanistan more broadly to understand with some
Mina Sharif: compassion that that's the image that you were given and that that's
Mina Sharif: not a decision you made to think that of Afghanistan you didn't
Mina Sharif: decide. I want to just picture Sandy, you know, dry
Mina Sharif: desert and guns and men. That's what you were given. So I really
Mina Sharif: approach it now in a different way than I might have before where,
Mina Sharif: you know, in my younger years I might have been defensive of. Why. Why
Mina Sharif: would you only think that of where I'm from when it's so different? And, and
Mina Sharif: I think the time has done this for me and really
Mina Sharif: just reassessing. If I want to be positive about where I'm from and
Mina Sharif: the reality of how beautiful it is, then I have to
Mina Sharif: remember that I came in with without knowing that how am I to
Mina Sharif: expect that anyone else should know it organically? And that includes people
Mina Sharif: who are of Afghan origin. It's not a message that I direct just
Mina Sharif: at those who may not know much about the country.
Mina Sharif: Our own, I would say Afghans in exile, the
Mina Sharif: diaspora, however we want to. To label them, they've also had
Mina Sharif: a limited access. I also myself had a limited access. So I really
Mina Sharif: like to realise that fair enough, that's all you saw.
Mina Sharif: That's. And that's not on you. And absolutely. It does not reflect
Mina Sharif: the day to day life. It doesn't reflect the day to day communities. It doesn't
Mina Sharif: reflect the beauty or the positivity or the. You
Mina Sharif: know, resilience is a word I don't really love, but you also
Mina Sharif: see it from a place of Afghans are victims of war. But no, resilience
Mina Sharif: is also maintaining who you are and maintaining the strength of your
Mina Sharif: culture despite the war. And that's hard to see
Mina Sharif: from what, you know, we've got access to
Mina Sharif: because. In that, in that region of the world there's lots of countries
Joanne Lockwood: with the kind of the stan ends, Kazakhstan,
Joanne Lockwood: Afghanistan. There's lots of. That's kind of that region where you want a
Joanne Lockwood: bigger nation that's split into various countries or
Joanne Lockwood: we all very virulently independent. Afghanistan
Mina Sharif: itself has a history that's over 5,000 years old. So there were
Mina Sharif: empires that you could define if you go far back enough. But I think
Mina Sharif: that's to be said for any part of the world. The word stand just
Mina Sharif: Means land of. So it's, you know, when the UK
Mina Sharif: had a strong role in creating the Pakistan, for example,
Mina Sharif: it was using the language that was similar to existing countries in
Mina Sharif: the region. I've learned something now. So Kurdistan,
Joanne Lockwood: land of the Kurds. Afghanistan, land of the Afghans.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. I can feel completely educated now.
Mina Sharif: Well, let's not go too deep into the historical facts, because it's not
Mina Sharif: my. It's not necessarily my forte, but, yeah, just organically I
Mina Sharif: learn as I'm part of it. So Afghanistan, over the
Joanne Lockwood: last, As I say, 50, 60 years,
Joanne Lockwood: has gone through a cultural evolution
Joanne Lockwood: and then due to various troubles and wars
Joanne Lockwood: and regimes, it's gone in and out
Joanne Lockwood: of freedoms for women, for girls. And we're currently
Joanne Lockwood: living in a time where a lot of the freedoms that women and girls have
Joanne Lockwood: experienced for almost. Almost a generation have almost been taken
Joanne Lockwood: away overnight. And that must be quite heartbreaking for you. Yeah,
Mina Sharif: it's devastating because for many reasons, it's devastating. One,
Mina Sharif: that it's a complete violation of their very basic right. Two, that
Mina Sharif: it's being, I think, labelled as some decision
Mina Sharif: made by the community itself, which is not true. It's an imposed
Mina Sharif: violation of their rights. It's also being, I think, oftentimes
Mina Sharif: labelled as part of our culture, which it's not. And history proves that for me.
Mina Sharif: I don't need to just. I don't need to just stomp my feet and say,
Mina Sharif: that's not who we are. Our history will show you that we had women in
Mina Sharif: high positions of political power and ministers and
Mina Sharif: a very good representation in society, oftentimes before
Mina Sharif: the west did the right to vote very early. So, you know, the
Mina Sharif: history can show you that our community supports women in
Mina Sharif: society when the atmosphere allows for it, when security
Mina Sharif: allows for it. War has always impacted women first and
Mina Sharif: foremost in loss of rights. And Afghanistan, unfortunately,
Mina Sharif: I wish it was even only 50, 60 years, we were going back a hundred
Mina Sharif: more of instability. We have pockets that we've had of,
Mina Sharif: I would call it, breathing space for Afghan society,
Mina Sharif: when and which has never meant that we were fully free and able
Mina Sharif: to sort of rebuild and be who we want to be. But let's say pockets
Mina Sharif: of security. When women could come out and attempt to re. Rebuild,
Mina Sharif: rejoin society, those were in pockets. So when you look at
Mina Sharif: pockets, you can look at it as the potential or you can look at
Mina Sharif: it as, oh, they were just influenced by what. But that's not true, because no
Mina Sharif: matter who was attempting to control Afghanistan, when there was a bit of
Mina Sharif: security, women were out. And now that we don't even have any security.
Mina Sharif: Women are still out there demanding that they be heard
Mina Sharif: and seen and given their, given their rights. Despite all the danger and
Mina Sharif: lack of support, they're still out protesting. Are they being heard at all though?
Joanne Lockwood: Are they making any difference at all or are they the
Joanne Lockwood: men in society that are basically drowning them out? Well,
Mina Sharif: the men in society are either part
Mina Sharif: of the oppressed community that they are and who. I,
Mina Sharif: you know, I think we need to understand that there's a difference between who is
Mina Sharif: oppressing Afghanistan from sort of that political space and, and the
Mina Sharif: community itself. The community itself includes men who are defending women. It
Mina Sharif: includes men who want, you know, their wives and sisters and daughters
Mina Sharif: in school who, you know. So it's not really
Mina Sharif: that. I don't think it's as necessarily nuanced as some
Mina Sharif: people want to make it. At the end of the day, it's the laws and
Mina Sharif: decrees coming in from the Taliban that are holding
Mina Sharif: women in the position that they are society wise.
Mina Sharif: That's not where it's coming from solely, absolutely at all. How were the.
Joanne Lockwood: I can ask this question. I'm not sure I know it's the right question, but
Joanne Lockwood: how were the Taliban allowed to get this control
Joanne Lockwood: over the, over the region? How did that, how are they allowed? Because people must
Joanne Lockwood: have seen it coming. You said they weren't voted and
Mina Sharif: I can tell you that people and the communities,
Mina Sharif: for the most part, I can't speak for everyone, no one can ever speak for
Mina Sharif: everyone, but travelled to a lot of the
Mina Sharif: provinces of Afghanistan. There are 34, I've been to 30. A lot of Afghans who
Mina Sharif: are born and raised in Afghanistan haven't seen as much of the country as I
Mina Sharif: have or spoken to as many new women in different.
Mina Sharif: Women and families in different parts of the country and different,
Mina Sharif: with different livelihoods. And they feared the return of
Mina Sharif: Taliban the entire time because it meant. They knew what it meant. They
Mina Sharif: knew that it was. That they wouldn't have changed and that they would be oppressive
Mina Sharif: as they had been in the past. It's also worth. We're not going to, you
Mina Sharif: know, hopefully go too, too deep into politics and how we got here. But
Mina Sharif: it is worth noting that the Taliban and their ideology is
Mina Sharif: foreign to Afghanistan. They were not even schooled in Afghanistan,
Mina Sharif: so we'll leave it at that. It is not something welcome
Mina Sharif: and they have not been voted in and how did they get there? Also
Mina Sharif: includes the role of Afghanistan's own unfortunately
Mina Sharif: quite corrupt government and it also very much includes the
Mina Sharif: many, many countries that came into Afghanistan under the guise of
Mina Sharif: saviorism and said, we're here to liberate the women of Afghanistan
Mina Sharif: and we're here to fight terrorism. And then suddenly changed their mind and
Mina Sharif: decided none of that was important overnight and left. So
Mina Sharif: there's a lot of, I think, hands involved in how we got here.
Mina Sharif: Unfortunately, it's not just straightforward. It's this guy's fault how we
Mina Sharif: got to this level of a person. It's just everybody's in a sense,
Mina Sharif: really. It was a quite a messy, messy buildup.
Joanne Lockwood: See, I'm assuming you must have many friends
Joanne Lockwood: still there living under this rule. Are you able to communicate
Joanne Lockwood: with them or is their communication shut down? No, in this day and age, we
Mina Sharif: have the Internet, we have the phone. It's not. They're
Mina Sharif: not. Yeah, no, they've got the means to communicate. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: no, sorry. I wasn't suggesting that they were suddenly some backwards
Joanne Lockwood: society, but I was wondering what controls were in place. Internet restrictions.
Joanne Lockwood: Are women allowed to use technology? I don't know how it works in the household.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, out in the street, I guess there's enforcement. But
Joanne Lockwood: inside households, is it a fairly free regime? Well, a regime
Mina Sharif: is separate from a household. A household makes its own decisions, and the
Mina Sharif: regime are the decrees that are being imposed from. From
Mina Sharif: higher, you know, levels of power. Those are two separate things.
Mina Sharif: So what they decide for you is a decree, and it's a law. And it
Mina Sharif: may represent how you have to present outside of your home. It is not
Mina Sharif: reflective of decisions that people make in their home. It never has
Mina Sharif: been. Okay, so most people are allowed to carry on
Joanne Lockwood: their home life and their private lives outside the gaze, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like, of the people in the street with the freedom to epiphone.
Mina Sharif: I don't. I wouldn't phrase it that way. I would say that women are confined
Mina Sharif: to the homes, and I wouldn't assume that their
Mina Sharif: own family is saying, we don't want you reading a book. So, you know, they're
Mina Sharif: potentially reading a book in the house, but no, outside of the home. The
Mina Sharif: decrees are not in their favour. I kind of imagine that the
Joanne Lockwood: government, if you like, would shut down Internet communications,
Joanne Lockwood: television broadcasts, and control it, I.
Mina Sharif: Think might have goals like that. But the decrees don't work overnight. And
Mina Sharif: you have to remember that people, other countries, like the uk, like Canada, like the
Mina Sharif: US For a. For a moment there was, I think
Mina Sharif: I use the word pretending, pretending to monitor them, pretending to care about
Mina Sharif: their violation of human rights. From the UN to the, you know,
Mina Sharif: superpowers of the world, they might Be putting on a show here and there
Mina Sharif: in how slow things move. But they're, they're playful. Their
Mina Sharif: decrees are announced on a regular basis. I believe today they announced that
Mina Sharif: women are not to be on radio anymore. Initially it was
Mina Sharif: women and men shouldn't be on radio together, and now it's women gone altogether.
Mina Sharif: Wouldn't. I would be open to being corrected on that, because I just saw
Mina Sharif: that today. But the list is. Is horrendously long of things
Mina Sharif: that they have announced. But announced is different than
Mina Sharif: imposed. But you still don't want to live in a country where the law says
Mina Sharif: you're not allowed to go to school, the law says you're not allowed to be
Mina Sharif: in a park because they can enforce their laws. They
Mina Sharif: do. Yeah. It's. I have no point of reference to understand how
Joanne Lockwood: or why people think this way. And it's, It's a, It's a really. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: sure many of the people listen to this, don't understand how,
Joanne Lockwood: how you can oppress somebody so greatly.
Mina Sharif: Ask this when we're thinking about what is a cult? What does a
Mina Sharif: cult do? How is a cult reach the point where they're a cult and
Mina Sharif: they are oppressing their own members and they're oppressing and they
Mina Sharif: want the entire society to live like them. It's not different.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, I hear you, and you're right. I. I guess I've never lived in that
Joanne Lockwood: sort of environment where my fundamental right
Joanne Lockwood: to walk down the street is being questioned. Okay. As a, As a trans woman,
Joanne Lockwood: I feel that there's some people out there that probably want that of me, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, to hide me, to erase me and to, to eradicate me. But law
Mina Sharif: protects you. Yeah, the law in the UK certainly
Joanne Lockwood: does. I mean, the law in some other countries probably wouldn't, but yeah, it's. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's. It's even worse when the law actively
Joanne Lockwood: legislates against you is the issue, isn't it? And that's. That's what we're seeing
Joanne Lockwood: in Afghanistan right now with the women. It's a great way to put it.
Mina Sharif: Absolutely. Yeah. Where you think they were there to protect you, they're actually there
Joanne Lockwood: to do you the harm. And, yeah, it's extremely sad.
Joanne Lockwood: And I don't want to spend the entire episode just talking about that, because I
Joanne Lockwood: know you're a bigger person than just an Afghani or
Joanne Lockwood: a person with Afghani history and spending many years there.
Joanne Lockwood: So what does excite you these days? I would say that after Afghanistan fell
Mina Sharif: to Taliban, just, you know, to segue from it, it was, was in kind
Mina Sharif: of what I would describe as an emergency state. You know, trying
Mina Sharif: imagining that they're only gonna last six months. But we've gotta help the people that
Mina Sharif: are there and the people who are in immediate danger. And in my case life
Mina Sharif: right now, I think I'm just, we're now almost at four years and
Mina Sharif: I'm, I'm just grounding into what do I do with this
Mina Sharif: and what do I do when I look at this as long term,
Mina Sharif: as potentially long term. How do we continue to support,
Mina Sharif: continue to recognise emergencies when they are emergencies.
Mina Sharif: But what does it look like for me to better
Mina Sharif: spaces of understanding both of Afghanistan like
Mina Sharif: we're having in this conversation today of Afghanistan society, of
Mina Sharif: Afghanistan's women also just, you know, supporting people in
Mina Sharif: the healing that has to happen when they've, they're now in
Mina Sharif: exile or when people are meeting an Afghan who is newly in
Mina Sharif: exile. How do we, you know, support that connection? How do we
Mina Sharif: continue to support the, how do we
Mina Sharif: continue to support how people have looked at Afghanistan?
Mina Sharif: You know, from before the Taliban to after the Taliban? It doesn't matter. We've always
Mina Sharif: had that label of war torn country. And that's
Mina Sharif: not something that I can even put on the Taliban alone. That's something
Mina Sharif: that I put on lack of information and lack of curiosity and
Mina Sharif: lack of sharing of information. So that's, that's where I'm
Mina Sharif: more focused now because that's something tangible that I can make a difference
Mina Sharif: to and I can't change who's in power in Afghanistan
Mina Sharif: and I, I don't want the stress of that always on me.
Mina Sharif: So I try to make an effect where I can make an effect.
Joanne Lockwood: So you work with people who've been
Joanne Lockwood: forcibly disenfranchised, relocated, fleeing
Joanne Lockwood: the country. Do you have much memory of when you first
Joanne Lockwood: arrived in Canada as a, as a refugee, stroke immigrant,
Joanne Lockwood: how you felt at that time in terms of your
Joanne Lockwood: loss of reference to the culture, lots of reference to your language.
Joanne Lockwood: How long did it take you to adapt? Say that would be more my parents
Mina Sharif: story because I was too young. So you know, I'm trying to absorb how
Mina Sharif: that was for them to a point. And I think I saw more of the
Mina Sharif: after effect of that of having to conform a lot and
Mina Sharif: having to be maybe being too sad to talk about the things they
Mina Sharif: missed. It took them a long time to really open up about the positive sides
Mina Sharif: of the country to me outside of home life,
Mina Sharif: meaning, yes, we had the food, we had the music. They, we loved the culture
Mina Sharif: but it was painful for them to discuss the lives that they'd left behind. That
Mina Sharif: took a long time, and I picked up on that, that that was difficult for
Mina Sharif: them. Like I said, I was too young. So I arrived here. By the time
Mina Sharif: I was four years old, I was already in Canada and in kindergarten. So I
Mina Sharif: wouldn't say that I was affected by the actual transition to the extent
Mina Sharif: that an adult or an older child would be. But I had always,
Mina Sharif: in looking back, I had never had it acknowledged
Mina Sharif: for me that I am a child of a first generation
Mina Sharif: discovering a whole new host country. I had never been acknowledged
Mina Sharif: for my personal loss of, you know, not having a.
Mina Sharif: Not growing up somewhere that my parents even understand. I didn't have
Mina Sharif: guides to tell me what a Canadian upbringing is and what
Mina Sharif: life is going to look like. I think a lot of people in my position,
Mina Sharif: which, again, there are millions of Afghans alone, never mind of other
Mina Sharif: backgrounds, we really do have to fend for ourselves. And there are layers of
Mina Sharif: guilt because we're so lucky while our parents had to flee,
Mina Sharif: and we're so lucky while other people still live in war. And we
Mina Sharif: rarely take the moment or that time to say we had it
Mina Sharif: bad, too. Not getting caught up in that victimhood and
Mina Sharif: finding a place where we feel powerful, that's where. That's
Mina Sharif: where I want to sort of be part of that narrative, because I. Always consider
Joanne Lockwood: it to be a extreme privilege to have been raised
Joanne Lockwood: and brought up in the country in which I was born, with a language, with
Joanne Lockwood: a culture where my parents resided. To suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: find yourself transported effectively the other side of the world,
Joanne Lockwood: where your, Your. Your language is not understood, you don't understand the
Joanne Lockwood: other language. Maybe, maybe you've got some understanding of English or French,
Joanne Lockwood: whichever part of Canada you're in, but it's not inherently part
Joanne Lockwood: of your first language. Also, you've probably left behind a
Joanne Lockwood: career, a profession. You could be a doctor, a lawyer,
Joanne Lockwood: a plumber. You could have a
Joanne Lockwood: business that you've left behind. And suddenly you've come into a country with
Joanne Lockwood: effectively nothing. And it's actually not. It's actually worse than
Joanne Lockwood: nothing because you haven't got all the things you were used to. You're almost
Joanne Lockwood: negative what's going.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I can appreciate that people are going, wow, at least I'm safe now,
Joanne Lockwood: and safety is a big factor. But how hard is it for someone to
Joanne Lockwood: really grieve, if you like, for their former life?
Mina Sharif: That's so beautifully asked. Thank you so much. I mean, I. Again,
Mina Sharif: in the context of how my Family got here. My parents are the ones who
Mina Sharif: felt it. However, being that I came back to Canada
Mina Sharif: from Afghanistan and could not return, I felt a degree of
Mina Sharif: what they had felt. I wouldn't call it the same thing, obviously, because I had
Mina Sharif: roots in Canada to return to. I wasn't coming here to start life completely brand
Mina Sharif: new. However, I lost everything that I had
Mina Sharif: built for myself, the career path that I had wanted, which was to
Mina Sharif: stay in Afghanistan. I had no intention of moving back to Canada permanently,
Mina Sharif: ever. Never wanted to. With due respect to Canada, I love it here, but that
Mina Sharif: was my path that I wanted for myself. And, you know, even
Mina Sharif: down to my belongings are still in Afghanistan, I didn't get to,
Mina Sharif: you know, pack them up nicely and relocate. There was an element of exile
Mina Sharif: in my experience as well, and it's quite overwhelming. It's
Mina Sharif: really, really difficult to feel a connection to where
Mina Sharif: you are now. And in your mind, you realise, intellectually,
Mina Sharif: you realise, I have to start connecting to where I am now. I will not
Mina Sharif: be back there for the foreseeable future. But that
Mina Sharif: connection is sometimes so difficult that you decide it's better
Mina Sharif: I just don't think about what I used to have. It's better. I just don't
Mina Sharif: think about it and focus on gratitude. And I'm so glad I'm safe. And let
Mina Sharif: me just. Let me just perform well here so that
Mina Sharif: I'm accepted and welcome here, because I do want to show gratitude for my
Mina Sharif: safety, I do want to move on. And I don't know
Mina Sharif: that we really give ourselves that time to grieve. Any of us, not my experience
Mina Sharif: or my parents or the ones who are born and raised here, who also
Mina Sharif: have a version of that whole of identity, I don't know that we give ourselves
Mina Sharif: that chance. And that's a lot of what I speak about
Mina Sharif: in workshops that I do. Let's recognise that even if
Mina Sharif: the newcomer doesn't recognise it themselves yet.
Joanne Lockwood: So when you're running workshops, when you're working with, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: Canadians, trying to enlighten them to help
Joanne Lockwood: other Afghans, other people from other parts of the world who've been displaced to
Joanne Lockwood: relocated, how do you advise people to
Joanne Lockwood: embrace other cultures and create that feeling of belonging?
Joanne Lockwood: Because that's what people want to feel, isn't it, when they come into a country
Joanne Lockwood: they don't belong at all, and then they have to go through this transitional phase
Joanne Lockwood: where they start to feel supported. So how can people help?
Mina Sharif: Yeah, well, when I do workshops for, let's say, service providers, people
Mina Sharif: who already work with newcomers, refugees I mean, I'm working, working with a pretty
Mina Sharif: compassionate group at that point. Like they have the empathy. I think sometimes what is
Mina Sharif: skipped over is when someone moves here from, let's say, Switzerland,
Mina Sharif: we have to realise that that's quite different than someone who's seeking
Mina Sharif: refuge from a war torn country or from a violent
Mina Sharif: situation. And fortunately in Canada and the west,
Mina Sharif: oftentimes the process is the same for everybody. So you
Mina Sharif: welcome them, you show them the ropes and you call it a day. And what
Mina Sharif: I'm asking for is, especially with youth, to really show
Mina Sharif: another layer of compassion for what they've had
Mina Sharif: to, you know, the fact that they didn't leave with the same kind of choice
Mina Sharif: that some others might have, the fact that they might have
Mina Sharif: certain traumas that they need to address and that we
Mina Sharif: need to incorporate into that welcoming and it's for the betterment of everyone. It's not
Mina Sharif: like, hey, do them a favour, they're sad. It's more so, you know, as
Mina Sharif: a society to have a coming from a place of healing and mental
Mina Sharif: health. We want that for our host country as well. We want
Mina Sharif: Canada to have teenagers who integrate in a healthy way,
Mina Sharif: not teenagers who suppress all of the trauma that they've seen,
Mina Sharif: only to grow up, you know, unable to really
Mina Sharif: become a member of society that is, is functioning from a
Mina Sharif: more healed place, feeling more welcome, being allowed to acknowledge what they've
Mina Sharif: gone through. So that's like a missing element that I acknowledge
Mina Sharif: with service workers. When I work, I speak at class classrooms and like a
Mina Sharif: university gender studies class, it'll differ. And they usually come with
Mina Sharif: some, essentially always come with some, wanting to understand and be
Mina Sharif: empathetic. And that's the greatest first step. I don't think I would even be willing
Mina Sharif: to speak to a group that I don't feel has that first step because then
Mina Sharif: I'm just talking at you. You want to have your stereotypes about us
Mina Sharif: and you want to stick with them. I will allow it. Go for it. I'm
Mina Sharif: not here, I don't have that kind of energy. But when someone wants to learn
Mina Sharif: about, you know, what are they? What had, what did they face, what did they
Mina Sharif: let go of, what did they lose? What do they fight for? Do they even
Mina Sharif: like their country? Aren't they just happy to get out of it? Like, what's there
Mina Sharif: to like about Afghanistan? Those kind of conversations make me happy because that's
Mina Sharif: when I can make a change in how someone views the people of
Mina Sharif: the country I'm from. And those are questions going through my mind as well, at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment, you know, it's. I was, I wasn't actually born in the uk, but
Joanne Lockwood: I was, I was born with my parents being in Singapore at the time.
Joanne Lockwood: But I, I relocated back to the UK when I was a year and a
Joanne Lockwood: half. When I was over in Singapore, I lived in the community of other naval
Joanne Lockwood: personnel, if it's all right. Whilst I've always felt
Joanne Lockwood: that I was never a native, I've always been a native, if that makes
Joanne Lockwood: sense. I've always had this identity of being born elsewhere. Even second,
Joanne Lockwood: third or even fourth generation migrants, immigrants still
Joanne Lockwood: feel that connect with their motherland or fatherland, however you want to describe it,
Joanne Lockwood: and that's really important. How does
Joanne Lockwood: Canadian culture, if you like, embrace the Afghan culture and allow
Joanne Lockwood: the people who have come into these communities to
Joanne Lockwood: still express themselves? Or is there a lot of inherent repression
Joanne Lockwood: and bias, if you like. I think systematically Canada is quite
Mina Sharif: good. I don't think it's perfect, I think there's lots of room to grow. But
Mina Sharif: I think it's. Canada describes itself as a mosaic rather than a melting
Mina Sharif: pot, which is beautiful. I think the intent is quite good. As
Mina Sharif: for how communities actually sort of take charge in
Mina Sharif: learning about each other, take a more active role in that
Mina Sharif: healing process for newcomers, that there's a lot of room for
Mina Sharif: improvement there and that's where the change really happens. I
Mina Sharif: appreciate, you know, acknowledgment of our holidays from the Prime Minister.
Mina Sharif: Sure, great. But it's not, it's. It's very beautiful. And
Mina Sharif: the symbolism of it, I didn't have that growing up. I know it means a
Mina Sharif: lot. I know seeing us on TV shows and in
Mina Sharif: programme, it's great. But I do separate, systematic
Mina Sharif: acknowledgement of these cultures to the actual day to day life
Mina Sharif: and how we are embraced and how much we learn about each other. And I
Mina Sharif: prefer the more grassroots sort of, you know, let's look at how
Mina Sharif: we're actually accepting each other and learning about each other and that there's so
Mina Sharif: much room to grow in that I don't know that we make an effort. And
Mina Sharif: again, I will repeat, this includes people who are from those countries.
Mina Sharif: This is not like, you know, white people don't love Afghans and I'm
Mina Sharif: mad about it. No, I mean even Afghans don't know about Afghanistan and that could
Mina Sharif: be said the same for other similar countries
Mina Sharif: or anyone who's left their country of origin. And it's not a blame
Mina Sharif: thing, it's that we don't have the access and we don't Ask the
Mina Sharif: questions. And we don't know that. That's our responsibility. We have
Mina Sharif: to. We don't learn. Just. You can't depend on media to teach you
Mina Sharif: nuance. It never will. You meant to the media there. So when you in
Joanne Lockwood: Afghanistan, I believe you were involved with media, is that. That was your
Joanne Lockwood: profession, if you like, in Afghanistan? That's right. So I mostly was
Mina Sharif: working in educational programming for children. So I did the Sesame street for
Mina Sharif: Afghanistan for a while with, developed a show that highlighted
Mina Sharif: children from different provinces and highlighted the Afghan Scouts
Mina Sharif: programme that was with boys and girls. So a lot of children and
Mina Sharif: education focused content, but also PSAs that
Mina Sharif: supported public service messages. So basically
Mina Sharif: health and safety and all that kind of stuff. It was a. Somewhere between
Mina Sharif: advertising and educational content and, you know, touching base on many
Mina Sharif: of those things, radio and television mainly. Have you been
Joanne Lockwood: able to bring that skill back into Canada? Are you still
Joanne Lockwood: involved with the media? To the extent that I
Mina Sharif: want this kind of connection fostered. I do speak and I
Mina Sharif: do attend events and I am on media at times as well.
Mina Sharif: But I do think my path is a little different from what people
Mina Sharif: oftentimes just want to repeat. They want to have a roundtable where everyone's saying
Mina Sharif: the same thing. And I. That tires me out quite a bit. I really want
Mina Sharif: to say, I don't always want to talk about how did we get
Mina Sharif: to this terrible state. I don't always want to talk about what is the
Mina Sharif: political solution. I want to talk about just between us, leave the systems out of
Mina Sharif: it. How are we connecting to each other? And that's not always super welcome on
Mina Sharif: media, is it? People don't want to talk about that grassroots
Mina Sharif: connection as much as they want to talk about overarching,
Mina Sharif: simplified conversations. So let's dive into that now, then. That's.
Joanne Lockwood: That's. That's where your passion is. We already are. Yeah, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Let's go deeper, let's go deeper. I mean, where do I start? Where
Joanne Lockwood: do I start? Because I. I know very little about the culture, I
Joanne Lockwood: know very little about the faith, the. The. The
Joanne Lockwood: language itself. What's important other than what I'm fed
Joanne Lockwood: on the media and the news, which, as you say, it's very biassed,
Joanne Lockwood: it's very polarised and it's there to tell a particular story, to get a particular
Joanne Lockwood: outcome. How can I, as, as a. As
Joanne Lockwood: a white British person living in the uk,
Joanne Lockwood: understand more and have more empathy for the plight
Joanne Lockwood: and how to help and support when they're in this country? That's.
Mina Sharif: That's Wonderful of you to ask and I. I hope anyone listening can
Mina Sharif: see that. I thank you. And I hope that anyone
Mina Sharif: listening to this can see that. That is a pressure
Mina Sharif: that I see on you as someone who's not Afghan and
Mina Sharif: not, you know, knowing much about it, Afghan in this instance, but again, of all
Mina Sharif: visible minorities or however you're labelling them. Labelling. Labelling is important
Mina Sharif: to, to consider because from your side of, of it, where you
Mina Sharif: don't know much and you want to learn, it can be scary. It can. There
Mina Sharif: can be a fear of being labelled as, you know, this person's ignorant
Mina Sharif: and they look down on us and they, they are, they're from
Mina Sharif: a colonising background. I know that that fear is, you know,
Mina Sharif: ingrained subconsciously in people. Even when they want to be welcoming,
Mina Sharif: they also are met with a lot of anger from people
Mina Sharif: who haven't felt welcome, you know, in their lifetime. So that's something that I think
Mina Sharif: needs to be acknowledged. And the people who are being asked questions
Mina Sharif: are equally responsible. They need to let go of the.
Mina Sharif: They need to create a space of welcoming. If you don't want to
Mina Sharif: be asked anything about your culture, you can't be angry that someone doesn't know
Mina Sharif: about it and vice versa, if you're not going to have the courage to ask
Mina Sharif: about something, you can't decide, you know, the country.
Mina Sharif: So everybody's got a role to play. Everybody needs to sort of step up
Mina Sharif: and say, the media can't just handle this for me. If I want
Mina Sharif: to learn about other people, I need to ask about them. Now, how do we
Mina Sharif: do that? Respectfully, first of all, I guess know your audience if you're.
Mina Sharif: If. Or know who you're asking. I think there's some personal response, personal
Mina Sharif: gauging of if I were to come across someone who's just
Mina Sharif: anti Canada and I hate it here and they've ruined
Mina Sharif: my. I'm not going to talk to them about connectivity because they, they don't want
Mina Sharif: to. They want to be angry at, at their commute, an entire
Mina Sharif: race, for example. I can't help that. But if I can see that there's
Mina Sharif: room and I see, for example, you, Joanne, you're curious. You want to know.
Mina Sharif: It's my responsibility to make that space welcoming for you. And
Mina Sharif: it's your responsibility to sort of think of what you want to
Mina Sharif: know, kind of be a little specific about it, so that you're not
Mina Sharif: tasking me with an entire, like, you know,
Mina Sharif: centuries of history to teach you. Tell me everything. Yeah, tell me everything.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's some moves you can make. I mean, I guess
Mina Sharif: one way to say it. What if I wanted to learn about Sudan? I don't
Mina Sharif: know much about Sudan. I know that there's, you know, a lot of turmoil in
Mina Sharif: Sudan. I don't know much about it. If I were sitting in front of someone
Mina Sharif: Sudanese, I might have some questions about, you know, what
Mina Sharif: does your culture look like? What are some of your favourite parts about your culture?
Mina Sharif: What was your personal experience? This kind of thing. But I would
Mina Sharif: go online and look at maybe some youtubes of
Mina Sharif: Sudan. What does it look like? We have a lot of access
Mina Sharif: in this day and age that we didn't have before, right? There are
Mina Sharif: YouTubes and YouTube videos. There's content creators that are
Mina Sharif: based currently in the country we're talking about. So why not, like,
Mina Sharif: look at what they're doing, See what they're doing. It's available in English. Learn
Mina Sharif: a recipe, if that's what you know, sort of connects you to a
Mina Sharif: culture. These are beautiful, tiny ways that make an
Mina Sharif: impact on you. As someone who's curious. You feel connected now
Mina Sharif: to Afghanistan. You've watched a video of one of our greatest meals and dishes
Mina Sharif: and watched a family cook and, you know, they're small moves.
Mina Sharif: You don't have to become an overnight expert in Afghanistan to
Mina Sharif: satisfy the role of a
Mina Sharif: compassionate person towards Afghanistan, of a supporter of an ally.
Mina Sharif: It's that openness that matters. There can be a danger that you become
Joanne Lockwood: overly benevolent, where you have this bias
Joanne Lockwood: assumption that these are poor, helpless people
Joanne Lockwood: that need your charity, your support, and if you're
Joanne Lockwood: not careful, you end up coming across as this person who is very
Joanne Lockwood: patronising in, whilst trying to do good,
Joanne Lockwood: that they end up missing the point. How can people. I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate what you said. There is. Do your research, do the listening. But people are
Joanne Lockwood: often scared of getting things wrong that they know they don't know and they're
Joanne Lockwood: worried about their conversation and putting their foot in it. So they say what they
Joanne Lockwood: think is a nice thing. But the nice thing is actually more patronising
Joanne Lockwood: by trying to be helpful. And that's fair. And that's fair. And that's why, like
Mina Sharif: earlier I said, you know, there just has to be some bravery. You have to
Mina Sharif: ask. And you can. You can put a disclaimer in the beginning, like, I don't
Mina Sharif: want to be, you know, patronising when I ask this. I don't know anything about
Mina Sharif: that. What is that? Like, you asked me in that way and I was not
Mina Sharif: at all offended because in all fairness, that's all the access you've had.
Mina Sharif: Again, responsibility both ways goes both ways. I need to be open to
Mina Sharif: the fact that you didn't have access to the information. You kind of need to
Mina Sharif: realise that. Yeah, you can't. You can't lead with your. The information you've been given.
Mina Sharif: You can't lead thinking like, well, what I saw is this on tv. So
Mina Sharif: that's when it becomes patronising, when you're asking with an idea
Mina Sharif: already in your head. Have more of an open mind. So that it leaves room
Mina Sharif: for me to say, well, this is what it's like versus me
Mina Sharif: defending Afghanistan against those ideas you
Mina Sharif: already have. Does that make sense? You know, kind of come in with an open
Mina Sharif: slate. That usually kind of changes how the conversation goes.
Mina Sharif: But as far as sort of that condescending
Mina Sharif: saviorism that paints us all as victims. Ooh, that's an
Mina Sharif: epidemic. Yeah, we have. We deal with a lot of that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I'm sure. I'm sure you do it. I'm sitting there having a
Joanne Lockwood: conversation with you. Knowing. Knowing what I don't know and knowing
Joanne Lockwood: the. What I do know is laced with bias. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Images in my head. I know all of that. I know that I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: educated and I know that everything I want to ask is going. Hang on a
Joanne Lockwood: minute. Is going through a filter in my brain saying, don't be silly. No, no,
Joanne Lockwood: don't be silly. That's a bias. That's an assumption. That's all this. But I'm
Joanne Lockwood: very used to having conversations with people where I don't know. So I have
Joanne Lockwood: this filter in my brain that says, let's just sanitise that
Joanne Lockwood: question before it comes out my mouth. I don't always get it right. Don't always
Joanne Lockwood: get it wrong. But, yeah, it's important that when you are trying
Joanne Lockwood: to engage and respectfully help people, you have to understand that that person
Joanne Lockwood: is not helpless, they're not unintelligent. There's almost
Joanne Lockwood: a superiority of intelligence, isn't there, where someone's language is different,
Joanne Lockwood: someone's background's different. You're talking about people here who are very
Joanne Lockwood: capable, very intelligent, professional, academically
Joanne Lockwood: gifted people who are. Their only fault is they've been displaced
Joanne Lockwood: through no fault of their own. And so we have to recognise
Joanne Lockwood: when we're trying to offer help and support, they want their value back, don't they?
Joanne Lockwood: They want to. They want to feel that passion and purpose again. They want
Joanne Lockwood: to go back to some of those skills they already had. So how can we
Joanne Lockwood: engage people? Because I See examples, I've
Joanne Lockwood: heard examples where in the UK people have been displaced. There were doctors, there were
Joanne Lockwood: nurses, they were very good roles. And now they're doing cleaning
Joanne Lockwood: jobs. And now they're doing this because people only see that side of them.
Joanne Lockwood: They're not seeing into their heart and soul, just their perception
Joanne Lockwood: of them. So that's what we need to help people get over,
Joanne Lockwood: to understand these people are fully functional, professional, credible human
Joanne Lockwood: beings who've just been picked up and dropped somewhere else. And now they
Joanne Lockwood: need your allyship, if you like, to see
Joanne Lockwood: into their heart, not to invent a story for them.
Mina Sharif: And, you know, there's a simple solution to that, is ask them about themselves
Mina Sharif: and don't task them with teaching, you know, or
Mina Sharif: speaking for their whole country, because no one would ever ask that of someone in
Mina Sharif: the uk. You know, like, what does everyone in the UK feel about this? What
Mina Sharif: does everyone. You know, it's just, there's a, there's a lack of dignity in that
Mina Sharif: when you're, you're. Because you're, you're essentially grouping everyone together,
Mina Sharif: which is another version of a stereotype. If I sit here and tell you Afghans
Mina Sharif: are all resilient and all of them dislike the Taliban,
Mina Sharif: that's not even fair because I'm imposing me.
Mina Sharif: So if we could just, I think, approach people in general
Mina Sharif: conversation, we're even outside of this Afghanistan conversation
Mina Sharif: we're having. We need to ask people about their personal experience rather
Mina Sharif: than these broad, all encompassing, hey, tell me all about your country
Mina Sharif: and how everyone thinks and feels and experiences
Mina Sharif: life. Tell me about your experience in life. It will enlighten you.
Mina Sharif: Because I have a Afghanistan lived experience and it's going to reflect
Mina Sharif: a good portion of the population, maybe most of them, but it
Mina Sharif: does, it does allow me to speak from a place where I'm just telling you
Mina Sharif: about my experience. I am not tasked with,
Mina Sharif: you know, altering every stereotype you've had. Maybe some of them,
Mina Sharif: some of what I've lived is similar to what you've heard and it
Mina Sharif: is a stereotype. But it's just, I think people look for
Mina Sharif: this broad stroke answer from us about
Mina Sharif: Afghanistan and that makes it hard to deliver the information and it also makes
Mina Sharif: it hard for you to ask in a way that doesn't, that doesn't
Mina Sharif: make it uncomfortable. But the solution is ask a personal question, ask
Mina Sharif: that person's story. Hey, you do this here in the uk, what, what were
Mina Sharif: you doing where you were, how. What was that like? Was, you know, and, and
Mina Sharif: it becomes just a little bit More relaxed, I think, organically that way. Do you
Joanne Lockwood: find it exhausting, personally, to be
Joanne Lockwood: a professional Afghani advocate, for want of a better way of describing it? So
Joanne Lockwood: most of what you do is to advocate for Afghani immigrants,
Joanne Lockwood: creating better lives, creating awareness of immigration and people's lives here.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes you just want to take your shoes off and go, I just want to
Joanne Lockwood: be meaner. I don't want to be professionally Afghan anymore. I just want
Joanne Lockwood: to. I want to just be me. I want to go and do my shopping.
Mina Sharif: Well, I do that. I do that. Yeah. I absolutely have gotten to a
Mina Sharif: healthier place where I'm not tasking myself to. As I said earlier in our
Mina Sharif: conversation, I can't get the Taliban out of there. I can't change everyone's
Mina Sharif: mind about Afghanistan. I just go with, you know, what's in front of me,
Mina Sharif: what I can do, what I have the energy to do. And I always appreciate
Mina Sharif: when I'm having a conversation that includes me on a personal level, because
Mina Sharif: that's much healthier to talk about, because I'm not worried
Mina Sharif: that I'm saying something wrong when I say that the Afghans don't
Mina Sharif: like the Taliban. What about the few that do? You know, I'm being.
Mina Sharif: Technically, I'm being incorrect. And that's. That's a. That's a burden.
Mina Sharif: But at the same time, most people don't experience that as much as
Mina Sharif: I think people from Afghanistan do, specifically Afghan women.
Mina Sharif: So I. I'm often asked questions that begin with the words, as an
Mina Sharif: Afghan woman, dot, dot, dot. Right. It's. You just don't
Mina Sharif: hear that from other countries. You don't hear someone being asked, as an
Mina Sharif: American woman, you know, speak on behalf of all American women to me now. And
Mina Sharif: that's. No one's tasked with that. You realise that they all have different
Mina Sharif: nuances and different experiences and we don't get that often
Mina Sharif: in our. When we're addressed. Do you find that quite a
Joanne Lockwood: cognitive burden? Because, I mean, I'll give you an example. I do a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: press interviews representing transgender
Joanne Lockwood: people. You know, they want to know what I think about this.
Joanne Lockwood: Trans people in sport, trans people in prisons, trans people in this. And suddenly in
Joanne Lockwood: my head, I know I've got all the people who've got very critical views, I've
Joanne Lockwood: got all the people who got very positive views, and I've got the trans population
Joanne Lockwood: all judging me as well. And you think, whatever comes out of my mouth, I've
Joanne Lockwood: got to try and find this middle ground of
Joanne Lockwood: appeasement for as many people as possible. Yet, speak my truth. It's a real
Joanne Lockwood: burden. We just connected 100% there. That
Mina Sharif: is exactly it, except that I'm being asked about Afghanistan, and I'm
Mina Sharif: also. Yeah, there even is a parallel in the level of oppression we're being
Mina Sharif: asked to, you know, speak about. And you really want to
Mina Sharif: defend the dignity of your community while at the same time acknowledging
Mina Sharif: that there's nuance in there. There's. Each one is an individual human being, and
Mina Sharif: we. We can't lose sense of that. It's losing sense of that that traps us
Mina Sharif: into that exhaustion of it. You know, media is
Mina Sharif: a little difficult because they are stuck in that loop. I often feel like,
Mina Sharif: all right, well, what is it today? Are we going to paint me, me as
Mina Sharif: in, like, all Afghan women? Because, of course, I represent all of them. But
Mina Sharif: are we represent. Are we trying to get a. Paint a picture of we are
Mina Sharif: victims? Or are you wanting to hear some stories of women
Mina Sharif: who are defying? And then we land back at, isn't
Mina Sharif: it so sad? And then we move on? So it is. It's so repetitive that
Mina Sharif: I'm a little turned off by sort of the mainstream conversations.
Mina Sharif: For that reason, I think you'll ever. Get to the point where you
Joanne Lockwood: identify, for whatever way of describing it, as. A Canadian woman,
Mina Sharif: identify as a Canadian woman. So you are a Canadian. So as a Canadian woman.
Mina Sharif: Yeah. And I. No one ever asked me that, because why would I represent all
Mina Sharif: of Canada? Because I have a very unique experience, but so does every other woman
Mina Sharif: in Canada. But I don't identify as only a Canadian woman. I very much
Mina Sharif: identify, honestly, first as an Afghan woman, and then
Mina Sharif: additionally as a Canadian woman. But that's the. That's the
Mina Sharif: choice that I make. The choice I make is to embrace both the
Mina Sharif: worlds I'm from. Whereas many have decided either one or the other,
Mina Sharif: I choose both. I refuse to let someone tell me I'm not from here
Mina Sharif: or that I'm not from there. Yeah. So you've got these layers of your identity,
Joanne Lockwood: who you are, what's important to you. And being Canadian and
Joanne Lockwood: being Afghani are not conflicting. They're just different
Joanne Lockwood: parts of your life, different layers of your life, different different experiences, connections
Joanne Lockwood: you've made. And of course, within that is also the fact you're a woman, the
Joanne Lockwood: fact that you're of a certain age, the fact that you've got certain upbringing,
Joanne Lockwood: your family, all those other things factor into that. But it's really
Joanne Lockwood: hard sometimes for people to see through that, isn't it? And that's the challenge you
Joanne Lockwood: face. I face it as well, where you're not this label first
Joanne Lockwood: and people expect you to be that label. And when you go, actually, I just
Joanne Lockwood: want to watch Netflix. Yeah. Your identity is important,
Mina Sharif: and you do. Your experience speaks for it. It
Mina Sharif: gives people insight into it, but you don't represent all. And that's not
Mina Sharif: the only thing you are. Right. Like, that's not the only. Your identity isn't.
Mina Sharif: I'm not just a woman from Afghanistan or just a woman from Canada
Mina Sharif: or, you know. Yeah. Or just a woman. Yeah. Or any. Just a woman. Yeah.
Mina Sharif: Yeah. We're all very beautifully sort of put together
Mina Sharif: puzzles and. Yeah. It's hard to. It's hard to.
Mina Sharif: It's hard to connect with.
Mina Sharif: It's hard to. It's a struggle to decide whether you want to go
Mina Sharif: into the nuance and not demand that we talk about more layers
Mina Sharif: or accept that people just want to hear a certain amount. And, hey,
Mina Sharif: let me get out as much of a message as I can to support my
Mina Sharif: community, which I'm sure you relate to. Like, let's at least use this
Mina Sharif: opportunity to offer some dignity to my community,
Mina Sharif: even if they're not gonna ask me really deeper questions, you
Mina Sharif: know, it's a struggle. So when you kick your shoes
Joanne Lockwood: off at night, what brings you joy? When I think I've changed
Mina Sharif: someone's perception in a positive way, and not only
Mina Sharif: their perception of Afghanistan, it's more. It's deeper than that for me,
Mina Sharif: I think, when I've given someone permission to be less hard on
Mina Sharif: themselves for what they do or don't know about identity or about someone else's
Mina Sharif: identity when they're now curious, like, oh, maybe I want to learn more now. And
Mina Sharif: I don't feel as threatened by this community or that community
Mina Sharif: or when someone feels seen or heard. So write, right, to
Mina Sharif: relax. I write short stories, and they're based predominantly. I write short
Mina Sharif: stories and doing a young adult novel as well. And the point of those is.
Mina Sharif: Is to do that is through a fictional world to make you feel welcome to,
Mina Sharif: like, look at the details of Afghan life and see what a day looks like
Mina Sharif: without me sitting there telling you, this is how all
Mina Sharif: Afghan experiences are. You know, I don't want to do that. So what about if
Mina Sharif: we explore different people? So I write short stories that maybe are from
Mina Sharif: the perspective of an orphan young boy, and then another one might be in the
Mina Sharif: perspective of a woman who works in media.
Mina Sharif: But, yeah, I relate to that. And maybe another one is
Mina Sharif: from the perspective I wrote a story not Long ago about
Mina Sharif: the. From the perspective of the street dogs that run around the city. So
Mina Sharif: when someone reads something that I've written like that and they feel heard and seen,
Mina Sharif: I can't say I have a better feeling than, than that. Like that
Mina Sharif: feels like what I would wish to. To do every day.
Joanne Lockwood: So you basically just transcend the lives of one person to be better and
Joanne Lockwood: to feel better. To feel better and to feel more motivated. Connect with
Mina Sharif: others and first. But you can't connect with others until you've connected to yourself.
Mina Sharif: Right. You, you just can't. You have to love yourself before
Joanne Lockwood: others can love you. And you're not going to love other people's identities until you
Mina Sharif: love your own. You just can't. You can't. And so that's what my
Mina Sharif: community needs to do sometimes, not all, but sometimes they need to
Mina Sharif: connect with who they are first so that they are less
Mina Sharif: angry at others around them. They lead
Mina Sharif: with anger. I think mainly for the reason that that connection
Mina Sharif: hasn't been fostered independently. First for themselves, but they're
Mina Sharif: angry at others. Why do, why do you stereotype us? But wait, how much do
Mina Sharif: you connect? Personally, I'd like to challenge them to think that way
Mina Sharif: sometimes as well. Yeah. If we're not careful, we always fall into that. Us and
Joanne Lockwood: them. Yeah. Because we're always us and they are always
Joanne Lockwood: them. And no matter which side of the fence you're on, you always have an
Joanne Lockwood: us and a them. And it creates battles, it creates wars, it
Joanne Lockwood: creates misunderstanding because we're all so dug into
Joanne Lockwood: our own sense of self that anybody who doesn't fit into that
Joanne Lockwood: is automatically an outsider. But that's human survival. That's human
Joanne Lockwood: bias. It's hundred thousand years worth of evolution where
Joanne Lockwood: we had to look after ourselves. And if you were a stranger from over the
Joanne Lockwood: hill, you were a threat. And that's kind of how we see each other. And
Joanne Lockwood: the animal kingdom does it. Now a strange lion turns up to a pride of
Joanne Lockwood: lions. It gets attacked for being an outsider either. You're so right and I appreciate
Mina Sharif: you saying that because it helps. Actually very literally helps me because
Mina Sharif: sometimes I over task myself with no. We must foster these
Mina Sharif: connections at every turn. And to a degree there's always going to be that
Mina Sharif: separation. And I don't want people to essentially like all be
Mina Sharif: alike or all understand each other. You know, you and I were, were speaking before
Mina Sharif: we recorded about how you're not going to understand
Mina Sharif: everyone's point of view or relate to it in some kind of complete way.
Mina Sharif: That's not the goal. Right. Compassion is not from similar,
Mina Sharif: it comes or the connection isn't formed from being similar. The connection is formed
Mina Sharif: from just having some compassion towards that person. That's it. You don't need
Mina Sharif: to understand their whole life. You just need to have some compassion for it and
Mina Sharif: understand, hey, that person lived a whole different life. And it's equally
Mina Sharif: valuable to mind. I think it's also respecting the fact
Joanne Lockwood: you can coexist in a world with people who you don't agree with,
Joanne Lockwood: where people you don't like, people who don't like you, people who don't understand you
Joanne Lockwood: can coexist. You don't have to create an argument or a battle.
Joanne Lockwood: You just have to go, yeah, fine, whatever. If we don't get on, I'll go
Joanne Lockwood: that way, you can go that way. It doesn't cost me anything. I don't have
Joanne Lockwood: to argue with you, don't have to tell you you're wrong. You're speaking like a
Mina Sharif: confident person. We don't have enough confidence in this world
Mina Sharif: to, you know, to fuel that. When you're confident in who you are
Mina Sharif: and connected to your identity and, and you learn as much as you can about
Mina Sharif: yourself, then you're not quite as bothered by
Mina Sharif: someone else's existence. That's how people do get hung up with this zero sum argument,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? If, if I, you win, I lose,
Joanne Lockwood: you gain, I get less. And that's a lot of how
Joanne Lockwood: identity politics or just, just life tends to work. Is
Joanne Lockwood: we always want to be fairness based. What, what do I get? That's how I
Joanne Lockwood: judge fairness. Am I getting something I judge bias and
Joanne Lockwood: media reporting by? Do I get something from that? Otherwise they're talking
Joanne Lockwood: about the other people, they're getting more than I am. What about my say? And
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's what we've got to try and let go of that. We keep
Joanne Lockwood: holding onto that prisoner of belief, don't we? We're going to try and let go
Joanne Lockwood: of that and say, actually it doesn't matter, I've got enough, I've got
Joanne Lockwood: sufficient. This person needs more help. Give them some more help.
Mina Sharif: It's fight or flight, right? Like you just really feel like if I don't
Mina Sharif: hang on to this tightly, someone's going to take it away. Like that's an energy
Mina Sharif: that a lot of people lead with. It's hard to really accept
Mina Sharif: and come to terms with the fact that there is space for everyone in this
Mina Sharif: world to shine and to be happy and to like live
Mina Sharif: their passions. If we allow for It. We're not really led down that
Mina Sharif: path or led down a path that makes it look like only a couple people
Mina Sharif: can live great lives. And you and the masses, you just
Mina Sharif: fight for those, like, you know, very few opportunities. And that's not reality.
Mina Sharif: The reality is it's disproportionate, systematically. Not that it's
Mina Sharif: disproportionate because only you should have this opportunity and this other person
Mina Sharif: shouldn't, systematically. We've been, I think, really all
Mina Sharif: around oppressed all around the world in understanding our.
Mina Sharif: Our value, in understanding that we all deserve equal space
Mina Sharif: to each other. It's hard for us to see that. I've loved chatting. We've been
Joanne Lockwood: chatting away for over an hour, nearly an hour and a half before we went
Joanne Lockwood: live. Absolutely fascinating. And I've really enjoyed finding out
Joanne Lockwood: more about you as a human being, but also some of the
Joanne Lockwood: experiences you brought with you as you've travelled the world. So, yeah, it's been
Joanne Lockwood: really fascinating. Thank you very much. Likewise. Thank you. This is exactly the kind of
Mina Sharif: conversation that, you know, I walk away feeling so good from because I hope we've
Mina Sharif: opened some people's eyes and, if anything, made people feel
Mina Sharif: slightly less threatened about learning about each other or about
Mina Sharif: themselves. So if people want to get in touch, what's the best way?
Mina Sharif: I do have a website, minasharif.com that's probably the
Mina Sharif: go to and you can link to my socials from there. So my LinkedIn or
Mina Sharif: my Twitter or my Instagram. On Instagram, I do share a
Mina Sharif: lot of content about Afghanistan to humanise it. Like I
Mina Sharif: said, it's not anyone's fault that they have that war image, but how do we
Mina Sharif: change that? And I try to be a part of, you know, what I. What
Mina Sharif: I want from people. I share photos from my time there,
Mina Sharif: stories from my time there, to sort of let you see what day to day
Mina Sharif: life look like. And the short stories I was telling you about are coming out
Mina Sharif: in a book this summer, which will be available on my
Mina Sharif: website. And I hope that that offers some
Mina Sharif: healing to Afghans who have been far from their country and
Mina Sharif: opens up a window for people who want to learn more about
Mina Sharif: Afghanistan and feel more connected to it. I really hope that
Mina Sharif: that does something for. I've just quickly nipped onto your Instagram
Joanne Lockwood: profile and there's a. Yeah, some great photos on there. So, yeah, I encourage
Joanne Lockwood: anyone who's listening to. To do the same and just check out real
Joanne Lockwood: pictures of real people and real stories. Not what the media
Joanne Lockwood: wanted here, but. Well, actually what this one Afghan woman
Joanne Lockwood: wants you to see. So this is your perspective, but it's a great perspective, a
Joanne Lockwood: real human perspective. Thank you. Thank you. And it's to add to your
Mina Sharif: headlines. No one's denying those headlines. We're just saying it's just
Mina Sharif: a. It's a speck of the truth. Yeah. The
Joanne Lockwood: dangers. If we get hung up thinking there's only one story, there's more stories.
Joanne Lockwood: So say, look at the other stories. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Mina, thank you. A pleasure. Thank you so much.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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