Stories Seldom Told

Syima Aslam is the founder and director of the Bradford Literature Festival (BLF), a 10-day literary and cultural celebration, which she established in 2014. The BLF welcomes more than 70,000 visitors to Bradford annually and is celebrated as the most socio-economically and ethnically diverse  literary festival in the UK.

Under Syima’s directorship, the BLF has made a significant impact on the country’s literary landscape. It has been hailed as ‘one of the most innovative and inspirational festivals in the UK’, bringing together literature from all genres, promoting intercultural fluency, providing a platform for marginalised voices, and reflecting the changing face of contemporary Britain through a programme which celebrates diversity, empathy and artistic excellence.

"I went to nursery in the UK,  but when I came back at the age of eight, I'd lost all my English. So the perception and the way you see a culture at that point is different. But I had my memories of that culture having had those younger years. One of the things that I find quite interesting is the way that you are viewed changes with the way that you are dressed. I grew up in Halifax, and my parents did what a lot of first generation migrants do which is desperately try and hold on to this culture that they had in their heads. So, if I was at home, I was dressed traditionally, if I was at school, I was dressed in my uniform, if I was with my friends, I was dressed in my jeans. And I have found that when people meet you, depending on how you are dressed, they will talk to you differently, they will relate to you differently."

“For me, one of the many things that is most significant about being a person of colour, a brown person, having been brought up in the ‘70s, in an exclusively white English family, but in an almost exclusively white English context, is that the ideas and beliefs that I have gained and have been transmitted down through my parents, my grandparents, have influenced the way in which I think and behave. Not only towards people of colour, but to other people too.”

Nick Pendry identifies as a brown Indian man. He is married to a woman, and lives in southeast London with his two teenage children. Nick was adopted as a baby by a white English family. He is a social worker and family therapist, who has spent his entire working life in the public sector.

Annette Smith (née Julien) was born in December 1927 on the small Caribbean Island of Grenada into a privileged family. She was educated in Trinidad and returned to Grenada where she completed a year of nursing before embarking on a journey to England aged just 18. She travelled completely alone and this was her first trip abroad. In 1946, post-WWII, Annette became the only black nurse at the Guildford Royal Surrey Hospital. She married a Londoner and had three children before returning to her nursing profession as a community nurse. She has many interests including poetry, singing, the arts, sport and continues to be a positive member of community.

"I arrived to do my nursing training in England, and we got into Southampton. And of course, in those days, everybody came by ship. And I remember standing on the deck and looking at the luggage being handled by white porters. And I never, ever thought white porters would do that job. Because out in the West Indies and the Caribbean, black people always did that. So that was an example of unconscious bias. And I just couldn't get over it."

Sabriye Tenberken, from Germany, knows what it is to be marginalised after becoming fully blind at the age of 12. She studied Tibetology/Central Asian Sciences at Bonn University and helped develop the Tibetan Braille Script. In 1997, Sabriye travelled on horseback through the Himalayas and in 1998, along with her partner Paul Kronenberg, started the first school for the blind in Tibet. This school formed the foundation of Braille Without Borders, an organisation that empowers blind people to take their lives into their own hands. In 2005, Sabriye and Paul founded Kanthari in Kerala, south India, a leadership institute for social change makers. Kanthari fosters individuals from all over the world who have overcome adversity and because of that, carry a desire to create social change.

Sabriye is a public speaker, the author of My Path Leads to Tibet, a book that has been translated into 16 languages. She has also taken part with Paul in the award winning documentaries BLINDSIGHT and KANTHARI – Change from Within.

"We had little children who, who came and would say, why do they throw stones at me? And then other children who were longer in our place, they say, because they are stupid! They don't know who you are, and they don't know that you're a human being. And they don't know that blindness is something that has also a lot of advantages. For example, you can read and write in the dark. Who can do this? So I do feel that especially working with kids - back then I've worked with kids, but for adults it comes the same - I think it's very important that we are constantly reflecting on what people try to make us believe. And how is the reality for us? What do we believe? What do we make out of it? And this is getting out of the unconsciousness of our biases into the consciousness of our biases."

Q, also known as Francesca Mudannayake, is a Sri Lankan based singer/songwriter who has been performing since she was 6. After honing her skills at the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in the UK and singing at the Barbican Theatre, Q released her debut EP Hysteria in April 2021.  Blending alternative R&B with lyrics on female sexuality and independence, Rolling Stone India described it as “everything you want to hear in music of empowerment”. In addition to this she has modelled for fashion brands and has appeared in magazines like L’Officiel Italia and Cosmopolitan Sri Lanka. An actor too, she was most recently featured in Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy.

"I can speak from my own self, that I am a bit of a weird, complex creature that is very emotional and very sensitive to things. So for the past couple of years, I've just been going through all of those emotions and thinking, well, I should just really put this all down in an EP. Because these are all my lived experiences. And maybe, just maybe if a girl is listening to it, they might be a bit more comfortable with themselves, you know, and think to themselves, oh, I don't need to be just this, and I don't need to be just that. I can be all of this. If you can come to that sort of point where you're at peace, with all of these different personalities that you have, I think it's a better way to live."

Listen to Hysteria, her debut EP here: https://li.sten.to/hysteria/. Follow her on Instagram https://instagram.com/musicby_q or Facebook https://m.facebook.com/musicbyq

Safiya Yasmin Badzhva (pronounced Bajwa) is a 22-year-old marketing student from Moscow. She was born and raised in Moscow to a Russian mother and a Pakistani father. Safiya sees herself as 100% Muscovite, but her appearance doesn’t fit into the stereotypical image of a local Russian. Safiya feels that Moscow is getting more diverse, so it's important to question the idea of xenophobia and racism in modern Russian society.

"I define myself as a local as a Muscovite and person with the Russian mentality. And my first language is Russian. But despite all this, people don't perceive me as a local, much less as a Russian person. First of all, my appearance is not typical for a Russian person, also, my name and my religion. And every time I meet a new person, I feel like I have to prove that I speak language well, that I know this city and old traditions. And sometimes many people are simply surprised. They say how well you speak Russian, they compliment my Russian. It could be perhaps an example of a positive unconscious bias. And sometimes they think that I'm a liar, and some people could be just, frankly, rude to me."

Priyanca Radhakrishnan is a Member of Parliament in the New Zealand Labour Party and a Minister of the Crown. Her portfolios include Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities. She is the first person of Indian origin to become a Minister in New Zealand.

Born in India, Priyanca went to school in Singapore, and then moved to New Zealand to further her education. She has spent her work life advocating on behalf of people whose voices are often unheard, including survivors of domestic violence, and exploited migrant workers. She strongly believes that everyone has the right to live with dignity - meaning equitable access to affordable housing, quality education and decent, secure work.

"So it's this whole process of negotiating your identity. Who are you? When I came to New Zealand, I realised that I wasn't quite as Indian as I thought I was. I had lots of friends who were international students from India, and I felt that I was, again, a little bit different from that. I had to then acknowledge the fact that growing up in Singapore means that had shaped my identity and who I was, as well. It's actually when I moved here that I even acknowledged that which was quite a revelation for me. So this whole process of negotiating that, and then coming to a point in my life, where I thought, well, no, I'm not going to conform to something that people want."

Papa CJ is an award-winning, international stand-up comedian. He has performed over 2000 shows in over 25 countries. Forbes Magazine called him ‘the global face of Indian stand-up’ and Harvard Business Review called him 'one of the most influential comedians around the world’. He has won awards for both Asia and India’s best stand-up comedian. He is also a motivational speaker and corporate training coach.

"Even in our [Indian] education system, when we grow up, we are told these are the answers. Suddenly, you go abroad and study, and your faculty member asks you, what do you think? And the first thing that comes to your mind is like, what do you mean, what do I thin? You're supposed to tell me what's right. So when you get to this point in this profession, where there are no boundaries. You tend to start looking inwards. And you really start to question, what are the things that I value? What do I believe is right? And eventually, even your audience doesn't matter. Because you present your truth. And what you're saying is, this is what works for me, if you like it fine. If you don't like it also fine, I respect that."

Maria Arpa is the founder of the Centre for Peaceful Solutions and the executive director at The Centre for Non-Violent Communication. She has dedicated the last 20 years of her life promoting non-violent communication as an alternative to mainstream systems of domination culture. Through her career, Maria has worked in some of the most violent areas of the UK and the USA, including with families, in schools and workplaces, within neighbourhoods and in prisons. 

"I think it's true for everyone who was around in the 60s and 70s, and even into the 80s. That there were cultural jokes. There were jokes around particular groups of people, or particular races, or particular colours, or particular religions. And we thought nothing of telling those jokes. In fact, it was a way of bonding with, in inverted commas, "like minded people". That we could pick on a race or a culture or an affliction, or a personality trait or something. You could pick on something. And you could make jokes about it over and over and over and over again. And the level to which that reinforces something."