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TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-07-16
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXLrRqkUAs
a community it can be an over used word at times but what does it mean what does that mean to you what does it mean to me what does it mean to us here at you when you well it can sound cliche and I think that's why it was challenging for me at first to think about what I wanted to say here today I thought to
myself what could I say what could I say that has not already been said about the word munity what could I say that was not so over used so cliche so common interestingly the latter expression of comin is the root word the etymology of community but we'll come back to I think that ought to change in the context of Queen Mary first let's begin with first
impressions sentence they do come first for me it was not only my first day at this university but my first day on this campus my first day in east London I had visited London before a few years ago with my parents but I had seen nothing like you and me well we went to Madame to sides we went to the natural history museum we were tourists
so perhaps it's fitting that as a resident my site seemed more stark the shock was more pronounced then it would be to somebody who's familiar with the area but maybe not as a Pakistani born Canadian I had seen men in long robes and Muslim prayer caps on TV usually in the news pertaining to the Middle East aura video footage of Mecca during Islamic holidays but here
at UN ul this is a common sight a few steps further into the core of the campus and I discovered a cemetery a Jewish one a few steps further and I was at library square where I witnessed open Muslim prayers a few steps further and I entered my first law class where I encountered judgments from centuries ago until today dominated by white male judges course allies
being said about the judicial diversity and the round of judicial appointments %HESITATION ensuring you well encourages such discussions conversations and explorations but the seemingly just oppose and contrasting symbols of ideals upon which various wars are based and are very real today in the world as I'm sure you miss seeing the news I could not help smile this co existence was beautiful I felt entranced I felt
a great sense of pride I wanted to protect this diverse city accepting it by giving it a home secure annual two is home to them all but there's a friction here something I not only saw but increasingly felt as I continue my first year here there is a simultaneous sense of association and disassociation with inch when you well and you and me well with in London
for example Kenny well promotes its international student body I belong to it ice that I came from Canada I study here as do many students so in a sense it associates itself with this image of this international student body international hub also there are various legal advice centers here not only at the university but there's also one in nearby Bethnal green that are very much centered
in in helping everyone and anyone but then there's this disassociation where especially at the school of law here at Queen Mary we belong to a very prestigious group calls the Russell group and many other universities belong to this group as well such as Cambridge and Oxford and in London there's this constant discourse of boasting ones elite tennis which is reflected I think in the ideologies of
some of the recent politicians as you must all be where that have an emphasis on immigration control implying that they say the other are the problem not us the thing is is that disassociation seeks to point out the uncommon this is where you see enhanced the Muslim prayer caps the long robes they Jewish names on cemetery tombstones on a macro level this is where our government
in practicing in exercising their prerogative powers exiles an entire population off the chip Ganassi in islands for example in the bank cold case where they gave the island to the U. S. as a military base implying in their actions that although the land belongs to Britain people do not this disassociation leads to what Edward site in his theory of orientalism called either in which paints a
distorted image of what he referred to as the orient I remember learning %HESITATION orientalism during my year of the exchange that I did in needs France and I learned how the euro centric wiress stick I witnesses the orient and they see it as this big region of exoticism making little to no distinctions between large regions such as Asia and the Middle East perhaps this is similar
to the way the world tends to talk about Africa not bothering to make distinctions because in the discourse of us they will always be the other the dentist makes me think about my own culture and the increasing radicalisation that I see within cultural groups why people I know don't feel the need to express themselves religiously or culturally when they return to their ethnic homeland but they
do here I wonder if more than defensiveness and self preservation if the orient insights terminology have begun to see themselves as the Occident does on to them if having recognized there otherness they have internalized the subjugation as a non acceptance and not quite the longing it is here that I come back to when I first began talking about what it means to be a community my
fiance and I are obsessed with finding out where things come from you know etymologies in roots and cultural contacts and I think this reflects in a sense the fact that I come from and I asked I belong to a diaspora a dual identity where I'm Canadian but not quite I'm Pakistani but not quite and not somewhere in the middle I they're just encapsulation of a range
of identities there are more often Milosz together into what I see is my existence today which is not static either it continues to evolve and change as I do as a person so when I looked up the word community it said that it came from an old French and Latin word and signifying comin are communists I remember as an amateur %HESITATION heater student I really wanted
to be an actor %HESITATION and I would research the character and I wanted to know how how the character felt in every scene I once we still connected to the character you know that I would be just blown away %HESITATION so I would think about it and be like cocaine the scene I'm really sad along since high and they seem to really angry on so angry
and at this point my theatre teacher came up to me and she said acting is exactly what the word signifies you must ask the feeling will follow afterwards as a reaction if you get the act right so when I discovered that the word community comes from a passive noun signifying comin a calming ness I wanted to re signify it as I has constructed my own identity
as I'm sure you all do as well in this globalized world today where there is no place for this idealized disillusioned idealize ation of homogenization I wanted my community to be an active word other in a community I think we ought not to try and find what we have in common but instead strive to commune I remember the first time I felt like I really belonged
here was when I was waiting for dinner on campus and %HESITATION there's this let me lead into felt really guilty about making you wait because those on it was undercooked and I ate it anyways possess her hungry and in making me wait should over their pieces start asking questions about my studies and then she told me about her daughter she told me that she was really
proud of her daughter because she was studying midwifery and she was a good girl because there were no boyfriends as yet the boyfriend she said with a wagging finger is when the trouble starts in that moment I felt really intimate with her at that enough I share something so close to her heart I felt like I belonged I felt like an ass not a day so
that is when I started thinking about what it means to be a community not something passive as its heritage suggests comin coming ness but something more active showing rather than passive feeling like I learned in theater because if we get the act right the feeling will follow to commune the word to commune means to communicate in a personal or spiritual way to communicate intimately in that
