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Bristol Refugee Festival marks World Refugee Day
To commemorate UN World Refugee Day, on Friday evening Bristol Refugee Festival hosted a lively event, in collaboration with the Curzon in Clevedon and Somerset Storyfest, called Four Voices: Finding Home.
For over seven years, Bristol Refugee Festival has organised a programme of events in June which celebrates the contributions refugees and asylum seekers make to the city.
This year is no different, and from June 7 to 22 a variety of events have taken place across Bristol and the South West.
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Inspired by Somerset Storyfest, which organises events for schools and young people in the South West to connect with and learn from the lived experiences of refugees, Four Voices featured talks and live music performances from four refugees and asylum seekers.
The Curzon is a cinema and community arts centre which has existed for over 100 years – photo: Seun Matiluko
The pay what you can event also incorporated free food, cooked by students at Clevedon School.
The featured speakers at the Four Voices event were Özcan Ates, Suhela Aktar, Ali Elmubarak and Tahmina Kousar.
Each spoke, for around ten minutes, in conversation with Somerset Storyfest founder Michael Loader about their experiences migrating to Britain before performing original music inspired by their heritage.
Students at Clevedon School cooked food, from a diverse array of countries, to be served at the event – photo: Seun Matiluko
Özcan Ates, born in Turkey to a Kurdish mother – but now based in Bristol – was first to speak.
Özcan plays the bağlama, a long-necked lute used often in Turkish folk music, and played music in support of his Turkish homeland. Since moving from Turkey to the UK, he now plays in a number of bands in and around Bristol.
Around 20 per cent of the Turkish population are Kurdish and many human rights groups have raised concern about the level of discrimination the Kurdish minority face in the country.
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Next to speak was Suhela Aktar, from Bangladesh, who spoke about how a forced arranged marriage and restrictive religious rules in the majority-Muslim country caused her to come to Britain.
She is now based in London but previously lived in Bristol and sang regularly, accompanied by Özcan’s bağlama, as part of the Dovetail Orchestra, a Bristol-based music group primarily made up of asylum seekers and refugees.
After Suhela, then came Ali Elmubarak, a documentary filmmaker from Sudan who also plays the oud, a medieval Middle Eastern instrument which is an ancestor of the lute.
In the early 2000s Ali made a film, depicting human rights abuses, which was viewed as controversial by authorities in Sudan.
Ali said his film led to him being sentenced to 20 years in prison and that the government also took his passport from him.
He added, laughing: “They took my car. I was really sad about my car, I spent a lot of money to buy it”.
In 2008 he was ultimately able to pay people to help him escape from prison, cross the Mediterranean and travel in a lorry to make it to the UK. In 2018 he became a British citizen.
Tahmina Kousar, from Pakistan, was the final speaker at the Bristol Refugee Festival event.
Before sharing her story, Tahmina said “first of all, I am grateful to you (Michael Loader) and this country who accepted us – and not only four voices, many more voices… so huge round of applause for you and all people who adopted me as a daughter.”
Tahmina, a journalist, regularly confronted challenging issues while reporting in her home country: “I raised my voice. I faced the Taliban. I faced Daesh. I faced fanatic people.”
She was also a chairperson of Pakistan’s government-backed National Peace Committee for Interfaith Harmony, and was a strong advocate for the country’s Christian, Sikh and Hindu minorities.
Her advocacy and reporting led to her receiving death threats and some physical attacks.
She explained: “One day, when my life was in danger and the mob was outside of my office – they locked me up in a room and they wanted to kill me – there was a guy who was Christian who helped me and he said, ‘Please leave this place. It’s not safe for you’.”
She soon decided to leave Pakistan and, after two years in the UK, received support from Michael Loader and others to bring her two children over to live with her.
After Özcan, Suhela, Ali and Tahmina spoke they each gave individual musical performances – Özcan on his bağlama, Ali on his oud and Suhela and Tahmina with their powerful singing voices – before performing together to bring the night to a close.
The featured speakers at the Four Voices event were Özcan Ates, Tahmina Kousar, Michael Loader, Suhela Aktar and Ali Elmubarak – photo: Seun Matiluko
As well as singing, Tahmina also shared an emotional prose poem which ended with the following: “She who stood against the world never gave up (or) broke down in silence before her own.
“But no, the will they tried to take, she didn’t let it fall. She held it, folded it and turned it into flag… a woman who rises for truth never truly loses.”
Bristol Refugee Festival will end on Sunday with their much-loved annual event at Queen Square which will feature live music, food, crafts and family fun.
The event, ‘Celebrating Sanctuary’, proudly recognises Bristol as a City of Sanctuary for asylum seekers and refugees, which it has been since 2011.
For more information, visit www.bristolrefugeefestival.org
Main photo: Bristol Refugee Festival
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