By Sona Osman
In this piece of writing I would like to explain the circumstances and life experiences which led me to a feminist way of thinking which has driven most of my life and has propelled me into a life rich of adventures and experiences.
Sue O’Sullivan has been asking me for a long time to write a piece for HOWL. I have prevaricated; put off; purposively adjusted timings and used personal avoidance techniques. I was convinced that no-one would be interested in my life or the reasons why Feminism was attractive to me. I thought I had all the time in the world. I was in no rush. Tomorrow is always better than today. But I have had my wake up call, with friends and close ones dying and becoming ill with terminal diseases. The relentless tick tock of life’s alarm clock is marching on and so being mindful I do not have much time left, I had better get on with it.
I need to set the scene: London 1960s
My parents met at a YMCA dance . They had a relationship. I was the result. Their relationship with each other wasn’t stable, let alone with themselves. My father, having acquired the new nationality of being a Pakistani decided for many reasons which I have never properly understood, that I should be sent to a white working-class family in Birmingham to be brought up. My mother, a Finn, was coerced into agreeing with this. I do not think she could really object: she had already been subject to deportation proceedings for overstaying her leave in the UK. I think she just wanted to put her head down and slog her guts out without being hindered by a small baby. I discovered later this arrangement was an illegal placement.
Sona in Finland, aged 6
When we had the only one conversation about this period I asked her how many times she came to visit me? After having worked for a long time in Family/Child care law I was quite conscious of the work of John Bowlby and attachment theory. When she answered, ‘Not once’, I was gutted to the core.
Then one day when I was three I mysteriously arrived back to live with my parents. I think that the foster carers probably thought that something should be happening for a degree of permanence. Anyway, there I was, a three-year-old with strangers. It was traumatic. Those scars of abandonment and rejection are indelibly etched on my consciousness and physical body.
After returning to my father and mother, we lived in a small flat between Kennington and Brixton. At the time it was a white working class hinterland which slowly became habited by newly arrived immigrants answering the call to join London Transport, hospitals and British Rail.
My parents’ different backgrounds
Both my parents had grown up during the Second World War. My mother had lived through the three wars that took place in Finland between 1939-1944. She worked on the family farm. My two aunts joined the Lotta*, which was then Europe’s largest female paramilitary organisation . One aunt was a nurse, the other a cook. They both were on the front line. All three women were proficient in using fire arms. I have witnessed their expertise in shooting rabbits.
Nothing was impossible. The class system as it exists in the UK does not exist in Finland. My mother’s family came from middle Finland, which was very ‘Red’. Her family were conservative with a small c. They were very inquiring and curious about the world at large. Political discussions were encouraged. Women could do everything that a man could do. There was no demarcation line. Athough I was clearly lost as a young child, my mother’s family had a huge influence on my life. The women could do as they wished. Their mantra was, ‘We are able and capable’.
My father, on the other hand, was a conservative Muslim from India. He had lived through the horrific process of Partition. He came to the UK to seek better work opportunities. He was a light bulb Muslim: he could switch his religion off and on at will. He also had identity issues. He kept on changing my name. I had five birth certificates. He wanted to change my name again when I was six. I just told him to stop and that I was not going with him to St Katherine’s House. I was quite happy with my name and did not want to change it again.
Life in London after ‘Rivers of Blood’
At the same time in South London the march of racist thought speeded up. Especially after Enoch Powell’s, ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech life became much more challenging. I remember on my primary school wall there was a huge graffiti which said, ‘N……. Out’. It was not washed off or painted over for years. Physical and emotional abuse happened. We had smashed windows, dog poo put through the letter box and physical attacks. My father was so concerned that he used to follow me to the corner shop as there was always a gang of boys who pursued me in order to beat me up. Eventually some youth decided they wanted to bottle my face, aiming at my eyes. They failed and I just got another scar to add to the rest.
The only place of support that I was able to grab hold of was at school with class mates who were not white. That included children of Irish descent as well. We would talk about what was going on with our lives and call out racists when we experienced them. Nothing much happened.
My path to feminism
Sona in London, cooking
When I went to secondary school I had a mixed race South African teacher who was pretty hard on racism in the school. She encouraged us to read. I read an autobiography of Angela Davies and a book about the Soledad Brothers. I began to understand that the only means of escape was through education. I realised I had to make it happen for me as no one else was going to give me a helping hand. I started going to the library and teaching myself.
I taught myself mathematics and tried to get my head around English grammar. I did ok when I was sixteen and eighteen. I was going to be a French teacher. One of our teachers took Spare Rib magazine. We started to discuss the topics. It blew my mind as I could start to understand what was going on in the world. It was very exciting having these multiple moments of epiphany. My A-level French conversation examination was about the rise of feminism.
I spent a year as an au pair in France, and I got involved in the women group in the university town of Rennes. By the time I started at Keele to do a degree in History and French, I had joined the woman’s group there. We assisted the developing Woman’s Aid organisation and helped squat a building for women fleeing from domestic violence. My final dissertation was called, ‘Was Colette a Feminist?’.
When I came back to Brixton I saw a poster in the Tate Library advertising a Black Women’s meeting on a Sunday afternoon at Stockwell Green. I started attending the Brixton Black Women’s Group after that. At around the same time, Spare Rib magazine was going through a period of great change and they wanted to be more inclusive. I applied for a job on the collective and was successful.
This time was the most exciting time for me on so many levels; I met women who were supportive and inquiring. It was challenging on an intellectual and personal level. I was acquiring self-confidence and knowledge. So much so that when a volunteer came into the Spare Rib office one day we became best friends and when she told me that she was going to qualify as a barrister, it blew my mind. She convinced me that I could apply, qualify and be successful. She persuaded me that doing Law was the key to furthering a feminist perspective. She might not have used those particular words but I can see, looking back, that that was the gist of what she was saying.
That is what I did after I left Spare Rib. I did qualify. I did practice as a barrister. I did do Criminal law, Family and Childcare law, and Immigration. But in all the years I was at the Bar I only heard two other women barristers use the word patriarchy.
Being a feminist has opened up so many viewpoints and given me confidence as a woman to make a way in this crazy world. I have learnt that all is possible. As a sixty-plus-year-old woman I have learnt how to sail in France, and have crossed the Channel three times. I have learnt that I cannot stop learning and furthering my understanding. I am not a victim. I make my own pathway and encourage you to do so.
*Look up the Finnish women’s defence organisation Lotta Svärd Yhdistys online at Alternative Finland; or on Wikipedia