of us
I often felt that I
come in a little bit that I was not going in
boxes
I was seven Parisian children
educated in a class of all
colors and then I was parachuted into
a small country village where I
grown up
a village of 300 inhabitants where people
had never seen a city yet
less Parisians so it surely
been my first cultural shock but in
same time I did not live like that
because it’s true that when one is
child one does not have this notion of the
difference
I am from two different origins of
the Mediterranean of an eastern country and my
family marked by a history of
migration which I have never
really everything says randomly from my
personal and professional journey
I ended up in Pakistan and I
spent time and I was learning the language
and I believe that when we learn a
language it’s a bit of culture
also integrates and it allows us to have
a fresh eye on our own culture
I am Muslim in a non family
muslims I’m French and that’s
part of my identity that I have
became aware and I learned to
to be proud when traveling I am
social worker and as a
social worker I had to compose
with ethnic conflicts
I had to make the connection between people
between cultures
I am an entrepreneur has for
years I live in a country of a year in
a department that I wear in my
heart because it looks like no
else it’s the 93 then all of these
departures from my identity it’s
pieces of life that me kim compounds that
do what I am they also do that
I often felt like I had
struggling to adapt that I had to go back
in boxes
they make that I knew very early
cleavages between people and they did
few months of me someone very
intuitive that literally smells of
legends so I often had trouble with it
make sense and it’s true that it’s
complicated to explain all this to
someone in one sentence then
start the explained to yourself when you
are in paris I am asked for te
know
what are you doing as so serious if
your professional activity could
enough to define and when we are in
neighborhoods we wonder what’s
to know his ethnic origin
so that’s a little bit too
reducer who am I
that’s the big question to which
often a life is not enough for
reply
all my life I did things
instinctively things that me
liked without necessarily thinking long
term without thinking about a career or
how was I going to make a living
it was surely to answer this
question precisely and to find me
so I did sociology
I learned heavy arabic languages
or the pachto I studied work
social religion the sewing I got
trained in intercultural mediation at
business creation and I had not
well where all that was going to lead then my
first real job is a France
land of asylum
france land of asylum is a
association that accompanies migrants
and the asylum seekers and I
took care of minors so we were going to
night in migrant camps try
to identify them
to shelter them and then I
I was fighting for their support by
social services
often what was the most difficult to
manage I think I was also in their
eyes the big sister the one who were talking
the same language
then I worked on the red cross
still as a social worker
with migrants and as interpreter
and then after a while I got
felt a little bit limited in my
actions and then I had the impression that
I was a little helpless
it’s true that we were very limited in
the means we had and by the frame
legal
and then especially I understood some
thing is that despite my five licenses
and my master I never showed them
steps because I was not going into
the right boxes
I was not in the standard there not so
we live in a society of the norm and
and this norm I quickly took
consciousness because I did not do it
part was excluded and this
exclusion I lived as very violent
and very unfair then that gave at
me some weird behavior
like having to always have to
to justify the fact of always having to
explain to me the fact of crashing into
the same up to erase me I had
the impression of always having to do
tons to appear believable then
I was a person the day a
other at night
but in fact I’m sure you see all
what am I talking about because finally we
spend our time navigating a world
to the other to put forward one to the lot
of our facets to look better
possible according to the interlocutor
that we have in front of us and finally
it’s so tiring of ever
even until today it happens to me
feel how normal it is
Strangle me, she chokes me
the impression is that it’s like a
enemy to fight an invisible enemy
against which I give debate for
to make my place and I understood other
thing too
I understood how much she can
to lead to drifts is that it excludes
and what she crushes about her indifference
I will try to explain to you a
little bit that feeling these feelings
that’s when the whole society you
make it clear that you are invisible
when I am made to understand that you are not
in your place and that eventually whatever you
you ‘ll never be there because it’s
you in your very being who is not
normal I believe the identity a link
deep with dignity
so when we try to recruit
someone’s identity or a
part of his identity ultimately it’s
a piece of his dignity that is removed
is the feeling that remains is
humiliation then humiliation is
often the worst feeling to be
human is what we
Stands up apart from our dignity
humiliation makes you want everything
explode it makes you want to burn everything
it makes you want to hate the earth
complete
it makes you want to avenge it gives
feel like crying
it makes you want to stay at home
locked up it makes you want to avoid
some places to not have to the
to undergo it makes you want to do
some choices for not having to do it
face
I too would like to make a choice
it was either I let myself be erased I
to fall back on myself or on people
who was supposed to be like me
relive the head
I assume and with all my identities
I accepted what I represented
despite myself in the eyes of people and I
want to show my potential I was doing
hear my voice
so that was not the most
easy because it’s always a little
complicated to get out of his area of
comfort but I had been taught that nothing
was impossible
and I believed in values
values that my father who is a
example of dignity and integrity
had taught me values that I had
seen at my mother’s also feminist she who
has always done the job of a man to
the house of equal values of
freedom of values that I actually had
learned during all these lives and I
wanted to finally use it all
I understood it
I understood that these identities were
a strength through entrepreneurship I
believe and I will tell you a
little story that an Afghan told me
told a few weeks
it’s the story of an old man who
is leaning over the hard ground and that is
digging who are trying to
plant a fig tree and to young people
they’re watching and who’s laughing at a
little who makes fun of life and who end up
to challenge him and tell him eh bah bah
why are you tired of digging for
plant a tree that you would eat
never fruits and watch them their
tell my sons if my grandfather before me
had not planted trees I would have
not eat fruit all my life
life so this story I wanted you
tell it because I have them a lot
already loved because planting a tree
gave himself life and also because it
shows how much we have
collective responsibility for
future generations but also on the
world around us today I
believe that at that moment my career
I needed to ask myself too
what a gay girl I could
implanted and what fruits could
spread around me I got
asked what would be most right with
me
what would make me justice
what it would be most the most logical
that with my journey with all these
identities who composed me and and
finally there are plenty of shapes
commitment but the one that will be the most
true to the most sincere is that which
will be the logical extension of all
these identities
my father once told me
you may not have money but
you would be rich and this strawberry to
mark then when I created golson in
2014 ready-to-wear brand I make them
a little instinctively like all that
I had done so far I had been this
Pakistani woman
I had thought about my honor I had
depends on souls and that even the most
great feminist convictions could
do nothing in a country where diversity
does not exist
in Pakistan women work very
little and a general they are very little
educated because they are not intended
to work and conversely are not
hired because they are untrained
so there is a species in the gear
which is set up and which makes that
when they really need them
when they really need to
work to survive as in the
divorce case with all the problems
of honor that entails or in the case
of the death of their husbands they do not have
no choice but to turn to the
begging or finding themselves victims of
traffic so I created I mounted a
textile workshop for
the insertion of the widows
divorced in Pakistan and in the
extension of this social project we have
created the re- branded gucci brand that
is marketed in France and Europe
so that I did not do for I did not
done to give me good conscience by
paternalism I do them because
finally this woman could have been
it was something that was
logical in relation to my story and
that made sense to me I’m not
someone who is who love fashion
I never really liked the fashion I
never flip through fashion magazines
but this is where it is
which seemed to me to be the right vector for
get the message that I had to
to pass it is what seemed to me
to be the right way to have a
true social action then I got
also realized that we were maybe
to a generation of losing
know-how that are valuable if we
not preserve them it’s also a way
preserve and should for
consumption and production more
responsible and I also wanted to make a
little thumbs up to the standard and powers
created events that looked like me
sansan who are imposed on me
today we do not have
– the choice in fact we can not do
as if our behaviors did not impact
not around us whether it’s
negative or positive way today
even a click on the internet may have
have an impact at the other end of the
world and so I believe that the brake to
all that’s finally coming back to this
that makes sense to us for everyone
of you and ask yourself what
will make sense inside of you for
make sense around you I am
persuaded that if you find anything
something that makes sense for you it
will positively impact around
you today I know who I am and
I do what I am I am at my
place everywhere I think I’m in my place
and I realized that all these identities
it was my strength and my wealth
and I dare to believe that it is also a
strength and wealth for society
finally we are all uprooted
nobody is no longer legitimate to a
place that someone else
and precisely because I am not expected
somewhere I want to be there
so what I’m doing today is
no fashion is not business
it’s a way of changing things
it’s a way of making sense
I try to make the soul of a tool
to change the representations for
breaking the norm to put forward
faces that we never see women who
are invisible and because I believe in
my conception of equality
I also act with young people
neighborhoods to accompany them in
orientation and that they are not bad
oriented I am also involved in
women’s entrepreneurship through
association that is called ilk by
which women are accompanied by
women of diversity and neighborhoods
are they are accompanied to
entrepreneurship and I am also
trainer in an association that
is called singa and and I train them
refugees to business creation all
these fights actually I lead them to that
to live in a society more
just where everyone has their place and where yes
no luggage origins aspects
zik neighborhood or anything that
can we handicap we all have our
place and I want to feed
of this plurality
for a few months now I’ve got myself
am started in a new project
it may be finally
the culmination of all this journey
I created in order to project a
association by which we promise the
witch of women in situation of
migration through textile know-how
because I want all of them
potentials are valued that makes
part of my fight is actually I
just want to change the world
so I have a last little request
for you tonight you remember
this story of the old Afghan man
who is there who wanted to plant his
fig tree
I would like you to return tonight
at home and you were wondering
also some figs and you
can plant two hands thank you
[Applause]
”
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