This is Shirley's story. Do you have a story.....?
Home is where the Heart is
Holiday to Sri Lanka always felt, I was returning home but after a week or two, I am desperate to return home to England. I have tried many a times to resolve this conundrum. After all, now I have started 38th year of my life in England. That is more than I have lived in Sri Lanka.
I arrived in England in 1974, on a cold, dark night on 16th of February. That was the first time I have ever being out of Sri Lanka. I have left my adopted family, friends, working colleagues and devoted comrades who took part in all our Trade Union and political struggles. It was frightening. I was apprehensive entering an uncertain future. What will the future holds for me? Have I jumped from a frying pan to an inextinguishable glowing fire? My confidence was not strong anymore!
I was very active in Trade Unions, in left politics - local and national. Defending Liberation Theology and critical of the hierarchy of the Sri Lankan Roman Catholic Church. I was always surrounded by friends, colleague and comrades. Never alone, or never fearing for the future. I was full of self confidence with a fighting spirit for social justice. I had an identity and community that accepted me. This is where my heart is and that is my country.
My first day in England, I felt soulless. Bitterly cold wind and dark gloomy skies did neither inspire me nor strengthen my drooping spirit. However, I survived the week and started work as a Lino-Type Operator in printing in a local weekly newspaper. It was difficult. For many natives that was the first time they have seen a non-white face. They were friendly but also frequently exercised what I call ‘selective racism.’ The controversy of the arrival of Ugandan Asians was still a heated debate amongst the host community. Leicestershire County Council purchased massive spaces in “Ugandan Newspapers” to discourage British Passport holders from arriving in Leicester.
I was not like those Asians in the eyes of my colleagues at work because I was granted a “WORK PERMIT” by the Home Office. I am not a Gujarati speaking Hindu. I am a good Roman Catholic able to converse in English. Gradually, I started being involved first with Church organisations and then with my Trade Union – National Graphical Association as it was then known. I enrolled on odd evening classes and gradually started making friends at work, in the church and in the area I lived.
I was offered employment in a rival newspaper about 12 to 14 miles from where I was. I accepted it, as it was on a better salary, better conditions and was in a thriving town as opposed to a village. My work colleagues in this new place were brilliant. Many of them joined this place after being sacked by their previous employer for taking part in a Trade Union dispute. They had a broader outlook on life and with the exception of one or two people, they were not racist. I started being active in the Union and was representing the Chapel at Branch Meetings. I was made the Deputy Father of the Chapel and later the Father of the Chapel.
I was now once again my normal self. Welcomed by my work colleagues and also by the neighbourhood I live. I regained my confidence and felt secure. I represented my Trade Union in the local Trades Union Council. With the time, I was nominated, voted and held the positions of President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Trades Council for many years. I was also nominated to the local Commission for Racial Equality and to the Racial Harassment Committee of the local Police, monitoring the actions of the police on racial harassment complaints.
I have once again returned to the life I had in Sri Lanka. I am surrounded by comrades and colleagues. I am involved with many activities in the Trade Union movement, in local and national Politics and in many community activities. I have gained an identity once again. With this, I am also beginning to face a new challenge. My life experience has made me re-think about my political beliefs. I retain the same values but my approach has changed. For this, I am criticised by my friends and colleagues on the left. I have not sold out but I have deviated from the standard left-wing approach.
When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, they were 23 years of age. I am now 65 years old and unlike Marx and Engels, I have been a blue-collar worker and a white-collar worker. My experience with the ‘working class’ has made me more akin to Franz Fanon or Herbert Marcuse than to Marx and Engels. I am more experienced than Marx or Engels being subjected to harassment of racism and for trade union activities. Hence, I justify my new approach to new struggles.
I also now face racism at times from two sections of the society. Firstly from the prevailing ignorance in certain sections of the host community and from the Asian community, based on the wrong perception of what is to be an ‘Asian.’ The perception being that, one should be Hindu and able to speak Gujarati and Hindi, missing the fundamental point that, Asia is more than India.
I am able to cope with these problems now because I also have the good support of my comrades, and friends. My visits to Sri Lanka are like being in a science fiction. I never felt being at home. I was more of a visitor from another planet. The area, I grew up has undergone changes beyond recognition. Many of my friends and comrades are no longer in my home town. Families known to me are no longer in the area and the elders I knew have returned to their creator. I was a stranger in the town where I was born and brought up. I am no more part of this community. I do not have an identity here, I am now a stranger.
My heart is where I share my values and my hopes. Hope of a just world is where oppression is eradicated and rights of minorities are granted. Values are when you recognise that there is a vast difference between what you need and what you like and that, resources are there to be shared and not to be exploited for profits.
Being in a community that share these hopes and values is where my country is, my identity is and where I am not a stranger. For good or bad England is my home now because that is where I find that small community, sharing my hopes and my values. This where my heart is and my home. However, there are times, I still feel, I am an outsider here too, that is when the ‘big society’ tells me, “go back to where you come from” if you do not want to support our wars. For that, I have no answer.
Shirley Siriwardena
Loughborough
This is a post script from Shirley about how we met:
We first met in 1979 February at the first Anti-Nazi League meeting held at the Charnwood Pub (now Swan in the Rushes). Present you, me, Russ, Keith, David Paterson, Dennis Gardiner, Michael McLoughlin, Martin Gregory, Derek (Councillor and then Manager Carillon Precinct) and few others. You were in Frederick Street. Same year you played the Diabelli piece on the piano with Peter Wilson for Amnesty International at Martin Hall at the University.
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