Roots by Sulaima Elmi
We’re settling down for an ordinary evening. Dad’s tucking into a can of McEwan’s the ‘best buy’, as usual. It’s winter, dark and very cold at this altitude, the 10th floor. Birds, and I fear witches, fly by. The box in the corner has been droning on; it’s a Sunday evening: weak black and white images tune in and out of my perception, interrupted by normal household chatter and activity.
Mum’s ironing, not on a board but on a towel on the table. Three of us have a life to prepare for the following day at school: my mother as a teacher, my brother and I as pupils. My dad? Well, he’ll watch Pebble Mill; try to defeat those Zionists by shouting down the news, then, perhaps, some horse racing …a wee flutter? A can or two despite money being tight. He may apply for a job, not admitting our vertiginous home address: his name is disadvantage enough - it hails his origins. So he’ll use a friend’s address in town, a solid address with its roots planted soundly for nearly a century. Both he and the housing scheme are too newly arrived: upstarts to be weeded out and excluded.
My understanding of ‘where my dad’s coming from’ is born and borne of love, rather than experience. I’m 11 years old and this much I already know; his nomadic, colonialised, upbringing has shaped him. My mother, a Fifer, is 5’ 2”, white and fair. Pretty. I’d like to look like her. In fact I do look like her but don’t yet know it. It will take time for me to see beyond my colour to the striking resemblances we share. My dad met her in the fifties in Sandy Bells. As a student in Aden (then a British protectorate) he’d excelled, leading him to Edinburgh University. To me he is a giant, dark and strong. Often doting but equally likely to be ranting and railing – frequently in the languages he has neglected to teach my elder brother and me – Somali and Arabic. These are my roots: conceived in Aden (British rule), flee disturbances; born Mogadishu in ‘65 (ex-Italian rule, just); come with my mum and brother to live with my loving grandparents in Kirkcaldy, ’66 (English rule?). Dad follows later.
So here I am: it’s 70s Edinburgh. I’m not so sheltered. Believe me I know about racism. I’ve been spat at, called sambo, blackie, wog, Paki and nig-nog more times than I care to mention. My brother plays football, is popular, a boy - has fists if needs be. I react verbally but we all know that the saying “sticks and stones …” is a lie. I’ve always known that. My mum has equipped me with this: a desire to shield me as best she can. I shield her: don’t tell her unless it’s a day that I can’t hold back the tears and frustration.
Frequently I’m told by well intentioned wifeys, “Ach, you really must be feelin’ the cold”. I want to tell them: “I know nothing else, can’t remember the heat of the African sun, being carried through the cosmopolitan streets of Mogadishu, the languages: Italian, Somali, Arabic being banded around the markets, the call to mosque”. I am 11 years old. I know Edinburgh - a wee bit, ma bit. I’m given sweets or pennies for “my bonnie hair”, and more disturbingly for my “beautiful teeth”, how equine (right enough, Jacqueline and I do play horses, cantering right into the lift). In my room sits the golliwog, won at the bingo by an old lady, struck by its resemblance to me, thus gifted. I am 11 years old. Old enough to be polite, she means well. I think, ‘perhaps she’s too old to know better’.
Today hasn’t been a day like that: on a day like this I’ve had no need to chant about sticks or stones. I do not yet suffer from that sinking Sunday evening feeling that starts with Songs of Praise and ends in an insomniacs list of all the things I should have done with my weekend. I love school. I love my teacher. I love the new venchie, the canal, what’s left of the woods, the tarzan. I love my friends. I love this family; we will gather together now and fall into silence. Sprawl in front of the telly. That’s our unspoken, unplanned, plan.
Whit’s this am watching? It’s no the news, where I often see black people - starving or fighting. It’s no sports, where we support the black winners - Mohammed Ali, Pele, and the Harlem Globetrotters. It’s no Top of the Pops – too many greats to mention. It is’nae a variety show with Shirley Bassey – my favourite party piece, though am a terrible singer. No, this is different. This is an American drama - it’s called Roots.
The first episode has ended, my face drenched; nose streaming. Dad rounds on me, “why’re you crying?”, as though I’m an idiot for not being born imprinted with man’s inhumanity to man. I know cruelty. I’ve seen it on the telly, the streets and in the playground. I know about bullies, famine, war and poverty. But slavery? Thoughtlessly I’ve sung Amazing Grace. I’m 11-years-old and this isn’t in my ken. Why’s he angry at me? Is he angry at mum? She’s white.
“Oi, Kunta Kinte!” Here they come. At the sweetshop, the venchie, on the bus to the Odeon Saturday morning picture show, it resonates … for years. I’m indignant: can’t they even be bothered to remember a female character’s name? Kizzy’d do me.
It’s 1977. There’s no Black History Month. No One Scotland ads. No belief it happens here – not enough of us to provoke racism, apparently. I’m definitely black: got to be - I’m not white. Later I’m issued another label; half-caste. I reject it. I’m completely and wholly me. I come from the Calders, from Scotland, from Somalia … from this world. These are my roots.
