Refugee Festival Scotland: Writer and actor Amira Al Shanti on her experience of dual identity

Refugee Festival Scotland runs between 13-22 June and will see more than 150 events taking place across Scotland, including some in Glasgow.

On Thursday, 19 June the Building Solidarity & Kinship literary performance night will showcase a series of poetry readings and spoken word performances from poets and spoken word artists at the Listen Gallery in the city.

Specially curated by the festival’s Programming Fellow, creative writer and researcher Esraa Husain, the event aims to platform diverse and underrepresented voices in Glasgow.

Performers including multi-disciplinary artist Saoirse Amira Anis, Yemeni poet and filmmaker Sawsan Al Areeqe, Scottish-Pakistani artist Aqsa Arif and Black Scottish comedian-poet Flora Weideger, will explore themes of kinship, refuge, migration, and self-expression through their powerful, moving pieces.

Also taking part is Scottish-Palestinian writer and actor Amira Al Shanti. Amira was born in Scotland to parents who were refugees from Palestine. Thanks to a UNRWA scheme, she, along with her siblings, was also able to be registered as a refugee.

“I suppose my experience is quite unique in that sense. I've not actually lived through displacement, but I do have that identity anyway, and I think that's probably quite common, specifically with generations that have kind of settled away from home,” Amira explained.

That experience has influenced her work and she hopes that it can bring awareness and accessibility to the topic in a way that helps people understand the experiences of refugees displaced to Glasgow and Scotland.

“This is my first event that I'm doing with the Refugee Festival Scotland, so I'm really excited to be a part of it, and really excited for Thursday's event. I think it will be a really enlightening event to hear from different perspectives. And I really think it's a great initiative in terms of helping the community come together,” she continued.

“I suppose, we're all quite guilty as humans of sitting in circles. So it's quite nice to have something that's actually city wide and encourages that kind of establishing connection.”

Amira will read from her writings that she said explored her duality as a Scot and as a Palestinian. She said it is an opportunity to explore the experience as witnessed from her parents perspective.

Whilst organisations like the Scottish Refugee Council and Glasgow-based Refuweegee have worked tirelessly for years to combat misconceptions about refugees, those attitudes are still prevalent in some areas. However, festivals like Refugee Festival Scotland are an opportunity to address those misconceptions and raise awareness, according to Amira.

“It's a way to kind of spread awareness, to increase understanding and to create connections. I think festivals are just an amazing way to do that. By actually highlighting a cause for a week, and getting people to come along and connect in that way. And I just think that art is just such a great medium for that. To be honest, I think it can really elicit that kind of emotional response better than any sort of news article,” she said.

It is a potentially worrying time for refugee communities across the world and Amira said that it is important that spaces for refugees are protected where possible.

“I think there's just so much controversy at the moment, and things are just going from bad to worse, to be honest, even just looking at the ICE raids and LA and what's going on over there,” Amira said. “Even though that's not happening here, there's a trickle down effect. And I think we really need to protect these spaces as much as possible.”

Refugee Festival Scotland runs between 13-22 June. You can catch the Building Solidarity & Kinship literary performance on Thursday, 19 June at Listen Gallery, Glasgow.