Mahabat Salih came to London from Suleimani in 1996 after her activities as a lawyer, and in particular her championing of women's rights, put her life in danger. Currently, she works for UK charities, and plans to complete a PhD. She likes clothes shopping in Southall, London.
First of all home is home and, being Kurd, because we always being threatened and being--, being suppressed because of our ethnicity, that made us really be very sensitive to our ethnicity and we are so much making a point every--, every occasion when they ask you where are you from, oh I'm from Kurdistan and I want to tell that person, 'oh please if you don't know where is Kurdistan, I want to tell you because Kurdistan doesn't exist on the map but it does exist in reality' and this is something you know--, I think this is a psychological thing that every Kurdish person has got that strong identity of the Kurdishness, that is--, that is one thing.
In terms of being a woman, I'm very British, I love being British and I really appreciate it because the opportunities being open to me as a woman and the respect that I receive from the system and from the law protecting a woman here, I am very British and I am so grateful for that and in terms of being human beings, we are all human beings and I--,
I don't only sense that, I am Kurdish, I am British, I very often sense that I am a Londoner in both ways: in a positive way that I learned a lot, and in a negative way that sometimes I get very much to be unfriendly especially with we go outside London, you know, and people become so friendly you get so anxious because you are so much learn to be a Londoner in a way that, you know, that Londoners they go--.
I mean sometimes you are on your way home commuting you know for 20--, 30 minutes or you are on the bus for 40 minutes. You don't speak to the person next to you which is very unusual, but we are--, because we are Londoners, we got used to it. So I mean my identity is a mixed identity of being Kurdish, of being British and of being very much Londoner.
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