Maryam: I am Maryam Jhabir… I go by Merm, that’s my nickname! I am 28 years old, and at the moment I’m currently splitting my time between Dundee and Edinburgh, I’ll be real… I was stationed here for Uni, but then the whole covid thing happened… So now I’m back home in Edinburgh. But I try to visit! Because it’s a lovely city, and it’s Sam’s home…

[We pan over to her golden retriever, Samwise, who is running around the park.]

Rhi: What a good boy!

Merm: This is his favourite place in the city… And therefore, my favourite place! So yeah. Thats kinda me… I started off my life wanting to do something sciency.. And I went to do bio-medicine at Norritch uni. And kind of just… A combination of big life events and the course - it wasn't what I wanted it to be, so… I decided to just. Cut ties! I bailed, I moved back to Edinburgh. I think part of the reason it was so hard is because it was so far away. It was just… Not where I needed to be at that point in my life. So I came back, I re-evaluated, and I looked at my notes… This is my sort of, go-to story, heheh. I looked at my notes and they were COVERED in drawings. More drawing than notes. And throughout my life, people have always suggested I pursue it, and I always maintained it was just a hobby, but… No! It’s something I love! So I started looking into courses. I also spent a lot of time gaming. I love the medium, there’s so much to it… The interactivity… the connection to the narrative… I want to look at gaming. So I looked up some courses, and animation at DJCAD looked pretty good, and… The rest as they say is history!

[In the background, we see Sam run up to a stranger and receive pets.]

Rhi: So if you could describe your creative practice…

Merm: In a perfect world… I would love to either go down the animation route with gaming… or the writing route with gaming! I love to write. But at the time I started looking for courses… Writing for games wasn’t quite the niche it is now. So… We went down the animation path, and I decided to work towards gaming from there. But the writing and the art have sort of… Come into one with story boarding, so. There we go!

Rhi: Okay! So. Tell me a little bit about your time in Dundee so far!

Merm: So… I guess like everywhere, there are ups and downs. I’ve enjoyed where I live in the city… I’m right across from the uni, so it’s nice to be around the campus. I’ve worked in the city center, so it’s been nice to get to know that area… I will say there have been… Not disappointments, but. Frustrations, I guess, at what the city could be. You know, the streets are full of to-let signs, and… There’s a lot of unrealised potential. But it’s been… very soothing to have nature so close by. Tentsmuir, or… You know, for Edinburgh, you have to drive for a while before you get anywhere… Sam! Aha, Sam, come back!

[In the background, we see him pestering more walkers for pets.]

Merm: Generally, yeah! I feel very positively about Dundee. And most of the negative things are things that you get everywhere. I guess the thing is I’m… SUCH a homebody. I love being with my family, my parents… I think I’d feel homesick wherever I went. But Dundee has felt very… Nice about that. Especially where I live. It’s got a lovely atmosphere.

Rhi: Brilliant… Would you like to tell me a little bit about your family history and your heritage, and what it means to you?

Merm: Sure! So… My mum is Scottish-Irish. I’d say we identify more with the Irish heritage than the Scottish… My dad is from Iraq. He moved here in his twenties for uni, and met my mum. And the rest is history! They always tell me how their eyes met over the dance floor…

Me: Ahhh, that’s lovely!

Merm: Yeah… they went out for ages, and then got married and had me and my brother! So I’m… Very proud of my heritages. Both sides… It’s been hard with the Iraqi half because of the war and everything, so I’ve never been to Iraq. I visited Syria before everything happened, but I’ve never been to Iraq. I also don’t speak Arabic, which sucks, but… that mostly comes from my dad working fourteen hour days to make ends meet when I was younger. You know, he’d come home tired, he wouldn’t want to speak Arabic… It was frustrating, but. I have been learning myself lately! Mostly because I have so many cousins I’ve never spoken to… And the ones that I have, it’s been a bit awkward! Ahah... I am very proud of my heritage, but unfortunately I can’t really say it’s had… Much of an impact on me culturally. You know, I look ethnic, but culturally… And I think that’s often frustrated me. Because I can go days, weeks--”

[Bagpipes begin to drone off screen. We pan over to the gazebo on the Magdalene green, where some young men have begun to practice.]

Rhi: Oh my god, lads!

Merm: Are you kidding me?

[We laugh. The camera cuts.]

Merm: Where was I…

Rhi:  Our heritages… I think your experience was very similar to mine. Growing up, I didn’t have any access to my indian heritage… You know, my mum was a baby when she came over here. And I never had any… any way of connecting with India. And it’s only now that I’m looking into it myself that I’m beginning to develop that connection.

Merm: I think definitely… You know, I mean, colonialism…

[We laugh grimly.]

Merm: It’s hard to overstate the… damage it really has done. When I look back, parts of the reason why my dad wasn’t invested in connecting us with our heritage is because he was so disappointed in what Iraq was becoming when he left. And why would he want to encourage a connection with a country he was so disillusioned with? He tells me a lot about the golden age of Iraq, in the eighties when he was leaving… it was slowly becoming, you know, Sadam’s country and… Yeah. The worst for me was starting off with no cultural connection. And feeling okay with that. I could go weeks and months without thinking ‘I’m a brown person’. To me, I was just another white child in my white school, until someone mentioned something. About my skin colour, or where I was from… And it would suddenly be “Oh! You’re not from here.” You know? Which is HORRIFIC.

Rhi: Yes.

Merm: But yeah… it’s that ‘Othering.’ The conflict between… I belong here, I’m culturally speaking more Scottish than I am Iraqi. But just because I look a certain way, obviously I can’t be from here, and I owe people an explanation. And it’s hard to describe how difficult that feels. From the outside it might not seem like a lot, but. It is. And I’m sure you know that too.

Rhi: Mmhmm.

Merm: And it’s the same with… I’m so particular about my name. Because. My name isn’t hard! But the amount of people who get all twisted up around it… That’s why I just go by a nickname now. I like my nickname, and I don’t mind people using it… I’d rather people use it than butcher my full name, but. You know… I  don’t want to sound like I’m being overly picky or… It shouldn’t be a problem! It’s not that tricky, you know?

Rhi: Yeah.. There always is that pressure. Not to kick up a fuss, to make yourself easily consumable. To make yourself small enough to fit within their boxes. And I think it’s very difficult for people who have mixed heritages like us, because it’s so easy to feel alienated from both sides.

Merm: Yeah… I have a friend who’s Sri Lankan-Tamil. And her parents always go on about how they want her to marry another Sri Lankan-Tamil, and… If I were to marry within my race- you know, that’s an extremely small box! And she had never even thought of that before, so… And it’s crazy! And there’s also, you know. The colonialist thing… If I were to introduce myself as Iraqi, people would accept it without question. But if I were to say that I was white…People would be like…

Rhi: ‘Oooh, are you though? Don’t know about that!’

[We chuckle morosely.]

Merm: One of my cousins, in a similar situation to mine… Her face is very Arabic, but she’s super pale. So she often just passes as white, and if she says that she’s Arabic, people say ‘Huh? I don’t see it!’. And for me - I don’t look that Arabic at all! If I had white skin, I’d probably look white! But as soon as I mention my heritage, ‘Oh yes, I see it!’

[More despairing laughter.]

Merm: But yes, you’re right. There is this pressure to conform. And if you call people out on the small things - they get very defensive. There are so many similarities between… You know, the unintended, average white person’s internalized racism, which they don’t mean, versus.. You know, men and mansplaining. They don’t mean to be patronizing, but they often are. And I don’t know about you, but I’m so conditioned not to raise a fuss, so... How do you go about explaining how much it can hurt? It’s difficult.

Rhi: Yeah, definitely.

Merm: Yeah… My Sri Lankan friend, her parents kept telling her not to marry outside of her race because having a mixed race kid is… Complicated. Which I disagree with. Well - I mean, it’s complicated, but. So she came to me, and she was like ‘It’s fine, isn’t it?’ And of course it is, but. She wanted the easy answer, and it’s complex. It’s not easy. There’s so much that goes into it, and to consider… I don’t think my parents were naive exactly, but I don’t think they… Considered a lot of the implications. It’s like colour blind casting… ‘Oh, as long as we treat them the same, it’ll be fine!’ But. We’re not the same.

Rhi: Yeah.

Merm: And the experience and the heritage of every mixed race person will be so different, you know? My experience will differ from yours, which would differ from someone else… People use ‘mixed race’ as a category, but it’s a thousand categories.

Rhi: yes. I think it’s a conversation that isn’t had often enough.

Merm: Yes… And I find myself getting so defensive of mixed race people. Because whenever there’s some argument or issue online involving a mixed race person, you know… Both sides abandon them. There’s nobody in their corner. People have a lot of… Internalised biases which need to be addressed. Like I was very… I had to decolonise my own mind a LOT. And I don’t think I would have got there if people kept shitting on me for being mixed race.

[We go on to discuss the importance of the Magdalene Green to Merm in terms of her mental health, and raising her dog. Unfortunately it begins to rain. We wait for it to stop, but only grows heavier, and with a weary, amused, ‘Son of a bitch…’ I turn off the camera. The video ends.]