Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s autobiography answers her own question

“I have always been a ‘tough cookie’,” Yassmin Abdel-Magied writes in her autobiography. Was that a joke?. Picture: Kym Smith

“If I were to think about ... injustice too hard I would wallow in pity and all-consuming anger,” wrote media personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied in her autobiography Yassmin’s Story: Who Do You Think I Am?. That was in 2016, and it would be another year before the then 24 year old’s controversial Anzac Day Facebook post ‘Lest We Forget: (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)’ appeared.

At that time, Abdel-Magied had been living a life of privilege. Born in Sudan, she, along with her family, left a third-world dictatorship and found refuge in Australia, thanks to the generosity of a Christian family. A bright student, she studied engineering and graduated with first-class honours. As an African Muslim migrant woman, she rated highly on the intersectionality scoreboard, and was feted as a success story. She hosted an ABC television show, and gave frequent interviews to the media. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade paid for her to travel throughout Africa to plug her book. Yassmania, you might say.

Yet the warning signs of her not being mature enough for this elevation were obvious well before her controversial post. In February 2017, as a panellist on ABC’s QandA, she engaged in an unseemly shouting match with then senator Jacqui Lambie over the definition of sharia law. In 2016, she was the face of contrived anger and outrage at the 2016 Brisbane Writers’ Festival after walking out when American author Lionel Shriver rightfully dissed the commissars of so-called cultural appropriation in her keynote address.

“The stench of privilege hung heavy in the air,” wrote Abdel-Magied. “‘Mama, I can’t sit here”,’ I said, the corners of my mouth dragging downwards. ‘I cannot legitimise this’. My mother’s eyes bore into me, urging me to remain calm ... I shook my head, as if to shake off my lingering doubts. As I stood up, my heart began to race.” If you think the histrionics had peaked, just consider this assertion: “It’s the kind of attitude that lays the foundation for prejudice, for hate, for genocide.”

“Humility,” she continued with much high dudgeon, “is not Shriver’s cloak of choice.” It isn’t exactly Magied’s either, but more on that later. Given her supposed abhorrence of cultural appropriation, she might ponder the irony of paraphrasing ‘Lest we forget’ on Anzac Day for self-aggrandisement. But that would require self-awareness.

She had apologised for her Facebook post, prefacing this with a cloak of innocence clause. “It was brought to my attention that my last post was disrespectful,” she said. How sincere was this apology? Put it this way: she took to Twitter on the eve of Remembrance Day last year to repeat the offensive remark.

#LestWeForget.

(Manus) https://t.co/hPEhiza8Un

— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) November 11, 2017

Last week she endorsed a call from Sally Rugg, a former GetUp!director and Incoming Change.org national director, for thousands of people to tweet “Lest we forget (Manus)” on Anzac Day. “Do it,” tweeted Magied. It appears the only thing she is truly sorry for is the loss of her taxpayer-funded tiara.

Since leaving Australia, she has made much of the circumstances of her departure, recounting her tales-of-woe on the speakers’ circuit.

“I have … no shits left to give,” she said when interviewed on Channel Ten’s The Project last year. You could say most of the country felt the same.

Unfortunately the dastardly spectre of discrimination continues to haunt her. “I’m currently at the border and they’ve said I’m being deported,” tweeted Magied last fortnight, having travelled to the United States for a speaking engagement. “What are my rights?”

Oh, and they still have my passport. Apparently I can’t be trusted with it until I’m in a foreign country because, as Officer Blees said, ‘planes get turned away back way too often and then...’

— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) April 12, 2018

Greens leader Richard Di Natale immediately sensed a conspiracy. “If reports are true, the Australian government needs to stand up to Donald Trump,” he tweeted.

Disturbing to hear that @yassmin_a, who was invited to speak about her experiences as a Muslim woman, has been deported from the USA despite holding a valid visa.

If reports are true, the Australian government needs to stand up to Donald Trump. #auspol

— Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) April 12, 2018

Not surprisingly, it turned out the US president had nothing to do with this so-called deportation. Magied was refused entry because she did not have the appropriate visa. “I have previously travelled to the United States on the visa that I sought entry with on this occasion,” she later said.

Statement: pic.twitter.com/q70IN9XN48

— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) April 12, 2018

She did not, however, specify whether those occasions involved her earning money.

True to form, she later claimed — as is her wont — she was the victim of discrimination. “If you are a person of privilege, a white straight male going through border security, you have a sense of assuredness this system has your back. You believe the rule of law is there to protect you,” she said in a video forum.

Perhaps Magied has a faulty memory. As detailed in her autobiography, she secured employment in 2011 with engine manufacturer Ricardo in the south of England. She lasted half a day. Guess why?

It wasn’t until after lunch when HR called me that things began to unravel.

‘Yassmin, do you mind bringing over your work visa?’

I told her I’d thought the company had sorted out my visa.

‘Oh no, we never look after visa applications,’ she informed me. ‘It’s always the employee’s responsibility. Well, if you don’t have a work visa you can’t be an employee, and if you’re not an employee we can’t have you on the premises. You’re going to have to leave.’

They kicked me out.

It was the most embarrassing, humiliating, wretched experience I had ever had. I was certain the person who organised my contract had assured me there was nothing more I needed to do. Somehow, I had missed out on a crucial part of the whole process and just came in on a tourist visa.

The then 19-year-old could be forgiven for her naivety in not confirming she had the required visa. What does it say though of the now 27-year-old — a frequent international jetsetter — who appears to have made the same mistake? Also, what does it say that she does not acknowledge her ineptitude in this latest saga, but instead blames the privilege bogeyman?

Again, her autobiography is revealing. As a 15-year-old, Magied began giving speeches as an activist, but she acknowledged she played to the audience. “I’m ashamed to say that I embellished my problems with discrimination and being accepted in society to gain approval from the Socialist Alliance group,” she wrote. “I played up to their expectations in my speech, when we were protesting and at any opportunity.” You could say not much has changed.

Reading her book, I was constantly wondering how many 24-year-olds had a life story worthy of a book, and one comprising over 350 pages at that. Perhaps William Pitt the Younger, who at that age became Prime Minister of Britain, but then again that was white male privilege. As for Magied’s story, the tedious prose often resembles that of an adolescent’s diary.

“The last encounter I will mention is with the Big O. Obama! I had the opportunity to shake his hand when he last visited Australia, and I was stoked because he is certainly the coolest POTUS ... Me and Obama are tight, is what I’m saying!” Or this: “The school of life set hard exams, yo.”

“I have always been a ‘tough cookie’,” she writes. Was that a joke? “Islam is about being humble, communal, not focused on oneself.” Do tell. Or this description of a fellow migrant colleague: “He was the typical masculine rig bloke: a Kiwi, hefty and opinionated, an ego as large as his biceps — and they were sizeable biceps.” Magied herself was an accomplished bench-presser at school, but clearly this was just one of many things these two workers had in common.

“My preferred modus operandi is to minimise fuss, to ‘wear’ it, to weather the storm and then rebuild from the wreckage,” she writes. Again, bear in mind this was written in 2016. Not bad coming from someone who has built a new career on perpetual wailing. But this last excerpt is the prize gem: “It does frustrate me that I now have a public profile built on the assumption that I enjoy outrage.”

So, Yassmin, in regards to your question Who Do You Think I Am, the answer is obvious, and it is to be found in the significant difference between your words and your actions. For pity’s sake, please stop the yassmoaning.