Ameena Hussein stands where she is today having come from traditional beginnings. “I grew up in a very conservative Muslim family with all my relatives [living] around me…we had a very lovely childhood. [I]t was before television, and before any of these devices, so we spent a lot of time playing, listening to older people tell stories, and eating fabulous food”. While Ameena’s childhood was very sociable, she has also grown now to realize it was very “insular”. She grew up in an age and culture where girls were expected to behave and speak in a certain way, and would then go on to live specific kinds of lives. However, this didn’t stop Ameena from wanting to become her true self, “I always thought differently; I think I was born a feminist”. She confesses that her nature of not accepting everything society dictated towards women and girls gave her parents a hard time, eventually labeling her as an outspoken and stubborn girl.
Two beautiful artifacts very dear to Ameena were simply a little bell, and a book called “Beyond the Veil” by Fatima Mernissi. The former is a remembrance of the days Ameena was ill with cancer, and her husband gifted her the bell to ring when she needed something. It now serves as a reminder of their compassionate and supportive partnership and what they have overcome together. The book written by Mernissi, a Moroccan Sociologist, which she read in her 20s changed her entire life. It showed her that there were other Muslim women in the world asking similar questions and questioning their role in life and the world.
While most would like to narrate their life from a rewarding and self-accomplished perspective, Ameena’s approach is very different. Ameena is a humble, lively person, and defines herself quite simply as “a Sri Lankan woman storyteller”. Simplicity is happiness to her. When asked what brings her a smile day to day, she shares that it's “blue skies, my mango tree… children’s laughter, or a strongly made cup of tea…just the fact that I am alive..it’s the little things of life.” Likewise, when asked about life obstacles, she identifies them as stepping stones and embodies vulnerability with utmost grace.
Ameena’s creative journey began as a “Happy Accident”. Having grown up in a time where girls weren’t expected to have any ambitions, and her personal upbringing was one where girls weren’t expected to have a career, much less study, it was this “Happy Accident” that allowed Ameena to go to University. She shares that as a child, she had dreams, but she also knew her reality came with limitations. “even as a child, you know there are certain possibilities that are not open to you. [S]o, you don't dream about those things, but within you there is always an internal struggle, so maybe I always had an internal struggle in trying to find a way where I could do what I wanted to do, and still make other people happy”.
She believes that her upbringing had made her life a little harder - she was impacted by the need to balance tradition, culture, and modernity, and this is a struggle she still endures today. She acknowledges that she was heavily impacted by the era she was brought up in. Being born in the middle 60s and brought up in the 70s and 80s, she reflects on the times when patriarchal traditions strictly dominated people’s mindsets to believe that the only acceptable life for a girl was one where she was domesticated. Unfortunately, in those times, there were few support or role models for a passionate young girl dreaming of a different kind of life for herself.
Despite her challenging experiences, she is thankful to witness women and girls of this era in Sri Lanka who have a mind and voice for themselves. However, Ameena recognizes that women are still primarily identified as caregivers, “they are the ones who still have certain responsibilities because we are an intensely patriarchal society, and we [find ourselves falling] into those roles as well”.
We talked about navigating obstacles and hardships when Ameena beautifully articulated her ethos and attitude towards them as opportunities for growth. She humbly states that “I like to think of things in a positive light, even with what we are going through now. I know things are going to get difficult, but I kind of navigate it differently … so now during power cuts, I actually enjoy them because it gives me a legitimate excuse to shut my computer down, lie down on my carpet and watch the sky; or if the weather is good, I could sit outside in my balcony under the mango tree. [I]t's an opportunity to slow down, unwind, and take care of ourselves”, she continues, “anyone can see anything as a gift. I had cancer; I think of it actually as a gift. It taught me a hell of a lot. And wonderful, wonderful, good things came out of it.” The gratefulness for life and navigating everything that comes with it with so much grace is perhaps one of Ameena’s strongest virtues.
She considers herself fortunate for having been able to study at a foreign university, having completed her undergraduate studies at the University of La Verne, California, and her Masters degree at the University of Southern California. She also began a PhD programme at the University of South California but decided to forgo it after she completed her qualifying exams. She remembers “floating” in most classes and modules, not really being interested or understanding what was going on. However, it was different with the sociology classes, “one day, I walked into the sociology class, and oh my god, from the very first day, I was interested, because they were asking the questions I had [been asking] about my life, and they were telling me how to figure it out. And I thought, you know, I can actually do this, this is something I can do. And that's how I did my first degree in sociology.”
Her writing is an integral part of who she is and is heavily shaped by her education as a sociologist. Most of her writing are ideas and questions that germinate in her mind but also reflect her society and community, particularly as a a Muslim woman. She discloses the research, attention, and effort that goes into all her pieces of work: “it's a very delicate balance, being a writer. I think [it’s]because what we put on paper [will always be] there…,as long as the book is in print, you have to be really sure of your facts”.
While her writing aims to deliver a message and a beautiful experience to her readers, Ameena writes for herself too. Her surroundings influence the stories she narrates. She remembers a scenario where while on a walk, she witnessed a Muslim girl and a boy sitting together. The girl had her shawl resting on her shoulder, and her hair was blowing freely in the wind. It was a gorgeous sight. She shares“so I then thought, I have to write that in a story…just seeing that image, and seeing what generally people assume about Muslim girls who cover up and that they are a certain kind of person...here was this girl really enjoying herself in the company of a boy holding hands and swinging them together. .. it was so playful. I thought that was a wonderful image. Now that has gone somewhere in my head, and it will come out in some form or the other.”
Ameena’s strength has been her friends, family, and her very supportive husband with whom she co-founded their publishing house “Perera Hussein”. She acknowledges that her first book was very “in your face”, causing many men to comment how she is “too much”, has a “big mouth”, and is “too much of a feminist”. Despite these occasional encounters with fragile masculinity, Ameena cannot relate to such characters in her day-to-day life, reflecting on how her husband, Sam Perera, is a confident, self-assured man unshaken by a strong woman who was supportive through every step of her career and their life together. She further appreciates her older sister, who was the first to embrace all that she is: “My sister and I have always been close, even though we are like chalk and cheese. [S]he has always been the one I turned to, to help mediate with my parents through the various difficult phases of my life”. She shares how her sister accepted every decision Ameena made about her life, even if she didn’t necessarily believe in them. Like all sisters, they fought but Ameena could never imagine a life without her loving sister. And lastly, she says with a pause and smile, “I think, now my mother has come to learn to love me, you know? After all the torture and heartache that I put her into initially, she understands me better, and I think she sees herself in me as well”. Like every mother of that generation and perhaps even today, she well-meaningly wished for her daughters to be accepted by social standards of being “good girls”: “[My mother] believed I put her in a difficult position in society by being none of the things that was expected of a good Muslim girl of that time and age”, Ameena reflects. Now at a wiser age, the roles have changed. Ameena oversees her mother’s well-being, and her mother has begun to understand Ameena and is proud of all that her daughter has achieved in her life, offering Ameena a sense of peace that they’ve both found their way here together in the end.
The Perera Hussein Publishing House is one of Ameena’s proudest works. She began the publishing house at a time when small, independent publishing houses were few and far between in Sri Lanka. The very purpose of creating a publishing house was to ensure that creative writing by Sri Lankan and South Asian writers was published. She credits her husband for the trust he placed in her dream, leaving a lucrative career and life in Switzerland to build something together in Sri Lanka. Before starting her journey as a writer, Ameena was a sociologist working in the human rights field with an emphasis on gender and race studies. To start a publishing house meant that they had to step out of their stable salaries and comfort zones and explore a whole new world of building a business from scratch despite having no previous experience in the area at all. They made the publishing house and its work the center of their lives, pursuing the founding purpose of ensuring Sri Lankan and South Asian creative writing was given due recognition and published.
While discussing the current economic and humanitarian crisis and the protests taking place islandwide, Ameena reflects on how for people in Sri Lanka sometimes, “just to be alive is a form of resistance.” Although people might not be able to actively participate in public protests, queuing for hours for fuel, enduring the restrictions to quality of life and income, and yet not letting life’s miserable instances overpower them is a form of resistance. She further defines that resistance doesn’t have to be militant. It is being aware of how diverse and large this world is, being aware of how people are different, and standing up for others who are treated in a manner they do not deserve.
Lastly, while she celebrates and shares with us the great writing by other women authors, such as poets Ramya Jeerasinghe and Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, authors Nayomi Munaweera, Shankari Chandran, and Kamila Shamsie, she advises people to read books without being indiscriminate. She believes that if you allow yourself to explore different writings without sticking to a known, or recognized author or genre, it might just change your point of view or of life as a whole. She is encouraged to see a world where youth are taking the lead in deciding what is best for themselves and society. Ameena’s advice to them is “ to create a world where you have a future but also one where many generations can live harmoniously together. You are where you are because a previous generation fought for you. I am where I am because of all the men and women who fought before for the rights and privileges I enjoy.”
Reference Links and Further Reading
Ameena Hussein, singaporewritersfestival, https://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/writer-presenter-details/ameena-hussein
Ameena Hussein, Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/466337.Ameena_Hussein
Notes
This article is pending support to be translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
Please email storiesofslwomen@everystorysl.org if you would like to support us with translations or if you have any questions.