Lessons we can learn from the secret life of Sir Mo

As for news it turns out, is that most of what we thought we knew about Mo Farah was wrong. Yes, he is a great runner, and there is no doubt about that. But instead of legally immigrating to Great Britain from war-torn Somalia as a young man, as one might expect, the truth is far more complex – and compelling. On Tuesday, as part of some pre-publicity for a documentary to be released on Wednesday, word broke that Mo Farah was not her real name but someone else’s, and instead of arriving legally with her parents, she was illegally trafficked to the UK. . at the age of nine and spent his first years in the country doing what is essentially the same as unpaid child labour.

“Most people know me as Mo Farah, but that’s not my name, or it’s not reality,” Farah said under the barrel of the camera. “The real story is that I was born as Husein Abdi Kahin. Despite what I have said in the past, my parents never lived in England.”

Get?

He was an illegal immigrant, who came up with a fake name.

He appropriately descriptions of the people the British government hates the most these days because they’re about to start a program to get such people flown straight to – get this – Rwanda, to put in camps.

(Where did they get the idea to do such a terrible thing? We can only imagine, huh?)

The plan gets a lot of support because, you know, illegal immigrants who come in under false names are, you know, the scum of cheaters on earth, and so don’t deserve to be treated with any humanity.

Four-time Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah after he was knighted by the Queen in 2017.Credit:PA

But wait, Sir Mo has those fraudulent trash credentials, but we know he’s not like that himself?

Yes and that is the right point.

“I had all the contact details for my relatives,” said Sir Mo in the documentary, “and as soon as we got to his house the woman took it off me and right in front of me tore it up and put it in the trash and that was when I knew I was in a rut. problem. If I want food in my mouth, my job is to look after the kids, bathe them, cook for them, clean for them. And he said, ‘If you want to see your family again, say nothing. If you say something, they will take you away’.”

Complex, huh? And destroy.

And it equally describes the story of so many illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and others, whatever their legal status.

In his case, Sir Mo continued to make great contributions to the good name of England, despite an illegal immigrant arriving with forged papers.

So, could it be that instead of being the earth’s trash, most Illegal immigrants are actually just like him: just desperate people, ready to go to any destination to escape the death and destruction they have experienced in hopes of getting a better life for them and their families?

Exactly, I said.

In Australia, we have felt it in general with the demonization of the #Biloela family, who had 50 uniformed men attacked them at dawn just hours after their visas expired, which then led to them being detained on Christmas Island for three years as a shipping hazard! Now that they are back in Biloela, which has welcomed them with open arms, it turns out that they are just like most other families – just like us, but desperate for a better and safer life.

Load

In sport, through Novak Djokovic being detained for a week in January and talking about it, we become aware that some of his fellow prisoners on the Melbourne block have been there for a long time. nine years. Djokovic has the fine gift – at a time when he is unknown – to use his own situation to draw attention to their plight as well.

The difference in Sir Mo Farah’s case was that the story would resonate for more than a week.

“This is a very important story,” Rob McNeil, deputy director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said It New York Time Sir Mo’s situation. “If you don’t create a moment where the extraordinary shines through the ordinary, you run the risk of a situation where the ordinary is kept out of people’s eyes.”

This is a good time. How many of them were in the spotlight when Djokovic was here with a similar story? How much of a contribution can be made to Australia that can strengthen us?

I would say a lot, on both counts.

Sir Mo Farah’s story is more than his. It’s about us.

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

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