A Confession on Choosing To Challenge by Shereener Browne
I start with a confession. I am not a fan of International Women’s Day/Month or indeed any other day of celebration invented for the modern, internet age. Every day in my calendar is women’s day/month. Why wouldn’t it be?
As an island girl, raised by an island girl and, for five of my formative years, raised on a tiny Caribbean island where woman is queen - it cannot be a surprise that in some way, every day is, for me, women’s day.
And as for the theme: choose to challenge? As an island girl born in England, my life has been a challenge without the choice. My life has been challenge personified. Where do I start?
Do I take you to Leeds the place of my birth? Where my very presence in almost every space outside of my home was a challenge, again, without choice? Or how about when I stubbornly refused to live down to the poor expectations some teachers had of me? Or perhaps the time I chose to challenge how society expects me to wear my hair? First, by going to the local barbershop with instructions to reduce my crown to a number one; and then secondly when I chose to permit my hair to knit and lock, falling to my shoulders in a curtain of locks.
No. I will tell you about the time I chose to challenge the bewigged, elderly white man, seated on a platform in front of me, a coat of arms on the wall above his head. A challenge on behalf of the defendant, a black man, an immigrant, my client, standing in the dock behind me.
The judge was red in the face, barely disguising his rage, as he shouted at me to get my client to admit his guilt. I refused. Not because he was innocent in the eyes of the law. But because he was innocent in the eyes of right-thinking people. And although he had breached the strict letter of the law, I insisted he exercise his right to be tried by a jury of his peers.
What was his “crime”? He was Somali and had fled his war-torn country with his wife and their newborn child. It was a perilous journey. On the back of an open-topped truck, packed with desperate people. Danger lurking behind every twist and bend in the dirt road. He had used every penny he had to pay people traffickers to convey him and his family to safety. To purchase the fake travel documents that was a necessary part of this journey.
Why did he do this? Why did he leave behind his comfortable middle-class life as an academic? The military regime had killed his father who was an out-spoken critic of the army. When they raped his sister, he knew he had to run. Now he stood in the dock of courtroom number 12 at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court, charged with possession of a false travel document. The very false document that was instrumental in saving his life and that of his young family.
So, I stood my ground. I refused to advise my client to plead guilty. I chose instead to challenge. We had that trial. The trial that was his right. A trial before twelve men and women of his peers. With tears stood in his eyes, he told the jury his story. About his journey. About leaving behind his mother, his sister. About how he longed to return to see the sun set behind Lake Mogadishu.
And when those twelve men and women returned a verdict of not guilty, delivering him up to freedom, he openly wept. The relief palpable.
Challenge has never truly been a choice with me. I was a stubborn child. Causing my mum to curse and hit me or the nearby table in frustration as I questioned everything, driving her to distraction. It must have been exhausting raising me. I never kept still. Never did as I was told. But all of this was for a reason. It was preparing me for a life of challenge. Challenging injustice. Challenging inequality. Choosing to push boundaries. The girl from Leeds.
This is the exclusive work of shereener browne and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without permission
Shereener is a barrister, actor and theatre-maker. She was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1996 and in her early years specialised in criminal defence law. She later changed focus to employment and discrimination law winning the Sidney Elland Goldsmith Bar Pro Bono Award in 2011 for her unpaid work in this area. She has also worked in the area of freedom of expression, censorship and contempt of court; working with the Guardian Newspaper and, until recently with News Group Papers as a freelance night lawyer.
In 2016 shereener returned to her childhood love of acting. Since then she has played Miss Julie & Lady Macbeth at the London Theatre; Mariam Sankara in Sankara at the Cockpit Theatre; Antonio in an all female The Tempest at the Brockley Jack Theatre and in 2019 completed a national tour to rave reviews in Pipeline Theatre’s Drip Drip Drip. Her screen credits include the multi-award winning short, BAiL, Kill Jill, Corona Connections, Moonshine, The Other End & Breathe. Shereener has recently finished filming her first full length feature, Dead on the Vine written & directed by award winning writer, Mark A Brown.
In 2018, shereener founded Orísun Productions, a theatre company aimed at creating opportunities for black creatives. As a theatre producer, shereener has produced a number of sell out shows including a play - still under development - that was a finalist for a prestigious theatre award. A former chair of the New Cross Gate Trust, a trustee at One World Media, founding chair of Friends of Eckington Gardens and a member of the advisory board to hARTSlane Studios, shereener is a tireless grass-roots campaigner. She is married with three children and lives, of course, in the endz.
