SARAH MACDONALD
Vancouver, Canada - Felice News
Published Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 4:11PM EST
Last Updated Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 5:01PM EST

VANCOUVER -- In her newly published memoir, With All My Might, Gabriella Naseem Akhtar van Rij reveals the painful trials of a life continuously lived as the ‘other’. This label was one from which she seldom escaped, being a dark-skinned Pakistani child adopted into Dutch society in the 1960’s, a time where cross cultural adoption had yet to be popularized by Angelina Jolie and Madonna. She found her voice through the rubble of a fear-ravaged life, where bullying, racism and unattainable expectations took center stage. Her voice is now very much empowered, bold but kind and wisdom-filled; it has something to say about fear, conformity and not belonging.

This woman, whose energy is compared to that of dynamite, relays to me over brunch how her “beautiful, very hip and regal (adoptive) mother”, was enamored by the brown eyed children who were being adopted all throughout Europe due to the Eastern European conflicts in the 1960’s. The wife of a Dutch diplomat, she harbored the pious yet romantic vision of providing an orphan a good life and thus set the fertile ground for Gabriella’s entrance into their lives. In 1966, through unimaginable synchronicity, three year old Gabriella was the chosen one to be flown from Pakistan to the Netherlands.

Even though she was raised Dutch and could speak the language as fluently as any Dutch native, her different appearance barred her from complete societal acceptance. She felt as if she straddled two worlds, the Netherlands and Pakistan, yet was prevented from belonging to either. “When people look at me, they see an Indian woman. The moment I open my mouth, they’re not sure any more”.

In school, she faced constant ostracism and cruel bullying. No matter how hard she tried, could never fit in. This exceptionally short, dark skinned girl stood beside her tall, blond haired, blue eyed classmates in school pictures, shown published in her book. She stood out unmistakably.

Her pain was also exacerbated by her unassailable tempestuous and wild disposition. She had a passion that could not be tamed and it was a source of great guilt throughout her early life, that she could not fulfill her mother’s expectations of her. She found it nearly impossible to do anything her parents told her to do.  If she was told one thing, she would most likely do the opposite, she explained matter of factly. There was a deep part of her that could not conform to the strictures of her parent’s upper-class society.

The sun pours through the windows of an ocean front restaurant where we sit and I’m amazed that all this has happened to this vibrant, cheerful woman with lips tinted a bright red and a sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

She uses her hash browns to demonstrate the dynamics of bullying, separating one to the periphery of her plate while the others stay clustered in their safe huddle. She explains how “silence is complicity” and the bystander is by no means an innocent person.

She wonders what it is that makes the bully so powerful that the whole group succumbs, even when the group often doesn’t agree. “When the bystander does something, anything, not even with words but just positions their body a little bit closer to the downtrodden one, the perfect balance within bullying is disrupted”. She explains that this simple movement disrupts the balance and the bully looses their momentum; the necessary chaos, the free-flowing playground movement, is restored.

Although she never experienced the kindness of such a soul, she feels that these types of people who stand up for their fellow school mates and friends will never be forgotten by the bullied.  

The bullying did not end once she left the precincts of the playground; even into her adult life, the experience of prejudice and racism was ever present. Going through customs at an airport is strenuous as she is often pulled aside, interrogated, even stripped searched because her Dutch passport states she was born in Pakistan. Her Flemish in-laws refused to ever meet her, because she was dark. The relations remained strained even when her child was born and elaborate arrangements were made so as to prevent a single meeting with their son’s ‘dark wife’.

Gabriella reflects on her experience as an adopted child: “When we are born to birth parents we also have connection to the land, a spot that you can call earth and earth equals home. For a lot of people that’s a sense of belonging. That is the one feeling I have no idea what it’s like. For years and years I tried to find that, my piece of earth”.

After years of searching and yearning for the impossible, she shifted her perspective. She came to the realization that “It is ok not to belong to a group of people, it is ok to be independent and it is definitely ok to be alone…” She wondered if she could “create that feeling from something within that you feel no matter where you are”.

She searched what she called “her own finger print”.  The moment she found that part of herself, “it all connected”.  What she means by her own finger print is the belonging that derives from knowing yourself, not from your customs, your family or your possessions.  “You never need to look outside for a sense of belonging…as a human being we derive strength from within...that’s where the acceptance comes from”.

Gabriella gives talks about bullying and racism at schools, sharing her story with the message that it’s ok to not belong.  It grants us permission to resist, or give up, the tireless search for belonging from some outside source, an activity which bears fickle results at best, as she learned. She points to the strong inner center which inevitably carries us through the unavoidable twists and turns of life, kind of like that fateful plane ride which brought three year old Gabriella through impossible odds to her new family across the world.

Now living in Vancouver at the age of 48 and a mother of one, she has a successful career in marketing, is working on her third book and travels the world to promote them.  She also has an impressive repertoire of volunteering and is proud of her work teaching computer skills to seniors.  

She may come in a small package, but do not be mistaken, “her spirit is six feet tall”, exclaim her close friends with profound endearment.