As told to Joseph Food.
I came to Sheffield from Somalia and grew up in the Exeter Drive flats, just behind the Shell petrol station on Ecclesall Road. My mum was thrown in at the deep end in trying to get her head around the language and a culture that she didn’t really understand. She’d left a war zone and arrived here, a post-industrial city still recovering from years of Thatcherism and struggling with high levels of unemployment.
However, I grew up in a vibrant community and loved it. It felt like everyone where I lived was in a similar position, so there was no looking over the fence or ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ situations to worry about. Most days as a kid were spent playing in the park, kicking a ball around or finding some sort of way to entertain yourself by seeking out an adventure or two. I’m the oldest of four siblings, which also meant a good chunk of time was spent chasing after them, as well as doing odd bits to help my mum out around the home.
There were loads of characters living around the flats, a real mix of residents who came from a variety of backgrounds, and the nature of these places would see people coming and going regularly. I remember people like the friendly old guy from the Caribbean who’d tell you about life on the islands, but there were also individuals who were clearly down on life and had some difficult issues to deal with. It was a genuine melting pot.
“There were loads of characters living around the flats, a real mix of residents who came from a variety of backgrounds.”
It may sound like a strange thing to say, but I had no real sense of structural inequality until I went to secondary school at Silverdale. It was the first time I had new concepts to deal with such as pocket money and kids wearing expensive clothes. Another formative experience at secondary was talking to teachers and students who had links to the miners’ strike. I recall these early conversations really shocking me; I struggled to understand that people, here in a major city like Sheffield, were left without any income or support while striking to save their jobs. My driving instructor would tell me how he’d go and drop parcels of food off to support miners and their families in the area (incidentally, that was the first time I’d ever heard of something called a “food bank”; I remember being appalled that these things had to exist even back then).
It was a political awakening: I realised that sometimes the government in this country decides to go to war with communities, dismantling ways of life and not caring about the outcome. Up until then, I had naively associated the government with free healthcare, free education, free school transport – an overall benevolent organization. The penny dropped in my mind that it counted on who the government was when it came to how people were treated. My mum has always been interested in politics; I specifically remember her taking me along when going to vote in the 1997 election, and to this day she calls me on election days asking if I’ve voted. Having lived much of her life under a dictatorship, being able to have a say at the ballot box meant a huge amount.
It was a political awakening: I realised that sometimes the government in this country decides to go to war with communities, dismantling ways of life and not caring about the outcome.
As I grew older, I started to see that many talented and smart people who I’d grown up with weren’t getting opportunities. It struck me that there was something wrong with the system if you could have all these brilliant kids – witty, sharp and capable – but only one or two make it through to the sixth form or get into a red-brick university. I wanted to understand more, so after that I just started reading any sort of engaging literature I could get my hands on.
I found myself asking questions – and sometimes asking questions about those questions – which meant it made sense for me to study philosophy at the University of Sheffield. The government increased tuition fees while I was there, so I joined the protests and marches against that decision and quickly found that one cause led to another cause. One minute we were marching against tuition fees, the next against the EDL, and after that we were protesting austerity cuts. Off the back of those experiences, I ended up running and being elected as Sheffield Students’ Union President.
“I joined the protests and marches against that decision and quickly found that one cause led to another cause”
While I was at university one of my favourite things to do was hang out at Falafel King on Glossop Road. I’d sit there with my friend, Kev, and we’d just talk for hours, catching up like two old men. We’d be there so often that if the owner had to leave, he’d trust us to run the shop until he got back. People we knew would walk past and sometimes others would join us for a bit; we’d spend a lot of time watching the world go by in Broomhall, just chilling and drinking fragrant Egyptian teas. Another big passion was and still is poetry, something really valued in Somali culture. I’ve always been fascinated by the magic of words and how they can be constructed together to matter so much to us. Philosophy, poetry, art – it has all fed my political understanding in some way.
After going back to university to finish my philosophy degree, I helped launch a campaign called We Are International – a focused movement to fight back against the demonization of international students. It was hugely successful, and the university took the campaign and pitched it to Downing Street, the Home Office and Foreign Office. It eventually helped to play a part in the government changing its rules on post-study international visas.
My journey went from working in outreach for the university to the European Parliament, then to working in parliamentary affairs and trying to help the good guys do a bit of lobbying in parliament. Almost every line and paragraph of my life has been written here in Sheffield, so when Paul Blomfield said he was retiring, I took some advice and decided to run for his seat as Labour’s Sheffield Central MP. Our launch video had an incredible response and we’re now waiting to hear if our campaign will be longlisted by a regional panel.*
Sheffield Central is my home.
I arrived in Broomhall as a refugee fleeing a civil war. It was this city that gave me sanctuary and it was this constituency that raised me.
I'm Abdi Suleiman and with your help I will be the next MP for Sheffield Central. pic.twitter.com/q2Ldeuw1D0
— Abdi Suleiman (@Abdi_SHF) October 10, 2022
Apart from my time at Silverdale school, which was situated in Sheffield Hallam, most of my life has taken place in and around the Sheffield Central constituency. My first school was Springfield Primary behind West Street, and even my first job, as a waiter in the Platinum Suite at Sheffield United, was within the boundaries of that area (I was useless at that, by the way). Another influential job was at a call centre just off the Parkway, which a friend described to me as a modern-day workhouse, and that taught me another very valuable life lesson about how people could be exploited. But I’m digressing here slightly…
There’s not a street in central Sheffield where I don’t have a memory. The roots run very deep for me; I think that’s how it should be when looking to represent the people living in an area. Aspiring politicians are very good at coming to a city and giving it the “what an incredible place this is” shtick. I don’t think I could do that, as I’m not sure what story I could tell people when asking for their votes. My story is here, it always has been, and I’ll be representing us, together, as people from Sheffield Central. It’s my home and always will be.
*UPDATE:
In spite of the popularity of the campaign – gaining over 300,000 video views on Twitter alone and attracting support from Sheffield legends from Jon McClure to Martyn Ware and Pete McKee – Abdi was the only candidate with a public campaign not to be longlisted. He was not given a reason by the selection panel.
