Today, writing feels like planting proverb trees in the face of apocalypse. Decades ago, I began writing to mean words again. There was a time when he fled as a refugee from Bosnia to Sweden in the 1990s, when words stopped working in all ways.
I couldn’t even say “tree” and connect it to the big beautiful things outside the camp. I was crazy like Hamlet and cried, “Words, words, words!” Sound and anger. It doesn’t mean anything.
We Bosnians were reluctant to use the word “genocide” until the mighty court told us what we could do. The deniers have taught us that words have weight. Correct words can lead to actions. Rather than these empty phrases, we’ve heard about Palestinian genocide.
I learned English later in life, mainly because I was embarrassed that the Swedes spoke it well. Over time, we learned that our story of forced asylum, albeit unique, reflects the experience of displacement of millions of other people. Somehow, they created a magical intimacy with people who were very different from us. They were reading my story.
I imagined this miraculous human connection to be similar to falling in love with this longtime foreigner known as Shakespeare at Stockholm University. His words came from the mouth of a small Pakistani professor who has the largest voice I have ever heard. Ishrat Lindblad may she rest in peace and have grey hair, colorful sarees and British accents. “Is that the problem or not?” she will recite in her class.
She has become my teacher, my most intense critic and my biggest fan. Always friends. She was also the reason I became a teacher. She was the reason why Muslims pray for their teachers five times a day, right after praying for their parents. She was a good listener and didn’t talk much, but when she spoke it was important. It’s not an empty phrase. It’s not useless words. Always from the heart.
For a long time, I wondered why God keeps repeating the Quran that there is no neglectful talk in paradise. It was one of the most inexplicable things to read. In other words, everyone can see that the charm of an afterlife is expressed through gardens, rivers of milk and honey, wealth, and unimagining joys.
But what the paradise had said over and over again from “trivial” or “vain” chatter was interesting at best. “Hey, I’m good, I couldn’t imagine working hard, sacrificing everything and skipping all this empty story. Now I can.
I remember and relive my past when I see the most raw form of power exercised by the Palestinian people, I once again have two “trees” that are not trees, but guns It was brought back to me the moment I couldn’t connect the words.
I sometimes get tired of my university hall. People should say meaningful things there, but what I mostly hear is the story of the sky. I don’t recognize Sweden. Sweden does not recognize the country that has won thousands of us Bosnians during the greatest economic crisis.
The former Swedish Church Secretary told me that he once flew to Sarajevo with assistance, he landed on a dangerous runway, was dropped off and returned. Everyone contributed. During World War II, Raul Warrenberg saved thousands of Jews in Hungary by issuing protective passports and evacuating them in buildings declared as Swedish territory. I am a beneficiary of the Wallenberg Foundation, which helped me raise funds for my PhD 20 years ago.
Currently, Sweden is cutting back on aid. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency’s budget on “sustainable peace” has been significantly reduced in just a few years, especially in the MENA region. We condemn and cut off bonds according to convenience. We support ourselves according to our own interests. Job neglect.
Sweden abstained from a UN resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. There, in that great Colosseum nation, the resolution sounds like a mere human New Year’s resolution. The question is whether one person can give a thumbs down by the crowd. And, as Hamlet said, “The corporation of great titularity and moments will mock you, lose the name of your actions.”
It’s been almost a year since I wrote The Schrodinger Massacre, and I hope the world has proven I’m wrong with everything. Because words are my tool. I wrote to the Swedish government about the future of education in Gaza if there was peace in the past. It’s written on friends and enemies. A lot is being said and written now. We are owned by words. It’s like every word has become an endless loop meme, and it’s still possible to write something like planting proverbs in the face of apocalypse.
The bombings are still halting, and when the long-awaited exchange of prisoners began, from our own genocide history, under the silence of the media and interference of foreign forces, crime continues under the pretense of a ceasefire. I know that. If the war really ends there are other types of fires that must be issued by surviving men, women and children. A cycle of physical displacement to continue.
Their images may slowly disappear from our feed, but we must not allow accusations of actions to keep the words simple. We must not cease to demand justice and respect for Palestinian rights. ”
“Words, words, words,” I take the breath of my late teacher and hear the ghost of Shakespeare, and it is “to suffer from the slings and arrows of their large estate, or to steal their arms into the sea of trouble. , and I wonder: by opposing them?
The views expressed in this article are the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
