A brief inhale before diving back into the alienation of Immigration
I am not sure of what it is exactly that is inspiring me to write again. To resurrect that tiny part of my soul that was at a dark point of my childhood crushed between two fingers of my mother’s impatience as she decided to put an end to my addiction to reading. She decided that my weekly 1 euro allowance for hustling a used magazine and the occasional thriller are no longer a necessity. Anyhow, an inspiration spark surely emerged out of the encounter I made with a bunch of oddly looking, warm-blooded brown strangers at the German Arab literature festival this year.
As I delved into the small sphere of strangers that already expanded beyond the entrance of the venue, I already started feeling my spidey senses alerting me that I have entered a place other and far more different than the German ground I was walking milliseconds ago. Familiar and yet unfamiliar sensations started to emerge.
Familiar, as I felt suddenly the alarming comfort bubble of being among my own and no longer being an exotic walking tree that tends towards brownness but not quite there yet and that will never be there in a land of snow that extends until the horizon. Unfamiliar, as these feelings, sadly, are part of the excruciating experience of estrangement and wandered within the hallways of my mind and my memory towards a wintry dark corner where they hibernated until such an occurrence brought them to light again. As I walked deeper into the venue, my spidey senses that usually just fail me started alarming me to the oddest thing: strangers friendliness. Whether it is ranging from an unsolicited smile, flirty may it be or not to a casual Habibi that is thrown in my direction for no apparent reason to women that do not find the wall behind me, or the tiles of the floor the most philosophically intriguing thing as our eyes cross one another but rather smile and express an unusual interest in the fact that I am a person and not an exotic relic because I come from a country that possibly has to do with Alf Leila w Leila.
Although the call of the under-and-around-the-belt brain was pressing, I found myself first scouting the place and its current inhabitants. I walked through the corridor and went through the first door directly at the left. There were a bunch of small gatherings scattered while there was something being beamed on the wall that was not apparently interesting enough to pique anyone’s interest. Having spent a few seconds there that felt long enough, I headed back to the hallway and turned left to get lost a tiny bit more into the building. At first, there was a small book area with a significant number of authors that I did not know. A weaving set of stairs presented itself offering an escape from an important quantity of books one would either feel guilty for not having taken enough time to read or for not knowing although having supposedly something to do with the Arabness of it all. Murmurs and hums were getting louder with each set of stairs I started climbing and although salvation was near in the form of a magnificent oriental food stand at the top of the stairs, i did not know yet about the upcoming bliss.
And so, as I reached the top, my instincts let away a last moan of glory announcing their approval of our newly found food stand treasure and finally let me have my peace back and along with that, my capabilities of reasoning without seeing food dancing around, doing some incomprehensible katas while winking at me.
After having been handed the precious load of nutrients on a plate with the additional and now expected “Habibi” and wishes of longevity and prosperity, I headed to one of the standing tables in order to so to say “save the soul” (footnote should follow later in regards to what that means).
The two ladies I was sharing the standing table with were apparently interested in what native tongue meant to me, and as if that was not rather, to say the least, the topic of an essay, they wanted one word as an answer. I was sure as hell, not to let anybody get between me and the sacred ritual of stuffing my mouth until the set of words I could utter would become limited to an intricate form of growling and whatever neighbors that in the kingdom of sounds. After I took a deep pause and a very profound mindful breath, i went into a rampaging rant about how Arabic stands for cultural colonization and how about it is a symbolism for political oppression in some culturally Arabized countries where the ruling dictatorships have a strong Muslim-Arabic rooting and how they tend to accordingly consecrate that despite the rich cultural inheritance the aboriginals local cultures have. And god it felt good to let that out.
Anyhow, my belly pampered with the spiced delicacies, I headed down to the showroom where a convoluted event beginning with a recital of poetry and gradually escalating to calligraphy inspired music and the other way around was planned.
The event started with the recital of poetry representing one of the worst modern symbolism of Arabic. None other than the political oppression in all parts of the Arab world. The poems spanned a range of representatives of the unbudging resistance to the political and cultural oppression from poets that have been imprisoned for simply being honest enough to admit to not being able the embrace of a belief system that simply was not their fit to others that were imprisoned for not adhering to their government’s political ideals.
It is not clear whether the skin-crawling awe that invaded the place was the soulful electricity circulating between the many that felt profoundly for the suffering that they left in homes where they also left behind parts of themselves or whether it was the poetry that was indeed also touching, but by the end of the day, a caged poet was given a voice that traversed the cement and the iron bars to pierce and mark deeply all the attendants. As if there is an ordained order to things, to lighten up the charged atmosphere, a musical delight followed just after to remind that to modern Arabic culture, there is far more than just political oppression. A frail yet graceful middle eastern looking creature swiftly swept through the door of the room. Whether this quality of frailness, was put into contrast by the fact that her facial features were strongly marked by a glorious winning of the appearance of the bones over the meatiness or the fact that all of her garments looked so much like a ships sail as they tended to float around so much, probably nobody could really tell. This lady that will later hit the room by surprise and light the spirits around in a warm but yet fuzzy on the inside kind of fire was the Palestinian Racha Nahas.
In addition to gently floating around with that frail quality of hers, Racha wore a crown of curls that rebelliously reached everywhere and nowhere ferociously ready to defend the honor of the queen that carried them around. The music started and for the feeble-minded like myself, it seemed to have a postmodernist, avant-garde quality to it as I am puzzled as to whether there are not enough labels and concepts to describe well, simply novelty.
That aside, Racha began her trance. No one knew exactly when Racha performed her transformation, but from being at one moment a person, Racha became a sun ongoing a supernova. Whether it was rumbling thunder of her dance on stage, or her voice that became passion channeled completely and purely without any, god forbids conceivable energy loss through the circuits.
The band did not disappoint as well, as Racha carried on with her sacred dance and chants a magic flute sound was there to carry the souls already starting to levitate even higher supported in that effort by the overall symbiotic sound of the rest of the band.
The next day consisted of a bunch of panels. The first one hosted two comics writers. A German lady having written some comics about The gilets-Jaunes protests in France. She was motivated by the intricacies that these protests have shown as symptoms of a first-world democracy. First, The protests were triggered by a seemingly meager reason or seen from a different perspective, a reason that should not be enough to raise an eyebrow in such a socio-economical context. Mainly: the rise of the prices of Fuel.
Second, and this is the point that the Comic directly addresses. The protests brought to the front line the issue of social segregation between the rich and the poor in a country where that should seemingly not exist. The comic has shown supposedly people wearing Diar and Chonel breezing through Police barricades while protesters who requested not to breeze through but their right to walk as citizens in public places were confronted by a refusal from the Policeman that found himself also undergoing an Existential crisis when he had to answer the question “Why not ?” and, dodging a figurative bullet he replied “And so they want it in the sphere above..”. The mix of the absurdity of the actual corps of the authority performing their job while being completely alienated from what their job means and the roughness of the drawings could be seen as charming.
The second host of the panel was a Tunisian Artist that brought to light with his book the issue of Racism in Tunisia and may-be also in Other Marginal countries. The comic gathered real-life stories of African immigrants that came to Tunisia, whether it is to study or to work, to live rather than to survive and probably above all to actually feel in retrospect that they are human beings. The overall outlook of the comic, to sum up, is dark, the play on words in this case not intended as I feel strongly for my African brethren. The panel spun out a bunch of interesting questions.
For instance, I wondered whether in the shadow of thousands of inspirational quotes on Instagram about being and becoming deeper throughout reading books. How much do readers actually consider diversifying the range of their reading material to include comics that are usually sneered upon as literary genre while still following the noble endeavor of being deeper and deeper? I never managed to ask the question sadly.
Another question that does not belong necessarily to the realm of comics but that surely belongs to a panel that addresses the Arabic language was in regards to the decision to take down Arabic from the U.N and what shall be done in order to bring Arabic about. A comment accompanying the question was the racism sadly inherent to the language. For example: “May God make your face blacker”, “Save the white penny for the Black day” etc.. An answer to the question was not sadly proposed. Whether the answer lies in this seemingly inherent Racism that is obviously encrusted also in other languages, or the misogyny of which the deposits are sadly lying deep within the ocean of Arabic s richness, a mix of all of that or something beyond my simplistic understanding of linguistics. Well, that remains to be found.
As the day ran forward, the festival started feeling ready to share its most prized jewels.
The next panel hence hosted Ghassan Zaqtan and Jadal Al-Qasem. The choice of the guests was interesting. Ghassan stands for the veteran poet, a veteran in a plethora of senses. Ghassan is Palestinian, and as a Palestinian, the sources of inspiration are not scarce. Whether it is the injustice, or the odd historical loop of a whole population undergoing an oppression from another one that was not so long ago at its turn the oppressed, the existential crisis of having a fuzzy identity or having one’s daily bread dipped in blood is the most normal thing in the world or in spite of all the weights pulling down, rising above it all and seeing the beauty of Camaraderie of an undying hope and a relentless fight for the cause, being Palestinian in itself means sadly but with a sprinkle of joy being a muse. And because of that, Ghassan is a veteran of poetry that symbolizes hope but also a veteran of defying the crisis of identity imposed by the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
By the side of Ghassan, stood Jadal. And as the concept of complement in Mathematics represents what makes something whole. Jadal, as the winner of the “young poet price for the year 2015” was there as the face of the contemporary Arab literature young generation. Jadal, is a woman and in Arabic, Jadal means argument and not the mild kind of argument that you would have normally sprinkled with modest amounts of Salt and pepper, we are talking about fair amounts of spices being involved including a fair amount to unreasonable amounts of Harissa. And, as if Jadals name was not enough of a teaser, her poetry will later leave no doubt as to how the lucky parents were on the spot when among all the names they could pick, they picked Jadal.
As the man was surrounded by an honorable solemnity halo, so was Ghassans poetry imposing as it was profoundly touching in so many senses. For once, the eloquence of his reference to the Arab decadence from the pedestal of being a cultural minaret and a literary treasure trove to the survival Mediterranean Olympics unofficially sponsored by the woke nations of our time.
It is not possible to say whether his metaphors were powerful in that they plucked the sadness strings within every one of the audience so gracefully yet so deeply or in that they put so vividly into perspective the overwhelming brightness of Arabics past in contrast to its astoundingly dark present. In any case, Ghassan’s poetry carried in every sense the weight of his veteran name.
In contrast to Ghassan’s poetry that had this wise calming quality to it, Jadals poetry was an unbridled young stallion’s passion that soared and lived for the sole purpose of shattering the absurd and out of place shackles placed on this creature burning in passion, the Arab woman that is.
Bouncing between vivid descriptions of the marvelous terrain that is the masculine body and the mystical power it had to enable the electrical conduits in a woman’s body and an eloquent self-irony aiming at the bitterness associated with living out of a woman’s body in the Arab world, Jadal went on with an Elan worthy of every bit of meaning her name carried.
The questions that orbited the poetry recitals later asked by the attendance had a wide range. Among these, were reflections of the attendees regarding the future of Arabic literature and poetry in the shadow of the compromise of writing to release creativity in a bang and doing it in order to sell and make a living. These reflections also addressed the essence of Arabic poetry and literature and what puts it apart from other forms of literature and how this essence, whatever that may be is lost between the lines of marketing, immigration and an Arabic identity so to say that is becoming more and more fluid.
Ghassan although being a veteran having had some hair graying out to the sounds of Israeli cannons and honorable blood being shed remains hopeful that the upcoming generation of middle-eastern refugees and immigrants will carry on the torch of an essence that seems, still yet needs to be defined. Another question that this poetry spanning the generation spun out was the key standing Jadal has.
A standing that is quite symbolic whether it is as a winner of the new Literature price being a woman, as a woman poet in the upcoming generation or as a social justice warrior in regards to Arab women’s rights to let their expression and their creativity explode.
Jadal argues (a pun on words intended) that she does not identify with middle-eastern feminism, a feminism as seen by Jadal, that is still lacking as it promotes certain submissiveness. A submissiveness that will hopefully burn in a fire that will ignite through sparks like Jadal. To the sadness of the attendees, Jadal recounted the infuriating opposition of one of the ministers in the current Palestinian government to her poetry. Such beautifully daring poetry is nothing new in the Arab world, as a matter of fact, poetry is one of the forms of art where we dare the most.
Sadly, some human relics still need to step out of their cocoons to realize that we will not as a cultural Arab mind emerge from under the surface of anonymity and orientalism without fully utilizing the potential that all genders and non-genders have to offer.
