Ever Since I Did Not Die

Ramy Al-Asheq, Levi Thompson, Isis Nusair

• Editore: Seagull Books
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780857428097
• Argomento: Letteratura
• Categoria: Poesia

Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq's Ever SInce I Did Not Die is a poignant autobiographical journey that vividly depicts what it means to live through war. The texts gathered in Ever Since I Did Not Die by Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq are a poignant record of a fateful journey. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Damascus, Al-Asheq was imprisoned and persecuted by the regime in 2011 during the Syrian Revolution. He was released from jail, only to be recaptured and imprisoned in Jordan. After escaping from prison, he spent two years in Jordan under a fake name and passport, during which he won a literary fellowship that allowed him to travel to Germany in 2014, where he now lives and writes in exile.Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Ever Since I Did Not Die vividly depicts what it means to live through war. Exquisitely weaving the past with the present and fond memories with brutal realities, this volume celebrates resistance through words that refuse to surrender and continue to create beauty amidst destruction—one of the most potent ways to survive in the darkest of hours.

 

The Refugee and the Other,

the Other Refugee

 

 

War is vast. It reaches across the horizon, loftier and older than peace. Killing came before war, but it might also be that refuge preceded war. It got attached to war like a child holding on to its mother’s dress with one hand, the other waving to those it does not know. The refugee: a flute weeping over its original image before there was a camp. The camp: ginger on the back of humanity’s infected throat. The camp is necessary, sometimes, for remembering that the lands across the river dropped off the face of the map when we weren’t looking. The map: geography on paper, its borders drawn by the tank and the mortar shell for eternity. The mortar: a tiny cosmic explosion that rearranges habitats by the whims of whoever launches it. One night, the mortar launcher awakened superstition from its sleep and dragged it away with an F-16 saying, ‘I cannot exist . . . unless there is a refugee.’

Is it our instinct to always blame the victim? Is it customary for the victim to keep playing this role even after the decided time has passed? The victim might even like it and consider it a privilege. That way the Other—but not every Other—will have reason to regard the victim as a scapegoat. The victim sees the Other as a potential enemy, a current friend who is ready to attack at any moment. This has become an essential existential component of the dualities of the universe that are always, as they say, subject to unilateral rule. Good is sometimes evil, and wrong is right. A supporter could be an opponent on another side, and night might be day. The Other is not an Other elsewhere. ‘There’ is only ‘there’ here. Likewise, the refugee could become the Other someday, and responds to another who has become a refugee just like them. Dualities are suspended in conflict and change. Absolute unilateralism lies at the root of this conflict as creator and caretaker and is one of the main reasons for its persistence.

The Other asks the long-time refugee, ‘Do the people in the camp really live in tents?’ The refugee doesn’t respond. Instead, the refugee camp responds, ‘Nothing has anything to do with its name!’

How?

The tents tricked time and stretched their necks until they blocked out the sun. People came to me for pilgrimage from every corner of the earth. They were crowded, since the ‘earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’

So, why are you still called a ‘camp’?

How would the Other recognize me if I were to change my name?

The Other branded them and marked their pictures in red: ‘You have no place here in the long run.’ Others contributed by adding features in bright oil on their foreheads, so the Other named them. They liked the new name—at least, they liked it until it didn’t please them any longer. It became as ordinary as death in this vast war. The Other did not tell them anything. They did not know the place or the time when yet another Other would rename them. They made a point of not asking. Perhaps fewer questions mean less pain.

One of them says, ‘I’m a refugee who was born here, the son of a refugee who was born here. We know nothing but “here”. Fifty years of my dad living “here” were not enough to change what he was called. My mother’s nationality wasn’t enough for me to change what I’m called! That’s why I hate children—my children, not those of others—because I do not want them to be refugees.’ He does not want them to be like him: different! Even in revolution, the Other wins when he turns those who are alike into Others from themselves.

The refugee opens the door of his tent (his palace) to the Other (the non-refugee). The Other becomes part of this camp that was destroyed except for its name. The Other grows up saying, ‘I am from there,’ and the refugee says, ‘I am from “here” and from another “there”. I am from my temporary “here”, and my original “there” until the day I return!’ Should things get hard one day, the Other will scream in the face of the refugee, ‘You are not from “here”. You are from “there”. You and your camp are in the “here” that belongs to me, so leave!’

So, he leaves, and not much leaves with him. When he remains, nothing will be left of him. The fiasco does not stop here. Indeed, the Other, who used to be a brother, becomes an informant, an enemy. The refugee goes back to repeating the story and playing the role of the victim. The victim is another victim, and the criminal is, of course, an Other!

Everything changes. Nothing remains fixed except for the refugee. Even a temporary homeland becomes a prison, borders surrounded with barbed wire tightly connected to the sea on one side, and to stolen electrical lines on the other. This homeland-prison becomes more merciful than the neighbour-prison. The next camp becomes a real, not metaphorical, prison. The escapee becomes a wanted man, accused of infiltrating paradise. They are tossed into the hell of war seventy times. He ages like fruit. The newspapers sleep on his story through day and night. The people of the land, the sky, and those in-between ignore him because of a royal decree.

Several long-time refugees were rescued along with some Others. They sang the anthem of death to sea and land. The weather picked up, and only those who were already buried could be saved without the camp. The partners of refugee and tent were separated, but they were allowed to return if the Other approved. The Others were called refugees. The long-time refugees are now called ‘without’. This is not about nothingness or nihilism but about a death verdict. He carried many names, as many as his migrations. They put them all to death with another Universal Declaration. The ‘without’ remained nameless, just like they will always be!

With this separation and change in the structure of dualities, some refugees received a nationality and became citizens. They might not want to admit that they are half-citizens or second-class citizens. The original defence mechanism of denial always wins out over confirmation. Having gained their nationality, they were considered to be part of the Other, and they practiced their Otherness on Others. Whenever war smiled, they screamed at them. As they were transformed, they forgot their past: ‘O Refugees!’

This is how one refugee killed another when the first became an Other. The second had to hold onto the title to avoid turning into nothing.

 

I Raise Your Body

as a Banner of Horror

and Disappointment

The wound is greater. The hand stretching from one shoulder to another has lost its shadow. The eyes dare not see. Sadness insists on repeating the effects of the massacre. Only blood keeps us together. A body without a soul, a soul without wings, children without parents, mothers without wombs and a memory unable to bear anything but pain. The sky did not stop performing the role of a murderer. Earth fell in love with injustice. The river is a pre-confession that water can move. The walls are stones erected despite wanting to break their will. Glass is the attempt of a wall to reveal a secret. When blood speaks, everything goes silent. Only blood keeps us together. Your blood disappeared from your face. I did not recognize you when you stood in front of me. Blood disappeared from your hands. I did not see them waving, and they did not reach out to shake hands with my fear. It disappeared from your heart, which did not jump with surprise at the sight of my long beard. Your blood disappeared. It ran between us, which is why you did not hear my screams and wailing!

Maybe you did not feel how I carried you anew after our separation, how your blood spoke and how I sank in your water as I used to, even though its colour had changed. ‘I know this face,’ I say, then I deny knowing it. I howl like a dog whose ear they cut off and made him eat. Then I go mute and turn into a murderer. I know your smell. I deny it and flee. I return. I embrace you. I call out to you, and I cry. I go mad. I see you flying over defeated countries. I carry the irritability of a bullet, the depravity of a bomb. I leave naked wearing only a stolen helmet. I fill the sky with rotten shots given to us to make our suicide easier. I raise your body as a banner of horror and disappointment. As I fall, I call out, ‘It’s still raining blood!’

Get up, run away from all my questions, or answer me! Your silence means my victory. I am the darkness that is all you can see. Do you like the white shroud now? Don’t stand up against my questions like a ruin! Get up, and desert me again. Leave! Take whatever you want and get out of your bleeding body. O tent, betraying land, return to the refugee! Ration stamps don’t make up for land. Solitude is a disease I cherish. The cold is crueller, the longing heavier. I embrace a corpse, my corpse. I get good at telling secrets and waving to memory. I dance like someone touched by a jinn. I stare into the dist...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Translator’s Introduction
• Preface
• Escaping from Paradise
• The Refugee and the Other, the Other Refugee
• I Raise Your Body as a Banner of Horror and Disappointment
• How I Know the Cell
• The Fighter Stripped of Her Braids
• The Village Crocheter
• I Do Not Want to Fall in Love with Her
• The Test of Longing
• We Finally Meet
• Borrowing
• The Ones I've Killed So Far
• The Gift That Killed Us All
• Leave Your Home and Build Another
• The Minutes Erased from Yarmouk's Black Day
• Who Threw the Key in the River?
• The Seller of Love and Their Bed
• Ever Since I Did Not Die
• Afterword
• Notes
• Translator's Introduction: Notes