The other evening, over dinner, a journalist who was visiting Kabul for the first time asked me if it were possible to imagine that in this particular historical and political conjuncture creative and artistic expressions would be able to survive in Afghanistan. From the way he phased the question it was clear that he thought that the answer would be negative.

If I didn’t hate the word resilience, I would have probably started to answer from there.

Imagining that spaces of creativity wouldn’t resit or even exist is like thinking that one could survive without breathing or making love. There is nothing heroic or voluntaristic, it is just a necessary part of life. And this is the reason why I don’t like the word resilience because it romanticises suffering in exchange for the redemption of a sense of humanity.

A few days ago, I saw on social media the video of two kids from Gaza who built a swing with ropes and a piece of sponge and played among the debris of a destroyed house.

However small and desperate, that glimpse of humanity resists and survives: it dances, recites poems, invents new games, depicts scenarios for possible futures.

It is hardly ever the case that war wins over that spark of humanity. Costs are high, tremendous, but war is always the one that loses in the end.