Unknown's avatar

Dove trovi la luce / Where you find light

Gli ultimi giorni sono stati pieni di pensieri sulla politica, sulla speranza, sulle contraddizioni che vivono all’interno di ogni essere umano. E sulla bellezza che si nasconde sotto queste contraddizioni se mi dò la possibilità di cercarla.

Sono pensieri nati da incontri e ritrovamenti.

Il ritrovamento dei vecchi amici d’infanzia con cui ci confrontiamo sulla politica bella e quella brutta mentre ricordiamo antiche scorribande.

E l’incontro con una persona ed un gruppo di persone piene di luce, che hanno una storia di vita diversa dalla mia e che sembrano impossibili da accostare a meno che non si lasci aperto uno spiraglio di possibilità.

Kabul, quando sai ascoltare, insegna.

Mi insegna che la luce si trova dove non me l’aspetto, a volte dove per principio non la vorrei vedere. È una realizzazione che brucia e che segna, ma che non si lascia dimenticare.

Che la luce c’è, e bisogna riconoscerla ed abbracciarla, e lasciarsi accompagnare in giorni come questi di desolata umanità.

Che la luce c’è. È questo che ho imparato negli ultimi giorni da questa persona e da questo gruppo di persone e ho intenzione di dedicarmi a questo insegnamento.

Accogliere la luce dove la trovo. La luce che mi prende di sorpresa e che può essere coltivata insieme anche se questo insieme è un conglomerato improbabile di storie diverse.

La luce che mi disorienta ma che richiede attenzione e una risposta di adesione e cura.

Una luce che mi scalda e che, per quanto chieda di essere coltivata, finisce per essere nutrimento per i semi del cambiamento e per la possibilità di una speranza rivoluzionaria.

***

The last few days have been full of thoughts about politics, hope and the contradictions that live within every human being.

And about the beauty that can be found hidden behind these contradictions if I allow myself the chance to look for it.

These thoughts came from new encounters and a rekindling.

The rekindling with old childhood friends with whom we discuss good and ugly politics while reminiscing of old mischiefs.

And the encounter with a person and a group of people full of light. They come from a very different life journey and would have been difficult to meet unless a crack of possibility is allowed to stay open.

Kabul teaches a lot to those who can listen.

She teaches that I can find light where I don’t expect it, sometimes where, out of principle, I would prefer not to see it. It is a burning realisation, one that I will not forget.

She teaches that there is light. And that I need to recognise it and embrace it and let it guide me in these days of desolate humanity.

She teaches that there is light – this is what I learned in the last few days from this person and this group of people, and I am now committed to cultivate this lesson.

To welcome the light where I find it. The light that takes me by surprise and can be nurtured together even if this together is an improbable conglomerate of different life stories.

A disorientating light that demands attention and requests commitment and care.

A light that warms me up and that, even though it requires nurturing, ends up in turn nourishing the seeds of change and the possibility of a revolutionary hope.

Unknown's avatar

Quanto / How much?

Quanto ci vuole per arrivare dove dobbiamo andare?
Quanta pena riusciamo a sopportare e quanta ne dobbiamo ignorare?
 
Da 460 giorni il senso di umanità si è frantumato e c’è ancora chi continua a guardare dall’altra parte.
 
Stamattina ho visto il video di un maestro di musica di Gaza che accordava la chitarra col ronzio dei droni israeliani che volavano minacciosi sulla scuola. Quanto sono profondi la capacità di resistenza, la forza di ridere, il potere di sperare, l’abilità di immaginare?
 
Il ronzio dei droni è terrorizzante, è pericolo in potenza, un pericolo possibile e imminente che non serve si materializzi per fare paura. Le braccia si contraggono e le orecchie restano allerta. Quanto tempo ci vuole per risanare le crepe che il terrore genera nell’anima? Quante generazioni ci vogliono per smettere di immaginare la paura?
 
Col genocidio ridotto a statistica, di quanto abbiamo bisogno per svegliarci e realizzare? Quante vite congelate sono necessarie per smettere di far finta di niente?
 
E quanto amore e quanta solidarietà per rimanere umani?
 
***

How much does it take to go where we have to go?

How much grief can we bare and how much should we ignore?

In the past 460 days the sense of humanity has shattered and there is still someone who continues to look away.

This morning I watched a video of a music teacher from Gaza who was tuning his guitar to the buzzing of the Israeli drones that were menacingly hovering over the school. How deep are the capacity to resist, the strength to laugh, the power to hope, the ability to imagine?

The buzzing of drones is terrifying, it is looming danger, a kind of danger that is potential and imminent and does not have to materialise to be scary. Arms get contracted and ears stay alert. How much time does it take to mend the cracks that terror etches in the soul? How many generations are needed to stop living in fear?

With the genocide reduced to mere statistics, how much do we need to wake up and realise? How many frozen lives are necessary to stop going about life as if nothing?

And how much love and solidarity do we need to remain human?

Unknown's avatar

Sotto lo stesso cielo / Under the same sky

Photo credit : Lorenzo Tugnoli

Il cielo è grigio e si fa fatica a tenere gli occhi del tutto aperti; da quello spiraglio oggi si vedono nuvole nere e si sente il peso degli anniversari incombenti.

Da quello spiraglio, la polvere e il fumo per le strade di Beirut appannano la vista.

Da quello spiraglio si intravedono le macerie di Gaza e si respirano odori inimmaginabili.

Da quello spiraglio filtra la puzza della cupidigia e l’avidità di chi semina morte.

Da quello spiraglio abbaglia la forza di chi si rifiuta di soccombere, della gente di Gaza che raccoglie il poco che non ha per aiutare il Libano.

Da quello spiraglio entra un barlume di speranza sempre più flebile e sempre più affaticato.

Un barlume che vacilla ma non demorde.

Un barlume che ci chiede di credere ancora in lui.

***

The sky is grey and it is difficult to keep the eyes fully open; from the tiny open crack today one can see black clouds and feel the weight of impending anniversaries.  

From that crack, the dust and the smoke over the streets of Beirut mist up the sight.

From that crack, one catches a glimpse of the rubbles in Gaza and breathes unimaginable smells.  

From that crack filters the stench of greed and the rapacity of those who sow death.

From that crack, the strength of those who refuse to succumb is bedazzling and so are the people of Gaza who share what they don’t have to help Lebanon.

From that crack, enters a glimmer of hope – ever so feeble and ever more tired.

A glimmer that falters but does not give up.

A glimmer that demands to be believed no matter what.

Unknown's avatar

We passed through the Earth lightly

These days, the title of a book by Sergio Atzeni keeps coming back to mind. The book talks about something else, but the title resonates in my head as an invitation: We passed through the Earth lightly.

It is almost a year that we have been living through a genocide and the Museum of Palestine has an ongoing campaign titled Gaza Remains the Story. One of its poetic provocations interpellates each one of us directly by asking: How do you lighten your steps as you walk over the rubble, so that those buried under do not have to carry the burden of your weight?

These two exhortations resonate in my head as a unison, as a unique invite – personal and political, individual and collective – to rethink about the weight of my steps and consequently the direction of my choices.

The egotistical dimension of the concept of impact is connected to a weighty passage and presence that are meant to leave a mark. For good or bad, as an invite or as a threat, weight and impact are terms that are frequently used in pedagogical paths as well as in the rhetoric of civilisational, “development” or humanitarian interventions.

What if this is all wrong? What if the violence of the mark we are meant to leave would not be the necessary root for change?

What if stepping lightly – respectfully and delicately, sensibly and kindly, slowly and tenderly – would be the way to be in the world for ourselves and for others? A way that respects the Earth we walk on, that gives precedence to care rooted in the present and not aimed at a future outcome, that values reciprocity over profit.

A light step that respects those who are physically and symbolically buried under the rubbles, that teaches children kindness; a light step that helps us be in the world in a moment of inexplicable pain and violence.

Unknown's avatar

End of summer – Fine estate

The oleander did not survive the passing of time.

I need to find a plants’ cemetery

to bury it along with evaluation mistakes.

The earth in Autumn broods

reflections and transformation.

Take time to think

so as to grow:

to adjust more than change

to consolidate what is real and important

to trim down what is superfluous

to eliminate what is damaging.

At the end of summer

the smell of wind and the tone of light

transform and take on

shades of underwood:

I absorb their warmth

along with incense smoke.

A foot to travel

and a foot to stay.

***

L’oleandro non è sopravvissuto al passare del tempo.

Devo trovare un cimitero delle piante

dove seppellirlo insieme agli errori di valutazione.

La terra in autunno cova

riflessioni e trasformazione.

Pensare per crescere:

aggiustare più che cambiare,

consolidare il vero e l’importante,

sfrondare ciò che è superfluo,

eliminare ciò che è dannoso.

A fine estate

l’odore del vento e il tono della luce

si trasformano e si caricano

di sfumature di sottobosco:

Ne assorbo il tepore

e il fumo dell’incenso.

Un piede per partire

e un piede per restare.

Unknown's avatar

If I didn’t hate the word resilience…

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.

Unknown's avatar

Before and after

A few weeks ago, a person I have known for many years wrote me to say that reading my bulletins they felt that I was quite disturbed by the situation in Gaza. The message caught me by surprise and my first response was to react piquedly – of course I am disturbed and so are many of the people who are close to my heart; how can one possibly not be disturbed and go about life as if nothing in a moment like this?

The message stayed in my mind and kept me thinking.

It has been 28 weeks since 7 October and this period marks for me a clear before and after. A line I heard from a recently released film buzzes in my head: “What has Gaza changed for me? My entire being.”

There is an easy risk of sounding rhetorical here, yet I think that this is true for me as well: more in the sense of an unveiling than in terms of actual change, Gaza has changed my entire being. The struggle for Palestinian self-determination has been an integral part of my political formation and has been a fundamental element of my being in the world for over thirty years. In this respect, therefore, there is little change.

So then, what has Gaza changed in me?

Gaza confronted me with myself in unexpected ways.

Not to take a stance is a privilege I have no right to. Not running risks to stand for my ideas is a privilege I have no right to. I have no right to look away and pretend I don’t see what’s happening.

As someone who writes for a living, I have the ethical duty to use clear and precise words. An assassin is an assassin; a genocide is a genocide; a massacre of innocents is a massacre and not an incident; a child does not starve to death randomly, it is killed by a precise strategic machination.  

Silence and indifference are forms of complicity that I no longer want to endorse. They are choices I have no respect for, so I no longer intend to pretend that we are all friends as before.

In a moment of such blinding grief, however, there is a community that is taking shape. A community that is both tight and wide, made of people who are nearby and far away, of people known and unknown, who now perceive a clear demarcation of before and after, who identify with this irrevocable change and support each other in light of such chasm.

One for the most shattering images I have seen in these past 28 weeks – I believe it will stay with me forever – is that of a date seed that is sprouting between the fingers of a person who is buried under the rubbles. It is both a horror and a miracle, a devastating metaphor that needs no explanation. It is a glimmer and an omen of the indomitable strength of resistance and solidarity.

Unknown's avatar

Flour and blood

To look at Gaza from Kabul amplifies everything, including the sense of powerlessness.

It is since 7 October that every day I think we have seen the worst and yet every new day brings a new measure of horror that shreds whatever is left of our broken hearts.

When Israeli soldiers posted their selfies with female lingerie looted from the drawers of the Palestinian homes that they just destroyed, I thought we had hit the rock bottom. And then there were photos of Israeli soldiers posing all smiles cradled in the cribs of the Palestinian children they just killed. And then rave parties to block the trucks carrying humanitarian aid. And then drones shot at children flying kites on the border with Egypt. And then the daily updates on the number of babies and children killed by starvation.

I thought we couldn’t do any worse. I thought we now had the taste of the apocalypse in our mouths.  

And then what will go down in history as the “flour massacre” happened. The Israeli government defined an unfortunate incident what is in fact a deliberate massacre where the Israeli Army shot at people rushing to gather the little humanitarian aid the Israelis are allowing to trickle into the Gaza Strip. So far there are 104 Palestinians killed and 700 wounded. The balance is likely to increase.

I struggle to come to terms with this and I struggle to breathe fully, a sense of failure chokes me. A few days ago, in an interview to Humza Yousaf, the Scottish First Minister, they asked him what his message to the people of Gaza would be. His answer, with a broken voice, was: I am sorry, humanity has failed you.

And so, I am sorry Gaza for all that we haven’t done and for all that we continue not to do. Maybe we can’t do worse than this, so we are probably only left with facing the pain of such failure and to do a little better: to continue feeling indignation and to continue denouncing these horrors so as they won’t become the norm.

Because it is not true that we have to be resigned to live in a world that we don’t like.

Unknown's avatar

Grey

February in Kabul is the coldest month of the year; a month made of power cuts, snowfalls and the hope that there would be enough snow to avert the fear of forthcoming droughts. The first snowfall is always celebrated with an exchange of wishes and sweets.

I wrote about snow in Kabul for the first time more than ten years ago. Now I am back in the city after a very long time and there is snow again and I have the impression of closing an old circle while opening a new cycle.

Never like in this conjuncture, a return feels more like an arrival. Everything is familiar and yet everything is also to be understood afresh, from scratch; everything is to be looked at with new eyes free of prejudice, without the bias of conclusions reached even before fully comprehending details and premises.

I have been here for more than three weeks, but I write only now because probably it is only now that I have mastered the courage to face the fear of being misunderstood and to embrace the desire to highlight the dissonances that emerge every day against opposite polarising and ideological narratives.

After last night’s snowfall, Kabul is all grey; covered by worn and trampled snow and wrapped by an uncertain sky that doesn’t seem to know if it wants to stay hazy or send more snow. It is all these shades of grey that are the most difficult to represent. As days go by, I realise that shouted truths no longer hold when faced with reality; that rules and exceptions coexist side by side; that fear may turn life into survival; that glimpses of hope and possibility open up among millions of contradictions.

In its brutal beauty, Afghanistan has a unique way to crawl under my skin, to call me back and always give me a reason to return, one more question to chase, an epochal transformation to witness, an opportunity to question myself, my ideas and my prejudices. It is a disarming country, that somehow always leaves me alone and bare in front of myself and the reasons of my choices.

Unknown's avatar

315 mines

Yesterday the Israeli Army detonated 315 mines to destroy Al-Israa University in Gaza – it was the last standing university in the Gaza Strip. In the campus there was also a museum that preserved 3,000 rare artifacts.

Till October there used to be seven universities in Gaza. Now there is not a single one left.

Al-Israa was occupied by the Israeli Forces seventy days ago and turned into a detention centre where they kept in isolation the Palestinian civilians they arrested before interrogating them. The Israeli Army published a video of the detonation: it only took a bunch of seconds to turn into dust and eliminate any physical presence of a cultural institution.

As I write, there’s also the news of the complete destruction of the last functioning hospital in Gaza.

Till October there used to be thirty-six hospitals. Now there is not a single one left.

It is a list of horrors that does not seem to have an end.

News of war come to our homes as fait accompli. What we witness every day are the end results, the outcomes: a certain number of casualties; the toll of displaced people; the success or failure of a military operation; the raids and round-ups; the arrests; the number of destroyed homes, villages, schools, hospitals.

What is usually not completely visible in the journalistic narration we receive is the extreme complexity of the logistics behind such operations.

I keep thinking about those 315 mines that destroyed Al-Israa – it’s a huge number. Huge.

It takes a perfect coordination of forces, means and resources, but most of all of wills and intentions to be able to destroy a building complex with 315 mines.

To observe the logistics of war with its apparent banality made of chains of command, mechanisations and gestures in themselves “innocent,” is a tremendous way to look at cruelty in the eye.

Besides the political decision, there is a lot of people who spend a lot of time understanding and deciding how to destroy a university, how many bulldozers it takes to raze a village to the ground, how many soldiers are needed for a night raid.

For me, the biggest horror of war is here. In the minds, daily activities and routines of all those who create the conditions to destroy and inflict death and desolation.

The devastating outcomes we witness in the news are the product of a million little gestures, of infinite micro-complicities. It’s for this reason that it makes no sense to speak about collateral damages or involuntary errors – this is a benefit of the doubt that perpetrators of such horrors do not deserve.

War is never necessary; it is instead always deliberately cruel.