ICORN Guest Writers Speak Out

The folowing is a speech given by Ren Powell in Milan during the PEN Italian Conference in June of 2006. It will be published along with the other speeches in the autumn of 2006.

All words have at least two definitions: the denotation and the connotation. In English humid, muggy and sultry all have similar denotations, but differing connotations. I once got into a heated debate about whether the word sultry was really the appropriate choice for a children’s picture book: as in “it was a sultry afternoon”. Perhaps it’s true that I’d read too many Hollywood magazine articles about “sultry blonds” and “sultry brunettes”. But if it’s true, I’m not alone; it’s irresponsible to ignore the historical context of a word. The meanings of individual words alter over time through use, through the contexts of their applications. Remarkably few words are neutral in tone. More significant than nuance of meaning, is nuance of feeling. Tone, feeling, color, taste—the aspect of meaning that forces us to employ metaphor and synaesthesia to communicate. I am talking about the definition that is not noted in the dictionary: the quality that makes translation so demanding, that makes it an art rather than a science. It is also the quality that makes it so easy for individuals, governments and media to misdirect the attention of their audience: a linguistic sleight of hand. Words laden with emotion are the political illusionist’s tools: they can make things appear as they are not; they can make things and people and opinions disappear.

When I grew up in the Reagan-Thatcher years, the English language media was swamped with the nouns separatists and freedom-fighters. A separatist: separatist is one of those rare words that has an almost neutral connotation. If I call a person a separatist you can’t be certain of my attitude regarding the “cause” in question. Freedom-fighter: well, there’s an emotional word. I’d not likely set myself against someone fighting for “freedom”. I hope you’ll indulge me in sharing an entirely unscientific observation, but when I type the word separatist in the Google search engine I get 3, 130, 000 hits. When I type in Freedom-fighter I get 16,800,000 hits. Freedom-fighter suited the Reagan-Thatcher agenda.

When I type in the word terrorist I get 92,600,000 hits. I don’t expect this comes as a surprise to anyone. If heads of states in every part of the world were asked to list their most prized power tools, I’m certain the word terrorist would top every single list. The label is a gun with a silencer. Not only does it silence the non-violent separatist, the dissident, the political disobedient, it silences the international community. Though there are a myriad of definitions for terrorist, the tone is identical: “criminal acts”, “violence and intimidation”, “psychological warfare”, “inciting fear” among and within civilian populations, and the use “coercion to promote political or ideological goals”. Clearly, terrorists are the Bad Guys. The term obliterates all shades of gray in a discussion. Once a head of state labels an individual or a group of people with a common ideology, the situation is polarized: you are either with us or against us. The word separatist frees the international community from taking sides, but once the label terrorist has been put on people’s heads, avoiding the word terrorist, or replacing it with another word shatters the illusion. It is looking up the magician’s sleeve and questioning his or her integrity.

Of course there are terrorists. The deaths of 14,600 civilians in 2005 were not illusions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that every day the media relate a truly horrifying incident somewhere in the world, an incident expressly designed to terrify us, to keep us up nights, to force us to beg governments, “Please, just let them have their way so this will stop.” It would be ridiculous for me to suggest that governments not protect their citizens from terrorist acts. It would be equally ridiculous to suggest that governments do so by giving in to the demands of terrorists. However, fighting fire with fire is not the solution.

When the word terrorist comes to mean a person who holds a dissenting opinion rather than a person who commits an act with the intension of inciting terror, the word itself becomes a state-sanctioned terrorist tactic. By this, I mean that the threat of being labelled a terrorist coerces the civilian population into submission, compliance and silence. Countries with effectively single-party systems can and do censor opposition by declaring any and all dissidents as terrorists or potential terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. Countries involved in intercultural conflicts can and do use the “fight against terrorism” as an excuse to suppress people with specialized education. Fear creates an anti-intellectual climate and in this climate language becomes a blunt force instrument. Polarizing Rhetoric. Slogans. The World in Black and White.

I’m here today as a representative for ICORN- the International Cities of Refuge Network. Our objective is to help threatened or persecuted writers connect with a city somewhere in the world that can offer them a safe place to live and write for a period of time. Our job isn’t to get the good guys out of the bad countries. Our job is to make the shades of gray visible again: to facilitate a more nuanced dialogue.

Today there are seven cities of refuge in Norway alone, nearly 30 internationally, and spanning 3 continents. Norway’s guest writers have come from countries as diverse as India, Zimbabwe, Iran, Benin, Yemen and Russia. Their stories are just as diverse: Islam Elsanov, a Chechen filmmaker, whose ticking alarm clock sealed to his status as a terrorist suspect; and Easterine Kire, an indigenous woman in Nagaland whose political ideology has been tied to terrorism by the Indian government, and whose non-violent principles have been interpreted as traitorous by radical separatists: she is caught between poles. As I began writing this speech our current guest writer in Stavanger told me about how Zimbabwe’s president, Mugabe, is rushing to enact anti-terrorist legislation. If this novelist, Chenjerai Hove, were to return home now and meet up with more than three other people for a nice chat, under these new laws, he’d run the risk of being labelled a terrorist. It’s a sobering realization. A frightening thought. Still, I know that won’t silence Chenjerai Hove, just as it hasn’t silenced Easterine Kire or Islam Elsanov.

The former guest writer and exiled Yemeni poet Mansur Rajih wrote about the importance of language and communication in his poem Language:

Don’t you see?
If we couldn’t enunciate
How could we sing?…
How could we call out for each other?
Talk to the children?
And how could we share our dreams
If there were no language?

The poet Robert Frost said that freedom lies in being bold. Expressing oneself, one’s beliefs, opinions and convictions is perhaps the boldest thing a person can do. Expressing oneself is the ultimate assertion of freedom. It is our right and our responsibility to take part in and to facilitate a careful and nuanced dialogue. We need to “watch our language”—not to be polite or politically correct, but to be meaningful.

by Ren Powell, BABEL contributing editor

by Salah At-Tarjuman

It is all too evident that figures and the timing of agendas are as important in politics as they are in economics and everyday life activities. In Iraq, figures and the timing of agendas tell us a lot about the persistence of violence and the increasingly aggravating situation that amounts to bringing the country to the brink of an open civil war. Figures on money, oil, allocations and appointments tell of a growing but latent social dissatisfaction that would at any moment trigger strife that would push Iraq into primitivism and darkness and may as well send the whole region into chaos. It is only on the surface that this dissatisfaction is a cause of violence. But it is a rule of thumb that dissatisfaction has its roots going deeper in the social economic, ethnic, ethical and historical grassroots of Iraqi society as is the case with all societies in a given time of their history. We see a government provided with all means of force but persistently failing to impose its will, practice veritable power, or at least, protect itself from attacks. Then, a question imposes itself: Was Saddam much more powerful than both the existing government and the few tens of thousand USA soldiers stationed in Iraq? The answer, it seems, lurks in figures and agendas relating to the USA lack of insight and its policy making howlers in Iraq.
 
  One of the gravest mistakes committed by America besides the invasion itself is the timing of its operation which, some observer says it could have been ripe enough ten years earlier. Another is America’s misconceptions of Iraqi society, psychology and world-view. One may ask if America would finally come to (liberate) Iraq in 2003, why, then, did it impose blockade on Iraqi people that went on for more than ten years? For liberation doesn’t incorporate the destruction of the social and psychological structure of the people to be liberated ! Only the poor, the oppressed and the intellectuals suffered from the blockade while ironically Saddam was persistent in showing the world that he was not blockaded building sumptuous palaces and celebrating birth days with pyramids of cakes in open parties, meanwhile only war-mongers, smuggles and thieves thrived in Iraq.
 
  Americans were on the wrong track too when they were led to believing that Iraqis were all dissatisfied with Saddam or against him. Saddam’s parental policy and party vigilance have created a vast social and economic class including special army and security units which enjoyed undreamt of privileges, pay and luxury. The moment Americans entered Iraq, they embarked on bossing, killing and arresting (suspect) Iraqis, watching them out, hunting them down and buffing them away under the threat of guns` muzzles, almost after the British manner when Britain occupied India more than two and a half centuries ago. To send Iraq’s army and other military and security configurations home amounts to declaring a civil war in Iraq. Moreover, Iraqis have been always proud of their flag and army and are themselves militant in mentality, perspective and temperament. To declare that Iraq’s army is defeated, not Saddam’s regime is a downright ego-humbling experience for a people born worriers and boost of seven successive military civilizations which for centuries had mastered the whole Near East including Israel. Even the most law-abiding officer, soldier or partisan started to seek an alternative way for living which he couldn’t find. And the USA knows from the outset that there were many rich Arab and non-Arab neighbours even non-Arab Iraqis who cannot relish a would-be democratic, multi-ethnic and powerful Iraq. Iraqis would rather prefer the West including the USA, of course, not to finance Turkish water projects on Euphrates and Tigris since Turkey stands on a sweet water pool and has many rivers other than Euphrates and Tigris. Iraqis see their land reduced, their water resources depleted, even their very cultural and economic wealth seeping out of their homeland and hands. How could they, then, not resort to violence! If not against the Americans, against their own people. Bremer was either ignorant or indirectly dictated by Israel’s Old Guards to dissolve the Iraqi Armed Forces (which even I, partly Western in education, cannot write but in Capital Initials).Then, came Abu Ghreib scandal which any relational thinking would inescapably link with Israel too: Reading the Old Testament, we encounter a strange almost valid correlation between the curse of Nahum against Nineveh (Iraq in classical times), and Abu Ghreib tortures. The text runs as follows:
 
This is why I am against you, says the Great Lord. I will lift your skirt over your face. I will show the countries your nakedness. I will through garbage at you, etc. which has a striking similarity to the nakedness of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghreib – a straight-forward ego-humbling experience and a cultural insult undeservedly inflicted on a proud and dignified nation upon orders of Zionist circles. Yahweh is blind. He is only a figure-head desert God compared to Assur-Naserpal Pulu and Shalamanser the Third who brought Jehu to his knees kissing the feet of Assyrian might. By what miracle America wants Iraqis to forget and forgive while they are neither humanized to behave as humans nor respected to behave as Gods!
 
  The way the Americans deal with Iraqis and particularly the arrest of women indicates another significant aspect of American ignorance of Iraqi mentality. Adding fuel to fire, the USA has created power vacuum in Iraq. For what few tens of thousands of service men and women can do to stabilize such nation down-trodden, mauled about and dissatisfied in such a vast hide –and-hit, hit-and-run country? The number of the USA forces in active service in Iraq approximately equals the number of arch criminals released by Saddam two months before his downfall some of whom had immediately grown beards , turned into pious Muslims and joined the so-called resistance adding experience and a habit of blood-cold killing to the newly recruited Mujahideen. In fact, the cast of mind of an Iraqi man harbours a composite reversoir of character alternatives. He embraces both negative and positive tendencies, and the adoption of either depends largely on the situation and activation. So, a die-hard Baathist, communist or a criminal can easily turn into a pious Muslim or a violent assassinator and vice versa depending on reward and punishment expectations, contingencies and incentives if not on sheer need.
 
  Before the entry of Americans into Iraq, ethnic and sectarian divisions were fast asleep, and the killing of innocent people jammed in between various fighting factions which were concomitant with Iraq-Iran war, triple folded. Take, for instance, the Kurds: during Saddam reign the Kurds enjoyed more rights and freedoms than their peers in Turkey or Syria who were not even allowed dress their own native garments. However, American policy towards Iraqi Kurds runs counter to its policy towards the Turkish Kurds. Its policy in this respect made everyone believe in the so-called USA double standard behavior which persisted all the way through other regions in the Middle East particularly the way it handles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while it policies towards Iraqi Kurds and their cousins across the borders is in a white and black contrast, providing the former with security and food through Provide Comfort Programme whereas supporting Turkish troops suppress the former, not because the PKK are still communists but rather because the USA historical attitude towards a secular Turkey dictates such a double-standard policy. Kurds generally were much more inclined to disobedience and revolt in Iraq than their counterparts in the neighbouring countries, and while the rest of Iraqis were suffering from the blockade imposed by superpowers on Iraq , the Kurds were in an almost a welfare state saving money and power. Some of them went so far as participating in the looting of weapons, equipment and wealth from Mosul, Kirkuk and other places at the night of the fall of Saddam under the coverage of the American-led coalition forces which brazenly allowed the looting of the Iraqi museum in the open daylight. This and other acts would, of course, create distrust in the Sunni Arabs of the north who never relish a Kurdish control of important offices in the present Iraqi government. Separatist tendencies began to mushroom and Iraq is threatened by disintegration and collapse. All this has taken place under the American umbrella. It was not the case during Saddam`s reign. And it seems logical that in a country made of various ethnicities like old Yugoslavia, the best system of government is a central dictatorship, which many prefer to chaos. So one is led to ask if anything has gone wrong between the outlook, the objectives and the real practices regarding this land-slide intervention in Iraq. A question that must call American people to reflect on and their policy-makers to digest and find solutions to.
 
  Now, America is paying a heavy price for the powers it has unleashed in Iraq. Soldiers on both sides are being killed. The current government of Iraq has tacitly or maybe unconsciously increased not decreased the causes of violence. It is axiomatic that in order to extinguish a fire, it would be more reasonable to remove the causes that have set it out. Again, figures talk in this connection. Most top offices in the State are given out to either Kurds or Shiites. Some lack the qualifications for the offices they hold. This, more or less, like the sectarian cleansing in Kirkuk, powerfully reminds us of Saddam`s nepotism and partisan policies of appointment to high offices. What is the difference then?
 
  Now, America has been almost four years in Iraq. But the government, the country and the state including the Americans themselves are still using the same infrastructure, administrative system and organization Saddam has built in Iraq. Neither electricity nor the general living standard has significantly improved. There was no fuel crises, no assassinations of authors, academics and talented people, there was security and people used to enjoy their spring, summer and even fall and winter staying out at night. Now, fear reigns supreme all over Iraq. Borders are still out of control and the government lacks competent security forces and most importantly intelligence. America does not let them much freedom or rather authority. The irony becomes flagrant when it comes to the needless proposal of changing the Iraqi flag which is the perceived and generally accepted symbol of sovereignty. If local flags are to be flown in different parts of Iraq, America would have done nothing for the unification of a mutilated nation. Rather Chauvinism will replace Chauvinism, disintegration will replace integration and heterogeneity will replace homogeneity. In other words, hatred will replace oppression. America would have done nothing then!
 
  Bananas and Pepsi colas are scattered everywhere in the Iraqi streets but there is also blood, fear and discontent. It is strange indeed to come all the way through the Atlantic Ocean with half-baked strategies and ideas of the Middle East for countries and nations are not what they look in the research papers presented by Bernard Lewis or by maps elegantly detailed and completed by National Geography. It is rather keeping to an ethical and proper line of action: What America has done to its supporters and heroes such as Sadat, Dhia`i-Haq Shah Iran and Saddam has not equally and deservedly done to the corrupt gulf Emirs, Saudi Arabia and other tycoons hot on weapons and porno industries, experts in the selling and buying of human flesh and dignity.  No wonder then that Islam would theoretically as well as practically look a better alternative for a better life for many young people trying a new form of salvation from the poisonous consumer culture preaching something while practicing another. No one would replace light by darkness unless this sort of darkness is coming out of a black midnight sun like that of Paul Eloir or Derrida. People usually compare and some remember the contradictions between open declarations and political statements on the one hand and actual acts on the other. And in comparing politics nowadays, one is strongly reminded by the God-father or Big-brother movie when the strong is always right, correct and obeyed, no matter the howlers and errors he makes.
 

  Syria and Iran form the historical, cultural and ecological grid with Iraq. Shifting a brick in the wall will not in all probabilities affect the whole block. Rather the two states are strongly and violently alarmed and are rigorously doing their very best to crumble American efforts in Iraq. And this might be the last nail in the coffin of the USA policy of expediency and unreason in the whole Middle East.

by Salah At-Tarjuman

by Chenjerai Hove

Words are always a search for possibilities, they are fluid and they break like eggs, as my friend and poet Niyi Osundare says. For, ICORN seeks to give comfort to victims of words. Who said words are fragile? They are indeed fragile, but it has come to the notice of the world that the owners of words, the creators of these dots on paper, are more vulnerable than the word itself.

Was it Greek philosopher, Plato, who poetically said poets should be banned from the republic? As far as I can see, the republic usually demands quantifiable things, bridges, roads, tall buildings, an abundance of police and security officers. The republic seems to hate words, images, metaphors. Hence the creators of words and images find themselves as vulnerable as their creations. The republic is afraid of images to which it does not exercise control.

Control, that is the word, the power to give meaning to things, events, shapes and sizes of things, the power to name reality. Under dictatorial and suppressive regimes,  ‘words cause itches on the private parts of the republic.’

Before we left home, we were already in exile, banished to prison, to borders of silence, to a forced amnesia, to a life of total insecurity. The midnight knock on our doors always exhausted us with fear. In my case, I decided to work throughout most nights until sunrise, to avoid the nightmares.

Reality is elusive, like a dream. It needs to be named. Those who have the capacity to search for new names for this elusive dream called reality, are, indeed, in danger. For, after they take away our reality, they also want to take away our dreams, our visions in their total complexity.

Indeed, we have so many borders. The most dangerous ones are those we are not taught to see. Racism, economic disparities, hatred in our history books, power for the haves and ghettoes for those who produce after the hardest labour for our world. Religous fanatism disguised as civilisation, the new ‘crusades’ of trying to convert everyone to this or that religion as if there could ever be found a society without its own religion. For goodness sake, if I have been worshipping my god through a rock or a tree or a mosque or a cathedral, and it worked in more ways than one for thousands of years, please be polite enough to respect me and leave me alone with my gods.

A writer has to contend with the reality that there are too many Christians without Christ, too many Moslems without Prophet Mohammed. Otherwise how can we understand a powerful Christian leader who authorises the bombing and torture of hundreds of innocent people. And every Sunday he attends church. How else can we understand a religious leader who authorises his followers to go around beheading anyone they do not agree with. Christians  without Christ, Moslems without Mohammed, as far as can see.

"For the first time in years, I can sleep soundly through the night."
Sherman Carlos, Kristiansand City of Refuge’s Guest Writer 2003-2005.

International City of Refuge Network Writers,
Sleeping Soundly. . . Speaking Freely

While the webzine (www.icorn.org) is edited and moderated, here on the blog the principle of Freedom of Expression is put into absolute action.

We ask all of our guest writers to blogsome during their residencies. For more information about the International Cities of Refuge Network, see our website. For for information from voices once oppressed, speaking for themselves and for others unable to speak. . . welcome to the blog!

(The opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the ICORN Administration, editors, nor our benefactors.)