Sawt al Niswa | صوت النسوة - revolution

Why We Write? The Distance Between Experience and Expression

Maya El Ammar — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Laurel Harig

Is writing a desire to confess? A cry in the dark, a desire to be known, to be read? In her 1997 essay, quoting the poet Muriel Rukseyer, the American poet and social activist Adrienne Rich said, “If there were no poetry on any day in the world… poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.” Sometimes this hunger to leave a mark of one’s existence seems like some sort of perverse willfulness. At other times, it becomes absolutely necessary.

I write in order to heal my brain, organically. We create stories and re-create them, every few months, it seems, to deal with the shifting and boiling temperature of inner life. In this “white heat” of writing, time dissolves and the past and the future converge into one moment where the tip of the pen meets the paper. (Or when the mechanical imprint of the character appears on the screen; the pseudo-ink?) In writing, I am calm, I hope I am calm. I will tell myself that everything is smooth, has a surface, is reflective… Keeping a journal allows one to chart the ups and downs of daily life as well as the divisions between our personal, professional, relational and private lives. Where poetry breaks down these barriers in a flash of insight, narratives can build them back up.

If I had to choose, I would choose to sing rather than to write. What is it about singing that cuts to the heart, that opens an immediate pathway between the singer and the listener? A song appears once and is gone, it is bound to a particular moment in time and to a place, a stage. All of the feelings, moods, and vibrations of an experience pulse together when listening to a song performed live. It strikes me that a singer onstage (or a spoken-word poet for that matter) is like a political activist delivering a speech. She cannot cling to her mantle, her power, after using it or else it becomes a shroud. She knows that her power lies in mediating between the world and power, and that is her gift.

Justice, to me, is a big tawny bird with feathers of copper and gold. She eats truth, she is a woman covered with blood, having birthed herself and cut the cord. She is a painter, an image weaver, singing out her reel of films and string… the bird filled with mercy, a woman in a cup, a ribbon, smiling wholly, she erases everything and sings her own song, like the phoenix, who appears to sing out its unique song, to make words into arrows and into necklaces to celebrate what is being done right and all the work left to do. For, “[f]reedom is not necessarily a path, it is an ether into which one plunges… where one merges with what was held back from ecstasy…”2 If writing were not political/ i would tear my hair out/ it’s not delicate, aesthetic butterfly/ wings coated with a fine silver dust/ it is not the underside of clouds…

As a woman I have been inspired by writers, song- makers, artists and poets. I suppose what I always shouted at my brother, “it’s not fair!” is still the guiding truth of my life. It was this choice that propelled me to switch majors from Comparative Literature to Anthropology. I wanted a discipline more in tune with political and cultural life. The political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt named the joy one experiences when acting in public, “public happiness.” Public happiness is the great treasure of all of those who live through revolutionary times and feel the exhilaration of acting in such a way as to make a difference in the world. One sees the joy in the faces and voices of the protesters. However, this is not true, re: Arendt, that the signposts we used have worn away; they have just been re-invented, re-inscribed with new meanings. Anthropology, then, has more in common with archaeology than I thought. We dig up forgotten meanings, excavate and brush off old concepts and forgotten texts that may help us to see the world we live in a new light.

We know that one cannot live by bread alone, but writing, in particular academic writing so often seems an unnecessary embellishment on top of the sounds and speech of everyday life. At the same time, as academics, as teachers and writers, we must be responsible witnesses, to try to create platforms for thought and reflection. Academics must be activists in this era of propaganda and spinning of truths so that our own faces are no longer recognizable in the stories we are forced to create or tell about ourselves in order to pass muster with the architecture of corporate life. We must create a world where knowledge can flourish and help to build society, rather than serve destruction and war.

Our bureaucratic institutions thrive on cultures of paperwork. We gather facts and we sort them and file them. Our libraries fill with books. Yet, at a certain point, the time for writing must come to an end. It is not acceptable anymore to bear witness to the daily injustices. We must translate our ethics into practice, in the very slippery and incomplete ways that they must be. The time for careful discourse is over, we must say something, anything. It is time to go down to the streets. If you are not willing to put your body where your mouth is, then your words have no real meaning. Writing must live between the body and speech. It must live as a text. It is to this end that we write, again and again, because the distance between experience and expression is always too big a gap.

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hereandthere/من هنا وهناك

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رسالة من ام مصرية

Azadeh Faramarziha — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Sawt al Niswa

غادة كبش

لما ناس سألونى هنتقابل يوم الثلاثاء و لا بلاش علشان المظاهرات قلتهم و افرض يعنى مظاهرات ما هى اكيد مش هنحس بيها و هتخلص قبل الظهر… قد ايه كنت مش فاهمة قد ايه فاقدة الامل و جاهلة! بس دخلت ع الفيسبوك بليل و شفت اللى بيحصل و ما كنتش مصدقة…معقولة دول مصريين؟ بس قلت أكيد يوم و هيعدى و كنت غلطانة تانى… و عدى يوم الثلاثاء و الأربعاء و الدنيا بتولع: حماس، تضامن غريب بين الناس مشوفتوش فى بلدى غير فى ماتشات الكورة و فجاءة بدأت أسمع ان صحابى رجالة و ستات بيتشدوا… ايه ده هو الموضوع المرة ديه جد و لا ايه؟

و فجاة جتلى حالة مش هتصدقوها: انا غيرانة .. ايوه غيرانة جدا من الشباب و البنات و الرجالة و العواجيز اللى نزلوا ..طب يا بت هتفضلى قاعدة كدة بس تبعتى فى شعارات على النت؟ هو ده بقى الفيرتوال اكتيفيسم virtual activism ؟ عملت ايه انا فى وسط الناس ديه كلها؟ يعنى طول الوقت اشتكى من ام البلد و اقول عايزه اهج و ان مافيش فايدة و مفيش أمل … طب ما هو فيه امل اهه !! طب ما جت فرصه أقول رأيى بأعلى صوت فى الشارع ! ساكته ليه؟ خايفة ليه؟

بس كل ماقول هانزل.. خلاص مش قادرة.. افتكر ابنى… لازم لما يجى من الحضانة يلاقينى .. لو حصلك حاجة مش هتسامحى نفسك ابدا.. انت مصدر الأمان الوحيد بالنسبة له.. اعقلى و اتصرفى كأم مسئولة…غريزة الأمومة عندى أقوى من الشجاعة و أقوى من رغبتى الشديدة فى المشاركة فى صنع تاريخ بلدى.. بس ده كان امبارح

انا بحب ابنى فوق الوصف و عايزه ارجعله سليمة و انايمه فى حضن امه … انا خايفه و مرعوبة… انا جبانة من الآخر ..بس انا تعبت من الخوف و مش عايزة أربى ابنى على الخوف و القهر

زهقت من الخوف!!

بلاش تشدى مع الضابط اللى بيتنك عليكى احسن يطلع عينك… اديله سبوبة و خلصى

بلاش تردى على اللى بيتحرش بيكى احسن يطلعك مطواة أو يرشك بمية نار

بلاش تقفى للبلطجى اللى كسر عليكى احسن يطلع ابن حد كبير فى البلد

بلاش تتكلمى فى السياية علشان خاطر انتى ام وست و مش طلبة مشاكل

تعبت

تعبت من الخوف و القهر و الظلم

نفسى اعيش فى بلد تحترمنى و تحترم حقى فى التعبير و فى الاختيار و هى ديه مصر اللى عاوزة اربى ابنى فيها

علشان كده انا نازله بكره المظاهرات ان شاء الله… هاودى الواد فى أيد أمينة و انزل مع الناس اللى أكيد أشجع منى بس هاحاول اتعلم منهم يعنى ايه احترام الذات و الغير و يعنى ايه حرية و يعنى ايه وطنية.

هانزل و الله المستعان

رجاء أخير لكل واحد بيخاف على حد: لو حد حبيبك و غالى أو غالية عندك قالك أنا نازل بلاش تحبطه، بلاش تقول مافيش فايدة، سيبو أو سيبها يعيش التجربة ديه حتى لو مش هتكون بفايدة ، حتى لو هيتعرض لأذى … انا عارفة ان ده صعب و خصوصا لو كنت اب او ام زيى ..بس لازم تقهر خوفنا و لو مرة علشان تقدر نكمل عيشه فى البلد ديه، مهما كانت النهاية

و ربنا مع مصر

أم مصرية