Nu er jeg menneske igen - 8
“Here I was, in the middle of a true story, its
characters of flesh and blood: my wife, my
friend and her husband, our comrades lost in the wilderness, entire families with their endless stories. Families
sitting around fires tell stories of their
long journey to the Turkish borders. I
heard unbelievable stories.”
Salam Ibrahim: In the Depths of Hell" (USA, 2014)
Sprog og ord lægger sig
nysgerrigt op ad hinanden, når arabisk og engelsk blandes i 3 oplæsninger fra
den selvbiografiske flygtningeroman ”In the Depths of Hell”(USA, 2014) af
forfatteren Salam Ibrahim (Irak),
der læser på arabisk sammen med skuespilleren Sue Hansen-Styles (England), der læser på engelsk. Egentlig skulle Salam på arabisk
have læst sin tekst fra bogen sammen med Sue på filmuddraget fra
arrangementet, men det arabiske må vi have til gode til selve arrangementet.
Det er en hård bog at læse. Men det er også en nødvendig bog, der bliver
stående som vidnesbyrd for det, der er sket. Som et mindesmærke over de
lidelser, der har været – og som forfatteren stadig bærer med sig, såvel fysisk
som psykisk. Bogen er som et rekviem
og er hård som en knytnæve. Det er slet ikke velbehagelig læsning, men hvordan
skulle den også kunne være det. Jøderne har Auschwitz som deres smertepunkt.
Kurderne har Saddam Husseins giftgasangreb i Anfal som deres. Bogens undertitel
”A documentary novel about a survivor of
chemical warfare in Iraq” siger det hele. Med et næsten ubærligt
smerteligt greb om læseren gør den i passager bogen til tindrende litteratur, der tillader at vi ser med hans øjne. Vi ser alt det forfærdelige, men også den
bagvedliggende kærlighed, der har båret og drevet forfatteren og beretningen
frem.
Her to uddrag fra bogen:
Om Umm Fuad ved
sin mands grav:
“As soon as we finished our meal Umm Fuad asked about
her husband´s grave. The faces of those present were
confused and we gazed at each other waiting for someone to be brave enough to
take the initiative. She asked the question twice more. Our
hearts sank to the bottom of our feet and we persisted in silence, turning our
eyes away
towards the peaks and hills and treetops until we were saved by Bahar, who
said, "I will take you to it."”
“I was focusing on
her standing there and noticed that she had started
to mutter something. There was something dignified and magnificent about
her silent mutterings. Then, slowly, her voice started to be heard. Though weak and distorted at first, little by
little it became more understandable
and clear enough for us standing off
to the side to understand. She started telling their love story as if he was standing there, occasionally responding
as though they were having a
conversation.”
Det
næste uddrag skildrer forfatterens tanker, mens han er i Holland for at vidne ved menneske-rettighedssdomstolen i Haag i sagen mod de
ansvarlige for giftgasangrebet ved Anfal, som forfatteren selv blev udsat
for.
"I
could not find the Dutch taxi driver who was supposed to be waiting for me at
the airport in Amsterdam. I waited a bit before I made a call to one of my
friends living in The Hague who advised me
to take the train. I bought a ticket and went down to the railway platform. Night had fallen. I sat in a chair next
to the window and relaxed while
contemplating the faces of the passengers. I was listening to the Dutch
language but could not understand it. Their faces
were different than the Danish. There was definitely a larger mixture of races in the workers and travelers at
the airport, the people waiting on railway platforms, the tram passengers...
For some reason it made me more comfortable. No one was staring at you, or ignoring you after long glance. At best,
if wanting to engage in a
conversation, the first thing that one said would remind you that you were a foreigner and make you feel like
an outsider: "Hvor kommer du fra?" ("Where are you from?")
Despite
having gained Danish citizenship, I can still feel the deep gap between myself and
some of the native citizens; they have a
tendency to put up barriers over the smallest detail during any interaction. This is what happens to foreigners every
day in Denmark. Slowly, my mind drifted away again, away from the passengers
and the noise of the vehicle…"
Det
sidste uddrag skildrer forfatterens flugt lige inden de når frem til den tyrkiske grænse.
"“Let’ s
go!”
We were
heading down through the risky mountain paths. The sounds of
liveliness were coming from the waiting crowds, giving us hope
to continue on our way. We were no longer thinking about the two guys who
left us there, hopeless, but about the future and what we were to expect. Before we could reach the crowd and blend in with them, the two women changed their
Peshmerga clothing and put on the traditional Kurdish attire we had taken. We
then blended with the crowd.
Everything was shared, from misery to cups of tea to food. The refugees
had become like a large family, facing the unknown
together, trapped between the Turkish border guards on one side, and the
advancing Iraqi army on the other. We joined a family for a meal and they gave us food, water and hot tea for it was
very cold and we were in a mountainous region. I don't know how we spent that night surrounded by the light of
small fires among the rocks. I was
imagining myself living in a novel telling of enduring civil war, deportation, fear and tyranny. Those memories reminded me of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes
of Wrath, and One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Marquez."
"I
stood up from where I was sitting, and my wife asked me, "Where are you
going?"
"I'm going for a walk." "I fear losing you."
I
replied laughing, "We are all lost!" and added, "Don't worry. I'll be back.""
Illustration: Bodil Molich
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