How many times did I swear: the word shall be on my lips forgotten ("wyraz na ustach zapomniany"). Isn't it rather an open wound bleeding in me? How many times did I say: that wound is closed now? I've heard that some crippled people go as far as denying the fact that their limbs are paralysed, or missing.
In any case, I'm in the last moment to gather my wits about me, accelerate my work, become serious. Some limbs are lost, other are not. And those limbs that are still alive are: intellectual work, originality, commitment with truth. In four years and five months I will be able to apply for Dutch nationality, and this would be when my political problem will have a new name, a certain meneer Wilders, if I'm not mistaken and if he lasts that long. Well, apparently he has been a kind of trendsetter in terms of manes, and his mane is no more what is used to be. In any case, I cannot help remembering him every time I enter the library, at the sight of the long rows of qur'ans and hadith collections (he claimed the book should be forbidden in the Netherlands; the Qur'an, I mean; I'm not sure about the hadeeth; and I always wondered how far such things would be feasible in the Netherlands; in any case, as far as I know, this very university was created soon after they got rid of the book-forbidders and other inquisitors, and the first use the Dutch made of their freedom was to mount a printing press and start selling all sorts of forbidden books across Europe; also Arabic has been taught here uninterruptedly for more than 400 years; I suppose it takes more than just one meneer Wilders to bring such things down; but I must confess History is something I see at an increasing distance from my understanding). Be that as it may, I should spend more time learning the language, using it more actively. At least the way of saying nee. I've read in Gazeta Wyborcza that there have been people who poured benzine all over themselves and stroke a match, right in front of the government's buildings. To no avail. We've had a new Jan Palach in Warsaw lately, but it remained a mere fait divers. We've had all imaginable sort of scandals, one after another. 45% of people, 65% in some regions of the country, considered it just a lie. A fake news. And they voted, democratically, as if nothing happened. Event is no more. Is this the end of History? or just a section break? I can't expect them to notice my absence, certainly they won't. I didn't even die after hours of agony, having burned my skin into living flesh. I merely did what I was trained to do: I've translated my nie into nee, to as little avail as everything else.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
blog archives
September 2022
|