Kristine Kostava / Voix d’Exils.

« Elle ne connaitra jamais le visage de sa mère, ni les couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel… »

Masha est une petite fille migrante aveugle que j’ai côtoyée dans un foyer de l’Établissement Vaudois d’Accueil des Migrants (EVAM). J’ai personnellement traversé beaucoup de souffrances dues à un handicap physique qui m’empêche de me déplacer normalement. J’ai souvent perdu l’espoir et le goût de vivre. Mais quand je pense à Masha, je me dis que le plus terrible, c’est de ne pas voir les gens que l’on aime et les couleurs du monde.

Quand j’ai rencontré Masha, elle avait 6 ans et habitait avec Katya, sa maman, dans un foyer EVAM. Alors que la petite avait 2 ans, des médecins ukrainiens lui ont diagnostiqué une tumeur cancéreuse à un œil qu’il fallait opérer le plus rapidement possible, faute de quoi elle perdrait la vision. Comme il n’y avait pas de chirurgiens formés pour ce type d’intervention en Ukraine, Masha devait se faire soigner à l’étranger.

C’était une période très dure. Le père de Masha avait abandonné sa femme et sa fille et les avait laissées sans ressources. Katya a alors dû vendre la maison familiale pour emmener Masha en Allemagne et payer les chirurgiens qui l’ont opérée mais qui n’ont toutefois pas réussi à sauver son œil. C’était une époque très difficile pour Katya et Masha car, entretemps, une tumeur était apparue sur l’œil sain de la petite.

Désespérée à l’idée que sa fille perde la vue, et déçue par le travail des chirurgiens allemands, Katya a décidé de la faire soigner en Suisse. Comme elle n’avait plus les moyens de payer cette nouvelle intervention, elle a posé une demande d’asile. Malheureusement, en Suisse non plus, les chirurgiens n’ont rien pu faire et Masha est devenue aveugle.

« Maman, à quoi ressemble le monde ? »

Comme nous habitions dans le même foyer, je pouvais constater à quel point la vie quotidienne de cette maman et de sa fillette était difficile et compliquée. J’entendais Masha pleurer sans arrêt. Elle était très tyrannique avec sa mère. Elle voulait qu’elle soit en permanence à ses côtés et ne parle qu’à elle, elle l’empêchait même de manger.

Elle posait aussi sans arrêt des questions :

• Maman, de quelle couleur est le ciel ?
• A quoi ressemble le soleil ?
• Pourquoi je ne vois pas comme toi tu vois ?
• Maman, à quoi ressemble le monde ?

Je voyais combien Katya souffrait pour sa fille et je sentais sa tristesse de ne pas pouvoir l’aider davantage.

Malgré les deux interventions chirurgicales destinées à enlever les tumeurs optiques, Masha n’était pas hors de danger. Elle devait encore subir une chimiothérapie pour éviter que le cancer ne se généralise. Après chaque séance, elle ne dormait pas la nuit, ne mangeait rien, pleurait sans cesse et demandait constamment de l’aide à sa maman.

Une enfance sans insouciance

Mon cœur se serrait de ne pouvoir rien faire pour la soulager et de savoir qu’elle vivait dans le noir complet. En tant que graphiste, je suis très sensible aux couleurs, aux images, au monde qui m’entoure. Chez moi, la vue est le sens qui est le plus développé et je trouve particulièrement handicapant et frustrant d’en être privé.

Ça me déprimait de penser que, contrairement aux autres enfants, Masha ne connaîtrait jamais l’insouciance de jouer librement. Qu’elle ne connaitrait jamais le visage de sa mère et les couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel, qu’elle ne pourrait pas cueillir de fleurs, compter les oiseaux et courir dans la cour. Pour elle, la beauté et le bonheur de l’enfance n’existaient pas. Elle vivait dans un abîme noir, dont la vie s’était retirée.

Chaque jour, je pleurais avec Katya, et j’étais en colère contre la vie qui se montrait si dure envers cette femme courageuse et sa petite fille. Je me posais beaucoup de questions sur l’injustice dont elles étaient les victimes, mais sans jamais trouver de réponse. Je ne voyais qu’une réalité amère contre laquelle je ne pouvais pas me battre. J’étais impuissante…

Nous avons passé un an ensemble dans le même foyer, à nous épauler, à nous encourager. Puis, nous avons changé de lieu de résidence et nous avons été séparées. De temps en temps, je reçois de leurs nouvelles. Rien n’a vraiment changé, mais Katya regarde vers l’avenir avec l’espoir qu’un jour une greffe de l’œil soit possible et permette à Masha de voir la beauté du monde!

Kristine

Membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Auteur: Photo Grrrrr « Boom! » (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A reflection about holidays celebrations in and out of Syria and why should we learn from the experience of a four-year-old child who was terrorized as fireworks resurrected flashbacks of horrible sounds and scenes of explosions from the time she was lying in a cradle.

Europeans are often surprised to discover that Christmas and New Year’s Eve are officially celebrated in Syria. Actually they are official holidays on these two occasions and many TV programs are usually devoted to their celebrations just like the two main Islamic festivals: Feast of the Sacrifice, (Eid al-Adha,) and Feast of the Breaking the Fast, (Eid al-Fitr). In contrast, there are many islamic and ethnic groups whose religious or national festivals are not officially recognized for different reasons some of which are religious and others are political.

However, I am not going to run the gamut of two complex phenomena: the complicated Syrian society or the equally complicated Syrian regime. What I am going to demonstrate instead is why it is becoming harder and harder to celebrate the usual holidays in Syria. The axiomatic response would be: «In wartime, there are no celebrations, save those of the awaited victory». Actually, that was the gist of Assad’s words when he came to «celebrate» the New Year’s Eve with his soldiers in Jobar, a district of Damascus. Probably, no one could deny a political acumen in his visit which aimed at lifting up the morale of his soldiers. There might be also little doubt that he is shrewdly playing the worldwide-played game combating terrorism. Ironically enough, the more he or others combat terrorism, the more it is rife and the less victories or celebrations are actually attainable. Instead of discussing politics, I feel like giving tangible evidence from my circles about our perseverance to sustain a mood for celebrations.

Auteur: thierry ehrmann “Abode of Chaos” (CC BY 2.0)

Personal tolerance and resistance of powerful trends

My nuclear family: my parents, my siblings and I, took from the onset of the Assad’s crackdown against the popular uprising in our city, Homs, a decision not to take part in any act of violence whatever polarization gets intensified in the Syrian society. Actually, our attitude was a practice and a way of life more than just a decision, and we were fully aware that our principles were not going to be appreciated because they inherently hold an undesirable political message in a highly mobilized society. Being a non-religious family and best described as humanists, the New Years Eve was the only festival that we were keen to celebrate despite all adversaries and lack of room for joy. It was always an opportunity to assure our solidarity and to renew and bolster our hope. Nevertheless, the regime’s demand to bear arms and the pressure on us escalated to an apex that eventually pushed us to seek peace in more peaceful countries. My brothers and I are particularly vulnerable as we can be forced by the Syrian military law to join the reserves.

I will sum up the reasons why it was hard to renew our hope for 2015 though we managed to exchange some wishes and say «Happy New Year». First, the big family has been divided as some have managed to come to Europe while the rest remained in Syria. Virtual meeting are possible but, nowadays, electricity is available for only two hours in the best-case scenario. This obstacle stands as the second reason, while the third was due to the fact that this festival occurs in the depth of winter when it is usually snowy all over the Syrian coastal region. As a consequence, the rest of the family left behind ran out of burning fuel used for heating homes and food and nothing was left but books. I should say that my family owns more than one thousand books. In fact, a part of the New Year’s Day conversation was to obtain my permission to burn my books. It is the second time that we engage in setting books on fire. The first time, my father burned only his Soviet books. I guess that I love books, but my passion for books is not strong to the degree that I would answer my parents with «no» even though a part of those books are my own publications. I do not deny a dilemma in this situation, but I said «yes». Finally, I have to mention why my brother and his family could not enjoy the New Year’s celebrations in one of the European countries. Their longing for scenes of joy had them get upstairs to watch the fireworks, but the four years old kid was scared as the fireworks recalled the horrible sounds and scenes of explosions she had been exposed to and vulnerable to almost since she was born. They tried hard to assure her that these fireworks are sort of games and harmless, but her screams and tears were more convincing than all the logic and wisdom on the earth. Her screams were like: «Go, go downstairs! We are going to die! Quickly! Let us go downstairs! Otherwise, we die!» She does not know other tactics for dodging missiles, explosions and «terrorism» apart from getting downstairs where the sounds of explosions are less powerful and where other family members used to combat «terrorism» and all the horror associated with it!

This little child does not differentiate between the western joy and the eastern misery, and for her, each of them is a source of horror! This little child thinks that fire is fire and explosives are explosives, therefore she cannot differentiate between them yet. Do we have to teach her that there are good explosives and bad ones? Why do not we learn from her innocence instead?

Auteur: Peretzp « US builds Neutron Bomb » (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The American conception and approach of terrorism: should it be also global?

Beyond doubt, violence is an aggressive and intolerant action or attitude, and the reasons behind it are diverse. Violence, however, is widely used as defense against military intervention, oppression, persecution, inequality, greed, intolerance etc. Nevertheless, there is a powerful tendency in the west to think of terrorism as rooted in a particular ideology or as a specific trait of a population living in certain parts of the world. This tendency is reinforced mainly by American politics or the media which discourse sustain that putative association between terrorism and middle-eastern peoples. The American administration prefers to support dictatorships or repressive regimes in order to monopolize the massive exploitation of natural resources along with fostering deposits in American banks. Sympathy and willingness to cooperate with eastern peoples arises and comes into practice only when natural resources and capitals do not go to America like the cases of Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein for instance. I can understand the current American politics and propaganda which are heavily influenced by the Eurasian Geostrategy for the United States formulated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who held the position of United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In his book, «The Grand Chessboard», Brzezinski regards the landmass of Eurasia as the center of global power and writes that no Eurasian challenger should emerge capable of dominating Eurasia and threatening America’s global pre-eminence. However, I do not advocate any European (or even American) convergence with the American propaganda which is devoted to indoctrinate that violence is rooted in islam or in the Middle East. The reasons why I do not support such disinformation go beyond the fact that I come from the Middle East, and that I hate being viewed as a potential holder of terror. I denounce it because it is inconsiderate to the consequences of political unrest in the Middle East. Actually, Europe is much more affected by political instability in its Mediterranean neighbors and has become the most vulnerable location to uncontrollable immigration. Such circumstances call for further collaboration within the framework of friendly relationships with the peoples of the Middle East.

Coming back to celebrations, I do not mean to say that Europeans should not celebrate the New Year’s Eve or other holidays in sympathy with Syrians or other peoples in the world. What I call for, instead, is a sense of sustainability for these celebrations, which could be replaced one day by a putative victory against terrorism. This kind of sustainability can be achieved by a holistic approach to crises and by dropping borders from our minds, because these borders prove one day after another to be meaningless, especially in the time of crises.

Rami Ibrahim

Membre de la rédaction neuchâteloise de Voix d’Exils