Im Laufe der Geschichte haben Wanderbewegungen von Menschen die Kultur bereichert,
einen umfassenden Wissensaustausch ermöglicht und den menschlichen Fortschritt
beschleunigt. Migration ist in die Geschichte der Menschheit eingebettet, und viele von uns
haben eine Migrationsgeschichte zu erzählen: von unseren eigenen Lebenserfahrungen, von
denen unserer Familien oder von den Menschen, mit denen wir täglich zu tun haben. Hier bei
E-MINDFUL kuratieren wir einen Wandteppich individueller Geschichten, der Teil einer Online-
Ausstellung sein wird.
THE POEM IS AVAILABLE ONLY IN ENGLISH
One night you asked me if I knew what qadr(1) meant.
My cheeks burned but I did not blush.
Maktub(2), I tentatively answered after a minute or so, after rummaging through the memories of books and
dictionaries across years and cities.
I did not remember when I learned that word or where I was when I did,
But I wondered what you were doing at that exact moment, where you were in that instant.
Almost, you said.
Staring at my ceiling, the northern border of the microcosm we created for ourselves, inscribed in the country we
had unintentionally found ourselves in,
you asked me what determines where we are born;
Why I was born in my country and you were born in yours,
Still convinced I believed your home bordered Israel but not Turkey.
When we said goodbye you played Kadhem Saher singing Nizar Qabbani’s words, and I knew you were preparing
the ground.
You solemnly announced you had a confession to make.
I told you I knew from the moment your friend introduced himself on the night we met.
You smiled, then cursed yourself for having underestimated my language skills,
You asked me why I never said anything about it. I said it was not up to me to do so.
It was a joke you said, one you had not started but had gone along with, and did not know how to break out of.
I always wondered whether that was the truth.
I always wondered whether it instead had something to do with that time the police stopped you,
To check for drugs.
I always wondered whether it instead had something to do with that time I woke up to you talking to your brother’s
teacher on the phone, after which I asked myself when you had become the person to speak to, what your voice
must have sounded like when you first started mastering the sounds, the grammar that legitimized you as such.
I always wondered whether it had something to do with that man under the Gürtel who heard us speak on the night
of my birthday, and all men like him.
It was so extraneous to me, the thought that someone might treat you differently for what would be less than a
millimeter on a map.
Back home it would have been ugly all the same, but it would not have been that millimeter to make a difference.
I guess there are at least as many shades of ignorance and bigotry as there are words for love in your language.
And why would it make a difference? A border flimsier than a signature on a paper.
A softer pronunciation of the same language.
But that’s not what they see, is it?
They see a stretch of kilometers that determines the nature of your journey and the status on your documents.
One night you asked me if I knew what qadr meant.
My cheeks burned but I did not blush.
I wonder if they would see it differently if when they heard you speak they knew that zu erröten(3) is closer to
ihmarra(4) than it is to blushing.
NOTES
1 Fate
2 It is written – Fate – predetermination
3 To blush – German
4 To blush – Arabic
Schicken Sie uns Ihre Geschichte der Migration. Dabei kann es sich um Ihre eigene Erfahrung
handeln oder um die eines Familienmitglieds oder eines Freundes oder sogar um ein
Gespräch, das Sie mit einem Fremden geführt haben. Wir sind auf der Suche nach kreativen
Möglichkeiten, diese Geschichten auszudrücken, sei es in Form eines Essays, eines Gedichts,
eines Videos, eines Gemäldes, einer Illustration oder eines anderen Formats, das Ihre
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bewerben, senden Sie uns bitte eine E-Mail mit dem Betreff “E-MINDFUL Stories of Migration”.