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In those poor regions, inside those houses with earthen roofs, oh how great was the fear of a fresh corpse… That dead one who would rise from his casket in the night and, frighten the living in his white shroud!
This was when our mother’s mattress on the floor became a meeting place greeting us all snuggled against her breast. Then, patiently, she would say in a clam and clear voice : “Death is by Allah’s orders and no one can escape it, everyone is equal only in death. Azrael knocks at the door of the wealthy as well as that of the poor and takes the life of whomever he chooses. Allah first gave death to the stone, the stone rumbled in pain, split open, huge mountains melted and became flat plains. Allah looked at the stone and said ‘No, no, death is too heavy for stone, it will never be able to bear it’. Then, he gave death to the earth. The earth did not stand it either, it became dust, it melted, melted, melted and became an infertile lifeless desert. ‘No“ ‘, said Allah, ‘death is also too heavy for the earth, it cannot bear the pain of death.’ So then he gave death to humans, and he saw how some cried, some laughed, some counted their money, some took the life, even of their brother, others dug another’s well, some set fires, others put them out, some were sated, others were hungry…That was when Allah said: ‘There you go, I found the crucibe and the bed for the pain of death, only humans can bear it, only humans can endure it.’ so he gave the pain of death to human beings…”
Did you know that Nazim estimated the pain of death to last one year, when writing to his beloved ?
You will live on, wife of mine
My memory like a black smoke
Will disperse in the wind.
You will live on, red-haired sister of my heart
The dead do not occupy for more than a year
People of the twentieth century.
Excerpt of Letter to my wife by Nâzım Hikmet
Does a mother who has lost her child also only grieve for one year…?
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There was a time when we feared the dead, we feared ghosts, ghouls, tales, legends…How were we to know that the living were even more dangerous?
We are in a tree-lined cemetery; it covers 33 hectares…In this cemetery, created in 1914, you find the mass graves from the First and the Second World War…Thousands of tombs stretch out on this vast piece of land.
The trees have shed all their leaves and scattered them at their feet, all that is old, all that is no longer necessary, lies on the ground. These leaves will be taken up in windy swrils, like children not wanting to leave their mother’s skirt, they will huddle at the foot of the tree…Then much stronger winds will blow, dispersing the leaves in a bitter sound, then it will rain, then the dead and the leaves, powerless, will decay, just as human life does…
The tree is proud, the tree is fertile, it will turn green, over and over agin.
Winter has come. But there, it is always winter… even the spring is nothing but a rainy winter.
You need a special authorization in order to enter the crematorium annexed to Damstadt’s forest cemetery. Luckily, I obtained this permission from the Department head…
This second crematorium producing reduced pollution to the town began functionning in 2001, in accordance with the federal law on controlling emissions; it can proceed to 4 500 creamtions per year. It has 63 cold rooms. It also has a large prayer and commemoration room called “forest peacefulness” and it is shared by all religions. There is also a dedicated Muslim section, created in that last few years, which face the qibla .1
In the hallway leading to the great hall, brand new caskets are lined up, as if they had just arrived from the carpenter’s workshop, each showing the deceased’s identity and cause of death. They await incinerating. For most of them, the cause of death is indicated as being Covid-19…There are as many young deceased as their are elderly ones. In the hall, a heavy smell of ashes and of burning irritates the throat. The while ceramic is covered with a kind of greyish tallow. The layer of tallow on the ground is sufficient to prove the thesis stating that Hitlerian fascism made soap from the remains of its incinerated victims.
The caskets are led in turn to the ovens inside where, after approximately an hour of cremation, the remaining burnt bones from the body are crushed by a special crushing machine, and placed in an earthenware jar or a metal one, depending on the wishes of the deceased’s kin, and handed over to them. It is also possible to follow the entire process from a viewing monitor.
The days when we feared a fresh cropse, when we pulled our woolen blankets over our heads and trembled in fear as far gone now, far behind the Qaf mountain 2. Those days are far away, because the living are much more dangerous than the dead. We were made to discover this…
Two young African women handle the cleaning here. One is from Nigeria, the other from Ghana. The Nigerian fled Boko Haram’s persecutions. Boko Haram who, under the eyes of Europe, in a bush forest, practices the most primitive and savage behavior, imposes reactionary laws, kidnaps girls and women and persecutes them. The two women are devout Christians, faithful keepers of the Bible transmitted by their ancestors. They both have coal-dark skin, braided hair, large hips, big breast, thick lips and white teeth, and a pink tongue, just like in the picture books.
Do you think that what Saartjie Baartman suffered at the hands of the white man is finished? African women’s large hips are still a toy in their hands. Perhaps they are no longer exhibited in a cage, with rhinos, but they are still mass sexual victims of white bourgeois men. As for African women in Europe…
These two have a bit more luck, they can bring bread to their children by wiping away the ashes of the dead, but what about the other wide-hipped ones…? In the bloody beds of their night life, African women are still the sexual victims of white bourgeois men…
I met an African women of about thirty who had come from Northern Germany with a broken back. Perhaps she had fled. An African women with wide hips and big breasts, whose back was broken under the attacks of fat white bourgeois men. She couldn’t work very much. She left before the end of the first month of her work contract. What happened to her, where did she go, is she even still alive? Who knows?
We used to be afraid of the dead, afraid they would come back to life, isn’t that right? Aren’t the living much more dangerous, much more cruel, much more terrifying than the dead?
Everywhere you find a large shopping center, there is an African woman minding the toilets. While we are strangers here, they are twice strangers, potential delinquents, slaves to the worst, the heaviest workloads. We are in the country of the white man, most democratic, we are in Europe where more weapons are sold, where more women are sold, where young people go made because of drugs, where more dead are burned, where exploitation is most developed and, bit by bit, where there is the most racism… Classes, oppressors, oppressed… We are immigrants at the tables where the bread smells of ashes. Everywhere we look, we are faced with suffering, especially those at the lowest rung in the ladder.
Leaving the crematorium, I look at the mask over my mouth; it has turned grey. Inside, there are so many dead awaiting incineration, so many urns…Then, my eyes are drawn to a kind of pile of unusual rubbish, surrounded by iron gates. Broken urns, ashes, like a small hillock, with tiny square marble tombstones, with crosses, with names on them, half broken. The ashes of the forgotten dead, as if they were consumer products with a specific shelf life, removed from the cement shelves, ashes thrown int the garbage…
The urns seem to say: “Give me your hand while I am still alive, what’s the use after my death?” Life is like that, exactly like that, like great Europe’s belly, where the poor take refuge, fleeing exploitation into the rich countries that swallow and crush everything pitilessly…
Despite everything, I would like my ashes to go to my country in an urn… that they leave nostalgically, that they be dispersed by a warm wind blowing from Harput to Kuzova, so that my eyes can close in peace, after seeing the country, one last time.
Image : Naz Oke 2022 adoptart.net
Translation from French by Renée Lucie Bourges
Suna Arev was born in 1972 in the village of Uzuntarla, Elazığ district. From a family of eight children she became one of the agricultural workers at an early age. The military coup d’état of September 12 1980 served as a mirror in shaping her political outlook. After obtaining a diploma from the Elazığ Professional Business School, she experienced the full force of fascist and racist behaviours in her town. She has lived in Germany since 1997, for political reasons. She is the mother of four children.
