Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution by Matthew Cassel

Author:Matthew Cassel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2013-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

5

THE RESISTANCE

ARMED WITH WORDS (YEMEN)

By Jamal Jubran

Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger

I

I look back now at the life I’ve led, at my childhood, and ask myself: How is it that I experienced such pain?

I was a singularly ungifted child, physically weak and always afraid of others, something that stemmed from the fact I was born outside of Yemen, where I came with my family when I was not even a year and a half old. My father had decided to leave Eritrea and return to Yemen, his homeland, after long years of exile and so my Eritrean mother, unwilling to be parted from those she loved, was forced to abandon her country and come with us.

We returned.

We had nothing. My father had to start his life again from scratch. It is impossible to convey how poor we were, living together in a single room.

My brothers all spoke excellent Arabic, acquired at the only school in Asmara that offered the children of Arab exiles an education in their mother tongue. I never got the chance, which was only natural, since I was still breastfeeding at the time, my talents confined to crying and nestling in my mother’s arms.

Slowly, painfully, I grew up. Useless at everything, unable to pronounce a single intelligible sentence in Arabic, I failed to get into school when I was old enough to go. My stock response, when approached by Yemenis or asked to do anything, was to weep. I was scared of strangers, which meant I had to stay close to a family member at all times. The task of looking after me was divided between my mother and my siblings according to the time they could spare. It was out of the question to leave me alone to face the cruelty of the world around me, a world I could not negotiate with words. The neighbourhood kids, for instance, would beat me up for the slightest reason, or for none, exploiting my inability to express myself in Arabic and my puny physique.

Then something happened that turned my life upside down and changed everything.

One day, with my seventh birthday in sight, I went to the cinema for the first time in my life and there I discovered the world as I wanted it to be, a world that compensated me for a reality in which I was yet to find my place.

It was an Indian film. I watched the hero defeat swarms of enemies with a single blow, a victory, it seemed, that was out of my reach. Now I knew how to get to the cinema on my own – it wasn’t far from where we lived – I was there every day. It became my own alternative universe, a place where I could slip into the guise of the one-punch hero and take revenge on the world, on the little bastards from the alley who took turns to beat me whenever they found me alone and unprotected.

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