I wrote a little speech this morning because I was waiting. I wait until the vision comes to me and I couldn’t get the whole speech together until this morning. I feel like when I write, my best writing is like a spiritual, visionary experience. It has to come to me in full and then I feel like this message was gifted to me and I have to share it and it’s like the embodiment of what my soul wants to say. So finally, this morning it came to me. It’s a bit long so I’m going to try to cut it down.
I feel like I can breathe easier for the first time since I was a little girl. Since I was five years old when I arrived to Toronto, I felt like an injustice had been done to me, my family and my country (Afghanistan). So much was stolen from us before we arrived. Since then, I wanted justice. I wanted to tell my story, seek truth in why this was happening to us and to so many and still is. Why is there a ‘global migration crisis’? Why is there an increasing amount of displacement and refugees over the years? Why war after war? Why so much division, hate and violence? And how can we stop it?
There are many, incredibly revolutionary Black-American women that inspired me along the way like poet and novelist Zora Neale Houston. Zora has a beautiful novel and movie, Their Eyes Were Watching God and it is a must-read book and must-see movie. She said: “If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it.”.
I wanted to write my pain through poetry and turn that pain into power when I started my poetry blog in 2012. That first step brought me to here – a published novel coping with and releasing that pain through a creative outlet which is creative writing. Prior to leaping into sharing my poetry, I had a sense of loneliness as an Afghan youth and girl. I had no one to talk to or relate to about my experience in my Afghan community because there was so much silence and lack of strong organizations to support or represent me. I wanted to learn how to survive this hell that I felt like I was in. My books are to fill that lack of literature and resources for people like me, especially Afghan women and girls.
My favorite quote by Toni Morrison, another Black-American woman, is “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” This is my ‘why’. The ‘why’ behind what I do. I wanted to read literature that I can relate to and spoke to my experience. I never read a book by an Afghan woman growing up. This is why I am so grateful for an indie publisher like Mawenzi House for publishing what major Western publishers have failed to do. You have empowered me by publishing my story which has brought me into the professional literary industry. Thank you.
I will share other favourite quotes by Black-American women that have inspired me into my journey to where I am now. bell hooks said “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love that we are often dreaming about receiving from others.”. And two, “Without justice, there can be no love.” She’s all about understanding love and justice. It is really spiritually a part of who I am as a writer. Another is Audre Lorde, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour who remains chained — nor is any one of you.”. I always have that in my mind. Our freedom isn’t some isolated thing, it’s a humanity issue and we are all connected. If someone else is not free, that will put you at risk as well. And then Maya Angelou, her famous poem, Still I Rise, where she says: “You may kill me with your hatefulness but still like air i’ll rise.”. Another quote by Maya Angelou, “My mission in life is not to merely survive, but to thrive.” and “People will never forget how you made them feel.”. I think with art you can apply these things. Through art, I think I went from survival to hopefully thriving. I still have a long way to go but I am trying to get to thriving. People will never forget how you made them feel. Art is the best way to connect with people’s hearts. I hope to do that with my art in a positive way.
Angela Davis said: “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change…I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” This is my act of not accepting the injustices that I see and feel through creative writing. And again, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating societies.”. So I am constantly, personally on my own personal experience of trying to open my mind and understand truth of things through my poetry and story-telling.
I also wanted to say that love and unity is very important especially when we are constantly being divided and it is still so prevalent today when we are divided by our media. Maya Angelou said: “We are more alike than we are unalike.”. I hope that through my novel, I can share the humanity that is in all of us and the stories and pains that brings us closer together.
Speaking on unity and humanity, if we close our eyes, we are spiritually one. This oneness is our power. Our spirit is within this power. We need to stay united as humanity because there are very few, corrupted individuals with a lot of power, a lot of resources and a lot of wealth that is mis-using it to unfortunately create this displacement, division, and war. So, when we close our eyes, I hope that we practice that oneness that brings all sentient beings, not just humans, into that oneness which I feel is the Universe. Despite the humanness and physical nature, we are that spirit. The more we connect with that spirit, the stronger we can be as humanity because it brings us together – our spirituality. The biggest thing is to be true to ourselves and honoring our spirit and I hope I did that with my novel because I would like it to connect me to my ancestors, Universe and God.
My favourite quote is: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight; and never stop fighting.“. I feel like art helps you become more of yourself and stay true to yourself because that is what it has done for me. The more I create, the more I learn about myself. I learned so much about my culture and history writing this novel which I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to growing up and it helped me realize how Afghan I really am spiritually. I was crying because finally I have time to learn about these favourite songs, food and the history. I was just becoming more of myself, so I think that is what I try to do.
So again, I just want to share that my whole purpose in everything I do is to spread love, unity, justice, peace, and truth-seeking. I hope I did that with this novel. I hope to write more novels. I hope that makes sense.
Thank you.
To purchase my debut novel, Nila the Bleeding Garden, you may do so on most major book retailers or directly from publisher website here: https://www.mawenzihouse.com/product/nila-the-bleeding-garden/ . It is available in paperback and e-book.
(My speech was shortened during reading due to time-limit. I may post the full, original speech written later on.)
Laila Re 