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Louis Yako
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Born
Iraq
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September 2020
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Louis Yako
If I told you, it would cease to be a mystery!
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Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile
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published
2021
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4 editions
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أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]
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published
2016
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سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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published
2025
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![سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere] by Louis Yako](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1752515137l/238750350._SX50_.jpg "سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere] by Louis Yako")
“[A Rose in Time of War]
I saw a red rose growing from black earth, kneaded with shrapnel, blood, and shattered glass. I said to the rose: “Congratulations! You survived war, death, and destruction.” The rose replied: “How dare you congratulate me? I did not survive the war. My mother carried within her the promise of countless seeds. They all died, and I alone remain in a world without roses. And even I did not survive whole. Only part of me survived. Here I stand before you, half alive, bearing witness to humanity's hypocrisy and its massacres. How dare you congratulate me? Every seed my mother bore was destroyed, while I remain alone, struggling beneath this black earth and this terrible ruin. I lay buried in utter darkness. The only comfort I knew was the sound of church bells ringing in the distance, though I never knew whether they rang for a feast day or for the funerals of victims betrayed by fate. The only comfort I knew was the voice of a muezzin, chanting from afar with a grief-stricken heart: 'I bear witness that there is n ...more Louis Yako |
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“[The Flock of Geese]
She had always wondered why she was overcome by an inexplicable sadness whenever she saw a flock of geese crossing the sky. Did those flying geese remind her that she had squandered years of her life caught in the trivia and absurdities of everyday existence? Or was it that the birds reminded her she had lost the power of flight? Sometimes she thought, with sorrow, of how she had wasted so many years, like a naïve bride dreaming of the perfect groom. A bride planning every last detail of her wedding day, never realizing, until her wings had been cut, that the wedding, the groom, and the bride herself were roles, illusions, invented by society to neutralize those who wish to fly, those who dream of creating new worlds, rather than dying strangled or suffocated inside a world designed for them in advance, a world they had no hand in making. And now, she hears the cries of another flock of geese passing overhead, just as the finest years of her life passed overhead. Another flock, awakening in her that overwhelming desi ...more Louis Yako |
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“[The Game of Silence]
So many learned the rules of the game and chose silence. So many remained silent, believing their silence would save them. So many were undone by that silence, struck down before they could utter even a single cry of protest, before they could tell the world that the cost of silence was far higher than the cost of resistance. 12 December 2023” Louis Yako |
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“It is complicated,’ they say. I am so sick of this response. Many people use it repeatedly to escape depth and confronting reality. They use it to take solace in the fact that they don’t know (or don’t wish to know) the ugly truth of what is happening right in front of their eyes. They reduce crimes, injustice, war, pain, hunger, rape, and everything that must be unpacked, dissected, and confronted to this: ‘It is complicated.’ They say this about COVID-19, too. Oh, how I have grown to hate this response. Every time I hear this statement from someone, it sounds like ‘I am a loser’ to my ears. ‘It is complicated’ is the favorite response of lazy brains that refuse to think and do. Oh, my friends, I insist it is not complicated. If you really want to know, it is not so complicated. However, if you are really looking for reasons and excuses to justify your silence, complicity, and to protect your self-interest, then you are absolutely right – it is complicated!”
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“Oh, my friends, the first wish I have for the new year is to change the worn-out greeting: 'happy new year'. There is no happiness, only fleeting moments of joy. There is nothing new under the sun, only new ways of looking at the same eternal challenges and unresolved questions. There is no point in wishing for a perfect health in a profoundly sick world – the view is much clearer and more interesting when living on the edge. And so, I wish you all endurance as we go through another difficult year. I wish you courage to snatch a few more days (or moments) of joy as another year slips through the fingers of Time. I wish you much strength to maintain your equilibrium as we face new earthquakes of uncertainty in the coming year. Most of all, I wish we never give up on the possibility of doing things otherwise. And, of course, I wish you much love.”
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“This is precisely why the mainstream media’s language has failed us, it has not been telling us what we really need to know, because their language marches in step with that of the bankers, warmongers, oppressors, and executioners. We need a new language of radical love not radical hate.”
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“Real wisdom lies not in just paying attention to what is being said, but in what is omitted from speeches.”
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“Isn't it quite ironic that we may be coming to a day when we may find all kinds of full-time, steady and secure jobs at universities for all, except jobs for educators?”
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“We have to bear in mind that oppression is almost never imposed on people in one big dose, because that could trigger an immediate revolution and uprising. Instead, oppression is given in small doses in such a way that each dose in itself is insignificant or negligible, but it is the total amount of these small doses that creates a great state of oppression and injustice.”
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“The whole concept of “competition” needs to be revisited. In my view, competition and wisdom are two different paths that will never intersect ... we need to seek wisdom rather than playing games and politics against our peers to get status and power.”
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“We must rethink and change the worn out concept of the “job market” under capitalism, which is designed to dispose of people in a second if deemed unprofitable to the system.”
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