Displacement Quotes

“The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The fish,
Even in the fisherman's net,
Still carries,
The smell of the sea.”
― Mourid Barghouti

“I am so ready to fly this nest”
― J.L. Marrain, The Gridd: Perils of the Lightholder

“Where am I going, sir?” Fear shot through his stomach. He had nowhere else to go.”
― J.L. Marrain, The Gridd: Perils of the Lightholder

“Everything suddenly seems displaced, subtle gradations erase borders, but it’s more forceful than that.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama

“You big ugly. You too empty. You desert with your nothing nothing nothing. You scorched suntanned. Old too quickly. Acres of suburbs watching the telly. You bore me. Freckle silly children. You nothing much. With your big sea. Beach beach beach. I’ve seen enough already. You dumb dirty city with bar stools. You’re ugly. You silly shopping town. You copy. You too far everywhere. You laugh at me. When I came this woman gave me a box of biscuits. You try to be friendly but you’re not very friendly. You never ask me to your house. You insult me. You don’t know how to be with me. Road road tree tree. I came from crowded and many. I came from rich. You have nothing to offer. You’re poor and spread thin. You big. So what. I’m small. It’s what’s in. You silent on Sunday. Nobody on your streets. You dead at night. You go to sleep too early. You don’t excite me. You scare me with your hopeless. Asleep when you walk. Too hot to think. You big awful. You don’t match me. You burnt out. You too big sky. You make me a dot in the nowhere. You laugh with your big healthy. You want everyone to be the same. You’re dumb. You do like anybody else. You engaged Doreen. You big cow. You average average. Cold day at school playing around at lunchtime. Running around for nothing. You never accept me. For your own. You always ask me where I’m from. You always ask me. You tell me I look strange. Different. You don’t adopt me. You laugh at the way I speak. You think you’re better than me. You don’t like me. You don’t have any interest in another country. Idiot centre of your own self. You think the rest of the world walks around without shoes or electric light. You don’t go anywhere. You stay at home. You like one another. You go crazy on Saturday night. You get drunk. You don’t like me and you don’t like women. You put your arm around men in bars. You’re rough. I can’t speak to you. You burly burly. You’re just silly to me. You big man. Poor with all your money. You ugly furniture. You ugly house. You relaxed in your summer stupor. All year. Never fully awake. Dull at school. Wait for other people to tell you what to do. Follow the leader. Can’t imagine. Workhorse. Thick legs. You go to work in the morning. You shiver on a tram.”
― Ania Walwicz

“Many besides Angel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements but as to their subjective experiences.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“mingling with the remains of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“What greater sorrow than being forced to leave behind my native earth?”
― Euripides, Electra

“I was watching
a city taking shape
like raging delusions
from the deposits of migrating
lovely pristine villages.
Grown playing in dusty streets,
I was searching myself
standing on bifurcating streets
between growing houses
in times dangerous even to tread.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“This is a city of those
who turn the pheasant
flying from rhododendron branch
carrying music of life
into crows by consecrating them
to the staples of the temples,
Of those who leave the god
behind in old people’s homes
and search on television after returning home,
Of those who throw human baby into trash container
and suckle dog’s puppies.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“It never fails to shock me how people take peace for granted.”
― Malala Yousafzai, We Are Displaced

“Silence is strength, when you know — deep down — that love is waiting at the other end of it.”
― Rehab R.Adil

“There is no cheap war or expensive war—every war is costly. The death of a single human being is a cost. Displacement is a cost. A spouse widowed, a parent lost, a child orphaned—these are all costs. Nightmares, trauma, and silent tears of the innocent are costs we should never forget.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“The early North American Indian made a great mistake by not having an immigration bureau.”
― Anonymous

“Leaving is a kind of death. You may find yourself with much less than you had before. It seemed to Mauro that in choosing to emigrate, we are the ones trafficking ourselves.”
― Patricia Engel, Infinite Country

“Hand Watches”
I opened the drawer where I store old keepsakes and tokens. My eyes paused on hand watches with dead batteries, frozen in time…

Gifts from teachers and friends— offered to honor my accomplishments, to praise my respect for time.

It never occurred to them, or to me, that Time could die of a heart attack— that it would cease to matter the day my homeland was occupied and destroyed.

The day the plunderers —both foreign and within— colluded to burn and erase all that was beautiful.

Since then, I’ve refused to wear hand watches, and I never will until my people reclaim their Time and dignity.

And when that day comes, Time will no longer matter. For then, I will become— a butterfly, a sparrow, a daffodil or an orange blossom, perhaps an apricot blossom on a branch, an unstoppable stream of water flowing beyond time and timing.

In that same drawer, I found pens that had run dry, like mummified corpses.

In a moment of despair, a lightning bolt of realization struck me— leaving behind a terrifying question:
What if this is a wound that no amount of time can heal— a cause so vast that all the world’s ink cannot write its cure?”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“Earth belongs to the Natives, settlers are welcome, but as participant, not head of state. Somos indígenas, somos indomables - you can make us houseless, but never homeless.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“I imagine this is true for all refugees—the paradox of being grateful for a new life that is based on the painful loss of an old one.”
― Malala Yousafzai, We Are Displaced

“White history sells the West as the free world, but dig into earth history, and you'll realize, West is the biggest threat to life and freedom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Behren's work resists easy classification. It is part expedition journal, part museum installation, part allegorical theatre. At the centre of the evolving vision stands a deceptively humble object - a brightly coloured toy submarine, discovered on a North Frisian island in 1974. Since then, this modest vessel has become a recurring avatar in his practice: a symbol of human curiosity, displacement, naivety. It drifts through imagined polar landscapes, burrows into archaeological strata, and even interrupts canonical works of European art history with both humour and quiet poignancy.”
― Christina Jansen, 50 Years of Naboland

“In small towns, where there is a dearth of good coffee shops, there is also a dearth of good lovers. You get what you get. On Tinder. On Bumble. A game of beer pong at a frat party. In the mixers section at Ashebrooke Liquor Outlet. At a cricket screening potluck party. And then, you make the most of it. You pass the snow days. And the fall days. And the two days of summer.”
― Kanza Javed

“We live in a world built on colonial atrocity, where exploitation is advancement and genocide is genesis.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Born in Syria. Shaped by the world. Rooted in the language of proximity.”
― Ali Al Mokdad

“That house is not the one I remember.
It is the one that remembers me.”
― W. E. Ticas, Where the Shadows Return”
― W. E. Ticas

“[Definition of Homeland]
As I travel
from city to city,
from one strange country
to another,
from one sorrow
to the next,
thousands of unfamiliar faces
meet me
in streets,
shops,
parks,
and cafés,
and ask me
the same question:
“Where are you from?”
As if they know very well
that I come
from a place
that was lost,
and lost me with it,
in a sorrowful
winter night.
And they ask:
“What is your homeland
known for?”
I answer:
“My homeland is known
for exporting sorrow,
emigrants,
exiles,
and all those cursed
by being born there.”
The same questions
are asked
at cocktail parties,
gatherings of hypocrites,
conferences,
and tedious meetings.
Some ask:
“How do you define
homeland?”
I say:
“Homeland
is the place
that misses you
when you leave.”
And when you are not
in your homeland,
you are everywhere—
in the wide, vast world.
And whoever is
everywhere
is nowhere.

April 19, 2014”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“[Images from Distant Places]

(1)
In distant villages,
you always find
the same images:
fields,
livestock,
houses of worship,
and small, simple shops.
That is all
their people need
to sustain life.

(2)
“Can you stay with me forever?”
she asked,
holding him tightly
in her arms.
“I’m sorry.
I can’t.
My next flight leaves
in two and a half hours,”
he answered
with feigned concern,
after placing
a kiss on her forehead.

(3)
As I walked
through an old street
in Bucharest,
a street
devoured, swallowed,
and vomited by time,
I caught sight
of a poor homeless man
combing his hair
in the side mirror
of a modern car.

(4)
The shape of the eyes
does not matter,
nor their color.
It does not matter
whether they are blue,
black,
or green.
What matters
is that the moment
you look into them,
you know
they have seen
too much.

(5)
A stranger asked me
how I chose
my path in life.
I answered:
I chose nothing,
my friend.
My path is like being forced
to sit on a plane
through a long,
long journey,
on the condition
that I keep my seat belt fastened
until the end.
And here I am,
still sitting,
unable to move,
unable to walk,
unable even
to throw myself
from the plane.

(6)
After a long time
of searching
and observing,
I discovered
that the favorite hiding place
of sorrow,
despair,
and desolation
is beneath suits
and neckties,
beneath evening gowns.

(7)
Ah, my “poet” friend,
do you know
that the bouquet
of wildflowers
in the vase
on your table
is not a source
of inspiration
or creation?
It is only
a reminder
of a massacre
that happened recently
in some field,
against a bunch
of miserable flowers
destined to be cut
from their roots,
and to wither
on your table
without fresh air,
while you write
and express
your trivialities
and nonsense.

September 2, 2015”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“[From the Crumbs of Days]
(1)
For years
I have wandered the world
and witnessed
the same tragedy
beneath different masks
and disguises:
the tragedy of a world
governed by endless variations
of the same worn-out,
destructive creed:
"Me and my brother against my cousin;
me and my cousin against the stranger."

(2)
We may differ
in shape and color.
We may differ
in gender
and desire.
We may differ
in our philosophies of life,
in our visions,
dreams,
and priorities.
But our sweat
and our labor
are the same
everywhere.
So let us stand together
and keep watch
against anyone
who seeks to steal
even a single drop
of our sweat
for private gain.

(3)
Under dictatorships,
99.9 percent
of the wretched
vote
for the same president.
Under capitalism,
99.9 percent
of the wretched and deceived
buy
the same products
and the same brands.
Woe,
utter woe,
to the society
where both systems
meet.

(4)
Most leaders
of the "post-revolution"
are vultures
who know less
about hunting
than about feeding
on the corpses
of those who died
faithful to the revolution
and its principles.
Such is the paradox
of most revolutions.

(5)
When exile surrounds you
from every direction,
from every side,
does the word
"choice"
still mean anything?

(6)
The true revolution
will come
when the poor
and the oppressed
decide to break
the Ten Commandments
until the rich
and the criminals
choose to obey them first.
The true revolution
is not
turning the other cheek
to criminals
and opportunists.
The true revolution
has always been,
and will always be:
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
and the guilt
belongs to the one
who struck first.

(7)
Every person is ugly
if you look
long enough.
And beautiful
if you look
longer still.

(8)
Just as wheat fields
cannot grow
or flourish
in the shade
of trees,
an honest intellectual
cannot grow
or flourish
in the shadow
of power
and authority.

(9)
I am less interested
in the act of looking
than in observing
the gaze
of the one
who looks.

(10)
There is no happiness
greater than the happiness
of descending
into our pain,
our disappointments,
and our sorrows,
to understand them,
and scatter their seeds
across the fields
of tomorrow.

(11)
How much time
we waste
trying to change
other people.
And how much time
other people waste
imagining
they are changing...

(12)
We do not speak
about things
because we understand them.
For when we truly
understand,
there is no longer
any need
for words.

October 20, 2015”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“[The Problem]
My problem, my friends,
is difficult,
so very difficult.
The problem is not merely
that I have no homeland,
no house,
no place
to shelter me.
The problem, my beloved ones,
is that I no longer want
a homeland,
a place,
or a home.
And I confess to you,
since we are speaking openly,
that even if I wished
to find a place
to shelter me,
such a wish
could never be fulfilled,
because I have been erased,
by force,
from every place.
Yes,
the wicked,
the thieves,
and those who worship the dollar
under the cloak of religion
erased me
and buried my history
wherever they could.
And wherever I go,
I find them
waiting for me,
closing in around me,
cutting off my breath,
stealing
the crust of bread
from my hand.
So I repeat:
my problem, my beloved ones,
is difficult,
so very difficult.
I have no home.
I no longer want
a home.
And I cannot find
a place to shelter me,
even if I were to wish for one
in my dreams.

June 1, 2017”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“[Old Doors]

While looking through photographs
I had taken over the years,
I realized
how much I love old doors.
I look for them
everywhere,
to photograph them,
to contemplate them.
I find myself imagining
that these doors have eyes,
and I wonder
what they have seen
from the outside,
what has passed before them,
who has crossed their thresholds,
and who has simply passed them by.
And I lose myself
in my wanderings,
imagining all that took place
behind them:
joy and sorrow,
wealth and poverty,
hypocrisy and gossip,
the dull and gloomy days
their inhabitants lived
while the doors stood closed.
I find myself studying
the designs of doors
from different eras,
in different places.
Some betray poor taste,
made only worse
by the passage of time.
And I imagine
how their owners once believed them
to be the height of beauty.
Others,
especially the oldest,
seem to grow more beautiful
with age,
as though beauty and ugliness
were never fixed at all.
Or is it a flaw
in the human eye,
unable to distinguish
true beauty from true ugliness
until it is too late?
Some doors are made of metal,
covered with rust,
like the corrosion
of human values
and principles.
Others are wooden,
and despite the holes,
the scars,
and the wounds
scattered across their surfaces,
they still evoke
warmth
and safety.
Some of these old doors
now open only
for tourists.
Some were abandoned
by those who were forced
to leave them behind
forever.
Others open
from time to time
to secret visitors
whom no one knows,
and we do not know
what takes place behind them
once they enter.
How many old doors
are bound
by rusted chains
and locks,
their people
and their keys
swallowed by time.
And how deeply
the old, beautiful doors grieve me,
the ones whose keys
we lost
through our carelessness
and our folly.

September 5, 2020”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]