International Women’s Day

This year, we celebrated International Women’s Day with an illustrious group of path-opening individuals who not only crossed literal and metaphorical borders to reclaim their agencies, but, more profoundly, transformed the patriarchally-constructed tragedies they encountered, or witnessed, into stories of empowerment, inspiring us all to go one step further for those who are yet to.

Our motto for the day was ‘Read -Write- Create- Accelerate’: four short words that beautifully encapsulate our faith in the foundational role letters and arts play in all human and peace-centred progressive movements. Opening the day with a thought-provoking panel discussion on the definition and depiction of womanhood, we crossed cultural, geographical and political boundaries, reflecting simultaneously on the universality of the women’s struggle as well as the urgency of its call for change. How, we asked our inspirational guests, can we expand interaction between various cultural and creative groups to counter the intricate ecosystem of patriarchy? How can we defy the deeply rooted cultural norms which alienate and blur our humanity into the oblivion? At a time, when the findings of United Nation’s Women Initiative echo that soul-wrenching urgency, how can we remain indifferent to the fact that a girl born today will be 68 by the time child marriage is eradicated; 128 before she gains equal political representation, and another lifetime before sex trafficking, genital mutilation, rape or other forms of gendered violence is erased from familial memories or secret state records.

As we traversed between different time and climate zones, though we paused to project on the silvered scars of our individual histories, through the scintillating contributions of our humanitarians, poets and dancers, we also celebrated them as our badges of honour, as cherished talismanic compasses that guide us through the harshest paths. So that we can nurture, enable and empower that resilient, life-giving spirit called womanhood.

Here are some poems from our wonderful guests, contributors and members for our readers. In hope that they will inspire you to join in the debate and share your stories with us.

No rest
Afsaneh Gitiforouz

Black tea would no longer cure my exhaustion
neither would strong coffee
nor even a few hours of sleep.

Where is this exhaustion coming from?

Did it ambush me when I left my ancestral land?
Is this my heritage?
the harvest of what has been planted?

Passed on to me from the body of Arash the Archer?
when shooting his arrow to set the boundaries of a homeland?

From the woman sitting endless hours
with lingering back pain
weaving a carpet she shall never own

Is this from the stiffened finger of the soldier on his gun trigger?
guarding the borders
unaware of the territories he has lost somewhere else
in splendid rooms
through warm handshakes
after shameful signatures put on papers?

Is my exhaustion from the sight of the child
labouring in the brick kiln
sleeping on a pillow of bricks?

Or from the Kurdish labourers
carrying essential goods on their back
through treacherous, trying paths
or in their endless fight for freedom?

Maybe it comes from these repeating encounters
never to depart my worn-out body.

Marsha Glenn
No. 64 Park Road  I had four walls. I had a door,
I could lock it:
silence.

There were
floating clouds in the window frame,
darkness, ceramic owls
of different shapes and colours, house plants that kept dying.
In my twisted thoughts,
I still had hope.

I had tried and tried
to make my home:  in three different countries,
in 10 different houses,
in 24 different rooms.
I felt I belonged there.
Even when
I was too tired of selling burgers.
Even when
I was too hurt from the man I wanted to be loved by.
I could let myself go there,
I’d surrendered to my
darkest thoughts,
Hoping, that by the next morning,
I would feel better.
I learnt
to give up on
blaming
others for my
miseries.
I have learned
to never stop
rebuilding
my dream of
HOME.

Tanya
THE WONDER OF MY VOICE
Oh, the wonder of my voice!
I first discovered it as a baby A ribbon of sound, flowing to my mother  Snuggled warmly on her lap I snored like a fluffy kitten  My voice brought my thoughts and feelings to life  Heralding my arrival in the family   My voice grew with me and became stronger  A tree heavy with the excitement of living As an adult  I truly found my voice   When I was teaching  At a school with no books  Writing on the sides of shoe boxes  Cutting and dividing them up To share, like treasures, round the class  Where children had never sat in a car  Even left the village  My voice became a lens to show them the world, Brought them the clamour of the city

Without ever leaving the classroom   When my fellow countrymen were silenced, tortured, beaten and denied medication  Hunted like wild animals by the hyenas of authority  Driven from their homes  Made fugitives, shut out of their jobs  Stripped of all dignity, energy, all our memories and all our hopes

Thrown out like rotting garbage and left to die  If it had only been me, speaking for myself  Nothing would have silenced my voice.
But the tentacles of power  Twined around those I loved  Threatening to to strangle all I lived for  I was made voiceless.
When I arrived in the UK

Bringing nothing but the nightmares in my head The trauma I had suffered  Filled me with terror.
Too scared even to open my mouth  My brain froze
I had no voice.

Sitting in that drab office, a cold sky beyond the window,
Trying to explain my case  No coherent words came out.
But I found a place  Where it was safe to speak  That gave me sanctuary  Where other voices reached through my frozen body  To touch my soul  liberating my voice  Like a bird from its cage.
I had my voice back
I had gone through fire in my country  Now my voice is the fire! A flame to ignite compassion
A light to banish darkness
To move the world an inch or two towards the good
Oh, the wonder of my voice!

Camilla Reeve
Home at Nakapiripirit Camp
Home at Nakapiripirit Camp
At the end of the path from the well,
at the end of the track from the road,
at the end of the walk from the Sudan,
at the end of years of struggle for her beliefs,
and of being driven out and away
someone has made a home.
In the middle of the day,
in the middle of the refugee camp,
of the group of camps;
in the middle of a country edged by war;
in the middle of a continent
stands a round mud hut.
And written around its walls
in letters of blood and ash,
in letters of fear conquered,
in letters the width of a hand are these words:
Man ot pa Regina –
This is Regina’s hut.

And as a promise from us all at EWI, an oath of a poem from Professor Nazand Begikhani who penned it for the 8th anniversary of the Yezidi Genocide, inspired by Primo Levi’ s If This is a Man.
If This Is A Girl
You who walk free
In your own town
You who can sing in your mother tongue
You who can pray in your own temple
You who can sunbathe
And swim in the sea
You who can laugh
And hold the hands of your children
Consider if this is a girl
That whose school is bombed
Whose town is invaded
Whose home is bulldozed
Whose parents are killed
Who is taken as a sex slave
And sold in public markets
With price tags on her wrists
Who is forced to wear a burqa
Spit on her own religion
And bear children by her rapist
Whose head is cut off is she dares to say
No! In all that you do
Remember her
In dark evenings
And under starry nights
Remember her. In your actions and thoughts
Remember her. In your holy days
And in your prayers. Remember her
Carry her deep in your heart
It happened to her
And it can happen to you too
Lest we forget to remember
To honour them all.