🌱 A fundamental part of our existence is defined by the language we express ourselves in. That is why when we seek liberation, we first look for words in the language we're most comfortable in, to feel them, then perhaps modify them to encompass the spirit of freedom. 

🌱 When you suppress a language and alphabets of a people, you make them hold it tighter than ever. As you read through "Kurdistan + 100 : Stories from a Future State", you see the words held tight and close, at last spill over in a manner of a free flowing river. You see subjects dealt with through science fiction, magical realism, climate activism and the power of dreams, ambitions, anticipation and yearning coursing through all of them. 

🌱 I read it as an English translation, and while I will always gripe about not being able to read it in the language in which stories are written, (but then like Geetanjali Shree of Tomb of Sand said "We should not agonise about what is lost in translation. Something always changes when you move from one language to another. It will mingle with something new to become another rich entity."), I will always be glad to have gotten a chance to read it in whatever way I could.

🌱 The stories with their indomitable spirit of liberty, are derived from years of resistance and need for autonomy, as communities work together towards each other's upliftment. There is sadness but such unbridled hope and resilience, that the hope at times breaks heart, but people cannot afford to have desolation define their actions. 

🌱 A few writers of the stories are at this point either in exile or in prison, and the historical and political import aside, the fact makes this collection significant by multitudes. 

🌱 Thank you @translatedgems for the pick and you probably know by now that I am going to bug you for more Kurdish recommendations. 🥲 

🌱 I will speak it out loud because I can and owe it.
 
Jin
Jiyan
Azadi
Kurdistan

🌿 //‘They’ve taken everything else from us: our mountains are black with their bombs, our walnut trees were plucked from the land, our land is barren and dead, and we can’t even speak in our language anymore. The sun, fire, and the foxes of our old stories are all we can give our children.’//

🌿 //It dawned on me that the distinction between horror and entertainment lay in your proximity to the events unfolding.//

🌿 //She would take my hand in hers and continue, ‘Although they may build many nests on the land, their trees will never take root.’ Before my grandma passed away she whispered in my ear, then took a seed wrapped in a green headscarf from under her pillow, and pressed it into my hand. Since that moment, my hand has felt a strong connection to the turpentine tree. I have crossed mountains and valleys, planting these trees wherever I go. Using a small spade I carry with me I dig into the soil, plant the seed and gently cover it. This earth is not the same earth as that which covers the faces of dead people. It is a living substance which has witnessed storms, wars, and genocides. But each time it is reborn.//

🌿 //Who can say that the trees are not like our children? Ever since my grandma put that seed in my hand, I have been holding onto the idea of it. It wasn’t just a tree, it was a thought that I watered every morning. Even if she wasn’t thirsty, still I gave her water. I filled my hands at Kaniya Xanike spring and gently let it trickle down into her soil. Sometimes the village women laughed at me and said, ‘The roots of the tree reach down to a well of water, you don’t need to give it handfuls of water like that.’ They didn’t know that I wasn’t giving that water out of necessity, but out of love.//

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