A Poem by Parwana Amiri
Parwana Amiri is an author, poet and activist from Afghanistan who is living in Greece since September 2019. Her poetry may seem softly written, but it contains hidden stories and bitter truths. With her work, she challenges the power of art and poetry to convey these bitter truths of the times.
Her deep feeling and perspective about life in the camps provoked her once more to write about the meaning of camps and the feeling that come from being enclosed here, that make her and others unable to have freedom of movement, freedom on speech but instead by repressed by rules.
An Illustration by Shukran Shirzad
I, Shukran Shirzad, have seen many young boys looking across the fences of the camp, hopeless, disappointed and upset. Their passion is getting hidden and their voice are suppressed. This image connects with the poem above as it shows how they are surrounded by chains, stuck in one place and having to accept that they are not able to move. To me, the meaning of camps is to be limited. We all hope that this life in this inhumane place will end and I leave my dreams everyday by this meaning.
Where can we find freedom?
.
Our long-term life in prison
From detentions to ghettos
With no self determination
Where can we find freedom?
.
Everywhere are stop signs
Telling we are limited
Suffocated and repressed
Where can we find freedom?
.
Absence of smiles from faces
Privation of pens from hands
Silence chosen to survive
Where can we find freedom?
.
Protest is banned
But tear gas allowed
And we must just absorb it
Where can we find freedom?
.
We were oppressed in our lands
We were depressed crossing borders
With no right to ask, to act
Where can we find freedom?
.
To pass borders, to find freedom
With our mothers in dark nights
Among deserts with no water
Where can we find freedom?
.
Our lands were our prison
Our homes were our cells
Our schools were captured
Where can we find freedom?
.
After trials, after failures
Stressed, afraid, anxious
We reached Moria, a hell
Where can we find freedom?
.
Where can we find freedom?
For us, refugges, migrants
Can freedom exist?
With all our might we shall fight for it.