A short philosophical-poetical text
I gaze at the mirror, and I say to myself:
You were born,
There is no return to the time before that, so keep living.
Exile is the strangest of stories, an experience known only to the true exiles themselves,
a tale of loss, resilience, and hope woven into the fabric of their lives.
With their unwavering courage, the exiled endure everything to defend their identities and unique individualities. Their bravery is a beacon of inspiration, even in the face of the harshest adversity, as they strive for love, peace, freedom, and justice in their homeland. Their resilience, a testament to the human spirit’s strength and determination, is a source of inspiration for us all.
When they are forced to leave, the exiles pack a few essential items into their small luggage and depart. They look at the house they have lived in, the streets, lanes, trees, bars, cafes, schools, libraries, bookshops, markets, and all their childhood playgrounds. They bid farewell to their loved ones and friends for the last time, embracing and kissing them, and then walking away, hoping that the dictators in their homeland will soon be gone, so they can return to where they truly belong.
But tragically, this will not happen for the majority of the exiled. The hope of ‘maybe one day I will…’ will turn into forever for them. However, the exiles remain resolute, and their dream of returning to their free homeland never dies within them, serving as a beacon of hope and encouragement for us all.
How do the exiles leave their homeland and go to foreign, strange, and sometimes inhospitable countries? What difficulties do they endure to survive their arduous experiences when they leave their homelands? How strong are those who have left everything behind to go to unfamiliar places?
Exiles embody courage and resoluteness in their unwavering commitment to their beliefs. Their unique resilience shines through even in the face of the most challenging adversity, serving as a beacon of hope and inspiration to others who care for a better, free and just world. Exiles’ steadfastness in the face of hardship is a testament to the strength of their convictions. True exiles are those who are truthful to themselves. Despite their difficult and painful circumstances, exiles remain dignified human beings. Their resilience in the face of adversity is a powerful reminder of the human spirit’s strength and determination.
*
Sometimes I think the world is not a good place to become a poet or an authentic individual. Because of this, I usually tell myself that if I return to live in the world again, I would prefer to come back as an olive tree growing in the heart of the rugged mountains.
They …
They lied to me.
They ignored me.
They humiliated me.
They tormented me.
They threatened to kill me.
I kept saying no.
I felt so alone and abandoned in my city.
I had nowhere else to go,
So I went to myself.
I am petrified when I think of how once my city was there, and then one day, it was no more. It was war that destroyed it.
It was in that city, where it still existed amidst all the harmful and threatening things, the echoes of war and the shadows of oppression, that I found books that became my faithful companions. I was delighted when I read them; they did not harm or threaten me as those who wanted to oppress me did.
It was there that literature, in its silent yet powerful way, became a refuge, a solace, and a guide to me. It has been a companion that has not harmed or threatened, but nurtured and enlightened me. For me, the transformative power of literature is a beacon of hope, inspiring me to find solace and guidance in the written words.
When all the doors were closed, reading good books allowed me to imagine an open field and think about how to overcome the impossibilities I was living under. I wanted to see possibilities that were not available to me, and literature invited me to see them.
I have always walked, and I continue to walk.
It all happened while walking around my city, the beautiful little port town where I was born. I had never imagined either being forced to leave it one day or it being destroyed by war, a war that tore apart the very fabric of my being and left a deep emotional scar.
Reading and writing have always been profoundly meaningful for me. It is so because I am deeply passionate about both, even though reading has been my favourite for most of my life. Why is reading my favourite? Let me tell you a story about it.
It happened in my city of birth, which, as I said, was destroyed by war for nothing except the madness of two tyrannical figures, Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein. I will not provide any historical details: if you wish to search for it, there is an ocean of information about these despotic figures and that war.
She said, ‘Never be afraid to tell the truth.’
This happened when I started attending primary school, which was poor and for the neglected children of our city. Despite her limited vocabulary and inability to read or write, I will never forget how my mother dressed me every morning and sent me to school, saying, ‘Go and learn, my little boy.’ Her voice, with its determination and deep fragility, sounded like the best song to me. It was a vibrating song that inspired me to listen and learn.
Note that I don’t feel uneasy recalling and talking about this memory. I have written many versions of my memories over the years, and for some reason, I always decided to destroy them.
I have never been frightened of the truth. Perhaps this is because I was born into poverty, and from an early age, I realised we had nothing to lose except our self-respect and dignity. I am not afraid to share things that genuinely matter to me.
The importance of sharing personal stories, no matter how difficult, is a poignant reminder of our shared humanity and the need for empathy and understanding. I believe our individual stories matter, and sharing them with others can help us connect and understand each other better.
It was from my mother that, in the early years of my life, I learned that words are essential in telling the truth, and if we abuse them, the truth begins to die. As a teenager, I truly believed this, and as I grew older, I became even more convinced. Many people told me that with age, I would grow more pessimistic. However, that’s not true; I believe I am optimistic. I do not want to engage in the gallantry of pretended interactions where words are abused.
You see, my mother had a limited vocabulary, yet she could clearly express what she meant, and everything she said was truthful to me when I was a child. She was a resilient and intelligent woman. Whenever she spoke, I witnessed how profoundly she loved to convey the truth through the words she used. Her words delighted me and reassured me about the real world we were living in.
However, it was when I learnt to read confidently at school that I truly fell in love with reading. Through it, I discovered how to think and express my feelings and thoughts without fear.
Compared to reading, when it comes to writing, as far as I remember, I’ve always poured my heart into writing for most of my life, but I’ve destroyed most of my creations. This act of destruction wasn’t a casual decision but a reflection of the turmoil and ever-present violence and injustice in the situations I lived in. The unease with the indifferent world and the weight of my experiences often led me to obliterate my writings. But when I look at the books I’ve read throughout my life, and think of the ones I left behind when I left my city to go into exile and tragically, no one could save them after Saddam Hussein’s army invaded my city, I’ve never destroyed or parted from any of them.
I vividly recall writing an entire book in the mid-1980s, and as soon as I finished it, I decided to destroy it. I even remember how many pages it was — 265.
Let me move on with this.
Another dream
No, I did not want to believe it,
That the bombs were falling
Down from the sky to destroy my town.
I saw greeting cards and flowers descending from the sky.
I was so thrilled about this.
Even the tanks looked like beautiful limousines,
Driving around the city to pick us up and take us to visit
Our loved ones and friends.
*
Through reading and learning to think, I have been trying to understand how I can come to terms with traumatic experiences and the prospect of never being able to return to my homeland. Books have become my anchor, helping me develop a clear perspective and communicate effectively with those who listen to me and appreciate my presence among them.
In my reading, I eagerly seek answers to many questions that continually frustrate me. You may ask me if I am still happy to have the books scattered around my room, filled with all the notes and reflections I have written in them. I am not sure. What I can say is that, in them, I continue to learn and deeply reflect on how I can, at least to myself, say I am constantly immersed in the question of the meaning of existence and the profound significance of thinking. And I am reminded of the necessity of freedom at any cost — the liberty that neither I nor the people of the region I am from have ever experienced up to this moment.
Fascination
I have always been fascinated by thinkers and philosophers who dedicate their lives to exploring existence, shaping their ideas through writing and reflection. Though I never articulated it this way in my youth, I was deeply immersed in philosophers who grappled with reality and truth through abstraction. I read their works to understand their intellectual pursuits, yet I never felt compelled to adopt their modes of thinking or methodologies.
I remember often being at odds with his ideas in my early encounters with Descartes. As I read his works, I constantly questioned his reasoning. Still, I hesitated to voice these doubts, fearing that my questions might expose me as arrogant or unenlightened, revealing a lack of understanding of the rationality and logic he discussed. The thought of others dismissing my interpretations—or worse, laughing at my grasp of his philosophy—led me to keep my thoughts to myself.
For most of these years, I felt lost and left to wonder about an incomprehensible and puzzling world, and kept seeking answers to my ‘whys’ in vain. In reading those texts, I was urgently searching for a better way to live, free from the constant negativity and my ignorance. What I was looking for was a way to overcome the pain and suffering I was engulfed in. I sought a philosophical approach that directly addressed personal and collective lived experiences and comprehended them outside of abstractions.
*
The youth passed, and the exile came.
In my late youth, I was forced to leave my homeland and come to the West, an alien concept and geographical place. In my homeland, I experienced a revolution which was like an earthquake.
Immediately after the revolution, I found my life in existential threat. I had a choice to make: stay or leave. I kept asking myself if I would be free to choose if I stayed. The answer was No. I was determined that I did not want anyone’s oppressive will to dictate to me how I must think and live.
Hence, I chose to leave the country where I was born. As a young man, this decision later became the foundation of my understanding of what engaging with philosophy and its relation to existence and living in the world entails. Horrified and always perplexed by the world, I sought writers and philosophers who could help me understand the thinking that allows us to ask fundamental questions about being in the world, freedom, and justice.
*
Of course, I had to overcome the most significant obstacle I faced first: learning and understanding this language before I could grasp what philosophy is. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. Even in that early stage, I decided to read philosophical books to learn this language and delve deeper into their complex and confusing contents. However, I was insistent, and moving forward was very slow. It was a struggle, but I desperately needed an anchor to keep me going.
With limited funds, I began visiting second-hand bookshops. I purchased books I was familiar with. The books I read had poor translations in my language, just a few years before the revolution. I started with Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Trial, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (I did not understand a thing from engaging with this particular book).
For the past forty years in exile, I have taught myself as much as possible about the history of thought to enhance my understanding of the profound journey of thought. It has been an immense undertaking, one deeply imbued with a passion for grasping the evolution of knowledge about the discussions dealing with truth and existence over the last 2,500 years.
It is too late at night.
I am reminded of those books as I look at the shelves in my room. For example, Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and many others are staring back at me. Their presence in this space evokes memories of times when I struggled to learn this language and gain the confidence to read it.
They were traumatised by oppression and war, too.
While reading philosophers such as Camus, Sartre, Jasper, Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, and many other thinkers of early, mid-, and post-war Europe, I realised that they were children of direct violence and war, as I was myself, but in different historical and geographical contexts. What attracted me to these thinkers was their life experiences and how those affected their philosophical outlook. Discovering and connecting with this shared experience over four decades ago was indeed a tremendous consolation and breakthrough for me, as I began to understand more deeply why I felt a sense of meaninglessness and loss in the world I was living in, and experienced overwhelming apathy, indifference, and fear that many people share.
Of course, the country I left forty-five years ago has changed, and in the process, so have I. However, the profound crises that have unfolded since then have only deepened my engagement with these questions and concerns.
Throughout this time, my homeland has remained in constant turmoil, ruled by a despotic religious regime whose influence, both implicit and explicit, shapes local and international politics. What I am always most conscious of is that the questions I have been grappling with remain ever-present. Indeed, they have gone increasingly deeper.
It’s too late, I’d better stop here.
I am exhausted, dawn has arrived, and I need some sleep. I gaze at the books surrounding me and gently say to myself:
It is another day in exile.
Go and have a simple breakfast.
Don’t forget to enjoy a nice cup of coffee.
As usual, think of freedom, justice and peace all day.
Don’t let envy or hatred poison your being.
And keep despising anything dogmatic and fanatical.
Mammad Aidani is a human rights advocate, poet, playwright, theatre director, and Existential psycho-social researcher. In his research, he investigates the violence, torture, trauma and suffering experienced by Iranian and Middle Eastern immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers who have resettled in Australia and the West. Mammad is currently the vice president of PEN International Melbourne. He taught Hermeneutics and Phenomenological philosophy at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy. Mammad has been living in exile from his native Iran since 1979. His writings have been banned in Iran.