In her book, Zinc Boys, Svetlana Alexievich documented the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1985. In it, she collected interviews with soldiers returning from the war, or with mothers and wives of soldiers who were killed there, and whose bodies were returned in coffins made of zinc.
The result of the war was thousands of dead, disabled and missing people, which prompted Svetlana to raise sensitive questions about the war: Who are we? Why did we do that? Why did this happen to us? Why did we believe all that?
Svetlana was put on trial for publishing this book, and part of the documents related to the trial were added in Arabic translation.
مهما مارس البشر من حيل لاخفاء عيوبهم, فيكون مصير ما يصنعون الفشل، أن قوانين الطبيعة البشرية تحتم اظهار العيوب ولكن أكثر الخلق يخفون عيوبهم فيرى أحدهم القذى فى عين أخيه ولا
How could she find boldness, ardor, detachment, and greatness in her? These qualities only appear when a freedom throws itself into an open future, emerging beyond every given thing. We lock a woman in a kitchen or a bedroom, and we are surprised that her horizon is limited. We cut its wings, and we are sorry that it does not know how to fly. Let us open up the future to her, and she will no longer have to stay in the present.
We show the same contradiction when we imprison her within the confines of her ego, or her home, and blame her for her narcissism, her selfishness, and what accompanies them: such as vanity, crankiness, evil...etc. We strip her of all possibility of tangible communication with others, so that in her experience she does not feel the call of solidarity, nor its benefits, since she is completely devoted to her family, and isolated; Thus, we cannot expect it to transcend itself towards the common good. She stubbornly stays in the only field she is familiar with; Where you can exert influence over things, and within it you find fleeting sovereignty.
/ الزنك (جائزة نوبل للأداب 2015)-1717685539.jpg)
