Elif Shafak / The year 2020 is not only determined by the pandemic, the rising level of unemployment, economic inequality, the critical period in terms of climate change. But it has also been an alarming period due to the rising number of crimes around the world.
In Poland, the LGBTQ community became the number one enemy. In Hungary neo-Nazi mobs organize protests to exclude the Roma community. More than fifty percent of crimes in New York are crimes committed because of hatred of Jews.
In Germany, there has been a dangerous increase in the number of attacks on minorities and refugees. There is also an increase in hate crimes in the UK, especially sex crimes with victims belonging to minorities or transgender people. Another kind of dangerous dogma is developing in Turkey, Brazil and India. All these events have a common denominator: systematic hatred and a disregard for those who are considered different people, a form of inhumanity of the other.
History has shown that hatred does not begin with concentration camps, mass killings, civil war, or genocide. Hatred always starts from words: stereotypes, clichés, banalities. The fight against inhumanity must also start from words, stories. If someone's story is like an abstraction to us, it is easier for us to generalize, but if we want to develop we must stop generalizing and start treating them as human and those who have been dehumanized by generalizers. For this we need the art of storytelling.
Data and information are very important but not enough to break down the walls of numbness and indifference, to help us be more empathetic with people who do not belong to our tribe. We need emotional connection, just as we need brotherhood, not patriarchy, we need history, not bigotry. Although far away, as east as west we connect with others through our stories. Literature can be a universal unifying force and above all a healing force.
Doris Lessing kishte të drejtë kur thoshte se letërsia ishte analiza pas ngjarjes. Shkrimtarët kanë nevojë për kohë që të procesojnë, të përtypin, të analizojnë. Por në botën post Covid, kur çdo gjë po ndryshon me një shpejtësi marramendëse, kur ka aq shumë lëndim, padrejtësi, dhimbje gjithandej, letërsia duhet të jetë një analizë që zhvillohet përgjatë ngjarjes. Libraritë janë mbyllur përpara syve tanë, qendrat e kulturës janë neglizhuar. Koronavirus-i ka vënë në rrëzik dhe artin e kulturën përpos rreziqeve të tjera që i njohim të gjithë. Në këtë kohë kur pabarazitë dhe paragjykimet po pësojnë një rritje të frikshme, krijimtaria ka nevojë për mbështetje nga fonde publike e private, veçanërisht në komunitetet e lëna pas dore. Ekziston një lidhje e drejtpërdrejtë mes demokracisë në një shoqëri, me sa mbështetje ka industria e krijimtarisë në këtë shoqëri. Nuk është luks, por diçka aq jetësore dhe e nevojshme sa ajri që thithim.
The art of storytelling is our last, democratic space. This art must already be, our resistance against inhumanity.
* Elif Shafak is a writer of Turkish-English origin. She writes in Turkish and English, has published 11 novels that have been translated into 54 different languages. Her book "Forty Rules of Love" was selected by the BBC as one of the 100 books that have shaped the world. She teaches at several universities in Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom. Shafak has won several prestigious awards and is a distinguished activist.
* The article was brought in Albanian for Tirana Post by Albana Murra.
