The other side of Yemen's war | Atiaf Alwazir | TEDxBerkeley

Atiaf Z. Alwazir was born in Sana'a, spent her childhood in Beirut and Jeddah, and as a teenager settled in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area. She currently lives in Brussels, where she is a research consultant by day and writer by night, with extensive knowledge of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), focusing on gender, human rights and the intersection of art and politics.

She has worked in non-governmental organizations and research institutions in Washington D.C., Cairo, Sana'a, Tunis, Beirut, Berlin, Lille, and Brussels, and carries each city with her, making her identify as a world citizen.

In 2011, she actively participated in the Yemeni Revolution, documented the events on her blog and co-founded SupportYemen, a storytelling collective.

Her articles have been published in several outlets including The Guardian, Foreign Policy, openDemocracy, Fair Observer, and Al-Jazeera English. She is the co-author of Change Square, a photo book on Yemen’s revolution.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote:
"I come from there and I have memories."

Like him, many people
refer to home as "there."

My parents left Yemen many years ago,

and they never stopped
talking to us about "there."

Mama told us about her cat, Lulu,

who used to walk her to school
every single day.

They became even closer

after mama's 9-year-old sister
was killed by a stray bullet.

Baba told us about the mountains
where he was born and grew up,

and later about how much
he missed the mountain breeze

when he was jailed as a teenager
for political reasons.

Every time they told us
stories from "there,"

I was transported to a place

filled with love, adventure,
sacrifice and longing.

"There" is where I was born,

in Sana'a, Yemen.

In fact, in this very same room -

this is me and my mother -

I was born in 1979.

I'll leave it up to you
to calculate how old I am.

As a child, we left Yemen,

and eventually as a teenager,
we settled here in the US.

But then, 18 years later,

I decided to move to Yemen,

and I got the amazing opportunity

to live in a place
I've always dreamed of living in,

the old city of Sana'a.

We lived in this house,
here on the third floor,

my husband and I.

In January 2011, protests began,
and I quickly joined the revolution,

chanting, "Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam,"

"The people want an end to the regime."

For the next couple of years,

I wrote about the situation
in my blog and op-eds,

I documented human rights violations,

interviewed many women in prison,

and photographed way too many
young, dead bodies.

It was an extremely
difficult time, to say the least.

But not entirely.

It was actually one
of the best times of my life.

I connected with people
on a very, very deep level.

People from all different backgrounds
were in the same place.

People were filled with hope, and love,
and vibrancy, and so much art.

Once, I decided to write about
this revolutionary art,

and my editor added the line,
wanted to add the line:

"Yemen, the ancestral homeland
of Osama bin Laden."

As though that was
the definition of the country.

Now, imagine if you wrote an article

about the opening of a new art gallery
in somewhere in New York State,

and your editor added the line:

"New York, the birth state
of Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh."

(Laughter)

That wouldn't make sense, right?

What also didn't make sense to me

was the complete disconnect

between the Yemen I was living in,
the Yemen I was experiencing,

and the Yemen he thought he knew
while living thousands of miles away.

But he saw Yemen only through
one stereotypical lens.

And the problem with stereotypes,

as author Chimamanda Adichie
said in her TED Talk,

is not that they're untrue,
but that they're incomplete.

They make one story become the only story.

I left Yemen in January 2015,
when conflict began to escalate.

The privilege to flee
the country so quickly

caused me immense shame, guilt,

and I felt like a coward.

I didn't say "bye" to people I loved.

And then two months later,

US-made bombs hit the capital
of Yemen, where I was born.

And although during the revolution
I was extremely active in the movement,

this time I was frozen.

I felt helpless
watching the war from abroad.

And the guilt really consumed me.

I felt guilty when I went
grocery shopping,

guilty when I took a warm shower,

and guilty when I visited the doctor,
even though I was pregnant at the time.

That's because, in Yemen,

people were deprived,
and continued to be deprived,

of basic services, such as
healthcare and electricity.

Children aren't just starving
like the media tell us,

they're actually being
deliberately starved

as a weapon of war

due to an internationally
supported blockade.

The thing is about war is that
it forces us into decisions

we should never have to make.

While the trolley dilemma -

would you derail this train
to kill one person,

in order to save these five -

is simply an ethical debate or discussion,

for many of us;

for some people, it's an actual reality.

For some parents in Yemen, for example,

they have to choose between

either buying cholera medicine
to save one sick child,

or using that money
to feed an entire family.

Now, in either case,

someone's probably going to die,

and the parents
have to make that hard choice,

and watch as their children
die slowly in front of them.

As a parent of a four-year-old
and another on it's way,

I can't imagine the trauma

of having to make
such a soul-wrenching decision.

No one should be put
in that place, no one.

I think of these parents often,

in fact, I see them in my dreams.

I see them running away from bombs,

hiding,

but trying to protect their children.

And in one particularly disturbing dream,

I was chopping a body into pieces
and putting those pieces in plastic bags.

I don't want to know
what that means, or says about me.

But the war follows us everywhere,

it even follows us in the diaspora,

it follows us in our dreams.

Soon enough, the images
that I was seeing on television

overshadowed my own memories of Yemen.

And I turned into a dictator's love:

a politically apathetic person.

And then, one time,
I was going through my old photos,

and I came across this photograph

that reminded me of a night in 2011
when I woke up at 3 a.m.

from the sound of loud
gunshots and artillery.

The clashes lasted
until noon that same day.

And that afternoon
was actually my cousin's wedding.

I thought they would
naturally postpone it, right?

But they didn't.

And I didn't think
it was appropriate to celebrate,

so I put on a dress
I usually wear to funerals.

My aunt had a bright yellow dress, beaded,

and when she saw me, she was horrified.

I didn't have my hair done,

I didn't have makeup on,

my dress was, you know,
inappropriate for the wedding.

And she quickly rummaged through her bag,

found a red lipstick and some bracelets,

and handed them to me.

And then I walked in,
I walked into the tent,

and the music was blasting.

(She sings)

So many people were dancing ...

and I was appalled.

In my self-righteousness, I judged them.

How could they dance
when 84 people had just died?

But then, about an hour later,
I was dragged to the dance floor,

and I finally understood
what poet Jalal al-Din Rumi said.

"Dance in the middle of the fighting,

dance in your blood,

dance when you're perfectly free."

This memory was truly, truly a gift,

because it reminded me
of people's extraordinary ability to cope.

I decided that I would no longer
look at Yemen the way I used to,

I will now look at it
beyond the headlines,

and beyond my own part in perpetuating
an incomplete narrative.

Hadn't I lived in Yemen?

I started to write again.

But this time, not lending my voice
to the Yemen we see on television,

but the Yemen from my memories.

And I started to listen
to people's voices,

their stories of everyday heroism.

And it hit me

that while they were
the ones living the war,

I was the one stuck in my self-pity.

And the more I collected their stories,

the more I shook off
that self-pity and hopelessness.

It's incredible to see
how people cope during war,

how people truly live.

It's incredible to see how neighbors share
the little food they have with each other,

how they help each other
carry water for many, many miles,

how parents creatively try to distract
their children from the sounds of bombs,

by, you know, singing out loud
or blasting music,

how people try to normalize their day.

They still go to work, every single day,

even though they haven't received
their salaries in months.

They still have the courage
to fall in love.

Some break up;

others get married
in halls as large as this or bigger,

to accommodate all the relatives.

And some, like this toy shop owner,

renovate their businesses -

this is in Ta'izz City -

even in a building that looks like this,

that was destroyed.

Others open new businesses,

like Arsheef in Sana'a,

the country's first
contemporary art gallery.

And children still go to school,
even in a building like this.

This is their school that was destroyed.

Now, these images are from Yemen,

but really their stories can be found
in many other conflict areas,

whether it's in Congo, Kashmir,
or Palestine, or ...

The intention behind showing these images

is not to glorify misery,

but rather to show
the tenacious human spirit,

where children get up
every single morning,

and still go to school,

even when the world tells them
that they have no future.

When we tell children that Yemen
is one of the worst places on earth,

what we are essentially telling them

[is] that they have no agency,

we're telling them
that they should give up,

that they are worse than,
less than, all of us here.

It's no wonder then that when
immigrants from these countries -

are sometimes perceived

as unable to contribute to society,

or destined to become a burden on it,

because that's, unfortunately,
how they're shown in the media,

with a few exceptions.

I understand the intention behind it:

we need to show suffering
in order to advocate for a cause.

In my own activism,
that's often what I did.

And I still do that, but now,
I try to also show the other side.

I try to show stories of resilience

because as much as we need
to talk about the war machine,

and arms trade, and war crimes,

we must also counterbalance that

with stories of how people survive
when all hell breaks loose.

Because this too
is part of their narrative.

We need to tell all the stories of war

because perceptions of reality

are reinforced by the stories
we tell ourselves.

We need to tell the stories
of ordinary people

doing ordinary, yet extraordinary things,

because they are the ones
truly building peace.

This isn't just the end of fighting,

it's the mending of broken hearts
and stitching of life back together.

We need to say that in real life,

even in tragedy,

humor is still present.

Life is still present even in war,

even in misery.

We need to share our own memories,

our own stories, our own jokes,

in order to begin
the process of collective healing.

Share your memory, share your story,

share your jokes,

and I'll share mine.

I'll share mine with all of you,

and I'll share mine with my children,

just like my parents
shared their stories with me.

This is my resistance,

and I urge you to join the resistance.

(Applause)(Cheering)

[MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU]

(Applause)(Cheering)

I urge you to help us
reverse humanity's negativity bias

and our tendency
to only focus on bleak events.

In this chaotic world,

it's truly an act of rebellion,

it's truly radical,

to think of what could go right.

I'm not saying invent
something when you write,

just stop resisting that there may be
other realities on the ground.

And finally, let's talk about
the other sides of war,

in order to create a new narrative

where people aren't defined
by limitations,

but rather endless possibilities.

As author Amin Maalouf said:

"For it is often the way
we look at other people

that imprisons them within their own
narrowest allegiances.

And it's also the way we look at them

that may set them free."

Thank you very much ... thank you.

(Applause)