Romulus 2018

2018
ROMULUS
Borders
WOLFSON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

CONTENTS
Editorial Board’s Column
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘Dreaming Barbwire’
Interview with Tim Hitchens
Lisa Heida, ‘Sammy’.
4
5
6
11
Nicholas Pierpan, ‘The Swells’.
Yasser Khan, ‘Nothing Is Harder on the Soul,
Than the Smell of Dreams, While They Are Evaporating.’
- Mahmoud Darwish
Emese Végh ,“Crossing Borders in Hungary
During the Communist Era”
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘See You on the Other Side’
12
13
14
17
ALESSANDRO VATRI, ‘NO SIGNAL’. Taken in Venice, 2016.
Even though a man and a woman are as physically close as they can be in
public, technology creates a border between each individual, as well as the
place they are in.
Yasser Kahn, ‘And I Tell Myself,
a Moon Will Rise from My Darkness’
- Mahmoud Darwish
Eduardo Paredes Ocampo, “Two Poems”
David Yuxin Wang, ‘Zero Hour’
Alessandro Vatri, ‘The Wall’.
Asmi Khushi, ‘Do I Draw Borders Around Myself ?’
Álex Sartoris, “Like the Human Heart”
Cristina Blanco Sío-López, ‘The Warping of Winds’
Yasser Khan, ”A Person Can Only Be Born in One Place.
However He May Die Several Times Elsewhere: In the Exiles and
Prisons, and in a Homeland Transformed by the Occupation and
Oppression into a Nightmare.”- Mahmoud Darwish
Merryn Williams, ‘On the Towpath’
Lisa Heida, Editor of Romulus, in Conversation with Sabira Yameen
“It’s like I Am Being Punished for Just Being Deaf ”
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘On the Same Side’
Rebekah Vince, ‘Frontline Love’
Alessandro Vatri, ‘Lost’
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19
20
22
23
24
26
28
29
30
35
35
36
2

Editorial Board’s Column
The editorial team of Romulus consists of people from six different countries with
diverse cultural backgrounds, and each person is embedded in different academic
disciplines. Yet we have all shared the same experience over the past several
years: cultural and political practices of protectionism, austerity and resurging
nationalism have re-erected and deepened borders between people. When we
chose the topic of ‘borders’ for this year’s edition of our literary magazine, we
thought of the brutality people face in the US-Mexican border territory, in which
over four-hundred migrants died last year alone trying to cross the fence, the
desert and the Rio Grande. Other similar border conflicts immediately comes
to mind, be it the ongoing struggle of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea
or those stranded in Calais hoping to reach Great Britain. With Brexit looming
over all our lives, another border inside Europe has been assertively redrawn with
unpredictable consequences.
Paradoxically, we noted that we also live in a time that carries the promise of
boundless, borderless connections through technology, social media and global
mobility. Travelling around the world and communicating with people near and
far has never been easier and more accessible than it is now. If you belong to
the privileged group of young, well-educated and sometimes even well funded
academics, then crossing borders, both the literal kind between countries and,
more figuratively speaking, between disciplines and contexts, is expected and
encouraged.
However, in the midst of all that border-crossing, networking and connecting,
a deep sense of loneliness and isolation often grows. We chose our cover piece
because it so poignantly shows how that which connects us can also separate us –
the very definition of what a border is.
We are grateful to Wolfson College for giving us the opportunity to explore the
paradoxical character of borders in our magazine. We firmly believe that academics
as well as artists ought to make seen that which is hiding in plain sight, not simply
recording and reproducing the visible, but, as the painter Paul Klee famously said,
making things visible. The borders we encounter might sometimes be structures
made from concrete and barbed wire, but often they are immaterial. They take
shape in our institutions, our work and family life and in what we imagine to be
our most private moments. Through images and poems, essays and short stories,
Romulus depicts and dissects borders as a multi-facetted phenomenon.
Faced with the reconstruction of borders we had hoped to cross and overcome
for good, affecting all of our lives, we hope to contribute in some way to a critical
and creative engagement with the borders both in and around us.
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘Dreaming Barbwire’
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Eduardo Paredes Ocampo
Emese Végh
Lisa Heida
Laura González Salmerón
Gesa Jessen
GRAPHIC DESIGN:
Agnese Tauriņa
PROOFREADING:
John Francis Davis
4 5

INTERVIEW WITH TIM HITCHENS
Tim Hitchens, President of Wolfson College, might be the most eminent person to talk to
about borders. He served as Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Summit Unit, after
being Director-General, Economic and Consular at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. He has over thirty years of experience as a diplomat, which has taken him to parts
of the world as diverse as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most recently he spent four years as
British Ambassador to Tokyo. We talk about the international character of Wolfson College
and, unavoidably, Brexit.
“Life is not about
solving things forever;
it is about creating
the conditions for peace
so ordinary life can get on
while you deal decently
and in a civilized manner
with disagreement.”
Romulus in conversation
with Tim Hitchens, President of Wolfson College
You have spent a great part of your professional
life working in the diplomatic service, how does
your experience on the field translate into your
work at Wolfson, the College being known for
its international community? And on the same
note, yesterday The Guardian published a note
on the University of Oxford’s failure to improve
diversity among students. What do you think of
this?
I think that particularly in these Brexit times,
it’s even more important that Oxford is open
and international. Maybe the reason why the
College elected me was precisely because they
wanted somebody who brings that international
experience. Certainly, I’ve worked in diplomatic
service for 35 years, and I see every issue and
every problem from its international dimension.
I find it difficult not to do that. What I hope
to bring to the job therefore is openness to the
international dimension. By that I mean seeing
every issue from several sides. Seeing it from the
side of the UK, and seeing it from the side of
the rest of the world. I think that is probably
what I will contribute.
On the question of Oxford and access, clearly
we in Wolfson are, if we focus on the graduate
level, in a rather different situation. The whole
access debate is one that is primarily UK-focused
and focused on the question of undergraduate
entry. To an extent we are on the sideline, but it
does affect the reputation of Oxford as a whole.
I think there is quite a lot to be said. On the
positive side about a College like Wolfson, it has
a range of diversity, in terms of nationality,
gender, and ethnicity, which looks and feels very
different from a number of other Oxford colleges.
Nevertheless, I think we do have things we can
bring to debate. For example, we don’t have any
data on the socioeconomic background on our
students; should we be considering that?
But I’m very pleased that here in our college we
look like the world; and that is what Wolfson
was intended to do.
The relations between the countries where you
have worked and Britain have not always been
as cordial as they are now. What is your stand on
topics like colonial reparation? Do you think that
Britain, through fields such as foreign diplomacy
and academia, has addressed these topics?
I think that there is no doubt that the Britain,
which foreign ministry I joined in 1983, fills
a very different place now from then. In 35
years, we have moved on an enormous amount.
There has been recognition by successive British
governments that the experience of colonialism
was in most cases traumatic. And I think it
is fair to say that there are some countries
where we have moved on from that debate
and where we have a very healthy 21st century
relationship. I know Nigeria and Ghana very
well and what happened in the 20th and 19th
centuries is pretty irrelevant to our current
relationship. There are other countries where
history still weighs heavily it all depends on
your perspective. You bring either baggage or
responsibility to the relationship, and we still
have a lot of work to do to work these things
through to their conclusion.
It’s an interesting academic question, how long
it takes before something “becomes history”.
I think Britain probably consigns things to
history quite quickly; in other countries history
will become history after a rather long period.
Often the most difficult relationships are those
6 7

where our sense of how far back history goes is
different. It always used to be said that Britain
knew very little of the history of the Republic
of Ireland, and that the Republic of Ireland
knew rather too much. That produced some of
the differences. And yet in my career, during
the last 35 years, the relationship between
the Republic of Ireland and the UK has been
utterly transformed. So I tend to be optimistic
about the direction. Yet it’s really important as a
country like the UK never to brush history and
the colonial era under the carpet, because it does
still have a major impact upon the way relations
are seen. If you think about our relationship
with Kenya, you cannot separate that from the
historical experience.
You mentioned Nigeria and Ghana, and that
what happened is irrelevant to our current
relationship with these countries, but there are
also other countries that feel more resentment.
I would say that there’s much more complexity
in those relationships. For example, if one looks
at Zimbabwe, there’s still an awful lot of history
that affects that relationship. I think that clearly
Argentina is a country where we moved into
a significant new relationship, but you can’t
pretend that we haven’t had complex relations
quite recently. Ironically, if you go even further
back, Argentina is probably the country in Latin
America that Britain is closest to and most like,
in some ways, but that more modern experience
is there. For the last year and a half I have been
working on a lot of Caribbean countries, and
relations with Western Union countries are still
very much linked to the colonial experiences. I
would also say that for a lot of these countries,
particularly in the Caribbean, it was Britain’s
decision to join the European Union that caused
one of the biggest ruptures in our relationship,
rather than things that happened even further
back. History can be 1973-history.
It was said that one of the positive things of
Brexit was that there is going to be a stronger
connection with countries of the Common Wealth
and the Caribbean.
It was certainly one of the lines given by
the Brexiteers that this would open up new
opportunities, and it definitely does; but if
you look at Britain’s trade with the rest of the
European Union, it’s about 40-50% of our
trade, whilst Britain’s trade with the whole of
the Common Wealth is about 8-10%, so they
are very different kind of relationships.
There is a border conflict that stems directly
from the colonial past. Recently it has flared up
again. I’m talking about the tension between
Israel and Palestine. Do you think that Britain’s
involvement has been sufficient (historically and
present) in addressing the conflict?
There are many people who would say that
Britain’s involvement was too large in certain
areas! All I can say is that I think our position
at the moment, the British position -on the case
of the two-state solution, and that there should
be no resolution of the status of Jerusalem until
the broader issues are settled- that seems to be
absolutely the right kind of position, because it
reflects the broad consensus in the region across
the key parties. The former British foreign
secretary, Peter Carrington, once said to me
that there are a number of issues in the world
that aren’t going to be resolved this year or next
year; they feel utterly intractable, but a time will
come when the stars will align, and they’ll be
open to change. And you need to be ready and
prepared for that moment. It has always felt to
me like the Middle East peace process between
Israel-Palestine is one of those that none of us
can see a way through, this year or this decade.
But there will come a time, and we need to keep
on being ready for that time. I don’t know when
that time will come, but it will be absolutely
critical that we take hold of it when it comes.
What does being prepared mean?
Being prepared means investing in knowledge
so that you keep on being in touch with the key
players. We should stay close to the Palestinian
key players, and the Israeli authorities. And we
should remain influential in the US. Those are
the ways you remain active. Keep on having
seminars and policy-making discussions to
think of ways you could work it through.
Another one of those tense, long-term conflicts
is the one between India and Pakistan, which
at the moment feels like a relationship that is
always blocked, but there will come a moment
when the stars will align and you need to be
invested in both of those countries and their
opinion-formers to be able to move.
It’s interesting to think about this alignment of
stars in a conflict that has lasted not only since the
colonial past, but also since biblical times.
Well, I think there are definitely academics
who quite rightly say that you never solve an
international relations problem. You allow the
friction to exist in peace until it blows up again.
If you look at the experience of the last 300
years, there are very few problems that have
been solved forever. But life is not about solving
things forever, it is about creating the conditions
for peace so ordinary life can get on while you
deal decently and in a civilized manner with
disagreement.
The great part about a college environment like
ours is that there are people from Palestine, from
Mexico, from everywhere in the world, and
each person will bring their own interests and
concerns. You can listen to their concerns and
allow them to speak freely. Give them the space
to express their views, but also bring opposing
views together in this safe environment, which
is a college. People should be allowed to say
things that they probably couldn’t say on the TV
or the radio. I do think that there’s a problem at
the moment where there are lots of things we
are not allowed to say in public because you’re
criticized for saying them. And we need to get
better at creating a space for people to express
strong views. In some ways, the Brexit debate
did show that if people are not allowed to say
certain things, pressure builds up inside the
system, which will erupt in unexpected ways.
What is interesting is that the alt-right
movement was saying the same thing. It is true
that there is a call from many interest groups in
this society for more freedom of speech, complains
about democracy creating its own auto censor...
There is an interesting quote by the philosopher
Kierkegaard, who talks about the freedom of
thought, which is more important than the
freedom of speech. We need at least for our own
heads to be able to think freely, even if we can’t
always speak freely. A friend of mine in Pakistan
said they have freedom of speech, but what they
don’t have, is freedom from not being arrested
immediately after exercising their freedom of
speech.
To anchor the issue more in a context closer
to home: What is your stand on Brexit as the
President of Wolfson, and what would you say
to the people who are going to be affected by yet
another border?
This is quite difficult for me to answer, because
I’m coming from a background of working
35 years for the government. My practice has
always been not to say anything that disagrees
with the government. This is producing a real
challenge for our beliefs and democracy. There
is no doubt that British people voted for Brexit
and if one believes in democracy, then one has
the obligation to introduce Brexit. That is where
I end up coming from, but I believe profoundly
in democracy. The question is when to give
people a choice, but if you do give them one,
then you have to go with that. There are many
different versions of this, though. One would be
of a United Kingdom that is inward-looking and
small-minded, and there is one where Britain
comes through as a country with the same
character, outward-looking, international, and
embracing the world. For me the key task is to
make sure that Britain is this outward-looking,
international country that it traditionally has
been. This is the biggest task for all of us who
are British here in the UK. For me, this is one of
the great attractions of coming to Wolfson, as it
seems to be a very good place to make sure that
we stay highly open and international.
To stay on the topic of Brexit, it seems to be about
a conservative vote rather than the testimony
of an outwards-looking view of the world. It
was more like a step back from an international
Britain towards one that wants to be more
inward-looking.
I am not sure I agree; we don’t have the data.
There are loud voices that argue for the smallminded
Britain, but I know many people who
voted Brexit because they wanted more freedom
and disliked bureaucracy, and others who didn’t
8 9

elieve the European Union represented a
successful international organisation. To be
honest, I don’t know why most people voted the
way they did. I think there is at least a variety
of opinions and reasons, and that’s why I don’t
think it’s a closed story. This is a story with
two different possible outcomes. And one is an
outward-looking Britain.
I suppose it also depends on the government
that is going to implement Brexit and how the
country is then going to look like. It also probably
has to do with the whole international panorama
of a new kind of populism and nationalism that is
growing in the world, and the pressure this could
put on Britain.
Yes. I think, and I followed European masses now
for thirty years or so, it has always gone through
various phases. Sometimes the European Union
economically is doing rather badly, and in those
cases Britain tends to be rather Euro-sceptic.
And then, when the European Union’s economy
is doing rather well, Britain has become more
pro-European Union. And at the moment the
European economy is on an upswing, and if one
would ask British people: “Would you prefer to
be a German economy, a French economy or
a British economy?” people would tend to be
seeing the European economies as something
to admire. I think that will impact people’s
attitudes.
There was something interesting about Brexit,
about how that in the big cities and the cities
with big universities people voted to remain, and
it was the rural areas, where education is, let’s
say, not as advanced or as available as in the big
cities, where people voted for Brexit. So, again,
this is connected to my point on the inwardness
and outwardness of Britain...
But I think this is where you need to be really
careful about elitism, because that sort of
approach does suggest that the better educated,
the richer, the city-livers are right, and that
they really ought to be in charge and make the
decisions, and that the rest, the poorer, less welloff,
rural people – they don’t know what they
are talking about. That is why I’ve mentioned
the crisis of democracy, because if you believe in
democracy, you have to be really worried about
that kind of division. And what that needs to
impel you to do is address the interests of the
less well-off in our society or the less welleducated.
And so I fear that a number of people
who are remainers have become angry with the
majority, when we ought to be thinking about
how do we change the nature of our society, so
that the interests of all are reflected in the way
we make policy.
It is probably fair to say that remainers and
urban elites have probably had it pretty good
for most of the last fifty years, because they’ve
had all the privileges, the politics have gone
their way, and they’ve been able to describe
some of the feelings, that others have, as not
politically acceptable, whereas everyone’s
opinion in our society is acceptable. We need to
listen to those who contradict us. That’s why I
think – returning to my earlier point – the need
to create safe spaces, where you can hear what
everyone is saying, becomes so important.
Is there a border you would like to erase – taking
into account your professional experience?
To raise or erase?
To erase. But raising would also be an interesting
question!
Well, there is a very good quote by a friend
of mine, in which he says that there is no
international situation to which the right
answer is to build a wall. So I don’t think there
is a border I would want to raise anywhere. Now
on to the ones I would love to get rid of… In
my experience with the border between India
and Pakistan, it would be wonderful if that
border could become a much more open one,
but that clearly relies on those two countries
finding a better mode of communicating and
understanding each other.
As I professionally spend a lot of time working
with Madrid, Gibraltar and the UK on their
relationship, I would love it if in the context of
that border, that frontier, we could find a way in
which the three parties involved there could just
live with a frictionless border, or a frictionless
frontier. But we haven’t gotten there yet.
Lisa Heida, ‘Sammy’.
10 11

Nicholas Pierpan, ‘THE SWELLS’.
There are houses even
now without a road, re-enclosed
by birch and maple.
They tempt us out on Sunday
past the far county
bends: a place to drink
in peace, see walls surface
within the oaks and brown ash.
A cry and we stop the Ford,
crawl out one by one
through summer undergrowth,
like savages gaining on
some lost and wounded beast,
last looks decide who goes
in first – makes sure we’ve found
the swells of an empty house
abandoned to the forest,
still sheltering dead
furniture, insides
misshapen by dust and
the shit of infinite mice.
We smash every
window in the place
and drink a toast.
*
Years later – Somerset,
England. No longer turning
vagrant corners.
I met you here, but
distance remains that
neither will ferry.
Visiting your kindly parents
we take a walk through nearby
woods, say little until a field
breaks up the trees: livestock’s
summer-refuge. Cattle graze
this shaded pastureland
and then a house appears –
farmer-like, familial,
but no road in any direction.
There is only the field, the trees,
that house, now mirrored in your eyes.
Tell me who lives in that place.
YASSER KHAN: ‘NOTHING IS HARDER ON THE SOUL,
THAN THE SMELL OF DREAMS, WHILE THEY ARE
EVAPORATING.’ - MAHMOUD DARWISH
(pen on paper).
(The title of Yasser Khan’s sketches are verses from poems written by the
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Their focus is the impact of borders on
the psychology of those who suffer. The face, the eyes, the atmosphere are all
expressive of the turmoil which manifests itself in a complexity of emotions
much beyond the capacity of language.)
12 13

I recently had a conversation with my parents,
who were visiting me here in Oxford from
Hungary. Although they have visited me many
times already and we used to travel a lot together
when I was a child, they still feel the urge to
mention how easy it is just to take a plane and
cross one border after another. It got me thinking
how mobility of individuals was different before
I was born. Of course, I heard many stories
from my parents, having come from Hungary,
an ex-socialist country. The following article
was created from a long chat, or interview if
Emese Végh
“CROSSING BORDERS IN HUNGARY
DURING THE COMMUNIST ERA”
you like, with my parents about their personal
experiences with borders. They were born at the
end of the 1950s, so they experienced the worst
restrictions, the moderately bad, and winds of
change in the 1990s.
Hungary was a satellite state under the
political control of the Soviet Union from 1949-
1989. There were three large waves of emigration
from the country: in the 1930s many people left,
after 1945 most of the aristocrats fled the country,
and then the final wave in 1956. The latter wave
was due to the fall of the 1956 nationwide
revolution against the communist-government,
when many people left the country and fled to
West (i.e. non-communist countries), mostly to
the United States and Canada. Because of this
wave of emigration, the government declared
all those who wanted to travel towards the West
“suspicious”, and assumed nobody would want
to return once they left the country. During the
1960s nobody could cross the Hungarian border
towards the West, except athletes competing
in international competitions, artists, and
researchers.
Travelling from Hungary in the
1970s
From the end of the 1970s citizens could
acquire a passport and had the right to travel
to foreign countries with permits given by the
police. If you received this permit they stamped
your passport at the police station. Whether you
received this permit or not was completely up to
the mood of the policeman. If people wanted to
make sure they received a permit they had to
find a contact, a man on the inside, working at
the police station and let them know they were
coming, which demonstrates the corruption of
the system. People could go once every three
years to non-socialist countries and once a year
to countries in the Eastern Bloc. However,
they could only carry money up to the value
of $50 per person. This amount of cash would
have only been enough for two days, so people
exchanged as much money as possible and
hid it wherever they could. Common hiding
places included cigarette boxes, underwear,
and even inside baked cakes. My mother, for
example, went for a three-week trip to Split in
today’s Croatia (former Yugoslavia) after her
graduation. In order to have enough money
for her holiday, she extracted the tobacco from
the tube of the cigarettes and rolled 10 Dinar
notes (the currency of former Yugoslavia) into
each cigarette. Although if caught she would
have been incarcerated, everyone knew people
had more money with them than allowed.
When people wanted to ensure they would
not get caught, they put a $100 note into their
passports for the border force officer. The bribe
ensured that the border control would not open
the cars or check people’s clothes and personal
belongings. The border control was more relaxed
when entering Austria because they were a
capitalist country. When visiting other socialist
countries people had to experience the same
terror twice: once when entering the country
and again on their return. People who worked
in high-ranking jobs for the police forces could
not leave the country even for holidays, because
the government was afraid they would act as
spies and because they could easily stay in the
West. Since a large part of the population had
relatives in Western countries, their families
could ensure that they pay for Hungarians’
travels and holidays. If those relatives left in
1956, they were discriminated against and were
not likely to receive a permit for the visit. Those
outside of the country could not visit their
families until the mid-1980s.
Many Hungarians had German origins. If
they could prove this, they only had to receive a
permit for a holiday to West Germany and then
Germany would grant them citizenship and
they could settle down there. Other capitalist
countries gave political asylum in special
circumstances. My maternal grandfather was
able to prove abuse from the socialist government
of Hungary and received political asylum. The
government repeatedly nationalised his family’s
large properties and businesses leaving him and
his family destitute. He fled Hungary while
pretending to take part in an organised trip to
Vienna for the blind and badly sighted.
Although annual visits to a country in the
Eastern Bloc were allowed, you could still only
take $50 worth of currency with you. People
mostly went to Yugoslavia, to the Adriatic Sea,
or to East Germany because of their cheap
alcohol. The lucky few that lived in a 20 km
range of the Yugoslavian border could acquire
a “short border-crossing passport” with which
people could visit neighbouring towns in
Yugoslavia eight times a year. The only big city
in this range in Hungary was Szeged, where my
father went to high school and university.
14 15

Travelling from the West to
Hungary
Hungary did not have foreign currency
income from goods, since it was forbidden to
sell anything to the capitalist West. However,
tourism from West Germany and Austria
formed a large part of the economy. Many
German families came to Hungary to reunite
for a holiday after their countries were torn
into a West and East side. For example, Angela
Merkel, the current German chancellor, who
grew up in East Germany came to Hungary
many times to reunite with her relatives from
West Germany. When tourists from the West
came to Hungary for more than thirty days,
they had to announce their stay at the local
police station.
Both of my parents had relatives in
Western countries - from my father’s side, in
England, and from my mother’s side, in Canada.
My Canadian relative emigrated in 1956, so
she could not visit her family in Hungary until
the mid-1980s. She sent many presents to my
mum’s family, but duty control intercepted and
stole everything that looked valuable. After the
repeated stealing of goods, she put the clothes
into muddy water so that the duty control
would not confiscate them. Her family could
later clean them and sell them at the market for
extra cash.
Travelling from the East to
Hungary
Due to the “relaxed” atmosphere, the many
thermal baths, and because of Balaton, the
largest warm water lake of Central Europe,
Hungary was an attractive destination for
tourists from other communist countries.
Hungary had a special position during the
communist era and was called, “the happiest
barrack”. Socialism was much more relaxed
and “westernised” in Hungary than in any
other communist country. János Kádár, the
communist Hungarian leader, fought for these
rights and special treatment in Hungary, and
so the relationship with the other communist
leaders was tense. Hungarians could travel, and
some small businesses could exist, which was
unimaginable in other communist countries.
People from other countries could not travel to
the West at all or with much larger restrictions:
only researchers and athletes could travel with
special permits, even in the 1970s and 1980s.
Bulgaria, Romania, and East Germany must
have been the hardest to live in as they were the
most restricted, and experienced the harshest
communism. When East Germans came to
Hungary to meet their families they even risked
not being able to get back to their country.
In Conclusion
My parents left me in shock when
describing the way of life and the restrictions on
the freedom of movement they grew up with. It
is easy to forget how convenient travel is for us
millennials, especially in the European Union.
Borders in Schengen countries do not exist:
you don’t need to stop or have ID when driving
from today’s Hungary to another Schengen
country, which was unimaginable in my parents’
youth. After they noticed how sorry I felt for
them and their past experiences they said it
was the norm for them, and that they did not
experience it that badly since they were young.
Even if they had been allowed to travel more
than once every three years to the West, they
needed those three years to collect the money
needed for a long family holiday in France or
Italy. They grew up with dual consciousness;
they were told completely different things in
school and at university than at home. They had
to listen to the ideological nonsense imparted
by institutions but forget it right away. Not
even the teachers believed what they said or
taught, but they were told what they had to say.
Although both of my parents are from a welleducated
background, they believe even the
worker-peasants would have not believed the
communists.
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘See you on the other side’
16 17

YASSER KAHN, ‘AND I TELL MYSELF,
A MOON WILL RISE FROM MY DARKNESS’
- MAHMOUD DARWISH
(charcoal on canvas)
GOSSIP
To cross it and step
Into the place where they gossip.
To become the curtain which waves
Without wind
And wish all friends as weightless:
I will be aware
Of why you want me ghost
Only sixty years or so
Later.
For now, I hold their whispers,
Senseless in the syntax of disappearance
—The stuff that stays on confessionaries’
wooden walls,
Lingering as God’s words
For the kneeled ones.
But I know it’s you,
Trying to remember, tooth by tooth,
How having a mouth in the middle of
the face tastes like,
And failing to express
The causes which lead you
To this lipless existence.
It’s them,
Arranging the pieces of the puzzle
By colour
So I can solve it swiftly,
When I finally learn the stammers
They use as language:
Like the art of tai chi,
A life-long learning.
Untold kisses, drunk, behind doors on
Christmas dinners,
A silence from granny, days after being
diagnosed with dementia,
The motives for your becoming all creaking
on wooden floors
On an almost written goodbye letter,
All disclosed with the parlance
Of gossamer:
Sinful will be the secrets
Kept beyond this border.
Eduardo Paredes Ocampo, “TWO POEMS”
WHITE SHARK’S
WET DREAM
A body-size tattoo
Of the horizon.
If asked about the story behind it,
As we sometimes do with strangers at parties,
He would talk of the Pacific’s sleepless nights,
Restlessly roaming the coasts of Sayulita for a fix
And waking up the next morning
Still tasting the flesh of the virgin
Who, drunk,
skinny-dipped
In the ocean at dawn.
A border, drafting
The cancellation of the vertical pulls
That keep us, between bliss and abyss, floating:
A scrawl, from head to tail,
Which paints him
In two colours:
From below,
The white of Archangel Gabriel’s feathers,
From above,
The gray of Beelzebub’s scales.
But inside such a small crystal cage
—the aquarium, the world, the poem—
Such great creature’s prison tattoos
Looked tuned down:
The arms of the full-face swastika
Metamorphosed into a lucky four-leaf clover.
But he
Still dreams of himself ink-free:
A borderless flesh
With no traces of his double, the albino.
A dream of endless low waters,
And the promise
Of a fresh pair of legs
With every turning of the tide.
18 19

my boarding pass and my completed entry form. Both were still in there. It’s all there, I told myself.
It’s all streamlined...
10 minutes. Tick tock.
My stomach sank lower and lower. I recalled my first ever flight experience and the number of paper
bags I went through at landing. Years have gone past and the feeling of nausea has waned, but it still
wasn’t comfortable. Focus. Don’t forget the mission. I need to focus.
0 minutes.
‘Zero Hour’
David Yuxin Wang
Landed. Passengers stood up to retrieve their carry-ons from their overhead cabins as the seat belt
sign disengaged. Unbuckled, my duffel held tightly in my lap, I could feel a build-up of cold moisture
in my palms. I restarted my mobile phone and double-checked the clock. It was about time... Ready...
Go! Reset. 15 minutes. Tick tock!
Heathrow is overwhelming, and 15 minutes is just an arbitrary number - sufficiently short to be
physically possible and to get the job done. As swiftly and naturally as I could, I navigated past
unsuspecting travellers moving at their own leisurely pace. Speed was what I needed, but there
certainly was no need to make a scene. Passport - check. Wallet - check. Mobile phone - check. I was
only meters away. Meters.
1 minute. Tick tock.
The seatbelt sign above my head lit up and instantly, a dose of adrenaline wriggled through my tiresome
form.
47 minutes. Tick tock.
It took a few seconds for me to clear my head. Cautiously, I peered over my neighbour, who was still
sound asleep, and glanced through the window. Clusters of bright lights dotted across the darkness
of night, tracing each and every human activity within metropolitan London. Whilst inspecting my
watch, I suddenly noticed I was still eight hours ahead. Damn, I should have turned the clock back
earlier. Carefully, I corrected the time to GMT and took a deep breath.
38 minutes. Tick tock.
This isn’t the first time, I reminded myself. All I needed from this moment onwards was a sharp mind.
This should be nothing new, but I could feel my nerves creeping up. Amidst bouts of attempts to slow
my breathing and heart rate, I began to map out the plan. There is nothing difficult. Everything is
under control. Everything will be okay.
23 minutes. Tick tock.
Everything had been packed and organised in the right places. Habitually, I slipped my hand into
my inner jacket pocket and fumbled my passport. Having obtained my first passport at age six, this
was my third issue. The adrenaline overdrive unwound slightly when my fingers sensed that familiar,
rough texture of my passport cover. Slotted between its cover and my ID page, I traced the edges of
Bad news. People. Lines of people. There must have been a couple of other flights landing at around
the same time. Two, four, six, eight, ten... Too many people. Impatiently, I stood in line. This wasn’t part
of the plan. Streamlined, remember? I needed a Plan B.
Minus 46 minutes. Teeeee-k tooooo-k.
45 minutes have passed. Waves and waves of travellers waving British and EU passports have glided
past as I moved a total of six spaces down the line. Two, four, six... Never mind. What was the point
of counting? I should have known this was mission impossible. Why did I place hope onto something
that would only promise disappointment?
There was never going to be a Plan B.
As I glanced across at the two poker-faced UKBA officers sitting under a glaring sign that read ‘All
Passports’, scrutinising and questioning each and every international traveller ahead of me, I let out
a long sigh of defeat. The plan didn’t matter; nor did its execution. I was never going to be any faster
than what the bureaucratic system demanded me to be. Stuck at the border, I, a foreigner, finally let
down my guard and allowed my mind to drift.
Minus 65 minutes. Tick tock.
It was Saturday night. If I made it back before 2 am, a couple of beers in the Wolfson bar would make
my life a bit better. If and only if.
Tick tock…
20 21

ALESSANDRO VATRI, ‘THE WALL’. Taken in Nicosia (Cyprus), 2015.
A café by the physical border between South Nicosia and ‘no-man’s land’.
Asmi Khushi, ‘Do I Draw Borders Around Myself?’
III.
I.
Do I draw borders around myself
I wipe them off to let you enter
completely because I am a part of you
this being a letter to every lover
And one mother
I am all yours, I don’t quite exist
By myself
My culture is of porous boundaries
says a social psychology text book
So I say my culture is
of cackling laughter when we permit
Others in, of sorrows carried together
our shoulders bowed and join
my caste identity is yours
we’re both powerless, incapable
my gender is yours,
we’re both threatened, vulnerable.
my religion is yours,
we’re both sinners, terrorists.
So I sleep in your arms restlessly
hold you through every storm
we drown together
I taste love raw, naked and unformed
like broken buildings, broken roads
broken bridges,
broken transport.
Why do I draw borders around myself?
Because borders were drawn in the first place,
between the East and the West
between the North and South
between the hungry and the bloated
between the growing and the insane?
Or
because the cell separated
because the dolphin differs from the locust
because snowflakes form in uncountable shapes
because the child combined the genes of his
parents
to become something new;
because everything beautiful and sacred
must be protected to survive?
And do I pick up that charcoal stick,
Or the colours of spring?
II.
Do I draw borders around myself
Now far away in a distant land
in the country of the wind snow and feeble rain
On another face of the globe,
where faces are paler and colours fade away
I walk alone heavy and pregnant
with hungry children from back home
Here people draw borders
nice charcoal lines smooth and edgy
through whipped strokes I can’t get in
Water smudges charcoal lines
Seeping through, leaving traces
the borders run inwards, into building
towers, into arches
The borders smudge into cobbled streets
the borders smudge into universal healthcare
drawn roughly
Borders break in the night,
at the sacred feet of the homeless
they burn and sputter and choke
at the music flowing out of dim pubs
they break down and people break
sometimes they float into borderless domains
for which they unknowingly thirst.
I see them starve and thirst
I can’t serve water
but is it because of the lines?
Or because my wells run dry?
22 23

“LIKE THE HUMAN HEART”
Álex Sartoris
There’s something to be said about the sounds of trains in the distance: they soothe the soul. Or so I
like to think, sometimes. Some other times I don’t even think I have a soul. Still, this is not my story
but rather someone else’s.
It was on one of the first days of fall that I walked to the place I go when I feel sad and want to
be alone. It happens to be an old McDonald’s overlooking the edge of town, as the Springsteen song
goes, and from its terrace you can watch trains departing an even older railway station, far enough so
that they look like a line between the meadows and the sky, and yet so close you can still hear them as
they speed away into the sunset at dusk.
There’s something to be said about McDonald’s, too: no matter where you are in the world or if you
ever get lost, be it a highway in the desert or one of those concrete jungles we call cities, you can always
find solace in between their facsimile walls. God bless globalisation for these small miracles. Perhaps
it is this abatement, to instantly believe I’m somewhere I know and will always know wherever I am,
that draws me to this place again and again. However, as it happens, I find myself ever more oblivious
to my surroundings than to my thoughts. That may be why at first I didn’t see her sitting by a table on
a corner, her face towards the same sunset I had been watching until then.
It took me a while to recognize her because of the years, her sunglasses and her hair – once blond,
it now glowed pink as gum. Nevertheless, there was still an aura of improbable beauty around her, like
snow on a summer day. I stood up and neared her.
‘Claire, is that you?’
She looked at me then, but said nothing.
‘It’s me, Álex. You know, I was friends with your brother at school. May I sit down?’
She shrugged and I took a place, unaware of the fact that I obstructed her view of the sun.
‘It must have been, what? Ten years?’
I really couldn’t tell how fast time had flown since I had last seen her. Before I knew, I was talking
again.
‘You know, I often think of him. Max, I mean. It’s been ages since I last spoke to him. And you. I
sometimes think of you, too.’
Her brother and I had one of those friendships that were everlasting as long as school years lasted,
right until college started and we all drifted apart like castaways after a shipwreck. On summer days
I’d ride my bike to their house. I couldn’t be more than twelve, and mum was always somewhere else,
working. Where my dad was, that’s something she wonders still. When I think of that summer, I
remember the lawn behind their house, the pool we’d jump into, the room where Max and I would
play videogames or jerk off for the first times to Madonna clips on an old computer.
When I think of Claire, I remember long afternoons by the pool, water dripping from her hair, the
blue of her eyes. I also remember we played hide and seek with her brother, careful not to disturb their
father, whom I remember always sitting in front of a TV, beer in hand. Claire and I always hid inside
a closet in her bedroom which proved a perfect cocoon from the outside world. We could see the bed
through the keyhole in the wooden door and hear Max’s footsteps in the corridor before he gave up
on us and went somewhere else to play. We stayed a little longer, and she would hold my hand then
and tell me how she often hid in there.
She produced a smoke from her purse. The moment she lit it made me feel like something precious
had been lost that would never be found again. She took a drag and let the smoke out through her
nose, her eyes still hidden behind the shades. The sky was now the same colour as her hair, which gave
her the somewhat hieratical looks of a sculpture or a ghost.
When I asked Claire why she hid in there, she replied: ‘It’s because of monsters’. I thought she was
old enough not to believe in monsters anymore. Now I wonder if she had ever been young at all. Back
then, I still didn’t know monsters had a human face, a human smile, a human heart. Nightmares made
of flesh and bone lurking in broad daylight.
Her phone chirped and she held it with both hands. I could see the screen reflected on her sunglasses
as she started texting.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the toilet’, she said and then she disappeared into the building.
I stood there, still thinking of the last summer I spent at their house. I had biked all the way there
to find that only their father was at home. His breath reeked of beer when he told me Max and Claire
had gone shopping with their mother. He said they’d be coming any time soon, though, and that I
could stay until then if I wanted to. He sat in front of the TV and fell asleep as if I had never shown
up, so I went to Claire’s room and waited there.
She used to draw a lot, I recall now. She was too shy to lend any of her pictures, and so I thought
this could be my chance to take a better look at them. I was scanning through some sketches when
I heard a door shut and a sense of guilt grew inside me. Afraid that she would get mad at me for
being in her room without her knowing, I did the only thing that seemed reasonable at the moment:
I opened the closet door, slipped inside and closed it behind me. Not a minute later, Claire walked in
the room. I should have opened the door right then and explained why I was there, but I didn’t. Things
might have followed a different path then. Instead I remained silent, careful not to give myself away.
I wanted to see; what, I did not know then, nor could I have imagined.
She pulled over her t-shirt and threw it to the floor. An ethereal steam of sweat rose from her skin,
and I could see the ever more protruding shape of her breasts beneath a white bra. She unbuttoned her
trousers and let them fall to the floor. From where I was, I could see the first signs of pubic hair were
starting to sprout here and there on the leg openings and band of her panties. And then it struck me
that she was going to open the closet looking for something to put on. Still, I could not take my eye
off the keyhole. Then she turned around, and even though I could not see past her, I somehow knew
her father was there, too. It smelled of beer.
I never told anyone what I had seen there. For years it haunted me like a bad dream. As I grew up
I sometimes found it exciting, only to feel empty afterwards and hate myself for it. In time, it became
less a memory than a nightmare, or at least I wanted to think it had been nothing more than that. And
though it still lingered somewhere in my mind, I came to doubt its veracity. I had to.
When it happened, I was too scared or confused or simply too astonished to do anything. All the
while, Claire looked toward the closet and her eyes were an infinite blue that could almost pierce
through the door. Bent as she was on the bed, one of her hands was gripping the bed sheets while the
other was reaching out towards me for something that wasn’t there, and then I, too, held my hand
towards the door, as if trying to hold hers.
Like that day, I then stretched an arm towards the emptiness she had left before me. I wanted to
hold her hand and tell her how sorry I was, but there are invisible walls we cannot cross, and I could
never reach out for her any more than I can reach out for you. Besides, I was and would always be late,
ten years too late.
By then the sky had bruised to night already and the last train had long departed the station. When
it was clear she wasn’t coming back, I stood up and walked away.
24 25

V.
Cristina Blanco Sío-López, ‘THE WARPING OF WINDS’
Slow,
swimming in factors
A Pedro
I.
Far from
distant precautions,
undeclared wars,
tuning to loopholes,
resonating crystal growing
through my bones.
Touch
the passing river
knowing
when it explodes.
III.
II.
From an embrace of sand
to the whirlpools of fire.
From the cluttered sky,
to the soft hook of light,
a swinging spectrum
so wishing to fly.
And now, where's your sand?
where's your hand?
where's the perfume of hours?
the flaming desire to live and to
fly?
Your hand is a cloud,
your wings are departing,
IV.
A caress of winds,
a kiss of the sun,
plunging in feathers,
singing spheres,
bathing in light,
touching the water,
with the widest
of eyes.
a sight that is seeking,
the calm of the angles,
a fluency of mirrors,
a stroke of moonlight.
Your tongue and your fingers
depicting new canyons,
a whisper of rivers,
deluded in reasons,
delighted
to come.
Your shadow was right:
the one that you abandoned,
the star on the coastline,
the glimmering fragment
was the key to the velvet,
the whisper in secret,
the water
in your hands.
Now,
lost
in the voiceless realms
of games without traces,
of forbidden ferments
of purple and rye.
But shoulders are waiting
for circular dances,
for pungent eclipses,
for wishes amounting
a swift invitation:
a change of the tides.
That's the step:
the void is embracing
a warmth that's arising,
a hand is extended,
it's the day of rotations,
the fall of all gravity
a zenith of voices,
the moment of meeting,
the will of the rhythms,
the echo of the skin,
your scent is the shadow of a
blossoming spine.
the open reflection,
the warping of winds.
26 27

Merryn Williams, ‘ON THE TOWPATH’
Canals are where you head. The roving cameras,
ubiquitous, can’t reach you. As I walk
I hear slight sounds, from people asleep in barges.
They are in no danger.
I left at first dark, when the radio told me
they’d crossed the border, killing as they go;
packed water bottle, biscuits and my compass,
and now it’s thick dark, and they’re on my trail.
I trashed my papers, left my aging parents,
only the strong are fit for the long trek;
a few rushed words, just time to fake a story.
It’s on my conscience, but they told me: Go.
Yasser Khan,”A PERSON CAN ONLY BE BORN
IN ONE PLACE. HOWEVER HE MAY DIE SEVERAL TIMES
ELSEWHERE: IN THE EXILES AND PRISONS, AND IN
A HOMELAND TRANSFORMED BY THE OCCUPATION
AND OPPRESSION INTO A NIGHTMARE.”
- MAHMOUD DARWISH
(Charcoal on paper)
Bad smells rise up, the flapping of a heron;
night still, can’t tell the white thread from the black;
put foot in front of foot, none walk towards me.
And when light breaks? No choice but to walk on.
28 29

Lisa Heida, editor of Romulus, in conversation with Sabira Yameen,
an energetic, inspiring and powerful woman who happens to be deaf.
“What deaf people can’t do? They can’t hear. That is all.”
“IT’S LIKE
I AM BEING PUNISHED
FOR JUST BEING DEAF”
Sabira was born in Bangladesh but now is a resident of the UK. She was a Research Scientist at the
University of Oxford at the Oncology department for three years, 2009 – 2012. With only two hours of
British Sign Language support a week, she felt left out. When her father died, she had a body breakdown
for 7 months, suffering from extreme vertigo. She couldn’t work because of the vertigo. When she got
better, she decided to put herself at top priority, and focused on her happiness. She decided to stop working
at the University of Oxford – also because they test on animals, something she could not reconcile with her
beliefs, being vegan. Currently she is working on self-employment, hoping to establish a cat hotel. Her
passion is justice for all, and the Oxford Vegan Action group, which she set up.
You visited Bangladesh for five weeks not so long
ago. Bangladesh has territorial problems with
India. Have you in any way experienced this
during your last visit? How did you feel about it?
No, I personally didn’t experience any problems,
so I can’t comment on it. However, online visa
application for a visit to India is available for
British Citizens, which I did apply for and it
was a very quick application process, but this
is not the case for Bangladesh Citizens, as my
brother is. He has to go through an interview to
obtain a visa, which took a while; it’s clear that
India has a different attitude towards British
Citizens and Bangladeshi Citizens, despite
being neighbor countries.
Since last August, more than 668,000 Rohingya
refugees have fled from Myanmar for camps
over the Bangladesh border. Myanmar’s actions
are labelled by the United Nations as “ethnic
cleansing” and said it cannot rule out considering
it as an act of genocide. What do you think of this
situation?
I think this is a very sad situation. I was at Cox’
Bazar where many refugees are, but I didn’t go to
the refugees’ camp. However, I saw many of UN
vans at the hotels, where UN staffs are staying.
I believe it was a genocide act committed by
Myanmar from watching interviews given
by the survivors, where people get killed and
driven out for no reason other than they are of
different ethnic and religion.
The camp of the Rohingya refugees is set up on the
narrow strip of land just beyond the Myanmar
border fence. The area is formally still within the
country’s territory, but it is widely referred to as
“no man’s land”. The governments of Bangladesh
and Myanmar say they plan to repatriate
hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees
within two years, a timeframe humanitarian
actors warn is too fast for a safe and voluntary
return. How do you feel about this?
As long as it is not in Myanmar country but in
Bangladesh, I see no reason why there will be
further attack, even though it is considered as
“no man’s land”. The border right next to the
land should be guarded at all times to prevent
any possible further attack.
According to various articles, deafness is a major
public health problem in Bangladesh. “The country
has a population of over 130 million, and about 13
million people are suffering from variable degrees
of hearing loss of which 3 million are suffering
from severe to profound hearing loss leading to
disability.”
The article I cited uses words like suffering,
leading to disability, public health problem, etc.
How do you feel about the negative discourse these
academics (presumably hearing academics) use to
describe being deaf ?
Deafness is only a problem if society doesn’t
provide equal access for deaf people. Deaf
children have the full capacity to learn at equal
measure as hearing children can, but it can
only be done with equal access to education
and opportunity. All the negative words are
incorrectly placed on deafness, all the negative
should be placed at the lack of access and lack
of opportunities. I experienced it first-hand; I
used to go to deaf school from age of 3 and half
to 6 years old in Bangladesh, and the school was
poorly organised, and I wasn’t learning much,
so my parents pulled me out of the school and
put me in a hearing school which was much
better organised, however I was left out by
other hearing children due to communication
issue. At the end, my parents decided that we
needed to move to the UK for better education.
I went to a deaf school in the UK, and I thrived
better. However, it was an oral school, so there
wasn’t any sign language involved, which is
such a shame. My parents later on admitted
that it was mistake that we didn’t learn sign
language since I was diagnosed with deafness,
but such information was not easily available
in Bangladesh, also sign language back in
old time in 1980s and 1990s was severely
discouraged, because it was believed that
learning sign language will hinder integration
of deaf people among hearing society as no one
knows sign language, and there was no sign
language interpreter available in Bangladesh, so
everything was geared toward oral and speech
ability in deaf children.
30 31

Now that you live in the UK, do you feel like there
is a difference between how people act around
you? Would you say the UK is more accepting of
deaf people than Bangladesh, or is it the other
way around?
In Bangladesh, people tend to underestimate
deaf people more, unlike in the UK. Not
surprising, as there is no proper access or support
for deaf people to education, they often fall
behind in classes and have lower achievement.
This is really sad, because I do know that deaf
people can do anything, as long as society and
family allows them to, by providing the access
and support, but if they receive none of those,
it is much harder to progress. We have to
remember that most deaf children are born to
a hearing family: often they never have met a
deaf person before until their own deaf child
came along, and sadly the usual narrative is that
they don’t provide enough support to the child.
It does happen in UK as well to lesser extent
unless the child has very loving and supportive
family.
I have such supportive family who gave
everything to ensure that I get equal opportunity
in education, that is how I managed to have a
Bachelor and Master degrees and I used to work
in University of Oxford as a Research Scientist
on oncology for 3 years, and my research work
(co-authored) was published in 5 journals.
In Bangladesh, government and general public
don’t take much notice of deaf people, they don’t
provide subtitles on TV, and they don’t provide
interpreters, it’s as if we don’t exist. It was same
story in UK many decades back, but I am sure
things will change in Bangladesh in the future.
Having said this, the UK may be much better
than Bangladesh, but still has a long way to go.
In the UK, many of cinemas are not subtitled,
they usually screen a certain movie with subtitles
just once a week at an inconvenient time. If
it’s advertised that there will be subtitles, too
often deaf people arrive and find that there
are no subtitles. Many of services including
government’s branch offices don’t offer BSL
interpreters, even at request, and would say that
if I want BSL interpretation, I would need to
book it myself, and pay for it myself, which is
unbelievable, it’s like I am being punished for
just being deaf. Many times when I need to
make an appointment, it only offers phone
number for me to call, which I am unable to call.
I believe that the government should put more
money aside for equal access for deaf people,
and provide BSL interpreters, and increase the
number of BSL interpreters by encouraging
people to learn BSL by making the courses
much cheaper, and also introduce BSL courses
in schools as part of curriculum, like they do
with French and German languages already.
Also to provide online chats with staff on
website as an alternative for deaf people instead
of just a phone number which deaf people can’t
use.
BSL is even more of importance as it is a
language belonging to our own country instead
of a foreign country’s language, considering the
fact that there are 125,000 deaf adults in the
UK who use BSL, plus an estimated 20,000
children, and 9 million of people in UK face
hearing loss, which is 1 in 7.
Were you born deaf ? Do you remember the moment
you first realized you were deaf ?
I wasn’t born deaf. I was born 2 months premature
and acquired life threatening lungs infection as
my immunity system was not fully developed,
doctors gave me antibiotic drug which saved my
life, but the medicine caused profound deafness.
My family didn’t realise that I was profoundly
deaf till I was nearly 2 years old, because I wasn’t
responding to the noise behind me, and I spoke
very few words. Originally, they thought it was
just normal delay. I particularly didn’t take much
notice of it, until I was fitted with hearing aids
device! I struggled to understand what others
were saying to each other, especially among
my cousins, who were my playmates, I felt bit
isolated, that is the moment when I realised
that I am different from others.
How did you feel about being deaf ?
So many times that there was no access, no
subtitles at cinema, no interpreter at meetings or
at talks, and it is extremely hard in a big group of
people, there is limitation to lip-reading. That
is when I get frustrated, wishing that I wasn’t a
deaf person in first place. The isolation never
feels nice, especially when you just simply want
to know what is going on, and want to make
the connection and give input, but are unable to
do so. It is even more prominent when I am at
the outreach that I myself organise but am left
unable to communicate with public to explain
the purpose of the outreach.
And there are times that I completely forget
that I am deaf, especially when I am with my
immediate family and my partner, because we
all communicate so well because of familiarity.
It is usually a minimum of 3 people, any more
than that becomes a bit of struggle, and in bigger
groups, even more so. It is very dependent on
situations.
Do you feel like your surroundings treat you
different in a negative way? And how do you
think they treat you differently in a positive way?
When I don’t understand what is being said in
groups or if there is speech but there is no BSL
interpreter, and often there are no subtitles on
clips on social media, and so on, when I ask what
they are talking about, I get told “Never mind”,
“Will tell you later” which never happens.
When I am out walking on the street, hearing
people try to get my attention and I explain that
I’m deaf, they will say “Never mind” and then
walk away. This is annoying; they should take
time to explain what they were trying to say and
give me chance to response properly to best of
my ability.
I went on holiday with my friend outside the
UK, and she was meeting a friend of hers, we
all hanged out together for a while. Later I
found out that my friend’s friend remarked to
my friend’s brother that I am beautiful but very
rude and snobby because I kept ignoring his
communication with me, my friend’s brother
laughed and responded “Didn’t you realise that
she is deaf?! She didn’t ignore you on purpose”.
The guy was mortified when he realised his
mistake. There was many times that people
keep telling me “excuse me” behind me, and I
wouldn’t realise, because of that, lots of people
thought I was rude, I know this because I would
later caught sight of them uffing at me with
furious face expression when they managed to
walk around me. I am guessing it has happened
many times before that I was not aware of, that
I am mistaken as a very rude hearing person
who purposefully ignores any communication
attempt, which is not true, I just couldn’t hear
so won’t realise easily.
Another time, I was at the toilet in a train, and
was just washing my hands after toilet business
(luckily), when to my astonishment a ticketwoman
opened the toilet door with several
male passengers next to her, and she gave me
triumph smile as if she caught me like I’m a
criminal. She thought I didn’t have a ticket and
was hiding in the toilet.
When I told her that I am deaf, she was
mortified and was extra nice to me, as she was
afraid of being sued. She did knock and speak
through the door, but I couldn’t hear so couldn’t
respond. It was awful. It happened again in
plane recently, opened by male crew who talked
through the door, and I couldn’t hear. Luckily, I
was just sorting out my hair when it happened.
There is no privacy for deaf people. I feel like I
have to stick a paper outside the toilet door with
notice “Deaf person is inside, so can’t response
to verbal communication”!
What deaf people can’t do? They can’t hear.
That is all. The only big issue is that there
is a communication barrier, key word is:
communication. For hearing people reading
this, if you meet deaf person, please do take
time to repeat your words or rephrase if the
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deaf person didn’t understand you earlier.
Don’t exclude them, please make some effort. I
certainly know it takes a bit of effort for hearing
people and it’s not easy, but they should kindly
remember that it’s also not easy for deaf people
either, because they live in a hearing world. They
face the struggle every single day of their lives.
Imagine you being in their position, unable to
hear and then to find out that no one bothers
to make a bit of effort to include you, how does
that make you feel? It’s not easy, right? Maybe
learn some British Sign Language, such as
finger spells (alphabets) and some basic signs.
It’s free and available on YouTube. It will make
any deaf BSL user’s day!
Do you have an example of how you think being
able to hear can be a border (barrier?)?
Having hearing has some disadvantage, as
people are unable to turn it off at will, especially
on plane or train when babies or children are
wailing. Hearing loud snore doesn’t aid peaceful
sleep; luckily we deaf people don’t have this
problem! Deaf people can easily buy cheap
houses near very busy airport or train stations
and still have the best sleep ever. We can also
communicate with each other at distance, even
across different platforms, however this can also
apply to the lucky hearing people who learned
sign language.
Do you think being able to hear can limit certain
aspects of life?
Hearing people who don’t learn BSL, they miss
out the hilarious deaf humour which is out of
the world. Storytelling in BSL is so much fun
and visual, it adds another dimension to the
story. Sign language enhances body language
and face expression, it’s much easier to convey
emotions, feelings and tone when you use sign
language. I have a hearing friend who is a fully
qualified BSL interpreter, he told me that he
much prefers sign language to spoken English
language, because it is far more expressive and
visually beautiful and very engaging.
Did you ever experience a situation in which the
border between hearing and deaf people was not
a problem, but more like a point of connecting and
learning?
I think this only happens when I meet other
hearing people who are taking BSL lessons,
whether it is level 1 or 2, it doesn’t matter, it
still create such instant connection. I always
appreciate that they are learning the sign
language, it would make my day. Likewise,
when I go to shop, and buy things, and suddenly
staff will sign “thank you”, I would feel so joyous
and grateful, even if it is the only sign they know.
It is like that the hearing world and deaf world
suddenly colliding at most random place, and
for briefest time, the barrier is lifted.
You mentioned that you have a partner earlier. Is
he deaf or hearing? Does he speak BSL?
My partner’s name is Miguel, and he is hearing.
He has been learning sign language from me
and BSL online course. He will be taking
BSL level 1 course this year in September; he
intends to learn till he reaches level 6, which
is highest level in BSL qualification. He also
wants to learn Bangla (Bangladesh’s language)
as it was my first language and it will help when
he visits Bangladesh. We aim to have a total
communication, English, BSL and Bangla,
which will only strengthen our communication
ability, which is extremely important in
maintaining healthy and loving relationship.
Last but not least, what is your most favourite
sign, and why?
My favourite sign is BULLSHIT, as the sign is
so obvious and hilarious. But I am not so sure
if it is allowed to be put in this magazine? Haha.
Lorenzo Petralia, ‘ON THE SAME SIDE’
Rebekah Vince, ‘FRONTLINE LOVE’
‘ Your heart, it knows no borders’ (Housefires)
I put up a front, draw the line,
This frontier an affront to your being ‒
And yet you wait on the threshold of peace,
That edgy hope of boundless love ‒
With eyes wide open and arms outstretched,
Calling me home.
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Back cover
MARYAM ASLANY, “THE CLASS BOUNDARIES’
(Oil on canvas (40 cm x 30 cm))
The painting is the depiction of my PhD fieldwork, in a village in
Western Maharashtra, India. Inspired by Albert Glaizes’ style of painting,
my work illustrates the impact of industrialisation on rural class formations.
ALESSANDRO VATRI, ‘LOST’. Taken in Venice, 2016.
The invisible cultural and linguistic border surrounding a solitary
tourist in a foreign country.
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