Of Snowflakes and Water

I wrote this text in memory of the victims and their relatives of the flight PS752 shoot down by the Iranian government over Tehran on January 8, 2020. It is also valid in the middle of the Iranian revolution: Jin, Jian, Azadî.

It's cold in Berlin these days.

It is lonely in Tehran these days

The sun is shining, but it is not penetrating the cold.

A lonely snowflake wanders through the wind.

It's lonely in Berlin these days.

It's cold in Tehran these days.

Caught in the wind, the snowflake asks:

Have you ever felt as lonely as me?

Do you know the feeling that nobody can understand how you are feeling?

Have you ever been afraid for your soul because a child smiles at you and you feel nothing. That the corners of your mouth move up out of reflex you notice only this deep emptiness?

Have you ever been driven lonely through the dark night sky like me?

How are you? They ask you.

and you have to go because you can't shout at them

but you have to scream

because it doesn't make sense

because it is not fair

because it's cruel

because everyone continue as if nothing had happened.

What made you so hard, you ask.

Why don't you look me in the eye?

Are you afraid of my pain?

Are you afraid of the depth of the swirl in my soul?

Are you afraid of the feeling of a snowflake?

You want to ignore it. Stay on the surface. Do your things.

You don't want to stop.

You don't want to know what you're doing.

What are you?

Hannah Arendt wrote a text.

She observed the Eichmann trial in Israel.

She had a question.

What is this person?

Who is this a killer?

How can he organize the transportation of millions of people?

People, who are gathered in one place.

People who are gassed there.

Thousands. Every day.

They are burned and the ashes rain over the fields.

And the man goes home at the end of the day and eats supper with his family.

While the ashes are still carried by the wind and find no rest, he sleeps in his warm bed next to his wife.

Who is this person? Hannah Arendt asked herself.

Is he a human, or an evil, hating creature from the depths of the soul.

She watched him and she wrote:

"In fact, today I believe that evil is always extreme, but never radical, it has no depth, also no demonia. It can devastate the whole world, precisely because it continues to grow like a mushroom on the surface. But deep and radical is always only the good. ”

Evil are human beings who refuse to be people.

People act.

People are responsible.

Evil is banal. It's superficial.

Evil watches and says nothing.

Evil says it has no choice.

Evil does not want to be disturbed in its superficial world.

Evil doesn't want to look.

Evil looks away.

Evil says it is neutral.

Evil continues.

Evil is normal.

Evil is simple.

Evil happens every day.

Evil is nothing special.

Evil nods its head.

Evil does what everyone does.

Evil is one of many.

Evil does not refuse.

Evil does not act.

Evil does not decide.

Evil refuses to become human.

Evil is what leaves us speechless.

Evil lets us only say one thing:

"That should never have happened."

So we never ask evil, why did you obey orders

we always ask, why did you provide support?

Hannah Arendt wrote how the snowflake could never write.

Hannah Arendt described something that is indescribable.

We are all speechless in the face of evil.

To be human means to know that we are all the same.

We are all here to visit.

All of us will experience pain while we visit.

I don't believe that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

What doesn't kill me can silence me forever.

So I have to take care of myself.

And that is my responsibility.

If it is necessary to take care of me, then it is also necessary to take care of others.

The people I love.

The people I meet.

Those who share my fate being human.

Snowflakes like Hannah Arendt. She said a lot of smart things. For example:

"As long as you act, you are free because acting and being free are one and the same."

Action is strength.

Strength is to make decisions.

Strength is to be a person.

Strength is to not look away.

Strength is facing your pain.

If I ignore my pain, I don't want to see the pain of others because it is a reminder that I am repressing.

And then I start looking away.

And then I get evil.

Strength can be seen.

Strength is not to buckle before hatred.

Strength is to stand up again to shake hands with others.

Strength is to be there for the others, who will soon be strong again, when I am weak.

Strength is to understand that I, the snowflake, will sink down to the ground from the lonely, cold sky of Berlin.

I will melt there with the other snowflakes that will also land and we will become one.

We are going to be water and we are no longer lonely.

We are no longer snowflakes.

We are water.

Water has no solid form.

Water is undefined.

Water is sometimes cold and sometimes warm.

Those who are thirsty can drink water.

Water turns into tea that warms from the inside.

Water can be salty like our tears.

Water takes on the shape of the vessel.

Water continues to flow when the vessel breaks.

Water evaporates.

Water freezes.

Water goes deep.

Thank you, that we can be water today.