Language, Perspective and Literature

The following interview is a transcription of a thought provoking session between Amani Muthana and her former Professor, Ali Ahmed, where we get a glimpse into Ahmed’s insight on language, culture and writing as well as some of his work.

Amani Muthana (AM): I wanted to start off by asking how many languages do you speak?

Ali Ahmed (AA): There are some languages that I read, some I translate from that I am comfortable with, then there are some that I can read and write in and those of course are Arabic, Italian, Somali. But then you have those other languages that I know, for example, in the case of Spanish, I can translate and it’s close to Italian. But also, in terms of French and in Russian I can also translate from. There are certain languages that I feel comfortable with like Arabic, Somali, Italian and there are some other languages that in a way you could get by, but you are not really fluent. You are not really what we call, Itqan, perfection, that is not there. So, in total, perhaps the ones that I am fluent in and the ones that I am not, I think it would be about 9 languages.

AM: Why was it important for you to learn multiple languages?

AA: Early on, we are talking about where I am from in Somalia. My two older brothers, for example, were Italian speakers. They went to school and the language of instruction was Italian. In my case it was English. And at home Arabic, and Somali…etc. And then my younger brother his language of instruction was totally Arabic, nothing else. And in a way you sort of early on I think, what we developed was, in our house there were Italian newspapers, newspapers in English, in Arabic from mostly Egypt and Lebanon in those days. So, in that sense you sort of become acclimated. You slowly develop a yearning to learn more and more languages. And then of course, later on, you become a professor. And even before I was a lecturer at a University back home before I came here. And in that sense, it goes back to the house. The home in which I grew up and the brothers that I had and in a way really I think especially my older brother the oldest, he was a mathematician by trade. But he, I remember, would always be reading Italian, always. Philosophy in Italian languages and in that sense, you sort of wanted to become fluent in as many languages as possible. I could get by to a certain extent in terms of Swahili for example, which is spoken in East Africa. So, there was early on this kind of need to sometimes really impress your older brothers, your family…etc.

At the same time also when you come into your own there is some importance, real importance in learning languages. And we say as you know in Arabic, we always say if you know the language of a home of a group of people, of a nation, you will always really be safe. They won’t be able to, for example, if you come to a strange place and you know the language, you really know what people are saying and if they are sort of conspiring against you or if they are trying to do harm for example. So, language becomes important. And in that sense early on what I saw was, language is always also an instrument. It’s really a powerful tool. That the more you know and the more you sort of learn, the more you are able to speak in different languages, the more it kind of, in a way, broadens your horizon. And that is why I was always interested in languages.

AM: Since you speak multiple languages, I’m curious to know what language you think in?

AA: It’s a loaded question. What language do I think in or even what language do I dream in? It really depends. What I notice is there are times, because what I do for example when I have a dream, most of the time I sort of really try to jot it down. And I have seen there are times that I dream in English, I dream in Somali, I dream in Arabic. These are the three languages that I actually dream in. I remember long ago, I had a dream in which I was conversing with my late mother, and we were speaking in Arabic. So, what I do is wake up, and of course it’s difficult to always remember everything in the dream. In any dream for that matter. But you remember some of the important things, and I write them in Arabic, in English, or in Somali. But it is a loaded question. It shows you I think the sort of language that you feel comfortable with. Because language as you know is not neutral and it’s not value free. It carries the weight of that culture. Arabic and Somali, that really form the fabric of Somali society. And English from early on, you went to school. I remember early on, I think when I was in fifth grade that we had an American peace corps teacher. So, from that on you in a way take in some of the culture. The thinking in a way, the values in a way. These three languages are the ones that I really, when I think through things and when I dream it’s in these three languages, Arabic, Somali, and English.

AM: How do you incorporate multilingualism in your writing?

AA: I think that’s really important. I am now actually writing a book in which I am using Arabic, Somali, English and Italian. But I am using short paragraphs. What we call a hikmah kind of, wisdom in a way, and if you could produce something in different languages. And in a way it helps I think in the sense of, you still force that language to carry the weight of your values. I think it’s important in terms of languages that you build bridges. For example, in this book that I am now writing I’ll write a short passage in Arabic and then that same short passage, I’ll write it in English or in Somali or in Italian. And the idea is one to sort of really see the differences. Also, because the nuances are different, even when the words are the same. There are some kind of subtle sort of differences and in a way I want to sort of see these differences to begin with when I’m doing the writing. Even though it’s coming from you it carries the weight and the values because it’s not value free and the language says something about its source. I wanted to see if I am writing in Arabic that passage, how does it turn out when it’s written in English or when it’s written in Italian. That is what really fascinates me.

The medium itself is really important in such a way that whatever you write, whatever you say, it comes from you but it’s going through language, and that sort of language always has also what I call a sinew-like characteristic. It’s like a muscle for example, that if you push it from here, it goes this way, if you push it another way it goes the other way. So, it’s not really stable and much depends, even though the words are coming from me, even though the idea is basically sort of really the same, the way I express could sort of be different. The way I see it, for example, the two of us are going to a supermarket, and we say Amani wants to make a cake, Ali wants to make a cake, and we go to the same supermarket. We buy basically the same ingredients, and yet the product that we produce could really be different. Both in terms of shape, in terms of size, in terms of taste… the artistry basically. That is sort of what I’m really interested in. Sort of kind of the artistry, we are using the same words, at times, and yet the product is different. And that kind of in a way provokes my interest.

AM: I remember in the African literature class I took with you, you taught us a Chinua Achebe proverb; “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” When I read your poetry collection, Fear is a Cow, that was one of the themes I got from it, to not shy away from writing about our stories.

AA: Not only do we have to, but it’s our duty actually. It’s really a duty to do that. In the sense that because our histories are really distorted for a lot of reasons. Whenever humans come together, if you remember in class when I talked about Hagen the philosopher. He said whenever you have two humans, you have two consciousnesses that are confronting each other, and its consciousness wants to eliminate the other’s consciousness dialectically because you don’t really want to kill. If you kill you are not going to get any respect from a dead body. So, you want to somehow conquer their consciousness, in which case they sort of really become quasi but better I hope than a slave that they will accept whatever you say. And in that sense, I understand the sort of struggle that is still going on actually in this world of ours. But I think it is our duty in a way now that we are here, in America for example, in the West, some place, that we have to tell our own stories. And it’s really that quote that you quoted from Achebe.

There was this fellow, Henry Johnson, he was one of the writers in the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote a book, Black Man’s Burden. And what he says in the book, basically was there is this kid, who comes to his father and he says, “Father how is it possible that every time that I read or hear a story between a man and a lion fighting, it’s always the man who wins, when in fact we know the lion is more powerful than the human.” And the father simply says, “It will always be like that until the lion tells its own version of what really happened.” Because we are privy and have access to one version and in that sense, it is our duty now to really explain our own versions. And in that case history, any kind of writing in a way, you are sort of kind of trying to reconstruct something.

Writing the way I see it, you’re either talking about the future or you’re sort of trying to somehow retrieve something that you lost or a combination of thereof. In that sense I think what becomes important is because we are here, there are certain things that you lost, because you are not really in the source country. But at the same time also, there are certain things that you gain, a new perspective. And the whole idea of traveling, which is what we do when we come here, the journey that you take, is basically, if you think about it, if you travel from here to here, and you try to go back to where we came from, you are not the same person. But neither is the place also. The source is not really the same, because of the dialectical nature of reality after all, you accumulate experiences, by traveling, journeying, but the place itself is not static. And it is that sort of dialectical thinking; what becomes important is what we have.

If we are talking about fiction, stories and poetry, it doesn’t have that one-to-one correspondence with reality after all, and yet it’s real. I don’t know if you remember the example I used in class when we talked about writing. It’s as though you are looking at a wall, and you look at the wall and you see this polished refined sort of wall, but we know there is something inside that wall, the bricks and the iron and all these sorts of things. And what has happened then, there is this transformative work that goes into the process of making the wall basically. And fiction for me, writing in that sense is really that transformative labor that goes into the process of writing. But there is this iron, the bricks and all these sorts of things in real life that you find in writing for that matter.

I use for example when I talk about fiction in my classes, I give them this example and I say, on my way from home today coming to your class, I saw there was a spectacle, a crowd, and I joined the crowd and I saw there was a donkey and an elephant in a tussle, and they were fighting. And some people were supporting the donkey, some were supporting the elephant. And I saw it with my own eyes. And of course you can say professor you are a liar, and that’s what they are thinking, so I say don’t be shy, say whatever you want to say. And someone says, “you are a liar,” and I say, that’s true. But now suppose you are reading a short story by me in which I talk about a donkey and an elephant in a tussle fight, will you call me a liar now? And they say no. I say, “what’s the difference? There’s no convention that’s called a lie, but there’s convention in writing that this is a genre after all, a kind of literature. And therein lies the difference between the two.

At the same time also, I sort of really tell them, suppose I say, this morning I was reading The New York Times for example, and there was a short kind of eight sentences, and it talked about a family that perished in a fire. The house was destroyed, there was the father, mother, the two kids, the two pets, and they’re gone. And it’s only eight sentences, but that ignites something in me. As a human being you feel for those people who lost their lives. Then I go to their neighborhood to sort of really see that house that was gutted basically by the fire and then I say I want to write a novel, or a story based on their plight. Now I talk to the neighbors, and then the neighbors will probably talk from their own perspective, and their perspectives could really be different. They will talk about the humans in the house, the animals in the house they will describe. Then I will go back to my drawing board and I want to write a story now. I do some research but that’s not enough, that really at most you will have two pages or three. What happens is then there are always gaps and you want to complete those gaps and you complete them from your imagination. And that’s what writing is all about. This story is there, in reality, really. People who died. A house that was gutted by fire and yet now you are reading fiction.

The word itself, as you know when you say fiction, comes from the Latin word, fictus, which is the past participle of fingere which literally means, made up. That’s what fiction is. So, it’s made up and at the same time it has its roots in reality; the house, the family, that made me write this story as a human being. But the gaps. The gaps must be completed. You have to fill them. And basically, you use your own imagination, and that’s what fiction and writing are all about really.

AM: I wanted to ask if you could read from Fear is a Cow. If you don’t mind reading this poem, “The Palm Tree and the Cactus.”

AA: It starts with an epigraph from Maxim Gorky, the Russian writer who was really a progressive writer basically and he says:

“The madness of the brave, is the wisdom of life.”

So, I wrote this short poem, and it says:

Tall in stature
aloof in their stand
defiant of their surroundings
unwilling to cringe
keep guard
before gates watery
amidst sands scorched

That is “The Palm Tree and the Cactus.”

AM: When I read that, it made me think, how do you find the balance between Eastern culture and Western culture? Living in the West and still remaining grounded as a Muslim Somali.

AA: That is an important question and a really loaded question. What I do in a way is
remember what I said in terms of language, that it’s not really value free to begin with. But when we write or when we read, you bring certain things into it because of our backgrounds. Your belief system being Muslim, a Muslim Arab, an African, living in the US today. So, what I do in a way is, you don’t want to be co-opted, but you select that sort of knowledge. And in the final analysis for me really, it’s you study, you sift through whatever it is you are learning, in much the same way you sift through what you learned back home because you are not going to accept in totality basically. So, you sift through these and in the process I know I was produced by that country and there is that sort of affiliation always. But at the same time, you also studied this one, and you want to really look at both with critical eyes.

In the sense that when you write and when you read your own idiosyncrasies also really come into full view after all. So, in a way then, there are good things that I see in any culture, and I use them. But I use them in the sense that you make it count in the weight of your values. You look at your own culture, there are certain things that do not really make sense then you say this is not for me. But there are certain things especially when you talk about Islam, Muslim values literally become what really centers you in that sense. Of course, Islam by its very nature is not only a religion but it’s a way of life. So, you try to encompass all those things. And in a way at the same time also Islam doesn’t really say you cannot adopt things from other places. You are not going to adopt certain things that are out of whack basically, but you could adopt in terms of knowledge and that’s I think why even that saying in Islam, which is attributed to the Prophet (ASWS) “Seek Knowledge.” Go even to China to seek knowledge. But knowledge in that sense is not really something that is only emotional in that sense, but you think through things and that is the beauty of life. There is this ayah in the Quran for example, where Allah says, “The luckiest humans are those who are given wisdom.” It’s not money, it’s not other sort of things, but wisdom.

In that sense I adopt and see. You know where the balance is and that sort of balance really I think is through knowledge and studying. The more you study hopefully the more that you come into your own. There is this thing that Mikhail Bakhtin the Russian literary philosopher sort of really says which makes sense at times. There is what he calls an authoritarian enforced discourse. In the sense that when we are small, we really take what our parents and society really tells us, and then as you grow up you come to a state where you now use what he calls an internally persuasive discourse. Now you look back and you see if you can internalize. And that in a way is the idea of ‘Ulul Albab’ the people of wisdom. So, it gives you that leverage, if you can somehow explain things as someone who knows two things compared to someone who only knows one. Provided that the person who only knows one thing is willing to even engage in the possibility of other kinds of things in life. So, in that sense it’s both a blessing and a curse.

AM: There was another proverb you shared with us in class while we were reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; “It’s the wood on the axe handle that helps cut down the tree.” As I read Fear is a Cow, one poem in particular caught my eye, “Bastardized Time.” I was wondering if you could read from the last few lines.

AA: From “Bastardized Time”

Time’s work is undone by time
And the old maxim and the God-forsaken console
(time and time again)
To destroy an elephant’s bones
Seek help from those of a fellow elephant
For were it not for the hilt
Were it not for the handle
(Talk of Treason Supreme!)
Naked axes in bare hands would never fell a tree

AM: Can you explain the ending of this poem alongside the proverb you taught us in class?

AA: The idea is, if you really want to destroy something, you seek help from an enemy from within. Whether it’s culture or whatever it is, and in a way, what fascinated me is that in order to destroy an elephant’s bone you need another elephant’s bone. But in the case of trees, just imagine you are looking at a tree, and the axe would never really fell a tree if it not for the handle and the handle basically is another tree. So, in a way if a human being was trying to cut a tree without the handle, the axe will basically hurt that human being. Imagine you are that tree that they are now cutting, and the tree looks at the handle, their own relative basically who’s making it possible for humans to basically…poof. That kind of emotion that the tree would really be going through. In a way it’s more painful really, it’s not the hand of the human that’s cutting the tree, the pain that kills the tree I think, is the knowledge that it is another tree that is making it possible for another human to really cut it. And that’s always really the problem.

When we talk about the Heart of Darkness, the idea of colonialism in that sense, you cannot really colonize any group of people without sort of really having an ingrowth into their culture. Finding certain people who will collaborate with you. And there in lines the pain always. You are trying to resist and the ones that are really helping your enemy, their enemy also, are your own kith, your own group and it’s really tough. Because what do you do? What do you
really do? Because these are the ones that really know you, how you think, because they are part of you, the tree and the handle, so they “know” you. The worst enemy we say in Somali is the one who knows your footprints during the day, and the one who knows your voice during the night. Dark in the middle of the night someone says something, and someone says that’s Ali’s voice. If they were looking for you, it would be easy. And that’s what civil wars are all about. The worst enemies you can have are those who can espy your footprints during the day and who can recognize your voice in the middle of the night. And therein lies the problem always. In that sense it’s the handle, in the case of Heart of Darkness, the people who early on helped the Belgium colonialist.

As humans, we also have to really remember, if you remember Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, in that book the early converts were really people who were wronged. The mother of the twins, because the twins were thrown into the veil forest, the so-called “Ojiugo.” The people who were outcasted, they are the ones who first converted. Because they saw it as a religion that was liberating them, and they converted. Now, the people who were oppressing them if they wanted they could really say yes, it’s like the handle, they are supporting our enemies. But in a way also they were really the enemies of the poor, the outcast…etc. And that’s how things really are. It’s always people who are down and out, people who are oppressed, exploited, these are the ones who first convert. Because they see liberation. So therein lies the problem always.

AM: Another thing I remember you would mention quite often was the lotus and the process of it. Is the lotus your favorite flower?

AA: I think so, yes.

AM: Why is it your favorite?

AA: Because it’s not only the present, if you look at the lotus, but the future also. And growth, and you talk about water and all these sorts of things, it’s a flower that in a way really shows different aspects of human life. The image itself in a way becomes an allegory for humans, growing up developing…etc. It’s really an amazing flower. The process is really amazing. There’s a Surah in the Quran that really hints at the lotus, and I can’t remember now. But it’s that same process, like you were talking about. I hope it’s your favorite flower too.

AM: Do you have a favorite book or author?

AA: It’s difficult, because there are so many books that I like. There are so many writers and authors that I like. But in general, I think of course if you are talking about theology, the book that there is no equal, at least the way I see it is the Quran. You find everything in that place. But in terms of secular, there are so many writers, so many, because I’ll run into trouble if I only mention one. But really there are so many good writers.

AM: How did you develop the skills and learn the art of writing?

AA: It was really through school. Early on we had some good writers. I remember for example when I was in the fifth grade there was this lady Miss Block from Florida actually who was in the peace corps. She taught us how to write. In fact, there is a short story I wrote, “The Litigant.”

“I liked her a lot. Well, that’s me now talking, but I should not opine in my story. My views should remain my private views, and should not intrude into the story. Miss Block, my fifth grade teacher from Florida, once asked me to account for my use of parenthetic sentences. Apparently, I could be carried away by their lure. That is what I have just done. Miss Block’s admonition, “Do your parenthetic sentences qualify or amplify your intentions?” has become a second habit.”

It was she who taught us. Also in fourth grade, I remember Ustad Muhammad Mahmoud Abdulrahman Al Kurdi, an Egyptian who also taught us. And I really liked him, and he really liked me. He taught us how to write stories in Arabic. It was a long time ago and he was a middle-aged man back then. They taught us these skills in school both in English and in Arabic. But then you learn it by imitation also because the idea really is the more you read, the more you write well. And in a way that’s what James Joyce said, in order to write one book you have to read 1000. Because you sort of learn how they write because remember we are talking about the skill after all. They teach you the tricks of the trade basically. But by reading, it sort of in a way goes into your subconscious and slowly whether it’s by imitating or by doing whatever it is you want to do, it’s still there in the subconscious. And that’s how you really learn, reading and developing the skills. But we were very lucky that we had Miss Block and Ustad Muhammad Mahmoud Abdulrahman Al Kurdi.

AM: What’s your favorite part about being a professor at Queens College?

AA: Imparting knowledge and getting knowledge because teaching really is a two-way traffic. A two-way traffic that hopefully you are imparting something to your students, but in that same process you hope to learn from your students, and you do. You are always really. So in a way my favorite is in the sense of gaining knowledge but at the same time also, it’s when you have a student, I think I said this to you a long time ago, a gifted student, and you really learn from that student, and the student soars and becomes an important person in life in terms of writing, in terms of everything really. And that really is my favorite part.

There is something that you said I don’t know if you remember, when we read War in the land of Egypt by Yusuf al Qa’id and I remember when we talked about the “Umda,” you said something that really never left me. You said how could the “Umda” be fat and a Muslim really. There is this Hadith that predates everything really, “One-third for food, one-third for drink and one-third for air.” And the way you said it I never forgot it. So, the favorite part is really when you get those insights from your students, and they ignite something and force you to remember in your case the Hadith that I remembered. In the same vein, I had a student who took classes with me, long before you came, and not long ago he came here and is now a professor. I don’t know if you remember the way I always start class with the three blind men and the elephant. And I was so really impressed by the way he really reworked on that, and you sort of really say, Mashallah.

So, what I like actually is when you somehow contribute to the students’ learning process. That you sort of really hope and you see at times that you touched the soul of that human being
but in the process, they touch your own soul and it takes you back to the drawing board. So, that two-way traffic is really my favorite part.

Bastardized Time
by Ali Jimale Ahmed

Eighty years is a long time to disown
Time’s ingredients ingrained in the woof and warp of our memory
‘Tattooed memory’ charting its own myth
Those who learned to walk in its ambulatory
Pampered by fingers dipped in the viscerals of subdued time
Seem scared to venture into the open

As wobbly legs flounder in the deep recesses of Time gone
Confusing and confused Time present yield
Adumbrations of time yet unsired
Ululations of women turn to lamentations of widows
Ululations that readily lose their tinge of yesterday
Ululations that easily lost their glee of yesteryear
Like old rags too weak to hang onto the dye
Reflective of time’s cruel irony
Those transplantations unmediated by wit
Rarely eschew the wrath of Time

Twice forty is a long time to wait
For Time’s hand to undo Time’s work
Yet as ululations lose their primal scream
And old clothes fray from every which-way
Time’s work is undone by Time
And the old maxim in the God-forsaken console
(time and time again)
To destroy an elephant’s bones
Seek help from those of a fellow elephant
For were it not for the hilt
Were it not for the handle
(Talk of Treason Supreme!)
Naked axes in bare hands would never fell a tree

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Ali Jimale Ahmed is a poet, academic, cultural critic, and short story writer, and a Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Queens College-Cuny. His books include Daybreak is Near: Literature, Clans, and the Nation-State in Somalia, Fear is a Cow, Diaspora Blues, and When Donkeys Give Birth to Calves. His poetry and short stories have been translated into several languages.