Crying but he’s trying to push it away; trying – now failing
– to keep the collapse out of his speaking voice. Ditto the Mother. Father and
Mother. Of two boys lost. Killed in some kind of an attack, in some sort of
city, which happens to be Baghdad.
Their boys lost and gone, now all they can
do is hold on to themselves, hold it to together – together.
But neither one
succeeds; each of them breaks down in front of the microphone.
Now the radio reporter has got what she wants. For her the
interview is drawn around the soundbites of parents crying. As soon as they
start speaking again, what they say is translated into English, and the translation
is voiced by someone else; someone who is not authentic. But the sound of sobbing seems more vital than anything the parents might have to say. Elemental
and transcendental, the parents themselves, as they really are, expressing
themselves beyond language. Their crying is what the rest of the package is
for.
How wrong can you be? They are not this animal sound. Who
they are, is what they have made of themselves, and how they have made
themselves stop weeping. Just as parents, previously, they made themselves make
their boys into more than whining, whingeing little creatures. On cold mornings
and warm evenings, never giving up until the day their children were ripped away.
You’ve got it wrong, Dear Journo. The common denominator is
not the lowest but the highest we can be. Better to approach all your interviewees
as if each of them is Nelson Mandela.
Which, of course, we are.
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