You Are the Great Ones Not Them

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

(Conclusion of the first part of “A Space Too Confined to Cradle Even a Bird”)

I first wrote these words as an introduction to my memoirs, then turned them into the closing passage of their first part. Today, however, I am more inclined to see them as a kind of will.

Write your memoirs, your stories, your struggles, your great histories. Write about what you have lived and what you have witnessed. Among you are those most worthy and most honest to write history with fairness and closeness to the truth. Do not let the victors assassinate the truth, distort awareness, or corrupt history, life, and even the air you breathe.

You are the great ones, not them. You are the people who do not ignite savage wars or create vast tragedies, who do not oppress nations, plunder their wealth, or sell their homelands. You are often the victims of a grim reality, of ruthless injustice, and of violent oppression.

You are greater than those shaped by dirty money and supported by Propped up by deceitful media machinery. You are greater than those whose fame was built by propaganda and the cosmetics of lies. You are nobler than those born from the ugliness of wars and the treachery of betrayal. You are the true abundance of giving, beauty, and sacrifice. Through your work, your simplicity, and your beautiful dreams, you have built meaning and value. We are among those who try to be part of you, who stand with you and belong to you.

You are greater than their hollow fame, greater than their false glory and vast emptiness. Perhaps fate has abandoned you while fortune favored them. Perhaps destiny supported and conspired for them while betraying or neglecting you. Yet you remain the true great