Swiss Pavilion
58th International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia, 2019

Teheran, February 2019

Dear visitor,

During the massive suppression of leftist political dissidents in the early 1980s in Iran, “Moon Walking” became a thing. It was stunning and fulfilling to watch. Pretending you are walking ahead, but actually moving backward, as if the ground under your feet were slipping back, or a storm were irresistibly propelling you... You know, there was also another popular move while you were breakdancing: you encounter an imaginary wall and feel it with your hands. The advanced version was to pretend you are trapped in a glass box.

Stuttering bodies, flows, break beats, pauses, and locks.
I still wonder if they were part of a ritual for coming to terms with the state of minds at the time... with glass boxes not being prisons, but protecting cells, what we nowadays call bubbles.

We move backwards. We do so in response to the specific contours and rhythms of our specific struggles. Some of us step back because we still can, some because we have no choice. It could be a provisional plot to recover force, or a gesture in saying no to compliance. Yet sometimes it’s a matter of sheer survival. No elegance in the acts of withdrawal. No stage and no trace. You are violently pushed back.

Part of our mind says, let’s not romanticize much about the potential of this backward move. After all, we are losing the ground! But perhaps the desire to move backward is caught in the contradiction that it both affirms and breaks with the idea of defeat...

Ten years ago in post-2009, thirty years before that, in post-1979, twenty-six years before it in post-1953, in post-1911 and post-1905, they are standing at our back... among all those lunar tides.

Dear visitor,

To communally place trust in the move, we need spirits as much as plots.

We are so afraid of cycles and spirals. We think they are haunting structures. We try to “move on” from the mistakes and failures of our parents, their blockages and the irresolvable moments of their struggles. Yet when our turn arrives, we surprisingly end up with same blockages, restraints, and moments of speechlessness.
But don’t you think it is exactly at these moments that the haunting ghosts turn into friends for us?

*
Azar

p.s.
2009: Green Revolution
1979: The Iranian Revolution
1953: CIA Coup in Iran
1905–1911: Persian Constitutional Revolution

Berkeley, January 2019

Dear Visitor,

Do you know in what time you are living? Is it a time that is better than the one you once knew, or is it much worse, filling you with pessimism? We know the homilies that claim that this is the best and worst of times, but the fact is that we cannot really answer this question. The reason for that is that the world as we know it exists in several temporalities at once. I am not saying that there are backward societies and forward ones. That framework of time belongs to a colonial order that imagines itself to be the end of all historical striving. No, there is no reason to return to that kind of colonial framework of time in which the so-called backwards people are cultivated to become part of a proper modernity. That was the strategy of the “whitening” practices of Australia as it sought to “modernize” the Aborigines, and it has always been the strategy of colonial education that seeks to impose its own norms on the societal norms of the Global South. If we resist these strategies, we are surely “backwards” from the perspective of that developmental story. So, if our resistance is “backwards” then we can have cross-regional alliances that are, yes, backwards from one perspective, but opening up a new sense of future from the perspective we affirm——and so, also, forwards.

We do live in a world in which there are several temporalities, some of them converging, and some of them parallel. It depends on whether you belong to a nation emerging from dictatorship, or slavery, or still struggling to become free of colonial rule. The timeframe for history is then full of pasts, presents, and imagined futures that belong to specific histories of oppression and striving. We go back along the routes of many paths toward greater freedom and equality to understand how people resisted under conditions of severe oppression. Those stories remain our stories, even though our stories will be different. But no story that leads toward a greater sense of equality and freedom, a more acute sense of justice, will proceed without history.

History is not that which is gone, but which remains, within the present, a resource and potential, an alliance across temporalities. We find a struggle in one part of the world relies upon the struggle in another. The Kurdish women who have lost their families ally with the Argentinian families who still demand to know the history of the disappeared. Those who oppose violent war in one part of the world borrow and animate the language, strategies, and ideals of another. That solidarity requires a translation not only among languages, but across temporal zones, histories of oppression, fear, and hope.

So in the best of times our historical struggles are inter-connected. If many temporalities register with us as we form solidarity and undertaken action, then we no longer live only within the time of the nation, or the time of our language, or the time of our own history. We are transported by the time of another struggle, and so it is a good sign if we do not know what time it is. For there is, in the world of struggle, not simply the now or the future, but the convergence of distinct historical temporalities into a struggle that we then may call “global.”

Yours, Judith

Qamishli, February 2019

Dear visitor,

A salute to those who seek a life of justice, equality and freedom.

Women all across the world suffer from great injustices. But women in my homeland, Kurdistan, are faced with a double injustice. For one, our Kurdistan remains under the occupation of four countries, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, in addition to our struggle against an oppressive patriarchal society. In our struggle, we have had to choose either to surrender to occupation and patriarchy, or mount a resistance movement against all forms of injustice. Many of us chose to fight for our freedom and for the liberation of our society. Fortunately, the Kurdish liberation movement that emerged in the 1970s paved the way for women’s participation, thousands of whom joined the Kurdish political and military struggle. For the first time, women left their homes and faced towards the bigger struggle. In 1993, the first steps towards establishing a women’s army was taken in the mountains of Kurdistan. Heroines were born among our ranks, women who defied tyranny in the Turkish fascist state prisons, like Sakine Cansız, who lost their lives in battle, and who partook in organizing and raising awareness among women. A powerful women’s movement had been established in Kurdistan. It was truly a women’s revolution that renounced backward traditions and customs, and defended the causes of national and gender liberation.

In Syrian Kurdistan, we built on this revolution’s legacy, operating secretly while preparing and organizing women. These activities condemned tens of us into incarceration and death at the hands of the Syrian state army. But we never faltered. When the popular uprising broke in 2011, we began to work openly in the name of Kongra Star (a women’s organization) and we founded women’s academies with the aim of building women’s revolutionary awareness. Later, due to the attack on our territories by anti-democratic and anti-liberation forces, women participated actively in all aspects of political, social, cultural, economic and military life to defend their fellow citizens. Within a few years, we managed to save thousands of women who were victims of domestic abuse by establishing the Women’s House associations, which defended women’s rights and helped them solve their social problems.

In northern and eastern Syria, we have established, as communities and as women, an administrative, political, cultural, social and economic system that recognizes and protects the rights of all of its societal components. Young women and men have battled bravely against ISIS to defend humanity from this pernicious existence. In our struggle, thousands of people have fallen and we have made so many dear sacrifices, so that this democratic oasis could thrive amidst the Middle Eastern desert. For the first time, a system is being constructed that defends pluralism and grants freedom of expression in all languages and ethnicities across northern and eastern Syria. For the first time, we have a system which grants women the freedom to self-organize; a system that accords women equal participation in all administrative councils under a co-presidency system. We have passed the Women’s Law, which forbids underage marriage and polygamy, criminalizes domestic abuse and grants women their rights in children’s custody.

Also for the first time, women have established the Women’s Protection Units appointed to defend women against extremist attacks and to guard their freedom. The Women’s Protection Units have liberated the Kurdish Yizidi women who were detained by ISIS in Sinjar. During those years, world’s first academy of Jineologi (Women’s Science) was established, and the women’s village was built to house the hundreds of women who had been subject to injustice and who are socially and economically challenged. Tens of academies have followed since, seeking to raise awareness among women. Furthermore, we have developed women’s cooperatives, which have secured women’s financial independence. We have laid the foundation for a system of justice that supports the rights of women, and thus have accomplished in eight short years what otherwise would have required eighty years.

This women’s revolution has emerged from our Kurdish lands, but has outgrown itself and extended towards the Arab territories in northern and eastern Syria and has borne a great impact on women’s conditions in Assyrian, Turkman and Circassian communities as well as in the whole of Syria. Today we can claim that the women’s revolution no longer belongs only to the Kurdish women, it is the revolution of all women in northern and eastern Syria, and this is the achievement we take greatest pride in. Today women feel more confident and are more conscious of their rights. They have gained the strength and the courage to stand up for their rights and to persist in their struggle for liberation. Despite the wars, we have witnessed in Syria, the attacks from ISIS and the Syrian regime’s oppression, we have worked together with all ethno-cultural constituents to achieve a way of life in which freedom, democracy and equality prevail. In uniting as peoples and as women, we have demonstrated that the democratic forces can achieve the impossible through unity, sound principles and a correct strategy.

Yet the reactionary forces, led by Turkey and ISIS, never cease to attack this democratic project. They have occupied the Kurdish Afrin territory, where they have systematically committed ethnic genocide and demographic resettlement affecting more than 400 thousand civilians who are now condemned to living in refugee camps. This is exacerbated by the Turkish forces’ raping of women, the imposition of the wearing of the veil and forced marriage, along with the perpetual threat to assault other self-governing territories in north-east Syria. All of these actions have aimed at casting women and multi-ethnic groups into a fundamental dictatorship based on fanatic ideologies which deny women and peoples their legitimate rights. The hegemonic forces joined against humanity spare no effort to drag us backwards; to hinder any attempt at democratic progress, in order to sustain a state of backwardness and slavery to which people, women and the poor are condemned.

Dear visitor,

The women’s revolution has inspired and attracted so many women from across the world. Tens of them in the ranks of the Women’s Protection Units have died fighting ISIS. Therefore, we believe that our accomplishment belongs to them, to all the women of the world. It is a value that has been attained through collective efforts. And so, our call is for you to stand in solidarity with us against the warfare of the Turkish state and ISIS attacks, and to pressure the international community to impose an air embargo on our territories for the sake of ensuring security and stability. We have defended the world against ISIS and now the Turkish state along with extremist forces that seek to exterminate us just as they did in Afrin.

In the end, we await your visit in our territories to witness what we have accomplished in those years, and to exchange experiences, because we believe that if we unite in mind and heart, we can create a divine power that can defeat the most brutal forms of injustice.

My greetings to you, and let us raise the slogan: In this general movement backwards, let´s move towards a democratic, ethical and free society.

Your friend, Fouza Al-Youssef

Berlin, January 2019

Dear visitor,

“Let’s collectively move backwards.” Such a simple assignment. I’m happy to embark. And I’m looking forward to you joining in. However, in trying out some first steps, questions start puzzling me. Can we figure this out together, please? Are we, am I, are you moving backwards in time or in space? How are we, am I, are you embodying this movement? How are those various embodiments (each singular_plural) oriented? Are they facing a past? Are they facing a future? Facing a site of atrocities? Facing a utopian vision? Facing with their toes? Not facing at all? Wearing a mask? And are we, am I, are you moving barefoot? ...wearing shoes? ...using a wheelchair?

Moving backwards in space entails a defensive moment of retreat: backing off, stepping back, hoping one will not end up in a ditch or with the back to the wall. Moving backwards in time means facing historical atrocities. Or utopias. Depending on our biographies and social positions they might paralyze us or spur us to action. They might enrage us and call forth resistance or revolt. They might foster regret or shame. Yet I am not sure whether those who embark on the journey of appropriating the backward move are actually ready and equipped to acknowledge our heterogeneities. We do not and never will share the same h*stories, visions, desires, values, or needs. Maybe we need to learn solidarity before we can move collectively?

“Let’s collectively move backwards.” Do we need to move forward, when we are moving backwards in time? Yet, then we have the future in our backs. Can we design a future without facing it? And doesn’t it need a lot of trust in the future? Trust that not another atrocity will get you from behind. Trust that you may take a step back and be caught in caring embrace. To move forward into the past may only be possible if there is a future horizon of queerness at your back, as José Esteban Muñoz suggests. Then you may turn around and be nourished by a queerness yet to come, and turn back and project the queer glow from your face into the past. What’s the turning point, where your heels twirl? You, me, us——what is it for each of us that inspires a collective desire for change? Does it add up? In conflict?

My queer idea is that when we are collectively moving backwards, we might come to crossroads where we can try out another option——a different turn which allows us to live a new version of a past that we regret. To live being attentive to the injuries we have inflicted and have experienced. What if it were possible to correct a mistake: to deconstruct and reconstruct a h*story that has brought suffering and death, killings and war, injustice and degradation? Just imagine that we can give it a new try. That we can develop an alternative to colonial conquering, to slavery, to capitalist exploitation of nature and labor power, to rape, to parental and educational cruelty. Too much to ask? Too much responsibility? Well, then let’s stick to the traumatic return of the repressed, to an unconsciously fed compulsion to repeat which lives in form of an embodied memory that seeps through and sometimes jumps generations. Continuously reinstalling the normative violence of a rigidly binary sexual difference, of racialized hierarchies, and compulsory ablebodiedness.

“Let’s collectively move backwards.” Wearing a pair of shoes the wrong way around. Why would you pretend to move forward while moving backwards? This might most obviously be a survival strategy, deceiving your enemies about your direction. But could it also be a tactical move that suggests being loyal to a future while searching for a queer escape? Feigning loyalty to a future which is a war machine that imposes the normative, and many other forms of violence. Why presume to be loyal? Why not take off the shoes? Too risky? Or is it because you assume, because you know, that queerness can be a war machine, too? Yet, while many would say that they don’t trust the future, only some of us are in a position to give up on the privilege of believing in the future. Who can turn around, face the future one doesn’t trust, enforce an open confrontation? But, of course, there are always more than two directions. There is a wider range of moves. What if we’d actually like to sneak away rather than endure ongoing hardship or face new attacks? While some might feel that they are losing hard-won ground (gains in rights and freedoms and opulence), others might question that there has ever been any progress. The vast majority of people are sustaining lives under unbearable conditions.

“Let’s collectively move backwards.” Moving backwards while pretending to move forward only works if you have shoes, which you wear front to back. Moving backwards barefoot can never pretend to move forward, because one cannot twist one’s ankle 180 degrees and still walk. Thus, the shoe is a tool. Not as good as a wheelchair or as wings; but a tool. A tool of moving backwards. Yet, what about the desire to move backward collectively. Can we collectively move in one shoe? Don’t we need many shoes that can move in different directions simultaneously? Coordinated or uncoordinated. Then the question what is backwards and what is forward will shift according to the position you are referencing. Instead of linear timelines, the simultaneity of different times occurs and gives a chance to the strange encounters that Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz call ‘a pleasant starting point’. In moving backwards one may find crossroads or junctions that one hadn’t noticed, that might have been blocked earlier, for example, because they could only be used in companionship which you didn’t have at that time. Or the companions you had been attached to promoted other routes. If we were able to live history twice, or three or four times, we would be able to open up new pasts and paths for those we love and those we don’t. Cohabitation with those we haven’t chosen——and think we would never choose——becomes the moment where animosity is confronted with serendipity. Moving backwards as a chance of re-embodying and re-arranging desires, of inviting what has been ignored or foreclosed so far.

Yours, Antke Engel