Monday, February 25, 2008

HISHAM MATAR- A LYBIAN VOICE STANDING UP AGAINST POLITICAL OPRESSION!



A must read...


The courageous Novelist,Poet Hisham Matar..a son who deserves to know the fate of his father



At first I was just going to talk about Hisham's book " In the Country of Men" the book that made him the 2006 Man Booker Prize Winner..the book depicts the life of 1 young boy Suleiman whose father had 2 escape bTripoliecause of his work against the gov'...so the book goes on and talks about how Suleiman dealt w/it, his mother's reactions and the people around him that are affected by his dad's exile.....

Even though Hisham states that the book doesn't depict his own life..when you read his personal story it's hard for me not to see the
little Hisham in little Suleyman..

Hisham was born in 1970 in NY he has 1 sibbling.. His father was 1 UN diplomat and because of his political convictions against the Khadifa regime was put on the red list in Lybia.. This put him and his family in 1 quite dangerous situation...at some point his father had to flee the country for despite his mother's atempt to escape w/Hisham and Ziad his brotha..they were not allowed to leave the country ....1 year later his dad came back but his mother didn't feel that it was safe for her family to stay in Lybia...so they left but the father stayed....


Hisham spent a 1 year in Kenya and Egypt before their dad joined them once again....they lived peacefully there for years before 1 day after Hisham's dad answered the door he never came back..what we know is that Egyptian secret services turned him to the Lybian secret services ...the last time Hisham heard of him was through a letter and 1 radio cassette around 1993...and
take this at the prison of Abu Sleem where his father and thousand of political prisoners were kept a shooting took place by Lybian authorities but it was only officially known in 2002..NOW HOW CRAZY IS THAT...

Hisham says:"Life attempts to teach us about loss: that one can still find peace in the finality of death. And yet, my loss gives no peace. My father is not incarcerated, yet he is not free; he is not dead, yet he is not alive either. My loss is self-renewing, insistent and incomplete."

Today Hisham is married as well as his brother who has children...up to today Hisham doesn't know clearly what happened to his father...


This 1 great article written by Hisham Matar himself (so captivating)

Here's a French video clip of the French opinion about the unwanted Kadhafi's visit to France :


Djaa we have to fight opression by all means :)
Eyeee Wayeee:)

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