MINA
BackBaraye - Shervin Hajipour
She had just come back from vacation. Her nose and chin were still reddened by the sun. She was celebrating her birthday with her partner. And she had sent me that photo. For the news. He had said yes. And then there had been Jina Mahsa Amini. Now it was newspaper articles she was sending me. Her articles. The demonstration in Berlin. Her struggle was coming back to hit her head-on—the one that had made her flee. She had had to leave everything to save her life, and her daughter’s. She had had to rebuild everything. Step by step. The language, a new alphabet. A new nationality. A new job in the upscale neighborhoods of Aker Brygge. A home so koselig. A family taking shape far from her own. A daughter, a thriving high school student, free in her choices. And everything was tearing apart. How can you appreciate your own life when your people are fighting for theirs? How can you value your own freedom when your sisters have none? How can you be part of the struggle from a place so distant, so disconnected? Inevitably, Baraye. The song of an entire people, they said. Her life today was meeting the struggle of a lifetime. Her happiness facing her suffering. So antinomic. Her joy for life was stronger than the music. Her face appeared radiant. I left her in its sketch and plunged into her hair. That’s where, I think, I understood. Her life was coming together before my eyes. Perhaps it was the same hope—the one that makes you stand up. That makes you rise. That makes you risk your life. That makes you build another one. Because you never let go, Mina. Never. I kept coloring her strands. The ones I could hear flying in the wind of the piano. With each Baraye, a new strand. Strands of hope. Proud, free, resilient. Original text in French, translated by AI