Saloua Ali Ben Zahra

TRANSLATING "WHEN IS THE SPRING?"

The historical phenomenon of what is called "the Arab Spring" has affected people with disabilities in complex and ambivalent ways. Many persons with disabilities hoped for real change, a time of real progress and concrete improvements in their situations. One positive change that came out of the "Tunisian Revolution" has been a certain gain in free expression with apparently less repression from the presiding regime. There has been an outburst of critical social and artistic expression. An example is the video of highly talented and accomplished Tunisian Deaf artist Fatma Kharrat (currently based in France) speaking in Tunisian Sign Language on behalf of the Tunisian Deaf Mute and criticizing their situations while expressing hope for change.

The video is a "solo narratif" that is a monologue. It is not a poem, but a prose text in formal Arabic and Tunisian (informal / dialect / colloquial / spoken) Arabic. While Kharrat interprets and performs, we hear over the signs the voice of a man (Driss) narrating / speaking and reading the script.

Although I have done some work as a translator, I do not know Sign Language, neither the Tunisian nor the American. I listened to the script and took note of what I heard. I also asked for the help of a Tunisian friend and colleague, Amel Khalfoui, a Professor of Arabic Language in Oklahoma to listen as well as write down the script which is in formal Arabic and Colloquial Tunisian Arabic. She did, and sent me the script. I listened again several times and read the script, then translated it into English. I thank Amel Khalfaoui and Lotfi Zekri for their help with the Arabic script, confirming my listenings to it. Click on link below to view the video of Fatma Kharrat's performance of "When is the Spring," followed by my translation of the text. By publishing this translation, I hope that "When is the Spring" will be available to English readers. Perhaps even more importantly it may become a springboard for ASL speakers to follow up with their own translation.

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"When is the Spring?"

Yesterday I was dreaming of the spring, the spring as a language for a dialogue with people to get me out of the oppression of an ignorance that nested in the spring of my life, a lump in my throat, and numbed the senses and sounds within me. The problem is that I did not know how to create another language that allows me to express myself and burst out. The burden remained in my heart, all my life stuck and stagnant.

Yesterday the oath of the mute was within his chest and today the oath of the mute is still between his ribs. He does not understand nor is he understood. He does not understand himself and does not know where to head or where to set or who will help or guide him. Everything is mixed up and the muddied water is muddier and the atmosphere disturbed.

In the world of silence for those who never speak, our world that is mine, yours, all of you, all of us. Where is the Spring? The spring of knowledge and learning. Where is that specialist teacher who will teach and the specialized school for those that never spoke?

Where is the pen that bursts out, that turns the dream into reality and plants hope. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? As today there is a revolution, we the youth of the world are we hoping or waiting? Waiting or hoping?

Odd or even? Let's bet when will the spring come? After the youth are lost?

I remember how I could not imagine my life without my mother's milk. I was swinging at her breast. What a relationship! I cry, chirp, laugh in silence, myself, my sister and the brotherhood and void of the world.

When I was in my mother's belly, she heard something thud in her womb in silence. I came down in silence and lived in silence.

Me, my sister and brother we enjoyed ourselves so much! We got along with nothing to disturb us except for our mother's gaze filled with tears, regret and pain. Why? Because we could not hear or speak. Our father was refusing us. He would not sit with us. He neither understood us nor did we understand him. His heart shut down boiling inside till it started bleeding inside. He could not look into us. We were distant, in another world. There was a distance between us that kept growing apart. This is how the home was.

Can you imagine the school? It was the biggest prison I ever was put in. I have never resented anything as much as the school and schoolwork. The "normal" school for all. The hearing and the non-hearing, all mixed. I would come out of it as I walked into it. I would nowhere enjoy sleep as much as in school. I heard nothing, understood nothing. The teacher did not focus on me or care about me. He would not ask me, not even in pretense, whether I could understand the lesson not caring if I never understood. He would avoid me. The teacher would complain of having enough difficulties managing the hearing and speaking pupils and voice resentment for the additional burden of having to work with a deaf-mute pupil. What an atmosphere!

I was like an idiot facing the board with only the mouth of the teacher arguing in the air. Don't tell me of knowledge, light, education programs, methods or any specialist inspector. This is oppression and waste of lifetime.

Which spring of knowledge are we talking about? All I reaped of this spring are the plastic flowers. Where is the real spring? Where is it? Where is it? Where is the spring? The spring of the homeland, the spring of citizenry and equality? Where are my rights? The rights, rights, rights, rights. What is this word of the well-intentioned ones?

Take note: in my own country all I have of citizenry is the fingerprint and many duties. Where are my rights? Reveal them to me if they exist.

I am lost; I found myself neither at home or abroad, neither in an administration nor a doctor's cabinet, neither in an embassy nor on a plane. I am lost. I do not have a translator. No one understands me. My duties outnumber my rights. Where are my rights?

I open a parenthesis and tell you a story from my everyday life so that you understand that even relatives are ashamed of me. They do not want me found out. My daughter can speak. One day I was on my way to her school to bring her home. She ran toward me, gave me a hug. I kept asking her in sign "what did you do today?" As her classmates saw her move her hands, they were surprised. They asked her "what does your mother speak?" She answered them "my mother is French and does not understand Arabic. I am Tunisian and I do not understand French. We sign."

And there are those who do not want to be found out as deaf and see the news out as a scandal. Like you. No, no, like Mehrez who is passionate about dance and went on to participate in a dance competition. They played the music and hit the floor dancing, swinging and thumping with him in their midst sweating profusely. He forgot himself with his eyes closed. The crowd were in disbelief as he was still in a trance whereas the music had stopped. He probably felt something, cracked his eyes open and found them all looking at him and how they found out he was deaf. He was mortified and sneaked out.

Don't the deaf have the right to dance? The deaf have eyes, feelings, imagination and memory. The deaf are able to perform and be creative. And you also are able to perform and be creative. We are all able to perform and able to be creative.

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Upon viewing the video, ASL sign translator and poet Paul Hostovksy commented:

I recognize a few of the signs but I'm missing way more than I'm understanding, the meaning does not come through to me as a person who knows ASL, which is hardly surprising if it's in Arabic Sign Language. The signed languages used in different countries are for the most part mutually unintelligible. There are certain shared language universals and sometimes some similar or recognizable vocabulary, but for the most part they're very different. That being said, I expect some Deaf people, especially those who have spent more time than I have with Deaf folks from other countries, might understand much more of this than I do.

I would like to think that with the help of my English translation, ASL speakers will now have a means of interpreting that will help them to feel a connection with the Tunisian sign language speakers and Tunisian people for whom the video was created.

Saloua Ali Ben Zahra is currently based in North Carolina where she is Faculty-in-Residence at the Learning and Living Center at Appalachian State University and Director of the Arabic program and Assistant Professor of Arabic culture, language and literature in translation. She obtained her Masters' and Doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota where she was a recipient of Fulbright scholarships twice. For her doctoral project she worked on representations of disabilities in Arab / Islamic post-colonial literatures, cultures and societies. She taught diverse courses in Minnesota, Arabic language and culture most recently, but before that French and Italian. She is originally from Tunisia where she was educated at the university of Tunis-Carthage and taught at various Tunisian universities.