we have a story for you

this time we bring to you a brilliant piece by mahmoud bichtawi - it was written on september 18 2023, 41 years after the sabra and shatila massacre and just 19 days before the seventh of october 2023. listen to him read his piece here, in one of his favourite moroccan cafe in brussels. we’re delighted to have another platform for our contributors’ work - incredible wide-ranging stories from everywhere that need to be heard. we genuinely love these pieces and can’t wait for you to read them too! here is the tenth of the series, from mnemotope issue 007.

Spice Boys by Mahmoud Bichtawi

They said don’t shoot the kids under the age of 12 - they

wont remember what death feels like if u do so. It would be

easy. And life isn’t.

The kids don’t speak quranic Arabic; the mosques are still

public toilets. They could call the father; the son; yet it was

the holy spirit what was missing because Muslims can’t deny

the radical smell of their sweat. When they escape. Or the

imagination of two Marxists on what would be the color of

the daughters hair hiding behind a piece of prayer and cloth.

Pardon me for the images; it’s a new thing that we have

phones that can take them; its been 20 years of this and a

100 years of everything else

I am not here to disrupt the night; I am not here in fact;

migration officers aren’t as toxic as my ex but they still look in

my phone without asking; and what they find is also

enough to interrogate me for 6 hours but never enough to

prove me guilty.

I have passed more checkpoints than enough to know that

one of the main reasons of death in this world is reason

So I don’t; I just act like I’m not here; or to put it as Emmanuel

Macron does; I am not from here.

My refugee camp is not mine; what’s mine is not the refugee

camp; it’s a European riddle funded by your tax money -

sorry; your parents tax money. There is no defense without offence; and if u are offended then you are complicit.

If you are sitting in an Irish bar in London; think of the irony.

Don’t get sad; get angry.

I know this is commanding and that I am not your mother; but also I am not your motherland. So no need to stay there to defend human rights.

We first need to feel human to ask for them. Its not so common in the Arab world to know what’s the common wealth; in the Arab world only inflation is communal.

A sock seller on a street in Cairo is arguing that the death of

queen Elizabeth arrived to Egypt two months late, and to

Dublin 50 years earlier but in the end the conclusion is that

rice must be soaked twice before cooking.

Minimum wage comes with minimum expectations. Not

having a spoon doesn’t guarantee the bread; we don’t

function this way; well if u think about it; we aren’t meant to function.

Deadlines are only meaningful when u are stressed,

and war is only interesting when u know u are winning.

In a Moroccan café in Brussels; men say that love in a

marriage is to accept to be always wrong; apparently Arab women are always right and Arab men are always bold. Here in Shatila; the sun is very acrobatic in the morning. Hundreds of sexist men walk to work. With a common soreness in the back and a common algorithm in the phone or as the regime presents itself today on the 7pm news; cute fascism.

Leftovers of the leftovers can be violent on the soul

why is it when u earn the least amount; u adore the mall?

The UN claims that if you are poor enough, even if u don’t

apply for fundings, fundings will apply to you.

This morning I have seen a Palestinian woman extremely

happy that her son said the shahadatayn twice before he was shot.

I listened to Spice Girls just after that; while smoking a

cigarette; they were asking if u wanna be my lover; and I

have to say my heart is as broken as the system by now.

Unlike the common knowledge; apparently the most famous band from the UK is not Spice Girls; its spice boys; those who went in search of spice; and never used them.

All the national anthems they created; or abolished; I never thought that colonization can be this rhythmical.

If I knew I would have cheered them up while standing in the airport for hours trying to explain that what was ours; is still ours.

And again they said don’t shoot the kids under the age of 12; they won’t remember it then; it would be too easy and life isn’t. Angela Merkel just finished her speech; refugees are welcome she said; it was 12 mins late; they didn’t know; they will never know. But I am optimistic as always. We have to lose a lot to win and after 4 years of being in Europe; to me winning looks quite boring.

see you soon!

your bog bodies