I am Abdushukur Muhammet
but my name is a stranger to me,
draped over me like a spider’s web.
Perhaps it had run away
from a land I had never visited
and happened on the Taklimakan.
It’s misspelled too
like the kiss of the wrong first love,
And too long
like my longing,
like my never-ending thoughts,
like my unverbalised anguish.
Sometimes it looks like the demolished mosques,
Sometimes like the old grave left to me by my father,
and other times like the circular naan of Kucha.
Its twisting lines, like a state border
turn me
into the pair of elm trees at my father’s grave.
My father was not the prophet when I was born,
but we were chased from our country like the prophet
bearing the name “Muhammet.”
Like the stones worn down from aeons of winds
you are hung up like a forgotten museum piece.
O museum, passed through by the living and settled by the dead
O world, where truth and lies are one and the same,
In the bloodstains of those diseased eyes,
may names scarify in the colour of sand.
Bathe me with my name
When I die
If it still wants me.
22.11.2020
Stockholm
My Name
Abdushukur Muhammet
translated from the Uyghur by Munawwar Abdulla
Listen to the original read by the poet:
What is there to a name?
I asked Abdushukur Muhammet what this poem meant to him—he told me that some time in November 2020, he found out that the graveyard his family was buried in back in our homeland had been razed. Ever since his exile, he had been yearning for home, and that news came particularly hard to him. He realized that even in death we cannot rest in peace.
What is there to a name? It is so simple, yet Muhammet uses the fact that Chinese authorities have banned names like his (parents can no longer name their children certain religious names, and some people have changed their names to be less Islamic in light of this pressure) to weave a poem that speaks to the way Chinese authorities are controlling and oppressing every aspect of Uyghur life, culture, and spirit—from our naming to our graves, from birth to death. He speaks of our discontent for the lack of justice in this world, and his drive to seek out the essence of his self again. This is a poem born from the absurdity and frustration of being banished from our identities, from our homes, and from finding peace in death.
I asked Abdushukur Muhammet what this poem meant to him—he told me that some time in November 2020, he found out that the graveyard his family was buried in back in our homeland had been razed. Ever since his exile, he had been yearning for home, and that news came particularly hard to him. He realized that even in death we cannot rest in peace.
What is there to a name? It is so simple, yet Muhammet uses the fact that Chinese authorities have banned names like his (parents can no longer name their children certain religious names, and some people have changed their names to be less Islamic in light of this pressure) to weave a poem that speaks to the way Chinese authorities are controlling and oppressing every aspect of Uyghur life, culture, and spirit—from our naming to our graves, from birth to death. He speaks of our discontent for the lack of justice in this world, and his drive to seek out the essence of his self again. This is a poem born from the absurdity and frustration of being banished from our identities, from our homes, and from finding peace in death.
Abdushukur Muhammet is a writer and poet from Kucha, who has been living in Sweden since 2003. Fascinated by poetry, Muhammet studied to become a teacher in Uyghur literature, poetry, and history in his twenties, and by the 1990s, had become a well-known poet among Uyghurs. After working as a teacher for thirteen years, Muhammet was subjected to severe control and harassment during the chaos of the mid-90s for his role in promoting Uyghur language and culture, until he was eventually forced into exile. To date he has written eight books—two of which were published just this year: a historical piece titled Amine Bughra: A Woman Forgotten by History (Uyghur Tetqiqati Instituti) and A Tale of Silence (Omca Yayınları), a book of poetry published in Turkish. Currently he is a member of the Swedish Writers’ Union and is the Secretary General for the World Uyghur Writers’ Union, which he founded along with Uyghur writers in diaspora.
Munawwar Abdulla is a lab manager and research technician in an evolutionary neuroscience lab at Harvard University. She holds a B.Sc. from the Australian National University and an M.Sc. from UNSW Sydney. When she is not working with dog and fox brains, Abdulla is knee-deep in projects surrounding Uyghur activism and community building. She cofounded The Tarim Network, runs the Uyghur Collective, and collaborates on projects with Uyghur rights organizations around the world. She also has a keen interest in poetry and literary translation. Her writings have been published in various places, including SubbedIn, Cordite Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Diplomat, Overachiever Magazine, and Rabbit Poetry Journal.
