Shakespeare left us the much-quoted adage concerning the relationship between issues and names. In his tragedy Romeo and Juliet, his character Juliet complains that her household received’t settle for her lover Romeo and boils it right down to his title: “What’s in a reputation? That which we name a rose / By every other title would scent as candy.”
In essence, Shakespeare offers us the idea of the arbitrariness of indicators lengthy earlier than the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure put it into writing. And, I don’t disagree. However there are occasions when our sheer survival as people and communities appears to hinge on names. Like within the time of genocide.
The erasure of names inevitably accompanies genocide, as it did in my homeland Bosnia within the Nineties. When a pressure burns libraries and razes non secular buildings, when it makes an attempt to erase the very historical past of a individuals, it doesn’t wish to simply do away with their bodily our bodies. It desires to create oblivion of origins.
For me, the best image of this erasure is the water fountain my great-grandfather Fejzo Tuzlić made in an unremarkable spot mid-way between his native city Kotor Varoš and my hometown Banja Luka. Each cities lie in what’s now known as Republika Srpska, an entity which covers virtually half the nation and which the Bosnian-Serb nationalists bought as a reward for his or her genocidal mission within the Nineties.
You received’t discover this spring in books or Google Maps, neither beneath its outdated title “Fejzina Česma” nor its new title, Zmajevac (Dragon’s Place). Its altering title symbolises all the pieces we went via within the conflict, which we so stubbornly dangle on to.
Why did mom’s grandfather Fejzo, a Muslim man from an idyllic little city with an outdated Ottoman fortress overlooking unbelievable waterfalls, resolve to construct a water fountain within the first place? Historically, amongst Muslims, there’s a perception that one of many methods to maintain amassing good deeds even after your loss of life is to depart a public good, a “khayr”, one thing that may profit all individuals. It’s what we name a “waqf”.
One typical public good is the “khayr fountain”, usually constructed by a principal highway so travellers and their animals may quench their thirst. After I was a child, we might all the time cease at Fejzina Česma on our method to go to kin. It was not as a result of we have been thirsty. It was my mom’s ritual.
I have no idea whether or not Fejzo dug the spring or simply discovered it and stuck the place as a handy cease for travellers in a time when individuals didn’t simply swish by of their automobiles however wanted to relaxation and water their horse or cattle. All individuals. All ethnicities. All religions.
After a long time of use, when Fejzina Česma wanted restore, it was Fejzo’s son Asim who mounted it. After the conflict, Asim’s son, my uncle, found somebody had modified its title to “Zmajevac” and he put a brand new plaque along with his father’s title as a substitute: Asim Tuzlić.
For my part, even that title is just not proper because it was not correctly anchored into the native lingo. Fejzina Česma was. Nonetheless, somebody was bothered by the Muslim title and carved “Zmajevac” into the stone in Cyrillic letters. “Zmajevac” is the title of close by ruins from the late Center Ages, nevertheless it has nothing to do with the fountain in individuals’s reminiscence.
Based on the Muslim religion, it doesn’t matter what the place known as. On this sense, Juliet is true on that theological stage. A spring by every other title will quench thirst all the identical. Water doesn’t belong to anybody. Fejzina Česma was an effort to make it accessible and subsequently each drop drank by man or beast so long as it exists can be a coin in Fejzo’s chest with which he’ll hopefully purchase a spot in paradise.
We refugees, who solely go to our motherland each summer season, use the outdated names by intuition, or perhaps even out of “inat” (spite). All the brand new names are international to us, and I think about, at some stage, they have to really feel international to many Serbs who use them as a result of these names are nationalist, poisonous names that didn’t develop out of that earth there, these rivers there, these dense woods there.
The brand new Serbian-sounding names, in addition to the very adjective “Serbian”, which is hooked up to each nook and cranny, should seem bizarre to most individuals as a result of there is no such thing as a nation on earth with unique names that may bear so many nationalist tags.
Why would a random bridge within the small city of Čelinac be known as the Bridge of Serbia and be adorned with a Serbian flag? Why would something be known as by names of fascists and conflict criminals from the not-so-distant previous? Why would my road be known as after a spot in Serbia and never after the World Conflict II partisan hero Ševala Hadžić, a Bosniak lady who fought the Nazis? My home has each the outdated and the brand new road title signal and the brand new one has already light whereas the white writing on the unique blue plate shines so vivid.
After all, Bosnia is just not distinctive on this pursuit of erasure via renaming. There’s virtually no place on earth the place erasure has not been carried out sooner or later in historical past: new names inscribed on the palimpsest of the land.
Contemplate the historic modifications within the names of the holy land, that place which so dominates our world consciousness proper now. We can’t keep away from following the parallel conflict over names equivalent to “Palestine” and native locations inside the territories of Israel that’s happening in actual and digital areas, even on the worldwide stage. If we’re to dig into its background, we could study that the state of Israel established a committee in 1949 whose job was not merely to get better historic Hebrew names if there have been any, but in addition to invent new ones.
Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion made the directive clear, “We’re obliged to take away the Arabic names for causes of state. Simply as we don’t recognise the Arabs’ political proprietorship of the land, so additionally can we not recognise their non secular proprietorship and their names”.
I generally attempt to pity the bureaucrats tasked with discovering new names for all the pieces. That’s plenty of issues. So many issues. These are tasks one can get caught in and have handy them right down to new generations.
Did they really feel proud and artistic on this hyper-erasure? If solely they’d right now’s synthetic intelligence instruments and will get a machine do it. They needed to toil, write on paper, stamp paperwork, file them, and retailer them effectively of their new dungeons. Human labour. There isn’t a genocide with out it. Solely machines won’t do.
So no, some roses wouldn’t scent as candy. Romeo wouldn’t be as candy to Juliet if his heritage was erased and he was assimilated into her household. The which means and energy of their love is dependent upon their names. Their love is constructed on the household feud.
In contrast to the hopelessly romantic Romeo who thinks he can simply name himself “love” and get off unscathed, we all know higher. I’m sorry Juliet, however we can’t “take thee at thy phrase”. Historical past has been written onto our our bodies, and it’d vanish with our our bodies. For us who combat for the “by no means once more to anybody”, who ignore new highway indicators and discover our bearings by weak recollections, our spirit and our love dangle on the thread of some outdated names.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.