Malaysians sing the ‘Negara Ku’: Negara ku, tanah tumpahnya darah ku (My country, where I have spilt my blood); a description of “Heimat” in Malay. The other Malay word is ‘tanahair’ (land/water), which means the same.
The popular Swiss music group Züri West in one of their songs in Bernese dialect describe it like this: “…irgendwo uf em e Parkplatz / plötzlech schmöckt’s wieder wie dahei / irgendeinisch fingt ds Glück eim / irgendwänn weisch wär d’bisch / irgendwänn weisch genau wo de häre ghörsch / öpper schteut es zwöits Tassli uf e Tisch…” [“…somewhere on a parking place / suddenly it smells like home / some day happiness will find you / some day you will know who you are / some day you will know where you belong / someone puts a second cup on the table (for you) … “.]
Maybe I like this song so much because it reminds me of my own “Heimat” smell: Whenever I arrive in Zurich Main Station, step out of the station, and cross to Central to take the tram, I smell the water of the lake of Zurich and the river Limmat, a green, cold, fecund smell; that is “Heimat” for me, then I know that I am home!
“Heimat” means different things to different people and is expressed in different ways.
A few weeks ago we had “Green Day” at the Sahabat Support Centre. Some students from UIA came to the centre to organize different activities for children around environmental issues, such as recycling, reusing, and composting, things that they could do at home. Some films were shown, there were role plays, quizzes, games and other fun. The parents and other family members of the children who were present and the staff also joined.
To conclude the workshop, the students brought out big sheets of paper, groups of children settled around the papers on the floor. The last task was to draw the spoiled, polluted world on one side, and the green safe, clean world on the other side, and in the end present the paper to all, and explain the drawing.
One of the Afghan teenagers began drawing a tree on the green side of the paper: Carefully he drew one line for the trunk, another for a branch; he was adding line after line, slowly a tree emerged, as if chiselled, an intricate structure was built, line by line. The drawing reminded me of a fine Iranian carpet, the best kind, with the Tree of Life in the centre; the foundation of “Heimat”.
A young man from Gaza took the pen and drew a palm tree. Not the usual kind with a stem and lines representing leaves extending on the top. Carefully he drew one line for each palm frond in all detail. Then he drew two big bunches of dates, hanging from the centre, each date fully formed. That date palm was his symbol of “Heimat”.
Then another refugee from the Middle East came forward and drew thick rainclouds over the whole “green” side of the drawing, with drops and rivulets of water showering the Tree of Life and the date palm.
At first I was taken aback, thinking like a European, who identifies rain with something negative, like sadness. But I soon understood that rain in the Middle East is the blessing of Allah for all living things; so that rain over the green, fertile, safe, clean world is indeed the life-giving force of nature, together with the sun.
The Malays express it like this: “Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri, lebih baik di negeri sendiri” (Rain of gold in foreign lands, and rain of stones in your own land, still your own land is better).
We all, Malaysians and people of other countries and with other nationalities, refugees, need the bounty and blessing of nature, rain and sunshine, the blessing of God; and everybody and all need a “Heimat”, if not in the country where we were born, we still need a place where someone puts a second cup on the table for us in a place we can call home.
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