Hi everyone, and especially Julie,
This is really for all of you. Anyone else feel weepy?
Lesley
From: Jackie Dennis [mailto:director@nzauthors.org.nz]
Sent: Thursday, 6 November 2014 5:38 p.m.
To: 'Lesley Marshall'
Subject: FW: From imprisoned poet Aron Atabek to Mr. L.Marshalla, Mr.Simpson and NZSA
Sent: Thursday, 6 November 2014 5:38 p.m.
To: 'Lesley Marshall'
Subject: FW: From imprisoned poet Aron Atabek to Mr. L.Marshalla, Mr.Simpson and NZSA
Dear Lesley, have you seen this? It arrived this morning. If you click on the link and change the language to English you can see this on the sons website as well.
How lovely to get a response.
Jackie Dennis
Chief Executive Officer
New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc)
Landline 09 379 4801 Mobile 021 762 562
Principal representative for the professional interests of writers. Protecting basic rights to freedom of expression, working to improve income and conditions, promoting New Zealand writing and literary culture. A community for writers.
Regions: Northland, Auckland, Central Districts, Wellington, Top of the South, Canterbury and Otago/Southland
This email is confidential. It may contain information which is proprietary or subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail and any attachments. Thank you for your co-operation. Any views expressed in this email may be those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the view of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc.).
From: Askar Aidarkhan [mailto:askaraidarkhan@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 6 November 2014 12:33 a.m.
To: Director NZ Authors
Subject: From imprisoned poet Aron Atabek to Mr. L.Marshalla, Mr.Simpson and NZSA
Sent: Thursday, 6 November 2014 12:33 a.m.
To: Director NZ Authors
Subject: From imprisoned poet Aron Atabek to Mr. L.Marshalla, Mr.Simpson and NZSA
Dear Mr. L.Marshall, Dear Mr. Simpson and NZSA
I am writing from Kazakhstan on behalf of my father imprisoned poet Aron Atabek. First of all thank you for your attention and letters addressed to Aron Atabek in prison.
Recently (in October) they gave him your letters. I am forwarding you my father's response with a poem dedicated to you.
Although I am not professional translator, I dared to translate the poem from Russian.
Along with letter text below pleas find attached: photos of Shanyrak micro-district from 2006 and the original image of the shanyrak as a symbol of basement for nomadic Kazakh dwelling.
Dear Mr. Marshall
Thank you for your letters of solidarity and support. I received them recently, although according to the stamp they were delivered to Pavlodar in June 2014. What to do – there is a CENSORSHIP in prison and not every letter can pass trough. Keep in touch with my son – Askar AIDARKHAN. His English is pretty well, and he will forward your letters to me translated. Alas, I do not speak English.
As you can imagine, fighting against DICTATORSHIP requires sacrifice. We (I and six political-prisoners in Kazakhstan) – we are going along a sacrificial path to create DEMOCRACY and SOCIAL-JUSTICE in Kazakhstan. And if New Zealand PEN supports us – that gives us STRENGTH in STRUGGLE.
As a sign of my sincere gratitude and respect please accept a POEM.
NEW ZEALAND ‘SHANYRAK’
for Lesley Marshall
and PEN-New-Zealand
There is an empty chair in New Zealand –
Kept for me on writers’ congress,
That is the God to turn me –
Back to an ‘environment’, to a writer’s place!
Writer is an armchair worm –
Gnawing science tomes,
Only sometimes he affects –
Having published poems and novels.
And Life, seems to be passing by,
Writer – the life’s contemplator,
Yet he is present invisibly,
On the stricken filed with us.
Writer, he is the THRID EYE –
And he sees through distance,
And contemplates the “SHANYRAK” –
And us, the fighters on the stricken field.
And if in Kazakhstan bulldozer breaks homes –
Family’s asylum, a Holy Hearth,
By doing that they break
New Zealand ‘SHANYRAK’ too!
As ‘SHANYRAK’ is not merely a shelter, roof –
In summer heat, in winter cold,
‘Shanyrak’ is a Segner wheel, given from above,
A symbol of the Sky, the Sun, the eternal motion!
The world is a running Segner wheel –
From the crucifixion till the crucifixion
Christ, He also had been a REVOLUTIONARY –
Social-Justice and Democracy!
Quotation: “And TENGRI sees my soul –
With the eyes of the *Aruakh,
With the Nation’s karma –
I am crucified on the ‘SHANYRAK’!
…There is an empty chair in New Zealand –
Kept for me on writers’ congress,
Wait, my friends, and I will come back –
Not for an empty place!
Aron ATABEK 12.10.2014
Pavlodar, SI-14, solitary confinement, punishment cell of the PKT, c.#36
*Aruakh — Kazakh ‘Ancestor’s spirit’.
Thank you for your letters of solidarity and support. I received them recently, although according to the stamp they were delivered to Pavlodar in June 2014. What to do – there is a CENSORSHIP in prison and not every letter can pass trough. Keep in touch with my son – Askar AIDARKHAN. His English is pretty well, and he will forward your letters to me translated. Alas, I do not speak English.
As you can imagine, fighting against DICTATORSHIP requires sacrifice. We (I and six political-prisoners in Kazakhstan) – we are going along a sacrificial path to create DEMOCRACY and SOCIAL-JUSTICE in Kazakhstan. And if New Zealand PEN supports us – that gives us STRENGTH in STRUGGLE.
As a sign of my sincere gratitude and respect please accept a POEM.
NEW ZEALAND ‘SHANYRAK’
for Lesley Marshall
and PEN-New-Zealand
There is an empty chair in New Zealand –
Kept for me on writers’ congress,
That is the God to turn me –
Back to an ‘environment’, to a writer’s place!
Writer is an armchair worm –
Gnawing science tomes,
Only sometimes he affects –
Having published poems and novels.
And Life, seems to be passing by,
Writer – the life’s contemplator,
Yet he is present invisibly,
On the stricken filed with us.
Writer, he is the THRID EYE –
And he sees through distance,
And contemplates the “SHANYRAK” –
And us, the fighters on the stricken field.
And if in Kazakhstan bulldozer breaks homes –
Family’s asylum, a Holy Hearth,
By doing that they break
New Zealand ‘SHANYRAK’ too!
As ‘SHANYRAK’ is not merely a shelter, roof –
In summer heat, in winter cold,
‘Shanyrak’ is a Segner wheel, given from above,
A symbol of the Sky, the Sun, the eternal motion!
The world is a running Segner wheel –
From the crucifixion till the crucifixion
Christ, He also had been a REVOLUTIONARY –
Social-Justice and Democracy!
Quotation: “And TENGRI sees my soul –
With the eyes of the *Aruakh,
With the Nation’s karma –
I am crucified on the ‘SHANYRAK’!
…There is an empty chair in New Zealand –
Kept for me on writers’ congress,
Wait, my friends, and I will come back –
Not for an empty place!
Aron ATABEK 12.10.2014
Pavlodar, SI-14, solitary confinement, punishment cell of the PKT, c.#36
*Aruakh — Kazakh ‘Ancestor’s spirit’.
Original text in Russian is available at http://aronatabek.com/lesli-marshallu-pen-klubu-novoj-zelandii.html
Regards,
Askar AIDARKHAN
Askar AIDARKHAN
skype: askaraidarkhan