The Israeli author Shani Boianjiu describes corruption and violence in the Israeli army in her book “The people of forever are not afraid”
Shani Boianjiu is just 26 years old and her first novel “The people of forever are not afraid”, which was published in English in 2012, will soon be published in 23 languages. Although she grew up in the North of Israel and comes from a family with Iraqi and Rumanian roots, she wanted to write in English because she spent the last years studying at Harvard University. Her style is raw and wise as it often happens with young adults, who have to negotiate two opposing sentiments: Their urge to find the sense of life and the intense feeling of boredom in the world they live in. But Boianjiu’s book became a bestseller not only for her powerful literature. She writes about the highly sensitive issue of the Israeli army. The author herself finished her own service in the Israeli Defense Forces not long ago.
Profil: Do you expect a scandal, when your book comes out in Israel?
Boianjiu: No, why?
Profil: Because you describe soldiers in the Israeli army who tolerate human trafficking, rape soldiers and humiliate Palestinians.
Boianjiu: I find it astonishing that everyone always thinks we cannot critizise Israel in Israel. On the contrary. Many things happen in Israel, which I am very critical about. It is completely normal to discuss this in all openness. Nobody has to be scared of the consequences.
Profil: When Israel was a young state the Israeli army was considered to be a heroic force, but today many Israelis find it questionable to serve in an army which represses a few million Palestinians without civil rights. Your soldiers don’t seem to have any moral feelings left. Is this true?
Boianjiu: I don’t think there are no moral feelings left. But young people in the army don’t constantly think about politics. They are busy killing time. The conflict between the Palestinians and us will never be solved anyway. For the Palestinians it will always be worse than for us, it was always like this. In Europe and in America people seem to think that Israelis and Palestinians only have to sit down together and everything would be fine. But that’s not true. We tried this for years. Everyone constantly writes nonsense about Israel, I always want to spit out my Diet Coke because it is all so ridiculous.
Profil: The title of your book “The people of forever are not afraid” sounds significant, but in reality it is a bumper sticker on a truck, behind which your depressed heroine gets stuck in a traffic jam on a road outside of Jerusalem. Are you writing about a generation of Israelis who would like to leave the political sphere altogether?
Boianjiu: We can’t choose, we Israelis cannot easily go anywhere else. I live so close to the Lebanese border. When a land mine explodes in Lebanon, I can hear it. Physically, but also in our thinking, we are being pushed into ever smaller spaces. If we are not careful, there won’t be any space left for our own thoughts.