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Music is a universal language that crosses all borders

Auteur: pixabay.com

Enrico Macias song « J’ai quitté mon pays » then and now

Lire la version français de l’article ici

Music is a universal language that crosses all borders; a tool for arousing emotions and feelings, as well as for bringing hope and healing. It is said that the Arab philosopher and musician Al-Farabi, (872–950), was able to make people laugh and then make them cry by his wonderful performance on the Oud.

I was born and grown up in the rural north east of Syria, a neglected, impoverished region, considered as the center of numerous ethnic groups. Tough, resilient people, mostly descendants of refugees fled from atrocities in Turkey. Strongly attached to their ethnic music and culture; perhaps because of the relief it brought to them from long years of deprivation and traumatism.
As an adolescent, my mind was receptive to this rich, multi-ethnic music. At those days, the mid-seventies, we didn’t have a TV set. My parents had an old cassette-recorder, where I used to spend long hours listening to the charming songs of the diva of Arab music, Oum Kalthoum, and the adored youth singer Abdoul Halim Hafez, as well as to Adis (1), M.Shekho (2) and many others.

Tom Jones, Charles Aznavour, Julio Iglesias, Enrico Macias…!

However, those years brought us also western music and songs recorded on audio cassettes, mostly from Beirut-Lebanon, the cultural hub of the Arab world at that time. Like many of my peers, I was fascinated by Tom Jones, Aznavour, Julio Iglesias, Enrico Macias…!

I had a guitar those days, and was trying to learn to play simple tunes. So naturally, I developed a liking for Enrico, particularly his song « J’ai quitté mon pays ».

J’ai quitté mon pays
J’ai quitté ma maison
Ma vie, ma triste vie
Se traîne sans raison

I loved this song! I don’t know why! Certainly, not because of its nostalgic lyrics, or the moving historical background: Enrico Mascias left his native country Algeria and went into exile in 1961. My knowledge of French was very little then. But probably, because of its melancholic oriental melody and the heartfelt performance on the guitar! It was tender and relaxing, evoking mixed emotions of joy and sorrow! In fact, my interpretation of the song was purely romantic and emotional!

The magic city of Aleppo!

At those carefree days, during my college years in Aleppo, Syria, my mind was full of rosy things and wild expectations. Part of it was connected to my fascination with this magical city, where history and modernity combine. Where the Citadel of Aleppo , the Great Mosque the madrasas and the aroma of spices in the old souks and Khans of the old city, carry you away with caravans that used to cross the city from China, Bukhara and Isfahan to the West, during the Golden Age of the Silk Roads from 12th to the early 15th centuries…

It was time of optimism and dreams! How could I have imagined what destiny had in store for Syria!

Then, years rolled by… And one day, all of a sudden, the sky fell on our heads and turned our world upside down! The country was ripped apart and the civil war ruined all aspects of life, including the magic city of Aleppo!

Diaspora

At this point came the moment of revelation with all its poignancy and intensity! Uprooted from homeland, we have become a diaspora! A displaced people, thrown to strange shores and under makeshift camps! Our warm houses, our childhood playgrounds, our blue sea, everything… were all stolen from us!

Having been transferred to a completely different reality, I have come to fully understand what Enrico went through some sixty years ago, when he was forced to sing farewell to his beloved city of Constantine, Algeria!

J’ai quitté mon soleil
J’ai quitté ma mer bleue
Leurs souvenirs se réveillent
Bien après mon adieu

The lovely melody of « J’ai quitté mon pays », which once used to cheer me up and arouse feelings of joy and love, now evokes multiple memories and images, extremely poignant! Extremely nostalgic!

H. DONO

Contributeur externe de Voix d’Exils

1. A popular Armenian singer
2. A popular Kurdish singer

 

 




New Year’s Eve and the war against terrorism

Auteur: Photo Grrrrr "Boom!" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Auteur: Photo Grrrrr « Boom! » (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A reflection about holidays celebrations in and out of Syria and why should we learn from the experience of a four-year-old child who was terrorized as fireworks resurrected flashbacks of horrible sounds and scenes of explosions from the time she was lying in a cradle.

Europeans are often surprised to discover that Christmas and New Year’s Eve are officially celebrated in Syria. Actually they are official holidays on these two occasions and many TV programs are usually devoted to their celebrations just like the two main Islamic festivals: Feast of the Sacrifice, (Eid al-Adha,) and Feast of the Breaking the Fast, (Eid al-Fitr). In contrast, there are many islamic and ethnic groups whose religious or national festivals are not officially recognized for different reasons some of which are religious and others are political.

However, I am not going to run the gamut of two complex phenomena: the complicated Syrian society or the equally complicated Syrian regime. What I am going to demonstrate instead is why it is becoming harder and harder to celebrate the usual holidays in Syria. The axiomatic response would be: «In wartime, there are no celebrations, save those of the awaited victory». Actually, that was the gist of Assad’s words when he came to «celebrate» the New Year’s Eve with his soldiers in Jobar, a district of Damascus. Probably, no one could deny a political acumen in his visit which aimed at lifting up the morale of his soldiers. There might be also little doubt that he is shrewdly playing the worldwide-played game combating terrorism. Ironically enough, the more he or others combat terrorism, the more it is rife and the less victories or celebrations are actually attainable. Instead of discussing politics, I feel like giving tangible evidence from my circles about our perseverance to sustain a mood for celebrations.

Auteur: thierry ehrmann “Abode of Chaos” (CC BY 2.0)

Auteur: thierry ehrmann “Abode of Chaos” (CC BY 2.0)

Personal tolerance and resistance of powerful trends

My nuclear family: my parents, my siblings and I, took from the onset of the Assad’s crackdown against the popular uprising in our city, Homs, a decision not to take part in any act of violence whatever polarization gets intensified in the Syrian society. Actually, our attitude was a practice and a way of life more than just a decision, and we were fully aware that our principles were not going to be appreciated because they inherently hold an undesirable political message in a highly mobilized society. Being a non-religious family and best described as humanists, the New Years Eve was the only festival that we were keen to celebrate despite all adversaries and lack of room for joy. It was always an opportunity to assure our solidarity and to renew and bolster our hope. Nevertheless, the regime’s demand to bear arms and the pressure on us escalated to an apex that eventually pushed us to seek peace in more peaceful countries. My brothers and I are particularly vulnerable as we can be forced by the Syrian military law to join the reserves.

I will sum up the reasons why it was hard to renew our hope for 2015 though we managed to exchange some wishes and say «Happy New Year». First, the big family has been divided as some have managed to come to Europe while the rest remained in Syria. Virtual meeting are possible but, nowadays, electricity is available for only two hours in the best-case scenario. This obstacle stands as the second reason, while the third was due to the fact that this festival occurs in the depth of winter when it is usually snowy all over the Syrian coastal region. As a consequence, the rest of the family left behind ran out of burning fuel used for heating homes and food and nothing was left but books. I should say that my family owns more than one thousand books. In fact, a part of the New Year’s Day conversation was to obtain my permission to burn my books. It is the second time that we engage in setting books on fire. The first time, my father burned only his Soviet books. I guess that I love books, but my passion for books is not strong to the degree that I would answer my parents with «no» even though a part of those books are my own publications. I do not deny a dilemma in this situation, but I said «yes». Finally, I have to mention why my brother and his family could not enjoy the New Year’s celebrations in one of the European countries. Their longing for scenes of joy had them get upstairs to watch the fireworks, but the four years old kid was scared as the fireworks recalled the horrible sounds and scenes of explosions she had been exposed to and vulnerable to almost since she was born. They tried hard to assure her that these fireworks are sort of games and harmless, but her screams and tears were more convincing than all the logic and wisdom on the earth. Her screams were like: «Go, go downstairs! We are going to die! Quickly! Let us go downstairs! Otherwise, we die!» She does not know other tactics for dodging missiles, explosions and «terrorism» apart from getting downstairs where the sounds of explosions are less powerful and where other family members used to combat «terrorism» and all the horror associated with it!

This little child does not differentiate between the western joy and the eastern misery, and for her, each of them is a source of horror! This little child thinks that fire is fire and explosives are explosives, therefore she cannot differentiate between them yet. Do we have to teach her that there are good explosives and bad ones? Why do not we learn from her innocence instead?

Auteur: Peretzp "US builds Neutron Bomb" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Auteur: Peretzp « US builds Neutron Bomb » (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The American conception and approach of terrorism: should it be also global?

Beyond doubt, violence is an aggressive and intolerant action or attitude, and the reasons behind it are diverse. Violence, however, is widely used as defense against military intervention, oppression, persecution, inequality, greed, intolerance etc. Nevertheless, there is a powerful tendency in the west to think of terrorism as rooted in a particular ideology or as a specific trait of a population living in certain parts of the world. This tendency is reinforced mainly by American politics or the media which discourse sustain that putative association between terrorism and middle-eastern peoples. The American administration prefers to support dictatorships or repressive regimes in order to monopolize the massive exploitation of natural resources along with fostering deposits in American banks. Sympathy and willingness to cooperate with eastern peoples arises and comes into practice only when natural resources and capitals do not go to America like the cases of Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein for instance. I can understand the current American politics and propaganda which are heavily influenced by the Eurasian Geostrategy for the United States formulated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who held the position of United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In his book, «The Grand Chessboard», Brzezinski regards the landmass of Eurasia as the center of global power and writes that no Eurasian challenger should emerge capable of dominating Eurasia and threatening America’s global pre-eminence. However, I do not advocate any European (or even American) convergence with the American propaganda which is devoted to indoctrinate that violence is rooted in islam or in the Middle East. The reasons why I do not support such disinformation go beyond the fact that I come from the Middle East, and that I hate being viewed as a potential holder of terror. I denounce it because it is inconsiderate to the consequences of political unrest in the Middle East. Actually, Europe is much more affected by political instability in its Mediterranean neighbors and has become the most vulnerable location to uncontrollable immigration. Such circumstances call for further collaboration within the framework of friendly relationships with the peoples of the Middle East.

Coming back to celebrations, I do not mean to say that Europeans should not celebrate the New Year’s Eve or other holidays in sympathy with Syrians or other peoples in the world. What I call for, instead, is a sense of sustainability for these celebrations, which could be replaced one day by a putative victory against terrorism. This kind of sustainability can be achieved by a holistic approach to crises and by dropping borders from our minds, because these borders prove one day after another to be meaningless, especially in the time of crises.

Rami Ibrahim

Membre de la rédaction neuchâteloise de Voix d’Exils




«Where Vol Spécial ends, Escort starts»

Guido Hendrikx

Guido Hendrikx. Director of the film « Escort ». Photo: Miguel Bueno.

 

Voix d’Exils participated in the festival Visions du Réel held in Nyon from 25th April to 3rd May. It is an important international film festival specializing in documentary films, one of the largest in Europe in this field. During the festival, « Escort» was one of the most shocking documentary films screened about refugees, catching Voix d’Exil’s serious attention.

 

 

 

 

The 18 minutes long film «Escort» follows two young Dutch border police recruits who undergo an intensive three-week training course intended to prepare them for their future role: deporting rejected asylum seekers back to their country of origin.

The film starts with statistics (Dutch Border Police, Dutch Marshals) about the number of refused asylum seekers who were

escorted out of The Netherlands in 2012. 4823 refused asylum seekers left the Netherlands, among which 1410 were escorted (against their will) by the police officers.

The director Guido Hendrikx tries to find the answers to the following questions like «What are the physical and mental challenges for this escort training team? How do the participants go through their training lessons? What are the techniques that they use for escorting out the refugees? How do they handle the last minutes before dealing with refugees who strongly refused to leave the country?» He transferred what he has experienced of those questions by getting his audience to travel through the movie.

Here is the interview with Guido Hendrikx conducted by Voix d’Exils via e-mail conversation.

In this interview, Guido Hendrikx talks more about his film and asylum situation in the Netherlands, in particular about the handling of rejected refugees.

 

Photo: Voix d'Exils.

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils.

Interview:

You participated in the festival «Visions du Réel » in Nyon a few weeks ago. As a Dutch filmmaker, how did you experience the environment of the festival Nyon? What can you say about Nyon and the organizers of the festival?

I enjoyed the festival of Nyon, even though it was raining most of the time. It was very well organized, with a good program: an interesting experience for film directors. Unfortunately the debates after the film were mostly French-spoken, so I couldn’t participate.

Your film «Escort» was selected for international competition in the category «court-métrage» and was screened two times in cinema during the festival. What were the reactions, comments and critics that you got from viewers?

Unfortunately, the cinema was not really full at both screenings, which makes the film experience less interesting in my opinion. I didn’t get many reactions from the audience, but the few reactions were mostly compliments. The most interesting reaction I got from a Dutch lady who is living and working in Switzerland. She said: «I work at the airport in Geneva, and everyday I can see through my window how the Border Police in Switzerland deals with refused asylum seekers. And I can tell you, it’s much and much worse than how they deal with it in The Netherlands».

Why did you choose this subject for making a film?

For me filmmaking is nothing more – and nothing less – than a lifetime personal study of human kind. Besides, I am interested in the conflict between rational thinking and moral feelings. The film (documentary) I am working on now has the same theme. Furthermore, in Holland, many films are made from the perspective of the asylum seeker. Most of them I found not interesting, too sentimental and irrelevant. I found it interesting to change the perspective and to make a film from the viewpoint of the executors. Without accusing, without offering an excuse. I wanted to confront the audience with the system they invented themselves and to ask questions like «is a human deportation possible?» Those are some of the reasons for making this film. But, the most important one is when I read a newspaper-article about the training I was fascinated. Something I do not experience that often.

Photo: Voix d'Exils

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils

In the public discussion that followed the projection of your film during the festival, you said that it was very hard to get the training team of the Dutch border police recruits to collaborate, and that you spent more than one year to convince them. What other challenges did you face during the shooting?

During the shooting we didn’t have many restrictions. Only during the scenes in the deportation-centre itself we were limited to the surveillance-camera room. But because we had little microphones, it turned out to be a helpful and interesting limitation. Thereby it was a challenge to choose the main characters of the film, because we met them for the first time at the first training day.

Did you watch the Swiss films «Vol Spécial» and «L’Escale» that are closely related to the topic of asylum seekers in the context of Switzerland? If so, how are you considering those films?

I watched «Vol Special» on Dutch Television. An impressive film. And to a certain extent an inspiration for the film I made. Where Vol Special ends, Escort starts. In short, I think the director of Vol Special did a great job.

 

Photo: Voix d'Exils

Visions du Réel festival. Photo: Voix d’Exils.

What is your personal view about European migration policy concerning asylum seekers and about Netherland’s escort act?

My personal view about European migration policy can best be summarised with the term of «organised responsibility escape». Every institution has a specific responsibility regarding migration policy, but nobody is able, or is willing, to see the whole picture. In Holland for example, at least three institutions are involved in escorting refused asylum seekers to their «homeland». One to put the signature on a piece of paper: «you have to leave»; one to «help» the refugees in the last months before departure (as we see in Vol Special for example); and one to escort. They all point to each other saying they didn’t decide this, they are not responsible. We also see this in Vol Special.

I find that mechanism very interesting. How does it work exactly etc? And maybe, even more interesting and hypocritical, I find the critics and accusations of a part of the audience, a part of the people, the so-called politically «left» people mostly, who try to blame the executors while sitting in their own lazy chair. Because I think we, myself included, most probably don’t care about refused asylum seekers. Do we agree on how they are being escorted? We simply don’t know because most people are not interested in that question.

What’s next for Escort?

Escort has been sent to several film festivals, previous week it was screened at IndieLisboa (Portugal), in two weeks it will be screened at VIS (Austria). We are also negotiating about a long version of the film with the Dutch marshals for T.V – broadcasting.

Interview by:

Sara

Voix d’Exils, Vaud

Thank to : Guido Hendrikx, Director of the Film Escort.

More details about Festival du Vision du Réel, Nyon

The festival is dedicated to showing the world as it is lived, to break away from the mainstream. It offers a diversity of committed and inspired film-making, allowing the connection of experiences, reflections and aspirations.

Next year’s film festival will take place from 17-25 april 2015

Official website : http://www.visionsdureel.ch/