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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

 

 




80 million scars on world’s conscience

Auteur: dimitrisvetsikas1969. Pixabay Licence.

80 million forcibly displaced people by the end of 2019

La version française de cet article intitulée « 80 millions de cicatrices sur la conscience de l’humanité » est parue dans Voix d’Exils le 3 mars 2020

Wars are provoked, countries are divided and refugees are flooding the world, while terrible images are displayed every day on television screens of migrants drowning in rough seas, dying of exhaustion or starvation, killed by mercenaries, exploited by human traffickers and transformed into merchandise and currency. They are victims of political machinations and « regime change », in other words, man-made misfortunes!

According to the estimates of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), at the end of 2019, an unprecedented number of 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide and delivered to stormy seas, to the burning desert sun and to the whims of the immigration offices of host countries.

Children are the most vulnerable

Children are the most vulnerable among refugees. They are infected with widespread diseases, recruited as child soldiers in armed conflicts and are victims of rape and forced labor.

The other day, as I was scrolling through my Facebook page I came across this piece of news: “Fatima Ibrahim Hadi, aged 12, died of malnutrition on February 4 of this year, after her photos invaded international media as living proof of the ugliness of the war on Yemen and of the crimes committed by the warring parties and their patrons”. In Yemen, an estimated 3.2 million children and women suffer from acute malnutrition and 7,4 million children need humanitarian assistance (ICRC). Then, continuing to scroll down my page, I found this obituary: « The al-Ghai family is devastated by the loss of four family members who perished while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. Four other members of the same family were saved. Many others have drowned. Most of them were from Hasakeh governorate of Syria ” located in the northeast of the country.

Weaponizing refugees

In October 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Syrian Sunni Islamist allies launched a full-scale military offensive in this very region of Hasakeh. The incursion has triggered the displacement of 200,000 to 300,000 people overnight in the towns and villages of Ras al-Ain, Tal Tamer and Tal Abiad, and caused widespread devastation and pillage.
Turkish President Erdogan, whose country has been deeply involved in the war in Syria, and who opened his country’s borders to Syrian refugees at the start of the conflict, is now using them as bargaining chips with the European Union, and his latest attempt to pushing them to the Greco-Turkish border demonstrates his lack of concern for their well-being.
Moreover, the policy of weaponising Syrian refugees and recruiting them in Turkey’s proxy wars in Lybia and elsewhere continues full-scale. The Guardian’s correspondent writes the following from Ankara on 26 may 2020: In Lybia “an estimated 8’000 to10’000” Syrian mercenaries are fighting as “part of Ankara’s plan for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean” (1). This blatant violation of all international conventions is another clear example of how Turkey is mistreating and manipulating an extremely vulnerable population.

Refugees die twice

Someone has said that these poor refugees die twice: once when their natural habitats is destroyed and they are bombed outside their countries. And a second time, when they struggle along the arduous roads in their quest to reach the host countries!
On an official mission for the United Nations, Jean Ziegler, a sociologist from Geneva, made a research tour in May 2019 to Lesbos, one of five refugee reception centers on Greek’s Aegean Islands. And in his recently published book « Lesbos, la honte de l’Europe », he describes how 20’000 refugees are crammed there in totally inhuman conditions, in a flagrant violation of the most basic principles of human rights! These conditions, he says, are « Set by the European Union for one purpose: to create terror and deterrence in order to prevent the arrival of other refugees »

Mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies

Being well aware of the nature of politics, there will be no end to these man-made disasters in the future. The UN, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people of good will do not have the appropriate leverage to end this situation. The mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies. Meanwhile, the powerful countries that have been involved in these disasters do care only about how to « divide the cake » in countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and many others which have become failing states unable to protect their citizens.

Have human values and ethics become empty slogans?

If humanity had lived by certain human principles and values, most of these displaced people would have stayed at home, enjoying a dignified and secure life, even though they had to tolerate difficulties and poverty.

Hayro
Member of the Vaud editorial board of  Voix d’Exils

References:
(1) Turkey and The Weaponizing of Syrian Refugees.

 




The rise and fall of a city in the endless Game of Thrones

la ville de Qamishili. Source: page Facebook de Qamishili.

la ville de Qamishili. Source: page Facebook de Qamishili.

An important part of my job as a legal translator in my city Qamishli, situated in north-eastern Syria on the border with Turkey, was working with asylum-seekers and refugees, especially Iraqis who had fled their country following the American invasion in 2003 and wanted to find refuge in the asylum countries. 

I was preparing their dossiers: translating the documents, fixing appointments with the embassies, filling the formulas etc. Hundreds of families came to my office, each had an extremely painful story of deportation, persecution and displacement. It was very distressing to hear the narratives of these unfortunate people, who once had lived a fairly stable and comfortable life, then all of a sudden their world turned upside down and having lost everything they found themselves homeless refugees in other countries.

Being myself a descendant of a refugee family, their stories were not totally strange to me. My grandfather was the only survivor of an extended family massacred during the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman government against the Armenians and the other Christians of Turkey during and after the World War I. In 1920, like many of his compatriots, my grandfather could only survive by miracle, traversing on foot the enormous territory separating his ancestral village situated in the province of Diyarbakır in southeaster Turkey and the Syrian border town of Ras al Ayn. Therefore, tales of displacement and mass killing had always haunted my memory since I was a child.

Nevertheless, putting myself then in the shoes of the Iraqi refugees, I could not help thinking of what might happen to me and my family had we experienced the same devastating war in Syria? The mere thought of it was terrifying and nightmarish.

But, what I then thought as something incredible soon became a reality in 2011. The civil war started in Syria and the Pandora box, with all the evils of the world, was opened widely. This time, the troubled faces of my countrymen started streaming into my office, carrying alongside their precious documents, gruesome stories of kidnappings, lootings and killings as the entire security system in the country collapsed, the vital services completely crumpled and considerable territories surrounding the city fell into the hands of Daesh ISIS.

Ironically, the grandchildren of the refugees who one hundred years ago had founded this beautiful frontier city as a safe haven from persecution, were now frantically fleeing from the impending apocalyptic devastation and killing, by seeking refuge in Sweden, Germany and other European countries.

The lights of the lively, multi-ethnic, prosperous city of Qamishli suddenly dimmed, the buzzing activities died down and the streets became deserted and lifeless.

Another sad story of the rise and fall of a city in the endless game of the thrones.

DONO Hayrenik

Membre de la redaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Infos:

Version française de l’article parue le 21.09.2016 sur voixdexils.ch




Syrian refugees : the suffering continues

Le foyer d'hébergement pour requérants d'asile La Pinède, à Conthey Valais, sous la neige. Photo: Voix d'Exils

Le foyer d’hébergement pour requérants d’asile La Pinède, à Conthey en Valais, sous la neige. Photo: Voix d’Exils

In the past two years, a lucky number of refugees from Syria were able to escape from the horrific conditions in the war torn nation. Most of the refugees ended up in countries like Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and  some hundreds made it to Europe. In January 2013, Turkey is having 150’000 registered refugees followed closely by Jordan and Lebanon.

In the first week of January 2013, the temperatures of Middle East started to fall, and, in the second week, it started snowing and raining heavily and this has added another stress on the already stressed refugees in camps made out of tents with not proper winter clothing. Images of shaking bare-footed children walking on snow and water in refugee camps give the real conditions and suffering happening to those who have been able to flee the two years old war.

In September of 2012, the United Nation ambassador Angelina Jolie visited a camp in Jordan and the journalist’s cameras that followed her, as a renowned actress and movie director, informed more to the world about the suffering of Syrian refugees. In one of her press briefings, she said “the amount of innocent children that have been reported dead, the amount of innocent children I’ve met here who are wounded and unaccompanied – with their parents being killed and now they’re on their own – it’s impossible to imagine any mother standing by and not stepping up and doing something to prevent this » Such words from someone who visited the camps reflect the situation that needs not only to be aware of but to be acted on.

The Syrian refugees face not only cold and poor housing but also the camps in Turkey near the border with Syria have faced fire outbreaks leading to loss of lives. There are efforts by the United Nation Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Red Cross to provide what they can. Many children, especially those who were injured during the war, still need better medical care and feeding.

A few months ago, when I wrote my impressions on Switzerland, I included the challenges of my first winter and then the proper housing given to refugees. Now, on looking at what is taking place with the unfortunate Syrians, who are sleeping in unheated tents with hardly nothing to cover them, I come to appreciate more the unending efforts of the Swiss towards the refugee care.

In Switzerland, during the first 6 months of 2012, 777 Syrian refugees applied for asylum. In September, 36 refugees arrived in Bern and were granted asylum and resident permits immediately. With changes on Immigration laws in Switzerland, the Syrian Refugees have to be directly recommended by the UNHCR to confirm their vulnerable conditions.

With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, swearing to continue fighting what he called terrorists, and the rebels also determined to overthrow him, it seems the world is going to continue watching refugees running out of their country to save their lives.

Marcus

Membre de la rédaction valaisanne de Voix d’Exils