Palestine – Pike & Hurricane

Stories of Palestine Told with the Oud

Anna Bernard — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:15:33 +0000

Hopes and dreams and desires are inherent to the human condition. When far away from loved ones, we experience a sense of longing and nostalgia. Different people find different ways of expressing these feelings; some find a language in art, some in music or poetry. The editors of Pike and Hurricane had a unique opportunity to sit down with Adnan Joubran, a world renowned Palestinian musician, to discuss the language and power his oud gives him.

Musical evolution

The oud is an ancient stringed instrument popular in the Middle East. The expertise in the instrument has been in Joubran’s family for a long time:

“I come from […] a family of oud makers and musicians, my father is the third generation in the family who builds the instrument and my brother is the fourth.”

Joubran explains to us how he was enticed by the oud in his youth:

“[…] in the year 2003 there was this kind of phase where I just started to play the oud on my own in the house and I felt it could be my language.” His big brothers supported him and that is how Le Trio Joubran came to be. He explains his path in more detail:

“In 2004 we formed the band Le Trio Joubran, and in 2014 I made my own band. Here I am in Sweden making my own show.”

Many things have happened in the world and in the music scene as Joubran’s career has evolved:

“The oud was only for the old people, culturally the instrumental music is only for the old people. We’ve made a big movement, not only us, but a lot of other musicians too. Young people find it trendy to listen to Trio Joubran.”

Dimensions of hope

When asked what music can do that politics cannot Joubran answers:

“I think with my art I can prove I have existed, I can prove that there is culture,” he says. Further in the interview he explains:

“I am always pro-culture. We should be building history. Whatever we do good today one day will become folkloric, one day will become tradition. In 50 years my music will become tradition. Mozart was contemporary then, he was rebellious then, but now it’s classical,” Joubran asserts. He continues by explaining that music cannot come just from an idea, it comes from history:

“There is culture, there is Palestine, it was there, it is still there.”

Like many other Palestinians, Joubran is a part of the Palestinian diaspora, splitting his time between London and Nazareth. According to him the diaspora is important in preserving Palestinian identity and culture because “each member is a whole nation,” he emphasises and adds:

“I’ve been lately in Chile. There’s more than 400,000 Palestinians in Chile. [Many of them] went in the 1920s. And it’s nice to see in their houses ouds from that time. For me that was so moving.”

During our interview we try to stay away from politics. Nevertheless, we briefly discuss his hopes for the future of Palestine:

“I said earlier I am a bit hopeless, but my mission is to give hope”, he asserts. Joubran’s mission of giving hope comes out of necessity:

“Unfortunately we live in a world where you wake up and you see the news and you suddenly get paranoid: […] is [this] the life that we came for or is [this] the world that we are living in?”

Joubran tells us about a track called ‘I wish I were a tree’ from his latest album:

“We are here only to grow just like the trees. […] we are here just born to love and just born to grow the one next to the other, not to be uprooted, not to be killed. This tree can have red leaves, I can have different coloured leaves, we are different but we should just live this difference and enjoy the beauty that we give to this world, with our differences,” Joubran describes. In addition to giving an awareness of cherishing our differences and a dimension of hope to the listeners, he wishes to provide a space to drop a tear or to get a smile on their faces.

Tears or smiles, Joubran does not seem to give up hope:

“Everyday I wake up with a different dream. I think my pleasure in life is just to dream, to keep dreaming. The way home is nicer than home. […] The pleasure is not fulfilling your dreams, it’s the pleasure of dreaming.”

By Anna Bernard

Photo credits:

Captain.orange, Oud, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Ida Sharla Løjmand, All Rights Reserved
Ida Sharla Løjmand, All Rights Reserved

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Boycott: A Silent Revolution

monta.nitisa — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:07:12 +0000

In the classic story of nonviolent resistance “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story”, Martin Luther King, Jr. states six principles of nonviolence. The first principle is as follows—nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It does take audacity to directly oppose anything, to stand against injustice. I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Ronnie Barkan, an Israeli human rights activist, who could be one of those people who King wrote about 60 years ago.

Ronnie Barkan defines himself as a privileged Israeli Jew. Besides being a human rights activist, Barkan is a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is a global Palestinian-led campaign for freedom, justice and equality. It started in 2005, combining 170 different Palestinian organisations that signed up to a shared mission, which urges to put pressure on Israel until Israel acts in accordance with international law and respects fundamental human rights.

How Does a Boycott Work?

Barkan looks at the BDS campaign as a grassroots movement. He states that there is a way how boycotts can be something that everyone of us can participate in:

“When you choose where your money goes, you choose whether you buy products that are produced in a sweatshop or not, and you can also choose whether you buy products that come within the expense of oppressing Palestinians.’

Nonetheless, BDS goes far beyond economic consumer boycott; it also involves around cultural and academic spheres. One part of boycotting is divestment—the controlling of companies which fund, for example, pension funds. Students can ask universities not to invest in companies which are acting against human rights.

When talking about who is being boycotted, Barkan explains:

“For cultural and academic boycott, we have clear BDS guidelines, which make sure that we are not boycotting every Israeli simply because they are from Israel. We are only boycotting those that are the representatives of that state. We don’t boycott the individuals.”

Even Music Takes Part in Boycott

As and example of cultural boycott Barkan mentions the recent case with an artist from New Zealand, Lorde:

“There was a call on her not to perform there and she decided to hear the call and not to perform and this raised a lot of international attention. This is more about symbolism. The fact that a certain artist doesn’t perform in Israel doesn’t harm the economy or any individuals. It is just that some artists decide not to perform there but it really touches the nerve.’’

Nonviolent Resistance versus Arms

When being asked about the role of nonviolence, Barkan does not hesitate to share his thoughts on the present situation:

“I am not here to condemn Palestinian armed resistance, but it is not very effective. When you struggle to fight against the fourth of fifth largest nuclear superpower in the world, it doesn’t really make sense to resist with weapons. I am happy that I have the opportunity to not use weapons against anyone […] Our power as activists is gained by doing things transparently and not being ashamed by what we do.’’

The Unclear but Promising Future

Towards the end of the discussion, Barkan shifts towards the hopeful picture of the upcoming. He talks about reassuring signs that keeps his outlook on the future positive:

“Firstly, I am very optimistic about the media’s campaign to change the discourse and it is definitely happening. This discourse is slowly seeping into the mainstream media. Secondly, that I am optimistic about is the whole blockchain technology—cryptocurrency. There are a lot of discussions, misconceptions about that but we are just at the beginning with this revolution, which makes banks and authorities pretty much abundant. There are endless possibilities that come up with that—from the distribution of wealth to the redistribution of information.”

In the fast-paced world we live in today, it has become too effortless to accept the illusions of equity. Slipping out of this mindframe, re-evaluating our values is indeed challenging, but if nonviolence combined with courageousness is our hope, I think we are on the right path.

By Christiana Nitisa

Photo credits:

Gaza, Elvert Barne, 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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