There is music in Gaza

 

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” 

Bob Marley

This is a summary of the most recent information I have received from The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Ramallah about continuing music progammes taking place in Gaza.

“Despite the ongoing systematic aggression and the genocide by the Israeli occupation against our people in Gaza, the Conservatory has continued its music programs, including instrument training, choral singing, and community music. These efforts persist despite frequent interruptions due to the escalation of war crimes against Gazans and the deteriorating security and humanitarian conditions, especially in Gaza City, Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun, where activities were temporarily suspended at various times in the past few months since the ceasefire was broken by Israel. In the central Gaza Strip, the Conservatory team continued instrument and choral teaching programs in cooperation with community and shelter centers at UNRWA schools in Al-Nuseirat and Mawasi Khan Younis. The program has successfully expanded to include three new centers in Deir Al-Balah. In northern Gaza, the team managed to resume music teaching and group singing, organizing recreational activities for children despite non-stop exceptional conditions marked by heavy bombing, systematic destruction, and mass displacement of people.”

https://mailchi.mp/ncm/ve63b3l1tf-13842057?e=971bc80a20

Gaza and the sprit of the International Brigades

 

Guy Smallman posted great photos after the London  half a million strong Palestine march on 17 May and wrote this:

“Huge numbers on the streets of London Saturday protesting 77 years of racism, apartheid & ethnic cleansing which has now inevitably spiralled into full blown genocide. A genocide that is being live streamed to our phones and TV screens on a minute by minute basis. A genocide that has now added systematic starvation to its ever-expanding list of crimes ...they organisers really need to start thinking outside of their comfort zone. Marching from A to B to listen to the same of speakers repeating themselves is not enough. If the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is going to remain fit for purpose then it needs to up its game. It needs to be calling for nationwide graffiti campaigns and national days of peaceful disruption at the very least. Otherwise it will go down in history as doing little more than managing peoples anger on behalf of the British state. In the meantime the rest of us can proactively support the likes of Palestine Action, Youth Demand & PYM Britain (to name a but a few) as they take action without asking permission from anyone.”

I agree with him and his photos are powerful visual evidence to the strength of public feeling for the victims of this genocide. Even my own more amateur photos from the demonstration have reached more of you than anything I have posted in the past.

In his excellent book ‘We Shall Pass’, about the British volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War, Clifford Thurlow tells the story of a Glaswegian, Robbie Gillan, who joined a hunger march to London and, after an altercatuon with the police, continued on to Spain where he joined the British Battalion in the fight against Franco and fascism. I have learned a lot about the international brigades gfrom his book and from my partner, Anne Aylor, who has been writing a historical novel set amongst the American volunteers. 

Am I alone in wondering where is the spirit of the International Brigades today? 23 years ago US citizen, Rachel Corrie, was brutally crushed by an IDF bulldozer when protesting as a member of the International Solidarity Movement. Ships attempting to carry aid into Gaza have been boarded, their crews murdered. Perhaps it is time to remember Robbie Gillan and Rachel Corrie, and at the very least, fix our attention and our marches on those who are engaging in direct action, whether it be attempting to ship in food to Gaza, obstrcting banks who fund the genocide  or occupying BAE arms factories.

The cellist of Sarajevo

 

On 6 May my friend, Elvis Ibragic, took me to visit Vijećnica, Sarajevo's City Hall and BiH National University Library. In 1992 the building was destroyed by mortar attacks from Serb forces and approximately 2 million books and a great number of its special collections and documents were consumed in the flames. 

Not long after, three grenades killed 26 people and wounded 108 while they were waiting for bread in Ferhadija street (Vaso Miskin). The spot is marked on the pavement by one of the Sarajevo 'roses' which have been engraved where these mortuary mortar shells landed. You have to take care to avoid walking on them.

Cellist Vedran Smajlović played in the destroyed Library and for 26 days played Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor in Ferhadija Street. I was pleased to see that  the library's museum has this montage photo of him playing in the ruins, with  a cello placed in front of it. 

When he arrived  in London I took him to perform the adagio at Watford Girls Grammar School and he helped War Child raise money for our music projects. 

You can listen to the adagio at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99f9RAvwu4

We often hear the refrain ‘Never Again’, but sadly there is too much' again'. Here is someone who might, right now, if still alive, be playing the adagio in Gaza