Stream of Fragments ~ From Genocide to Freedom and Hope
Sound of bombing is horrible—shades of skies—we say rest in peace so many times the words become birds fleeing from low to up high and beyond where everything is gone except of course God who watches blended soil fields of many kinds become graves become gardens become we don't want to be killed
She is a good singer—her voice carries synthesized recordings of urban core to remote rural underground places where we thought we would be shot dead but here we are breaking bread and new grounds with eclectic sound and visual compositions are not combinations of useless for humanity toys but prayers
For every one of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons there exists a universe of streaming pictures in our mind of our families back home—we looked at our phones and thought it was a joke how could I rather be no longer alive when we want to tell our stories through music viewing the art of songs as a powerful dedication to freedom
Evacuated again—and again we say it again and again that we love life even as the killing of little children is so confusing it scrambles language itself into fragments of hope scattered like breadcrumbs leading nowhere leading everywhere
Remaining committed to what? To music. To amplifying the voice of homelands that exist now only in throat-songs and memory-dances. You are our voice they tell her we want your voice to be alive even if you steal and destroy our homeland the songs persist like stubborn weeds in bombed concrete
Each next season comes and we're still confused about why this insane cruelty has to happen while in the north of this area many people haven't eaten for 2 weeks so we are lucky that we have food becomes a mantra becomes a guilt becomes a prayer becomes we will still sing our songs about human kindness
Amid devastation the voice rises—singing songs of resistance that draw global attention to a humanitarian crisis while our families want us to be in a good mood no matter what happens moving forward as if forward is a direction that exists when you're displaced
Parts of vibrant communities scatter like seeds—challenging traditional stereotypes about what it means to survive what it means to preserve what it means to ensure new cultural identities can be preserved and shared through the simple act of remaining alive
We saw what the bombing does to our neighborhood—transforms it into abstract art nobody wanted—but each time we got a new life like video game characters respawning in a nightmare level where the sound design is all wrong all bombs all the time
This is heartbreaking—also necessary to say also impossible to say properly—our enemy killed him becomes a fact becomes a wound becomes a song becomes how do we describe these feelings when language itself evacuates
To travel away from our homeland and leave family behind is the hardest thing of all—harder than the sound of bombs harder than starvation harder than watching phones for news that makes us think it's all a joke a terrible cosmic joke
Freedom—one word alone—suspended between everything lost and everything hoped for
And hope—another fragment—floating like dust motes in light streaming through bomb-damaged walls
Using music and dance to amplify means making the body itself a broadcasting tower sending signals across borders across time zones across the gulf between those who know and those who choose not to know
When you say goodbye you sort of joke around because in the back of our minds we think there will be a time soon when we will return but we haven't returned and it's so very hard to think about it so we don't think we sing we dance we fragment we remember we forget we remember again
Addressing the violence and political turmoil in all warzone territories becomes an impossible task so instead we focus on one voice one song one moment of human kindness preserved in amber made of sound waves
Our families want us to be strong even if our hearts are sad and they take our power away from us everyday—power leaking out like air from punctured lungs but still we breathe still we sing
There are no comforts emotionally and psychologically after we evacuated—comfort is a luxury item not available in this economy of survival—we will only be comfortable after we are joined again with our Families our friends our people
But here we are—four words that contain universes—we thought we would never be alive after each bombing but here we are using voices to make people here to around the world aware of this genocide
You still remember when they told us to leave our home—memory is a haunting is a blessing is a curse is the only home that can't be bombed
We thought it was going to end—past tense thoughts in present tense reality where ending is a concept that keeps receding like a horizon made of smoke
We are so proud of you for using your singing voice—pride blooms in rubble—for every one voice raised hundreds of thousands of displaced persons find a frequency to tune into find a reason to believe that stories matter that telling matters that mattering matters
It's so difficult to describe these feelings—difficulty multiplied by impossibility equals the necessity to try anyway through fragments through songs through the stubborn insistence that even broken things can carry meaning
Even if—the conditional that contains all conditionals—even if everything even if nothing even if even if even if
Our people—two words that mean everything when you're scattered—our people are wherever the songs are sung wherever the stories are told wherever memory refuses to evacuate even when bodies must
