We’ve followed musicians in Palestine for years. Now the situation is an emergency. Palestinians are facing forced starvation. There’s not much to add beyond this message from Ahmed Muin of Gaza Birds Singing: the music stops. Let food in now. Ahmed’s silence is a call to end our own.
Ahmed Muin is a music teacher (American School of Gaza, Edward Said Institute for Music), and I’ve followed him for some time; he also worked with music education projects we new from before October 7. If you read CDM religiously, he may be starting to feel familiar. This message is the most urgent we’ve gotten yet.
Transcribing the video:
This is a call for the world. We are really starving. Today we had activity; we stopped activity today because we are really starving. This madness has to end. I’m asking all the people of the world; I’m asking all the governments to stop this madness please.
We all of us here have the privilege to make music, to be fed. This is our extended family, all of us, that has gone silent because they’re too hungry to make music. That demands action.
Full statement:
This is a message to the whole world:
Today, we will not play music, we will not sing, and we will not hold any artistic activities.
We stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza—hungry, without bread, without flour, without hope.
Today, music is silent out of respect for the sound of hunger and the cry for dignity.
We are musicians—our mission is humanity, and today, our message is a scream.
Do not stop talking about Gaza.
Do not be silent. Be our voice. Stand with us.هذه رسالة إلى كل العالم:
اليوم لن نعزف، لن نغني، ولن نقيم نشاطات فنية.
نقف إلى جانب أهلنا في غزة الذين ينامون جائعين، بلا خبز، بلا طحين، بلا أمل.
الموسيقى اليوم صامتة احترامًا لصوت الجوع وصرخة الكرامة.
نحن موسيقيون، رسالتنا إنسانية، واليوم رسالتنا صرخة.
لا تتوقفوا عن الحديث عن غزة، لا تصمتوا.
كونوا صوتنا، قفوا معنا.
If it’s hard to grasp just how dire this situation is, Ahmed posted a video earlier today showing the odyssey of trying to buy anything edible at all. If you’re fortunate enough to locate something like a can of chopped tomatoes, it costs US$30.
This should also make it clear: fundraising isn’t enough. Fundraising isn’t even the problem. UNRWA has reported that it has enough food stockpiled to feed the entire population for months, but Israel, the United States, and partners must allow the food in. (That also means real community support and key infrastructure, rather than the violence of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.) From UNRWA earlier today:
The World Food Programme, in a statement earlier today, said that one in three Palestinians is skipping meals for days at a time. Gazan teacher Alaa Arafat has also written about this and the horror of watching her own family starve to death.
This is an avoidable problem, and it’s one created not only by the Israeli government but with the cooperation of the country I live in, Germany, and the country I was born in and where I hold citizenship, the USA. What can we do?
- Contact your elected officials. Tell them to demand that food be let in.
- Contact media and tell them to cover the story. (Most press has feedback forms; you can also write a letter to the editor.)
- Tell your friends and family. Spread the video above, especially to other folks in the music community.
Look at it this way: there’s greater power in getting ten people you know to do one thing than you trying to do just ten things yourself.
Thanks to Ahmed for sending this my way.
The music community is meaningless if we don’t assist our colleagues and their students. Synthesizers and everything else can wait for a bit.
Again, this is not a solution to the problem as food is being blocked, but you can also give to Ahmed’s GoFundMe:
Help Ahmed Muin & Gaza bird’s band in Gaza
You should do both. Give if you can, and also take action — particularly media action, as today a lot of this is not in the press at all or is hidden “below the fold” (paper metaphor, still relevant online).
This should be a message across the music community, too: we can’t only talk about fundraising or make some statements or show some symbols. We now need decision makers to hear us so that the blockade is lifted and food can get in, as a bare minimum of what has to happen.
Sunday actions — update
In an opposite gesture from the one Ahmed is making, the Gazan Health Ministry says it will sound all the enclave’s ambulence sirens tomorrow Sunday, an urgent piece of sound art. So if any readers here have any siren-related ideas, go for it.
Today’s action following yesterday’s silence is to tune for Gaza. Let’s hear some 432 Hz:
Image at top is from Anas Jamal Al Sharif. who reports for AJ Arabic and has been running this as a sort of ongoing red alert recently. The Committee to Protect Journalists has spoken in the defense of his work and expressed concern about his safety after smear campaigns against him.
WAWOG also has a list of resources and summarizes the current situation perfectly.
And an update on Friday July 25.
This is really what solidarity is about. Don’t give up; don’t stop the pressure.