Womadelaide 2010 LIVE!

Amal Murkus will be performing at Womadelaide 2010.

Amal Murkus is a Palestinian singer, actor and activist from Israel. She describes her music and songs as “reflecting Palestinian life dreams and issues”.

I spoke with her recently in the lead-up to WOMADelaide 2010. She started by explaining the political context for her music.

“There are different Palestinian realities. I belong to a huge number of Palestinian people – 1,250,000 – who did not leave their lands and their houses and their cities in 1948 when Israel became a state and when Palestine was occupied. So I have Israeli citizenship and I have an Israeli passport.

“My reality is different to that of my sisters and brothers who live in the occupied territories from ‘67 or in Gaza. If I was in Gaza, I couldn’t come to WOMADelaide. I wouldn’t be allowed to get out from Gaza or from Ramallah or Nablus. I’m supposed to be under siege there. But because I’m an Israeli citizen, I’m not under siege and I have more of an ability to move.

“It’s important to me that people know where I come from, so you can understand that there’s a Palestinian minority that still exists in our original land and villages. We still speak Arabic and have Palestinian culture. We also try to make some changes in the Israeli state, by voting for Palestinian members in the Israeli Parliament, and by being part of decisions – political and social – in Israel. I am also part of the Palestinian people who are in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and Palestinians who are refugees in Europe.”

Amal talked about the way in which she began singing, and what continues to define her choice of songs.

“Any artist in the world takes material from daily life, from the history of their people. For me, that’s from the poems of the Palestinians, from the stories of my grandfather and grandmother. When I began to sing, as a child, I chose to sing songs about refugees and about the land, about the dream of building a home, the dream of a white dove, a world of peace.

“I also sang the words of Joan Baez: ‘We Shall Overcome Someday’ or sang the Internationale – songs of all the poor people in the world, expressing solidarity and anger against discrimination and being killed in wars. I grew up as a child after the war in Vietnam. As a small child, I remember looking at photos of the victims of the Vietnam war – I cannot forget this photo of napalmed Vietnam victims. I stated to sing my first song as a lullaby: We Shall Overcome Someday.

“In my small village in Israel/Palestine I started to make connections between this and the suffering of my people – from the stories I heard from my father and mother about the destroyed villages. I knew that I had a relative in Lebanon who could not visit her village. I recognised that my land was conquered: the Government had taken it and I could not live in my land. I felt that my school didn’t have the same quality that Jewish schools near me had.

“I grew up with this feeling that my songs should reflect this life and these dreams.

“I am connected to the land, not only from a nationalistic position. I love nature, I love trees, I love everything that’s connected to seasons. So my songs manifest feelings and manifest agendas of the Palestinian people, but also manifest a lot of universal agendas of all the people of the world. When you love and I love, when you hate and I hate, and when you long for something … I don’t think we have different feelings. People all around the world love the same and we are the same.

“I don’t really want to put myself in a small circle of nationalistic feelings, but I am, as a singer, discriminated against because of my nationality. In my case, I choose that my songs always are part of the reality and choose not to ignore that reality.

“Even if I am singing about my grandmother or about my daughter, I feel that I am touched by the old Palestinian lyrics. I am also touched by modern Palestinian poetry. That is what moves my feelings, when I choose the lyrics.”

I had read that she was active within struggles against censorship, and so I was interested to ask Amal Murkus whether her songs were heard in Israel.

“I am not heard. Once I was heard more. After I released my first CD, the Israeli media was interested to talk to me, even asking the same questions that you’re asking, about the conflicts. After that, they stopped because they were afraid. When I said: ‘I am a Palestinian singer’, they were not happy about what I said. And when I said: ‘I am promoting Palestinian culture’ they were not happy with this. A lot of talk shows were afraid to invite me to talk about my songs; they were afraid to lose their audience, to lose ratings from the majority. I had a big struggle. I remember that I had an interview in the most important Israeli newspaper; I was talking as I am talking to you, without even trying to sell my CD, just expressing myself and my people’s feelings.  I think this immediately brought me censorship: not to be heard on the radio, not to be invited to any talk shows in Israel and not to be invited to concerts.”

Amal has been involved with a group called Free Muse – and was a member of its Board. This international organization brought together many artists (at a conference in Copenhagen) whose songs were banned, and plans to issue a CD of their music in the near future. Amal explains more about her own position in this regard.

“I am censored – not by police, and not by Government – but my songs are not being broadcast on Israeli radios at all (or maybe once a year if there is a war, if there is somebody attacking, or if they want a peace song, then they play my songs).

“Even with my last CD, called ‘Renaissance of Palestinian Traditional Music’, when I went to record companies to find a way to distribute the CDs in Israel, they said: ‘We’ll distribute it only – but without any promotion; we’re not going to help you in anything.’ They just wanted to take a commission for selling the CDs, but were not ready to promote the CD. They were afraid of the words: ‘Renaissance of Palestinian Traditional Music’.

“When a minority holds to their cultural identity and tries to always keep the flame of the culture alive, the majority is always afraid – not only in Israel!”

Issues of gender are important to Amal.

“I am a Palestinian woman, a Palestinian mother, Palestinian daughter of my father and mother. The importance of women? It’s the most important thing I think.

“Women are the victims of war, the victims of violence. When you live in a militant society, a lot of people have weapons. I’m not only talking about Palestine, but the Palestinian women who live under occupation are even more victims: they lose their husbands, they lose their children, their brothers. They struggle in their daily lives to keep a house, without water, without electricity, without food; they struggle to give love to their children. And sometimes some are killed by the army. All around the world, women are the victims – women and children I think.

“Palestinian women have a lot of things to struggle for. But I can also see a lot of passion of Palestinian women to study and to be academic. We have a huge number of academic Palestinian women who also lead a lot of important social projects.

“International Women’s Day is the best day we celebrate here – we love this day. It’s one of the days we celebrate in my village. Ah … Women have a long struggle to achieve what we dream about.”

Amal Murkus will be performing at Womadelaide 2010

Amal also talked about the strong roles of women in maintaining and carrying the culture forward.

“When I made my last CD, I sat down with more than ten women: grandmothers, my cousins. They were carrying the songs all down the years through weddings, lullabies, and also when somebody dies. There is a great thing that Darwish, our Palestinian poet says: ‘The longing of the Palestinian woman, the Palestinian mother, becomes a melody, a flute …’ I think that my music and my songs, the melodies that I sing, are the longing of the Palestinian women all through history – I feel them. I feel my grandmother across 100 years – I really feel it. I recognise that all the songs were created by women.

“There’s a lovely story that my mother in law told me when I asked her: ‘When were you singing?’ She said: ‘When the house was empty and I was alone, I started to sing.’ I asked her: ‘Why did you not sing when your husband, when the men are in the house?’ She said: ‘I didn’t want them to cry. The men must be strong. The women can cry and express the feelings.’ She told me: ‘When we sing a lullaby for a child, in the beginning we sing him a very happy melody and very happy lyrics: about presents, about chocolate, about nuts, about a camel that comes from the desert and brings him presents. And when this child falls asleep,’ my mother in law said, ‘I start to cry, I start to sing the sad melodies, about longing, that I miss my brother, that I miss my homeland, about losing my mother. I cry after the child is asleep.’

“So can you see that we also have in our genetic blood a lot of sadness, because our mothers, our grandmothers, faced a lot of difficulties. Palestine was occupied by Turkey, then the English imperial forces came and occupied Palestine, then the Israelis came here. So there was a lot of cultural change, a lot of societal and economic changes. The women (together with the men) were the people suffering these difficulties. All these difficulties, all these longings, even all the love that is manifest in my songs (you can find a lot of love in my lyrics) – women carried these all through history. These songs: I promote them in my concert.

Faced with these ‘difficulties’, Amal Murkus remains optimistic. I asked her how.

“First, my name is Amal: Amal means ‘hope’. They chose this name for me. I am a simple person; I am moved by very simple things: by the love of a child, by a flower that is blooming, by the moon; I’m moved by the sea. And I can see from these small things that we have on this earth, what makes life worth living.

“I think that my songs make the occupation and Governments afraid. These are things that give me a lot of hope. When I know that the majority is affected by my songs, when I know that armies are afraid of me as a singer, I’m very happy. This gives me a lot of hope, because I feel I have power, that I have an instrument that is named ‘culture’.”

Roger Holdsworth

This interview can be heard on the Global Village, PBS-FM 106.7 FM in Melbourne, on Sunday 21 February, 5-7 pm and also via the PBS website: www.pbsfm.org.au

You can also check out “Operation Respect” which Amal Murkus is involved in here: