..ARTS PAGE
‘AN UNFINISHED SONG
-A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE
OF VICTOR JARA’
The
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Thursday 11th
September 2003
An Evening Of Music, Poetry And
Song Featuring:
Cormac
Breathnach, Donal O’ Kelly, Michael D Higgins, Tomas
McSimoin, Joan Mc Dermot, Hada To Hada, Tommy Sands,
Jayro Gonzalez, Eric Fleming
Tickets Available At E25, E15
From The National Concert Hall,
01 417 0077 www.nch.ie
September
11th?
Apart
from the more recent events, 11th September
2003 is the 30th anniversary of the coup in
Chile which brought Pinochet to power.
How
does that relate to music?
During
the coup, one of Chile’s leading singer/songwriters,
Victor Jara, was brutally tortured and murdered. A
national hero, Victor Jara, sang and campaigned about
social justice and change.
What is happening in Ireland?
All over the world, events are
taking place to mark 11th September. In
Ireland, the Latin America Solidarity Centre (LASC) is
organizing a concert to mark the date, to celebrate the
life of Victor Jara and the power of collective cultural
expression. Proceeds of the event will support
LASC’s continuing work in campaigning solidarity,
education and culture, linking Latin America and Ireland.
For further
information contact the Latin America Solidarity Centre
on 01 676 0435/lasc@iol.ie, www.lasc.ie
WESTERN WRITERS’ CENTRE - IONAD SCRÍBHNEOIRÍ
CHAITLÍN MAUDE
CANAVAN
HOUSE,
NUNS
ISLAND,
GALWAY.
(091)
533595
writersgalway@eircom.net
About our courses
These are the current
courses. All courses will run again, call us for details.
Short
Story Writing: a course of eight evening
classes during which our tutor, Susan DuMars, will lead participants through every
aspect of short story writing, from getting started to
getting published. Participants will use the work of
short story greats such as Raymond Carver and Flannery
O’Connor, and contemporary practitioners such as
Edna O’Brien and Mike McCormack as a means of
examining various approaches to the short story. However,
helping participants to share and edit their own work
will be central to the course. Susan will also guide
participants towards the various publishing opportunities
for short story writers in Ireland and internationally. Fee:
€70 (€50 for unwaged)
Fiction Writing:
a course of six Saturday morning classes facilitated
by award winning fiction writer, Nuala Ní Chonchúir.
This course will cover the main aspects of fiction
writing including :TOOLS OF THE TRADE, INSPIRATION,
CHARACTERS, STRUCTURE & PLOT , STYLE, VIEWPOINT,
andSUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS. Participants will be given
exercises to do at home and there will be a chance for
criticism and appraisal of their own writing. Examples
will also be drawn from contemporary fiction writers such
as Anne Enright, Claire Keegan, Síofra O'Donovan etc.Fee:
€50(€40 for unwaged.)
Publishing
Your Poetry: a course of six evening classes during
which our tutor, Kevin Higgins, will lead participants
through every aspect of poetry publishing. He will focus
on participants’ own work and use his extensive
knowledge of the poetry world to guide them towards
possible publishing opportunities in Ireland, Britain and
the United States. He may suggest minor changes, to
participants’ work. If your otherwise brilliant poem
is being ruined by that dodgy second-last line, then he
will suggest cutting it out, as a magazine editor or
publisher might. However this is not a creative writing
course in the usual sense, more a course for those
who’ve already taken several such classes and now
have a bundle of poems gathering mould in the bottom
drawer.
Fee:
€70 (€50 for unwaged)
About our
library
We are building a modest library here at
Canavan House, consisting mostly of literary magazines
such as The Shop, Acumen (UK), Poetry Ireland Review,
Northwords (Scotland) and The Atlanta Review (USA). We
also have recent collections by Irish poets such as
Michael Hartnett, Eavan Boland, Richard Murphy, Vona
Groarke & Pearse Hutchinson. Members of the public
are welcome to borrow these.
Contact
Information: email: writersgalway@eircom.net
Tel: 00
- 353 - (0) 91-533595 (9 am - 5 pm)
Copyright © 2003 Western Writers. All rights reserved.
Paris
Shows Israeli Film On Anti-Palestinian Discrimination
By Hadi Yahmid, IOL
France Correspondent
PARIS, August 31
(IslamOnline.net) - Presenting his "August"
movie to the French audience Saturday, August 30, Israeli
filmmaker Avi Mograbi said it reflects the state of
despair and fear Israeli citizens are suffering as well
as the extent of anti-Arab Israeli discrimination.
He also told reporters
present that the documentary captures different scenes
from the everyday life of ordinary Israeli citizens after
the eruption of Al-Aqsa Intifada on September 28, 2000.
"August"
registers Israelis' reactions vis-à-vis several issues,
including the construction of the controversial wall
separating Israel and the West Bank, said Mograbi, a
supporter of a viable and independent Palestinian state.
The Israeli filmmaker
told reporters that Palestinian "suicide"
operations were turning the lives of Israelis into hell
and had created a security crisis inside the Israeli
society.
The movie documents the
daily lives of Israeli citizens and highlights a state of
turmoil that might trigger an all-out chaos across
Israel, he said, asserting that several scenes feature
the culture of hatred so much cherished by many Israelis.
In one such scene, the
documentary shows Mograbi with a crowd of Israelis who
cheer police as they viscously beat and arrest young
Arabs who had been throwing stones at them. His camera
veers between the beatings and the shocking support of
the crowd, who begins to turn on him. The police tell him
to shut his camera; that he is filming
"religious" provocation.
Another telling moment
comes when he films a group of Israelis donning
traditional Palestinian garb in Tel Aviv to protest for
Arab rights and equalityOne well-dressed woman looks on
in shock, saying, "Now, I feel discriminated against
because the Arabs came here."
The most disturbing
scene, however, comes at the feet of Israeli children in
Tel Aviv Heights, a particularly affluent part of Tel
Aviv.They flock to the camera, preening and goofing for
Mograbi while simultaneously spouting vile statements
against Palestinian Arabs."You just tell everyone
that the Arabs are going six feet under," one young
teenage girl casually tells the filmmaker.
Asked what the message
of his movie was, Mograbi told reporters all he wanted
was to present a portrait of Israeli citizens without
beautification. "This is who I am, this is
spontaneous. There’s no denying that Israel has been
practicing state terror for many years," he said in
earlier statements. http://www.islam-online.net/English/News
palestinian
artists in paris
http://www.ubu.com/historical/arabic/arabic03.html
(calligraphy-graphic
design)
- Hossein Zendouroudi
- un amoreux de
Palestine"
Nonviolence and art — life
emerging from the rubble
By Mohammad Daraghmeh, Jordan Times
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
IN APRIL 2001, six months after the start of the
Intifada, a group of Palestinian artists, poets and
writers began an initiative to revive the popular nature
of the Intifada. The group decided to organise a
different kind of march to the military checkpoint
between Ramallah and Jerusalem. It was a march restricted
to artists in which they carried the tools of their
trade: various musical instruments, paintings, books,
pens and pencils, and cameras.
The artists and intellectuals, about 500 total,
entered the military checkpoint from both sides. The
scene was weird and confusing for the soldiers, who were
used to other types of confrontation with the
Palestinians during the preceding six months. In the
middle of the confusion, groups of musicians, drummers,
and photographers entered the checkpoint from both sides,
merged together, and unleashed a wave of singing,
chanting and music.
Artist Walid Abdessalam, a prominent singer and
theatre producer who was at the forefront of those at the
checkpoint, describes the scene: “The soldiers were
totally confused facing us. We arrived carrying
instruments of music and art, not stones. We didn't set
fire to rubber tyres, we sang. They were so confused that
we managed to pass through their checkpoint.”
According to Abdessalam, the message carried by the
artists and intellectuals on that day was this: “All
sectors of our society can express their rejection of the
occupation in all possible non-violent forms, without
resorting to stones or weapons.”
Various other groups were started to carry out similar
activities after that demonstration, which reverberated
through the Palestinian media and was considered an
invitation for popular, comprehensive, nonviolent action
against the occupation. Doctors, nurses and those working
in the medical sector organised a demonstration demanding
the right of free movement to practise their profession,
followed by villagers, industrial workers, merchants, and
students. When the Israeli army overran Palestinian
cities the following year in April 2002, vicious
confrontations took place that claimed over 200
Palestinian lives within two weeks. Scores of houses were
demolished, as in the Jenin refugee camp where a whole
neighbourhood was totally obliterated. The idea of
popular nonviolent confrontation, which the artists had
put forth the year before, reappeared, but this time in a
different form.
A group emerged in Ramallah calling itself “The
Nucleus.” It started using art to urge people to
participate in nonviolent popular action, described by
the group's coordinator, Wafa'a Abdelrahman, as action
that expresses the Palestinians' love of life and
rejection of death. “Israeli tanks had devastated
our cities and organisations, many of us felt defeated,
but we wanted to work at preserving our internal
fabric,” said Wafaa.
The group, inspired by art and artists in all its
activities to date, started to gather at Al Manara Square
in the middle of Ramallah at 1pm every day — one
hour before the start of the curfew imposed at 2pm that
lasted until the next morning — to start singing.
During the first few days, the group's performance was
met with a great deal of criticism, indignation, and
cynicism. But before long, it turned into a popular
phenomenon for the audience, especially the youth. The
coordinator says: “On the first day, we were mocked
by the crowd; on the second, a few people joined in. On
the third, the number increased a bit, as it did on the
fourth, fifth, and so on. Then we found out that people
were gathering there ahead of us.”
Group activists and artists sang various songs that
glorify freedom and love, and that call for life.
“At the beginning, we changed the traditional
slogans chanted by demonstrators during marches, from
“We die, we die, so that Palestine lives” to
“We live, we live, so that Palestine lives,”
said Wafaa.
“We don't want to die, because our lives are
important to us, to our families, and to our country. We want to live, and if
everybody wants to die, as their slogans say, who will
eventually have Palestine?” she wonders.
This group, composed of a number of educated young men
and women in Ramallah, has tried to initiate popular
non-violent resistance in which as many people as
possible participate.
The group relies on local artists chanting poems and
songs they or other activists have written
—humanistic poems and songs that glorify life.
Art in Palestine has always been resolute in
confronting the occupation, and represents its
antithesis. Hence, songs glorifying freedom in the midst
of the occupation began to appear, promoting life against
death.
“In spite of all our suffering, art in Palestine
seeks to maintain human sanity, and this is clear from
the songs and plays now showing at the Kasbah theatre in
Ramallah and in other places,” says artist
Abdessalam. The impact of art activities has expanded
from Ramallah, considered the cultural centre of
Palestine, into other areas such as Gaza, Nablus, and
Bethlehem. According to Wafa'a, “Many people contact
us to ask about ideas they can implement in their
communities.”
“People want to survive and live, not die. We
discovered that the love and sanctity of life have
increased with the death and carnage. What politicians
say about all of us being potential martyrs is not true.
I do not want to die; neither do thousands of my
colleagues who share our activities, with their children
looking forward to life. Death is difficult, life is
better and prettier, and we have to cling to it until our
last breath.”
The group's activity encouraged the emergence of
broad-based popular nonviolent activities in a number of
cities and territories, such as banging on cooking pots,
lighting candles, flying kites and organising various
exhibitions, shows and marches, all of which have
recently become common in cities.
“Banging pots means that we cannot take it any
more; flying kites means our sky is free; dancing the
Dabkeh means stomping the floor in an expression of
rejection,” says Wafaa.
The writer is a Palestinian journalist and political
analyst. This article was contributed to The Jordan Times
by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
To listen, to speak,
and to respect the desires of the other
Without fear of the difference of race, gender, and
religion.
Fifty years of armed struggle, no winners, no losers.
Fifty years, marking the point of a new beginning
Is not worth one tear drop of a wounded child.
No one raises a sword to kill a friend.
We raise pen, pencils, brushes instead
And with colors design a common creation.
Inheritance
Acknowledgment, understanding, accepting the differences,
having the courage to mutually explain them is what we as
artists represent.
Pain, suspicion, and suffering which we have lived and
are still living is our children's inheritance.
Let them succeed in turning it into a new reality.
Peace'
orchestra TO make Arab debut
By Sebastian Usher
BBC Rabat correspondent
An orchestra made up of young Israeli and Arab
musicians is to play its first concert in an Arab country
shortly. The West-Eastern-Divan Orchestra will play a
programme of Mozart and Beethoven pieces in the Moroccan
capital, Rabat. The symbolism of Israelis and Arabs
playing music in harmony together has made some in Rabat
nervous about attending the concert in the city's
Mohammed V Theatre.
The orchestra was co-founded by the
renowned Israeli conductor and pianist, Daniel Barenboim,
and the leading Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said.
The Moroccan king is one of the main
financial sponsors of the orchestra and the concert is an
opportunity to refurbish his country's image as a
conciliatory force in the Middle East.
Some 80 musicians play in the
West-Eastern-Divan Orchestra, their ages ranging from 13
to 26. About half are drawn from Israel and half from
countries around the Arab world.
For the past five years, they have been
attending summer workshops given by Mr Barenboim in the
Spanish city of Seville, itself once a meeting-point of
Western and Islamic culture. The musicians say the
experience has helped them re-imagine those they have
been used to seeing as enemies as colleagues and friends.
Both Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said
say the point of the orchestra is to set an example of
constructive coexistence between Arabs and Israelis. A
concert he gave last year in the Palestinian town of
Ramallah was fiercely condemned by Israelis opposed to
the peace process.
Occupation
is ‘Cancer Tumor of Israeli Society’, Says
Jewish Star Pianist
"The
settlements must go"
Aug. 03,
2003
Der Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/0,1518,259721,00.html
World-renowned
Jewish conductor and star pianist, Daniel Barenboim
called for an end to the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories, describing it as “cancer
tumor of Israeli society.”
Barenboim,
who is a Jew of Argentine-origin, said, “We have no
right to be an occupation power, no nation has this
right.”
“We
don't have to build a wall but have to build
bridges,” the famous musician, a vocal critic of the
Jewish state, added in reference to the Apartheid Wall
Israel is building on the occupied Palestinian West Bank
to separate Palestinians from Israelis.
Barenboim
is also the music director of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra as well as the Berlin State Opera.
The
famous musician visited the West Bank city of Ramallah on
Saturday. He told reporters that Israel’s future
depends on the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
The
Israeli pianist gave a concert for Palestinians in
Ramallah playing on a Steinway Grand Piano in a school
hall in Ramallah. Barenboim launched into
Beethoven’s “Pathetique Sonata”.
He said
he hopes beautiful music can stir emotions other than
anger and hatred.
“I
firmly believe that for the continuation of the
development of the Jewish people and the state of Israel,
it is imperative that a just solution is found for
Palestinian independence,” Barenboim added.
“The
future of Israel, in whatever form or shape it develops,
it is totally dependent on that,” he stressed.
In March
2002 he canceled a planned master class for Palestinian
students after the Israeli occupation army refused to
grant him permission for a visit. He eventually traveled
to Ramallah with a German diplomatic escort and played
the concert last September.
“I
am sure that there are people in the Israeli government
that are not happy about my being here,” he said
Saturday. “But then, I am not happy about many
things that they do, so it's all right.”
Since
the early 1990s, he and Palestinian academic Edward Said
have run a summer workshop for young musicians from
Israel and Arab countries in places like Germany, the
United States and Spain.
Barenboim
said the workshop’s goal “is simply to fight
ignorance and allow contact so that they learn to know
the other. Whether they like the other or not is their
own private business.” “The time has come now
not to build walls but to build bridges,” he added.
During
Saturday’s visit, which came at the invitation of
the National Conservatory of Music at Birzeit University,
Barenboim announced plans for a Palestinian youth
orchestra and a new music program for two Palestinian
schools.
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