Marcel Khalifes speech at the 2014 Harvard Arab Weekend, Boston, USA. Produced by Zarah magazine. What should I write today? Why did I accept your generous invitation? I don’t know how this surrender happened! Perhaps it’s because nobody can refuse a request made out of love. The moment I started to write this, I found myself not knowing how to write it. I tore up several attempts before I came up with these words. In any case, I’m not very comfortable now, infringing on the silence. What I didn’t write is the only thing that deserves to be written; what I didn’t say is the only thing that deserves to be said. I feel, with this writing which has been imposed upon me by this lovely occasion, that I embody a certain amount of honesty, and that this is what has brought me to you. My friends, hello and welcome. Music … perhaps music is what protects us from the pessimistic inclinations that seep into and boil in our hearts. Music is an idealistic optimism that refuses to surrender. Optimism — or faith, rather — even in a world of disbelief. Faith in overcoming weakness, obstacles, problems, tragedies, even death. We cope, shining with hope and the power of resurrection, but our wounds are so deep they refuse to heal, wounds that scream out our oppression and our rebellion, to the point of revolting against man and God together. The hope of change, a change in humanity and the world, and faith in changing life into beauty and happiness. Disappointment in this world, disappointment in this reality .. we are living in a holocaust, consuming one another. Where are the heavens? Good and evil, right and wrong, reward and punishment. All this and more boils up from the deep, screaming in anger and disbelief. Kindness has been defeated, and love was pushed away. Wickedness sheathed the sword of its glory, from the peak of summits to the pits of hell, and the mocking angel of crime has dominated to the ends of the earth. Who can believe that the weak is being beaten for his mistakes, when his mistakes are virtues, compared to the sins of his oppressor? Isn’t he being punished because he is innocent, not because he is guilty? Doesn’t he lose and fail because he is kind and loving, instead of being wicked and hateful? Isn’t he killed because he does not kill? Isn’t he a victim because he refuses to be a victimizer? As for God, I am not sure whether I should suffer from his impotence or from his power, or if I was driven mad in reality by his absence. How far will the mocking angel of crimes go, by way of his prophets and supporters, be they countries or institutions? Everything has collapsed at the hands of the snipers of history, those who stole everything and appointed their clients to steal and distort everything from God to Satan. The solution … We should revolt against ourselves and declare our own war inside ourselves, our minds, and our heritage — otherwise nothing will happen. Let us aspire to the impossible, because it alone is as big as the despair between music, poetry, and love; between prayers and disbelief. With our feet we will overcome our contemptuousness because the star that is in the sky is itself the star in the heart, because the moon in the sky is itself the moon in the heart, because the whiteness in nature is the color of our purity. The great disappointment that the great revolutions left behind is exploding into undignified wars that diminish both revolution and dreams. We are still awaiting the birth of a new humanity that will take us to a place of peace and happiness. It is important to keep our ability to see in the darkness and that, whatever happens, there must be voices still raised, joining our hands in the darkness and saying: don’t be afraid. We will continue, as long as we continue creating; love of beauty is alone stronger than anger and injustice. And yet we still hope to see someone behind the high wall, if we can climb it; we hope to see someone waiting to welcome us when we cross over, to give us another form of life. My friends … I hide some of my remaining dreams and continue play ... music ... singing. Whenever I lost a dream another dream has carried me. This is what illuminates me, this flame that does not die; it is the promise that refuses to be broken. It is an intuition that believes in the existence of another reality, that carries all the love from this horrific, disgusting reality. It is certitude stronger than faith, a certitude that this hostile world cannot be faced but with the overwhelming power of imagination, with the pride of righteous refusal, and with a feeling that penetrates the earth and the sky. A feeling that doesn’t know absence, a feeling that what we have hoped for, deep down in our crazy hearts, will be what comes true. A better world here on earth where art and thought dwell, a world of beauty and desire under the roof of dreams and imagination and in the air of freedom. Freedom, that candle which storms have not put out but rather have made its flame stronger. Freedom is the reason I was able to come to you from far away and talk to you from this podium. Everything has collapsed, but I am still able to find refuge in a corner of my heart that keeps me together and allows me to gaze at my dreams. Everything or nothing is the motto of the life that I have lived... like any lover, dreaming impatiently, without any weapon but a strong desire for freedom. And another desire that is no less important: The desire to be drunk with creativity, with what infuses a new lasting soul in the fire of desire. That is the incense that keeps me alive and feeling loved. The biggest victory over despair is this lustrous longing deep inside my despair. Under this flood of heated longing I feel overwhelmed by happiness. Heaven and hell dwell in our hearts at the same time, a storm of life, penetrated by promise, like lightning penetrating the darkness of night. My friends ... Music has been my partner through life. I live it daily and am absorbed by it every second. It is a beautiful dream that gives my life a special meaning and a unique pleasure. I have lived through wars, large and small ... migration ... exile … And always music has protected me and given me the power of resistance and hope, so that I was never defeated on the inside. It is true that we lost in politics but as far as I am concerned music protected me from collapsing or defeat. Through all these years, I have never felt the physical time that is running out inside my cells. Because of this, I didn’t make good judgements as the father of two boys, growing up in front me. And then I didn’t understand how to accept the idea of being a “grandfather,” even while being amazed by the three grandchildren that were growing up day after day, faraway. All this has happened, as if it were happening to someone else, a person that I watch with slight attention. And despite the difficult circumstances that I have lived through and under whose weight my body was crushed, even that has not compelled me to admit to my years, which have reached 60 very quickly. With this philosophy of music and life, I furnished the details of my life and found refuge in myth. Myth here is not in the sense of magical fairy tales. It is rather the in the sense of the creativity that makes life possible, that — despite everything — makes it new and beautiful and worth living. And yet we must consider something important: All this is happening spontaneously, outside of the techniques of the brain and the geometry of logic. I made all of that and it was as if I was doing something else. This is the pleasure of creativity and, like any artist, I was never an employee in any project, never an employee of anyone at all. The artist plays and fools around with the things of the universe, as you can imagine gods when they play. Music creates roles; it doesn’t submit itself to any job and it doesn’t have faith in any mission, nor does it have a physical method like other created things. This is exactly what perplexes many artificial maps, designed by guides who do not know how to get to music with the tools that they have. I feel my real freedom — lost under innumerable authorities— in music, in composition, in writing. In that moment I will be free to liberate the mirrors, opening up the horizons of vision, overwhelmed by the intimate calmness of being isolated from the world. Here is where the incomparable beautiful solitude shows itself, and it is not wise to squander its generosity to us. If I happened to write new and beautiful music, then that is a blessing of ideas bestowed upon us. I have tried to write what others forgot to write, or neglected. Before the human imagination, there are no taboos that can make the human being subordinate. The artist is also the master of anxiety and the manager of deep dialogue between beings. If there is a common thread that runs through all my work, I would hope that it is the love, freedom and beauty that deeply penetrates me in both life and art. Love, freedom and beauty are the essential components of what preoccupies my life, without pretending that I was always right … or successful ... or wrong. I trust only one thing and that is that my work makes me feel like I exist. When I was a small child in the village school, I had an obsession to change the entire universe by art. The change might start from the baggy school uniform and reach all the way out to the galaxy. I think that this desire is well-known and justifiable among artists. I recall that I listened to and was passionate about any piece of music, Arab or western, that I could put my hands on. More importantly, I would like to say that I am still learning from many musicians today, and this fact gives me a mysterious energy to sense the translucent specter that we call “the future”. Today, without the experiments of young musicians, I wouldn’t have been able to write my own new works. The audacity of youth is what makes old wine taste fresh, and makes it able to diffuse through our souls. Now, when I contemplate my artistic relationship with the world, I feel assured that working hard until very late at night, improving my work with honesty, love and beauty has given me an incomparable blessing: amazing friendship with innumerable creations, whether people or works. I will confess that can’t feel life in all its details, without it being weighed on the scale of music. I have the sense that there is music controlling the universe. Whenever we’re able to discover the secrets of this law, we can then say that our joy in life is close at hand. One of the beauties of this world is that it is one day in a vast universe of music. How can we live a life empty of music? Discovering the secret of music in our life can enrich human behavior in different fields of life. Actually, I believe that the person who has musical sensitivity (as a witness of human nature), is able more than other people to make his relationship with life and the universe very transparent, fine and poetic. In this way, he has the power of a being of unbearable lightness, because of his strong connection with spiritual beauty. Without this musical sensation — which can sometimes reach the level of intense passion— I can’t work, sleep, dream or write. All of life, in my opinion, is a kind of music. Marcel Khalife Translated from the Arabic by Karen McNeil & Miled Faiza — with Miled Faiza and Marcel Michel Khalife.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:54:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015