The Role Of Art In Resistance: Palestine, Pluralism And Existential Crises

I listen to a lot of Arab music, I made it a sort of personal project of mine to dig into it extensively. I am Arab but in truth, I've had a lot of very conflicting feelings about my natural identity for a long time. It took me a long time to get to a point where I not only felt comfortable accepting and expressing it but engaging with it in an artistic capacity.

For context, I grew up and as of time of writing continue to live in an uberconservative part of Algeria. I am queer, not a Muslim (though I have nothing against people who are) and am by nature of course very progressive. It is a rather hellish environment, one in which the most insane hateful delusional conspiratorial sentiments get passed around on the regular. Everything is a Jewish plot to destroy Arabs, the west is evil and our religion inherently makes us superior to all others, everything that isn't Muslim can be readily neglected because Allah won't be on their side on the day of judgement.

Now.. I don't subscribe to that mode of thought as I said and as will become rather evident soon. In truth, I don't entirely understand why the indoctrination never worked on me but I came out rather odd in comparison to all my peers. Not to toot my own horn as I'm rather incapable in a lot of ways (a lot of people where I live are somewhat forced into the real world far quicker than I was which I somewhat avoided by merit of being a bit academically overachieving) but I'm more media literate than most, and yet I was ignorant to the genuinely beautiful and profound history of Arab art.

Said ignorance was a bit willful in a sense. I was bitter, as a lot of ex-religious people tend to be, I had a definitional angry atheist phase where I thought religion was the root of all evil. I don't think in such reductive terms anymore but I don't blame myself for having thought that back then as the place I live in, if you don't conform to it's expectations, will turn you resentful through the extent of it's many rejections.

What has helped me especially in recent times heal from what a dear friend of mine referred to rather ingeniously as cultural dysphoria is exploring the rich musical history of the Arab world. What I've come to realise are a few things: for one, in the 20th century there arose a rich series of musical movements from different parts of the Arab world, all of which expressed their pride in their identity in different ways. So far, I've explored a lot of Lebanese music as that country seems to have a handle on art like no other, as well as things from my home country of Algeria.

Indelible is the mark of Palestine on the thematic undertones of a lot of this music. It is of course but one aspect as these artists were expressing their grief at the wartorn nature of the Arab world on the whole, a part of the world that seems perpetually cursed to revel in bloodlettings, conflicts arise because of conflicting interests by those who care not for the wishes of the common people, although often are the wishes of the common people not the best either as in the past 50 years the radical Islamist and uberconservative sentiments I described as surrounding me have become mainstream. Alas, it is not as though ignorance is a core part of the Arab experience but dealing with the ignorance of those around you very much is.

Mention Palestine around an Arab and you're likely to get a series of sentiments that are often extremely offensive in one way or another. It doesn't have to be that they're on their side either; the other day my sister-in-law expressed her dismay at a perceived Algerian backing of Palestine saying such things bring only trouble but in truth, I doubt the children being bombed particularly feel that Maghrebi love reaching them. On the other end, also common, perhaps more so, is the perception that everything wrong with the world is the result of a Zionist Jewish Freemason conspiracy to usurp the umma, and that is equally asinine and ridiculous. Anecdotally once more a friend of mine brought my attention to an obscure series on Youtube I found positively revolting because of the stupidity of the claims expressed, multiple episodes of which focus on alternative subculture and claim that emo and metal are working to depress young people and lead them down a path of depression and to make them drug addicts and commit suicide, moral panic 101. It led me to an interview which is stuck in my mind which thankfully our hilarious friends at Memri TV who actually translate things very well did just that for it.

I suppose I understand why someone would come to the conclusion that these are devil worshippers if they're only looking at them and not hearing what they're saying, the guy with the beard has a thing of shouting quite a lot and comes off extremely aggressive but what he's actually saying is absolutely true. In short, he says that metal is an artform full of depth, that he is experessing himself as he wants to and that the music is nuanced, in which is expressed the full breadth of the human experience, that the music can be politically insightful or philosophical or profound, and if you know anything about metal, you know this to be as true as anything.

The man in the suit is a knob but he comes off as more presentable, he doesn't have as much of an ogre look so he can get away with just saying horrid things. He says that he thinks metal is a moral and cultural abomination sent to Egypt and funded by Israel, a disease and rot at the core of their society, that the music is degenerate and the people who attend metal shows themselves are drug addicted promiscuous devil worshipping lunatics and the Israeli plotbr is to destroy the pure Islamic core of the Arab world so that they may control the world. The thing this obviously neglects is the very simple fact that both of the musicians they brought on are Muslims, though he snidely disregards that when they state it in very obvious terms in favor of keeping his bigotry in tact.

Truth be told, they could've obviously conducted themselves better, they're extremely confrontational but that's understandable if you know anything about the cultural backdrop of this as alternative subcultures aren't exactly widely accepted in the Arab world, and I would also get extremely annoyed if a seemingly presentable yet actually extremist asshole in a suit was condescending to me in such a manner. The reason I bring this all up is because the irony is that metal is often extremely political and that metal musicians tend to be more aware and willing to spread important messages through their music than most, and the aggressive, exciting manner in which they express that only works to enhance the messaging.

Music is universal and important sentiments can be expressed through all mediums but there's an unfortuante current of anti-intellectualism across the Arab world that leads to things like this. It's a shame