Concert Co Exist

an article by Joanne Tawfilis

I was transfixed as I watched a trio of musicians playing and singing a combination of Arab and Israeli songs together. Large screens flanked both sides of the stage where images of people caught up in war scenes were providing commentary.

A young Lebanese man and university classmates who had come together to fund raise for Lebanese and Israeli victims of war organized the concert. The group had even managed to organize and institutionalize a UNA Student Alliance at the University of California San Diego and together, worked many weeks to produce Concert Co Exist.

Rabeh became motivated during a “Semester Abroad” in Greece when he find himself among the students gathered there which included colleagues from the Balkans and Middle East, including Lebanese and Israeli’s.

As Rabeh tells it, the first few nights and days were simple torture as both groups of students were frenetic and shaken, distanced from their homes and loved ones. The arguments were passionately angry and fueled by the incessant press that continued to broadcast play-by-play activities from their views that only made students more worried.

But as Rabeh also tells it—throughout those nights and days, a transformation took hold that bound them all together when dialogue led to the discovery that none of them had a basis for a personal hatred toward one another and instead found they had more in common than they had differences. Thus, their commitment to make the Red Cross in Lebanon and in Israel the beneficiaries of aid to victims of war. Once again an art form proved that global harmony could exist with youth reaching out to one another during what we all had hoped was the Decade for the Culture of Peace and Non Violence Among Children of the World.

DISCUSSION

Question(s) related to this article:

What place does music have in the peace movement?,

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LATEST READER COMMENT:

(See below for English translation)

Nuestra investigación sobre la Musicoterapia Comunitaria se ha desarrollando a  partir del inquietud siguiente.

“La violencia social es frecuentemente la expresión de la insatisfacción experimentada por un sector de la población que se ve privado del derecho de formar parte de esa sociedad y cultura del bienestar a la que tienen derecho” (Petrus, A. 1997)

Vivimos en un momento de instabilidad política, económica y social. La violencia y los conflictos son las consecuencias de tal instabilidad.

Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, hemos sufridos más de 150 conflictos armados, la mayoría de los cuales se han desarrollados en los países más pobres. A lo largo de esto siglo han muerto más de 110 millones de personas a causa de guerras injustificadas y sin sentido, en que el 90% de las víctimas son civiles, en particular mujeres y niños.

Y a parte de la violencia directa hay otros tipos de violencias cotidianas: una violencia estructural que incluye hambre, analfabetismo, discriminación de las mujeres, racismo, precariedad, etc.

En nuestro mundo nos recuerdan que “si quieres la paz, prepárate para la guerra”.  

Pero, son siempre más las personas que están rebelándose a esta realidad.

El interés en esta área está ligado a una búsqueda constante de encontrar una solución real para resolver tal situación. El mundo necesita de paz y una sociedad más justa. No se debería aceptar y contemplar el dolor y el sufrimiento de personas inocentes, cuando el mundo está gritando desesperadamente su necesitad de paz.

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Our investigations about Community Music Therapy has developed out of the following concerns.

“Social violence is frequently the expression of the dissatisfaction of a sector of the population that is itself deprived of the benefits of that society and its culture of well-being for which they have right” (Petrus, A. 1997)

We live in a time of political, economic and social instability with violence and conflicts as a consequence. . ...more.

This report was posted on February 8, 2007.

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