TOMORROW we host Poland, or more specifically Frédéric François Chopin, the composer who carried Her spirit to a Paris exile where he died aged 39 in 1849. More Polish than Poland wrote his companion and French author George Sande of the musical genius who combined a gentleness of spirit with notes so powerful that Tsarist Russia banned their public performance and Nazi Germany outlawed them altogether. Cannons hidden among blossoms, said Robert Schuman in describing Chopin’s work.

Yet, can anyone imagine the agony of that tortured heart as it carried, through one long night of loss, the soul of a nation with no other place to be than in the B and C minors of his genius?
Of course we can.
I remember another long night, not of exile but one of occupation
September 2, 1990

The uniforms were Iraqi then, not Tsarist Russia.
Word had been passed in whispers that one month after the Iraqi invasion, Kuwaitis would gather on rooftops with a cry of defiance.
The Iraqis had heard of it, and as dusk fell, increased their patrols.
Just before midnight, a group of dishdashad men moved to the edge of the roof on a building directly across from where I had been in hiding. One raised a flashlight above his head, then waved it in broad sweeps from side to side.

I heard footsteps above me, and then voices from the top of the building next door.
The signal had been given.
The battle had been joined.
With a cry that touched the depth of soul, one lone voice cried out in anguish the call that has echoed over centuries from the many battlefields that have tested their faith … “Allaah O Akbar’ — God is Great.
It pierced the fearful silence of night and the hearts of all who heard it, lingering briefly on the wind until it caused the flesh to rise.
The call was quickly answered in a chorus of voices from a building nearby, then by another and another again from far away.

Soon the night erupted as women and children threw open their windows to raise the call Allah O Akbar … Allah O Akbar  over and over again.
The Iraqis answered firing live rounds and tracers into the night.
But the voices kept on in a rising crescendo of defiance that echoes still.
Music transcends time as well as culture.

Here is there.
Then is now.
The spirit of Poland joins that of Kuwait in loss and victory. Some will claim allegiance to the keyboard. Others will sit with the strings. But we can join in the symphony of life and welcome Chopin … this oh … so ‘Kuwaiti’ composer.