Music fills streets of Iraq’s Mosul

This news has been read 10009 times!

Jamaica seeks world heritage status for reggae

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov 21, (AFP): For centuries, it was a magnet for artists across the region and churned out Iraq’s best musicians – but recent years saw Mosul suffer a devastating musical purge.

For three years until last summer, the sprawling northern city was under the brutal rule of the Islamic State group.

In imposing a city-wide ban on playing or even listening to music, the jihadists smashed and torched instruments.

“It was impossible to bring my instrument with me whenever I left the house,” said city resident Fadel al-Badri, who hid his precious violin from the rampaging fighters.

Foreshadowing IS’ repression, the 2000s saw al-Qaeda and other groups impose an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam in several districts of the city.

But with Mosul freed from the grip of IS in July 2017, Iraq’s second city is embarking on a musical comeback.

“After the liberation, songs are back where they truly belong in Mosul,” said Badri, welcoming the return of evening celebrations and festivals.

The 45-year old violinist now has the pleasure of playing in public once more to an audience that claps hands and sings along to traditional local tunes.

Mosul has a rich musical history.

It is the home city of Ziryab, a musician who introduced the oud – the oriental lute popular across the Arab world – to Europe in the 9th century.

One of its more recent musical prodigies is Kazem al-Saher, the Iraqi crooner-turned-talent judge known around the region.

The city even has its own special genre of Arabic ballads, recognized across Iraq and beyond.

From folkloric shows and philharmonic concerts to weddings and other national holidays, song and dance have traditionally filled the streets and surrounding air.

But that meant nothing to IS, which ravaged Mosul’s heritage – musical and otherwise – when it took the city as part of a lightning offensive across Iraq in 2014.

The jihadists began by destroying the statue of celebrated ballad virtuoso Mulla Uthman al-Mosuli, and then turned their attention to destroying instruments across the city.

Pledge

IS also forced musicians in Mosul to sign a pledge that they would never play or sing again, which was then posted in public places like mosques.

Singer Ahmed al-Saher, 33, said it was humiliating.

“I couldn’t leave Mosul after they made me sign because of my sick mother. I had to stay here under all that pressure and fear of the unknown,” he recalled.

Ordinary residents, as well as musicians, are keen to celebrate the return of artistic freedom.

“Terrorism failed in killing Mosulites’ love for art in all forms. It’s been born again, despite the destruction,” said Amneh al-Hayyali.  The 38-year-old brought her husband, son, and daughter to watch a late-night concert in a cultural centre in east Mosul.

“Today, after the dark era of beheadings, lashings, beards and veils being imposed on us… we sing,” she said.

But bringing Mosul’s artistic scene back to its former heyday will not be easy.

Tahsin Haddad, who heads the local artists’ syndicate, said he is keen to support public arts across the province.

“But we are in huge need of support from the central government in Baghdad, especially because Mosul currently has no stages, movie theatres, or art spaces,” he told AFP.

Without these venues, artists play in local cafes and public squares.

Celebrated Iraqi musician Karim Wasfi recently performed in a Mosul park where IS once infamously trained its child soldiers. Earlier this month, Iraqi artists from around the country swarmed to the city for a cultural festival at Mosul University.

Also:

PARIS: Jamaica is bidding to have reggae music admitted to a list of global cultural treasures worthy of protection, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO announced on Tuesday.

Paris-based UNESCO keeps a list of so-called “intangible heritage” found around the globe, which groups together traditional cultural practices such as horse games in central Asia to pizza-making in Naples.

Jamaica has asked for reggae to be added this year at a meeting of the UN agency on the island of Mauritius, where 40 proposals are set to be considered from Nov 26 to Dec 1.

So far, 399 examples of world heritage including dances, food-making practices, boat-building, games, festivals and even coaxing rituals for camels in Mongolia have been added.

A successful application is largely symbolic, but can serve to raise the profile of the country and the practice.

Other applications this year have been filed for the Irish game of hurling, the making of perfume in the French town of Grasse, and traditional wrestling in South Korea known as Ssireum.

Reggae emerged in the late 1960s in Jamaica and quickly become a global phenomenon thanks to singers such as Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff and the famed producer Lee “Scratch” Perry.

The music, with its heavy bass lines and drums, has influenced countless artists since and spawned new sounds such as dub.

This news has been read 10009 times!