Women in Middle Eastern Music, Part Six: Morocco, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Beyond.

I will be traveling for the next several days. I am taking a pilgrimage to Boston, Seneca Falls, the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House, and the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester. To celebrate Independence Day, and bring my oldest son back from Harvard.

I have decided NOT to take a computer. As I really do need a break from the politics of the hour. So, this is my final blog entry for a while. Thus ends my series on the Women of Middle Eastern Music. When I return I will probably do a series on Unitarian Universalist Feminists, here in the U.S. During the "First Wave." (Cady-Stanton and Anthony would happen to be two of them.)

This series that I am completing now leaves me saddened. Alas, it appears that the influence of radical Islam is making life very difficult for woman musicians in a variety of countries. The crackdown seems to be deepening and spreading. Many professional female performers find themselves in exile ... in places like France or Norway. Either that or dead.

But what of the millions of women who just want to sing for their own sake? To teach their daughters lullabyes, or celebrate a wedding with a rousing Miserlou?

I was able to find this little bit of encouraging news from Morocco:

During an era of galloping globalization where cultural distinctions and nuances are flattened out, the Beyond Harmony project seeks to dispel the ubiquitous stereotype of oppressed, infantilized Muslim women who are constrained from contributing to society. Women like Rahuoum El-Bekkali have become international musical heroines, proving that musical and poetic expression can be a truly empowering female experience. Not only do these songs depict religious poems, invocations and popular songs, but they shed light onto important cultural traditions that have been passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. With each successive generation these incredible women strengthen their identity as women, Moroccans, and Muslims.

But was immediately returned to some disappointing news out of Nigeria:

A lower Shari'ah Court in Shira Local Government Area of Bauchi State has sentenced a 34 year old female singer, Talatu Mai-Gurmi, to two months imprisonment or N5,000 fine for staging a traditional musical concert.

and

I should add that if the sharia enforcers are going to try to suppress music in Nigeria they have their work cut out for them: even the Wikipedia article is enough to indicate that the peoples of Nigeria, both the Islamised tribes and the non-Muslims, have an enormous, rich, deeply-rooted and endlessly mutating musical practice and tradition.

The situation in Afghanistan appears tenuous at best:

Music is opening a new world to 18 Afghan girls and young women enrolled in a cultural program in northern Afghanistan. The United Nations, which is helping to implement the program, says it is aimed at strengthening the voice of women in society. But conservative Islamic clerics in Mazar-e Sharif say the Koran forbids women from singing or learning to play musical instruments.

There are many other stories. And I am sure there will be more. For now, though, I want to end my journey into the world of middle eastern music by thanking all of the women who put their lives on the line, daily, so that we may all be enriched.

Peace,

SYD

Honorcide of Pakistani Singer, Ayman Udas: Part Five of My Dedication to the Women of Mid-East Music

I love the music of the middle east. The hypnotic drum rhythms. The sultry voices. They bring out the dreamer in me, provide a perfect escape, and allow me to avoid disturbing images and thoughts if things political.

I don't actually belly dance any more. I never did belly dance well. But the music has stayed with me, after my childbearing years are long over, when I learned how to dance for the sake of easier labors.

Middle eastern music ONCE did those things for me: It helped me dream. It made me dance. It eased my transition to motherhood. But, I guess I have to come clean and admit that, loving the music of Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, and Egypt had also lulled me into a kind of complacency.

How can something so beautiful be performed by women who are risking their lives to share it with me? It's incomprehensible. It's reprehensible. It's impossible!!

Isn't it?

When I decided to embark upon my current blogging journey, I simply wanted to escape from politics. I thought that by honoring the women who perform the music I love I could delve more deeply into something I enjoy, escape from all the Obotian illogistics, and maybe educate a few interested souls along the way.

I had no idea. Really. I just did not know. How bad things are.

As I've journeyed more deeply,though, I've been awakened to the reality that there is a reason we don't hear many women's voices celebrating this beautiful art form. That reason is not, as I had previously believed, simple discrimination. It goes beyond the kind of sexism that Meryl Streep complained about. (Not that I am downplaying Meryl's accusations about the nature of sexism in Hollywood.) The fact is, in many Islamic territories, women can be killed for singing. It's that simple. They are forbidden to do it.

Take, for example, Ayman Udas,

"shot dead by her own brothers in the conservative city of Peshawar in Pakistan after she had appeared on television.

The murder of Ayman Udas, who was in her early thirties and newly married, has shocked the city’s artistic community because it symbolises a backlash against women and cultural freedom in an area that is increasingly dominated by Islamic funda-mentalists.

She won considerable acclaim for her songs but had become a musician in the face of bitter opposition from her family, who believed it was sinful for a woman to perform on television.

Ashamed of her growing popularity her two brothers are reported to have entered her flat last week while her husband was out and fired three bullets into her chest. Neither has been caught."

This happened just a couple of months ago. Where was the media coverage? Did many of us even know about her murder? And why not??

"So far (we are told) there has been no outcry by Music Industry moguls, Hollywood Actors, or any other popular Entertainment industry figures in the UK or the United States, over her slaying. Similarly, Free Speech advocates and liberal Human Rights groups in the West have been silent on the murder."

As a feminist, I grow increasingly restless about this kind of casual disregard of a woman's life. And the subsequent cover ups.... that have something to do with our own fear of speaking out. We have been taught that, as good little Third Wavers we must stand up for the rights of all minorities. Including those in which men are allowed, nay encouraged, to murder their wives and sisters in the most brutal of fashions.

If I cannot speak out against this kind of barbarism, that makes me ashamed to be a "Feminist."

In fact, it makes me wonder what the fuck "Feminism" stands for??

SYD

A Muslim Woman Speaks Out About Her Right to Choose (Dedication to the Women of Mid-East Music, Part 4: Deeyah of Pakistan)

This is really eye opening. A first hand account of what it is like to be a Muslim woman who is also a successful pop performer. Her name is Deeyah:



I predict that if the N.O.W. can embrace and defend THIS form of "Choice" it will find a whole new life, and an influx of members. Which it apparently, desperately needs.

BTW, Interesting decision in a Michigan court: no masks while testifying.

Oh, and one other thing... in the face of such dangerous and overwhelming oppression in the world .... can we now cut with the faux charges of racism in the U.S.? (Please note, I am not suggesting that there is never real racism in the U.S. There is. But geesh, gimme a break fellas. We are being "racist" in our reporting on Michael Jackson's death?)

SYD

My Dedication to the Women of Middle Eastern Music, Part Two: Raquy of Israel

To say that this young woman has broken barriers in Middle Eastern Music would be gross understatement. Raquy Danziger is a prodigy that has thrilled listeners in the Mid-East, and in the U.S. A professional doumbek player in a world that is, not only male dominated ... but male defined and controlled. In that universe, some women dance. And a few play the tambourine. But, as a rule, women don't drum. Period.

The first time I ever heard of Raquy, someone sent me this youtube of her playing in the Egyptian style ... with Said Al Artist. (Note, the stage is full of his students, all men.)



When I saw Raquy LIVE, her music was somewhat Americanized (thanks to her band called the "Cavemen.") She sounded like this:



And she taught like this:



Over the past couple of years I had lost track of Raquy's studies and exploits... so I did another youtube search and found that she had been studying in Istanbul. Her latest teacher, Binyamin, appears to have been working her to death. She gives him credit in this new video:



One can only imagine what it must take for an Israeli-American women to earn the respect of the men who drum professionally in Egypt and Turkey. Quite frankly, it appears an anomaly that they will even teach her. Knowing that she could well surpass their level of skill must make that doubly daunting. In that sense, Raquy is more than remarkable. She has accomplished a bonafide Feminist feat!

Breaking the glass ceiling of middle eastern music? Ha! This young woman has rocketed through the ceiling and resides on another planet. If you ever get a chance to see her perform, I highly recommend that you do!

SYD

Disclaimer: SYD admits that she knows a thing or two about mid-east drumming. Her DH is a doumbek player with apparent bloodlines from Moroccan influenced France. The opinion that Raquy has accomplished a Feminist feat is based upon SYD's first hand impressions and experiences. It may have no basis in Egyptian or Turkish historical reality. If you are curious, take a look at the drumming coming out of those two countries... and decide for yourself just what a novelty a female, master doumbek player is. (Enjoy the drumming too! It is fantastique!!)

My Own Dedication to the Women of Middle Eastern Music , Part One: Nazanin of Iran

1) Politics have been burning me out, of late. Leaving me bereft in a sea of hopelessness.

2) Remembering Michael Jackson has reminded me just how much my own soul craves the liberation of powerful music.

3) I have been deeply disturbed by the images I see coming out of Iran.

Sooooo......

Percolating these three facts, I've decided that I need a week of liberation. The kind only music can bring.

This week's blogging is dedicated to women artists from the middle east.... beginning with Nazanin's "Someday."



I hope you find this Iranian Woman's music as inspiring as I do!

SYD