Friday’s Evening

Singers in the Arab Idols program on MBC channel are creating a different reality for us. They are passing on a happiness which allows us to escape the Middle East – at least for a moment. In the two hours that the program is running, these songs give as a break from the reality, which the news tells us about each and every day. We are sick of violence and politics, of the lack of hope and victims, fears and sadness. Love and Beauty are held captive by the overwhelming power of hate. They are imprisoned by the power, which the enemies of humanity have, who defile God and his creatures by creating “red lines” to mark human differences and trying to keep us from overcoming them. Human beings are no longer humans but a dice in the hands of a few gamblers who violate the holiness of humanity. At these moments of peaceful Friday evenings, these songs streaming out from our little TV restore within us the remaining beautiful emotions, which make us love and make us cry – which make us human.

Please singers don’t stop singing and keep your voices louder than the sounds of politicians and their weapons. Let your beauty protect us from them! May your songs spread into the universe and redeem what our sins have destroyed in the name of religion and nationalism. Please sing for the good of unity and humanity. Please take us to God’s Heaven in this life since we are about to lose both, the now and then, while we are burning in this man-made hell. Sing for Syria and for Iraq; for Muslims and Jews. Wouldn’t it be easier to die by the sound of music than by the sound of a beloved people’s cry?

Hamze Awawde, Palestine

YaLa Young Leaders