Description
In the current conflagration in the strip of land that shares a tiny stretch of the Mediterranean coast, and a little further inland in the ever diminishing enclaves in which they are permitted to live, children struggle to be seen as human by those who confine them; dehumanised, they are able to be discarded, in what is currently a massive and indeed explicit project of denial of humanity and human rights.
Despite the immense force of this project, however, there has persisted a steady counternarrative, determined and resilient, which insists on maintaining and restoring the children’s humanity. This is taking many forms of artistic and educational activity. Included among these is music; and here, music is giving the children spaces of respite, and allowing them— if only for brief moments— to enter what the music philosopher Christopher Small described as the realm of ‘ideal relationships’ which are ‘explored’ and celebrated’ in what he coined as ‘musicking’.
In this paper, I will sketch ways that, in this geopolitical arena and within various settings of occupation and battlefield, children have been and are being nurtured, here specifically through musical activity, and so are reminded of their essential humanity. I will call upon my own recent historical work in the West Bank as children’s singing specialist and also the children’s music education programme Sounds of Palestine based in Bethlehem: as well as the current work of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in and beyond Ramallah, and Gaza.
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