- amnonmusic
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
It's been two years since I wrote anything here. Two terrible years living under a government that is abusing innocent people that includes dissenters within the country, in the occupied territories through the "settlers" movement, officially supported by the army and the police; in Gaza, where a so-called ceasefire doesn't stop the army from killing and destroying, in Iran for the last half a year together with the Americans, civilians and infrastructure are the ones hurt most, and in Lebanon, which is 10 kilometers from our house where another so called cease-fire doesn’t stop the army form destroying homes and driving civilians from their home. (in fact, we are closer to Beirut than Tel Aviv, but obviously this is a trip we can't make). We live between fear of being bombed and anger, all overridden by depression, and feelings of guilt.
I try to keep sane by composing, and have gone back to recordings I made with my mother in 2002. She grew up in Berlin during the rise of Nazism — her mother was Jewish and her father was Christian. In the piece I linked below, my mother describes how her mother was saved from being taken by the Gestapo by two people: a friend of the family who opened the door and loudly proclaimed that my grandmother was not at home, which gave her enough time to get out through the back door to a neighbor's apartment; and a neighbor who was a party member, but told her she would hide her if the need arose. I am interested now in these small acts of defiance and heroism, which seem to be also what we are doing here now — helping individual people, because right now we cannot change the system. I will try to post more in the near future:
P.S. Meanwhile, my friend the wonderful Taiwanese performance artist Craphone Liu (Liu, Yin-Sheng) has created a video dance for my orchestra piece Reflection on Pedestals, which makes it sound quite different. (Beware: there is some male nudity.)
