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When I arrived in New York, I was witnessing Iraq’s third war during my lifetime. But this time the war was very different for me; I was not there with my family, and I had no news from them. Yet day to day life for me was as excruciating as if I was in Baghdad. So I wanted to communicate to my audience my experience of war, the pain and the misery one feels in a hopeless situation where chaos reigns and loved ones die. I found New York a bustling city, but when I was there I did not see people smiling. I sense that my audience that night felt the despair that I was feeling, and when we came together, it was a catharsis.
To play music in a time of war is to connect, to feed people with hope, and to hold onto my hope of someday seeing my mother’s beautiful face once again. Her last words to me were “I hope your cruise missiles don’t kill me before I see you again.” Music joins people in their souls, and when this connection happens, peace, love, and compassion can ?ll the hands of humanity.
In early April of 2003 one could hear few alternative voices to US government and media propaganda supporting the invasion of Iraq. This was the moment when a very alternative voice, Iraqi oud virtuoso Rahim AlHaj, living in exile since the 1991 Gulf War, came to visit New York City and to present a concert at Su? Books.
In his words of introduction Rahim told us that his music is about compassion, love, and peace. And then he made audible just what he meant, musically inviting us into his stories, his pain, his hope, his soul. He took us there with his compositions and a brand new oud, made for him by Farhan Hassn, his friend from childhood. It is an acoustically brilliant instrument, and with it we could hear Rahim’s hands think their way into a rich vocabulary of expressive gestures. And along with his music, with its subtle dialogue of Eastern and Western sounds, we heard something else quite special to the moment: the powerful introductions Rahim spoke to each piece.
I taped the concert just to give Rahim a souvenir of his visit. But as the invasion and occupation marched on, each listening told us that this performance must circulate, must enter recorded history and witness to the power of Iraqi music in a time of war.
Brief as it was, our visit left me many strong memories: of astonished facial expressions when he saw the pillaged Iraqi treasures housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; of a surreal horse carriage ride through Central Park as snow fell; of the pleasure of long meals and warm conversations with new friends; of days cursing the endless rain and sleet of the coldest April in decades; of the delight of accidentally discovering a cozy Iranian Jewish restaurant in midtown while Rahim was shopping for a bow tie; of the mornings debating the war coverage in The New York Times.
I also recall what an emotionally dif?cult time it was for Rahim. He had lost phone contact with his mother in Baghdad, and he spoke often and anxiously of her safety, knowing that cruise missiles had hit nearby residential neighborhoods. Such worries took on a new meaning for me as I watched Rahim, completely stunned, push through a crowd to help an elderly woman carry a heavy suitcase up the stairs of a steep subway exit.
But my strongest memory from our New York time together is of the feeling that moved through the room as Rahim played for us that night, comforting our upset and laying bare his own. Listen again now to this intensely war-torn moment, and imagine, in solidarity with Rahim, how music can advocate for compassion, love, and peace.