Music of Palestine - Music and Identity

Music and Identity

Palestinian music reflects Palestinian experience. As might be expected, much of it deals with the struggle with Israel, the longing for peace, and the love of the land of Palestine. A typical example of such a song is Baladi, Baladi (My Country, My Country), which has become the unofficial Palestinian national anthem:

Palestine, Land of the fathers,
To you, I do not doubt, I will return.
Struggle, revolution, do not die,
For the storm is on the land.

Zareef et Tool is one of the most popular Palestinian songs of today and can be traced back decades. The song encourages Palestinians not to leave their homeland.:

يا زريف الطول وقّف تاقلك ... رايح عالغربة و بلادك أحسنلك
خايف يا زريف تروح و تتملك .. و تعاشر الغير و تنساني أنا

O, elegant and tall one stop so I can tell you
You are going abroad and your country is better for you
I am afraid you will get established there
And find someone else and forget me

Read more about this topic:  Music Of Palestine

Famous quotes containing the words music and/or identity:

    As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him who mourns; for him who is deaf, it is neither good nor bad.
    Baruch (Benedict)

    Whether outside work is done by choice or not, whether women seek their identity through work, whether women are searching for pleasure or survival through work, the integration of motherhood and the world of work is a source of ambivalence, struggle, and conflict for the great majority of women.
    Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)