Good evening, مساء الخير
Zeina: Ten years ago we started with our first event at Masahat – a three-day symposium to think and speak Syria through its artists, activists, academics and journalists. We wanted to claim the space from foreign “experts” to center Syrian expert and artistic voices in the debate about their country.
Over the past 10 years, and since the so-called “refugee crisis”, it hasn’t always been easy to present and curate arts as we have witnessed people being massacred and those staying alive grappling to keep their basic rights in the face of unspeakable violence.
But we were inspired by the creative expression of peoples facing the most dire situations – the pianists playing under the Yarmouk siege, theater shows performed in bunkers in Aleppo hiding from Assad and Russian jets, the calligrapher painting on mortar shells in Ghouta – among many many others.
Our understanding and appreciation of the arts is one that is rooted in people’s everyday lives, struggles and aspirations. From Palestine to Syria to Yemen and Sudan – we saw over the years how these creative expressions are under threat of systematic erasure, whether by genocidal apartheid machine, foreign jets or government and proxy militias on the ground.
In our collective exile – we face a different kind of challenge, with the rising far-right xenophobic climate that renders our cultures as a foreign threat to European societies.
We respond with creating spaces Masahat – for community, solidarity and art as a means of resistance.
Rana: As we all become witnesses to the live streamed genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, we are confirmed in our belief that the Norwegian public refuses to be complicit in such murderous actions. Today, in Norway, solidarity is strong and the critical mass of people who refuse propaganda and ideological complicity heartens us.
It gives us hope that the public we want to reach through our work in Masahat is indeed committed to truth and morality, to political change and the cause of justice. It is to this public, to you, that we work year round to serve, and it is you that makes the spaces of Masahat safe for people in our community to show up with their vulnerabilities and their grief. Masahat works to introduce you to the radical artists, thinkers, and activists that have devised tools and knowledge to refuse the mechanisms of brutalization destroying our world, and to strengthen our community and work to reverse the sense of social fragmentation and isolation many of us are experiencing.
Masahat is driven by a strong sense of social responsibility. We do so through arts and culture, where learning, critical thinking, nuance and joy combine and function as catalyzer for change. We focus on Arab culture because it is what we know, but we are open to artists and thinkers from the Global south and its diaspora in Norway, and we invite others to teach us about their own cultures and to show us the way towards more solidarity and more social commitment.
In the spirit of openness towards a coalition that transcends identity differences, and maintains at its core, values of equality across social, political, economic, racial and gendered divides, we chose hospitality as the theme for Masahat’s 10 year anniversary.
Hospitality as the Greek original suggests is about how we treat the stranger amongst us. With what spirit of openness and sharing do we welcome the stranger into our midst, and recognize the stranger as one of us. To do so, we practice what we were taught by palestinian writers, Isabelle Hammad and Edward Said, and think of our approach to hospitality through recognizing that we are the stranger, and that we have a right and moral obligation to insist on being strangers, safeguarding thus the need for critical distance, and the courage it takes to state what we see and what we experience even if it means going against the dominant opinion of the group.
We live in a time when hospitals in Gaza are being erased from the map, and when only yesterday right wing extremists in the European parliament sought stricter rules against vulnerable people from the global south that seek refuge in Europe, refuge that we now all know is being sought as a consequence of Western policies that are complicit in the destruction of their nations and habitats. One of the symptoms of our dark times is this war on hospitalities (as our speakers on the program Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas have formulated).
Zeina: We invite you to ponder hospitality with us through a program full of both thought provoking lectures and reading circles by leading thinkers such as the Palestinian mathematician Munir Fasheh, who will give the keynote speech at Litthus tomorrow, and with Sumayo Jirde Cali whose keynote on Saturday will help us think how hospitality can become a foundation for more just, and inclusive communities. And with Samar Yazbek, the Syrian writer, who acts out hospitality by seeking stories from Gaza and Sudan. We recognize ourselves as strangers when we invite artists to talk about their collaborations with Gazan colleagues, with a breakfast seminar also tomorrow in Kunsternes Hus.
The hospitality that we are concerned with is both international, focusing on Palestine, Sudan and Syria and local, thinking through the dangers facing our beloved neighborhood of Grønland that houses the largest concentration of strangers in Norway and that today is facing tremendous challenges in the form of aggressive gentrification and fascist xenophobia.
We are also proud to present two remarkable theater shows from Syria and Palestine on Friday’s evening at Nordic Black Theater. Finally, on Sunday we end with a Sudanese evening at VEGA, to celebrate the rich Sudanese culture with a tasting menu of iconic Sudanese dishes and a solo concert by Yasir Moa. All these are free events, for those who are wondering. Also our paid events bring to you forms of hospitality that will both entertain and nourish, and for that I would like to invite you to check the community dinner happening at Kunstnernes Hus tomorrow, with few remaining tickets, pick up our brochure and check our website for more info.
Finally, I would like to thank you all: our audience who show up to our events. Thank you to our advisory board, board and Chair of the Board Ingeborg Moa for your strategic guidance and support. All our supporters, from the politicians that argue for us to receive funds, to our partners who have been exceptionally generous with us over the years with their support on how to survive cultural work from the margins in Norway, thank you from our hearts to:
Cosmopolite for having us tonight and on Friday when we come back for the concert with Oum, the soul of Morocco
Dattera Til Hagen
Deichman Tøyen and Biblo Tøyen
Det Norske Teatret
Kunstnerforbundet Atelier
Kunstnernes Hus
Litteraturhuset
Melahuset
Mirage film festival
Nordic Black Theater
Oslo Dokumentarkino
Oslo Museum / Interkulturelt Museum
Riksscenen
Safemuse
Scenekunstbruket
Tenthaus
Ultima festival
Vega Scene
And thank you to our donors: Oslo Kommune, KORO / Public Art Norway, Fritt Ord, Kulturrådet (Norway Arts Council), Creative Europe, Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, and Bergesenstiftelsen.
Rana: I would like to also thank the team of Masahat, those underpaid and overworked, precarious workers whose commitment to Masahat is itself more an act of hospitality and generosity than it is a form of alienated labor.
Nader Turkmani and the volunteers he has organized, and who are necessary for our continuity as a festival.
I would especially like to thank Vjolla Emiri for their support in production and curation and Adriana Calderón our communications blackbelt master for the spirit of generosity and understanding they meet our demands and lack of economic stability. We wish that we lived in a time where cultural workers have more secure livelihoods and we hope that Masahat can manage to provide you with the economic security that you deserve. Finally, I want to thank Zeina, my partner in this project for sharing with me the boldest career moves we both have ever undertaken. I really appreciate working with you, and continue to learn from your savvyness and kindness. It was a fine day when you walked into my life and transformed it forever.
Rana: I know that you are all waiting for the fabulous Emel to come to stage. Before I ask Emel on stage, I want to take a moment to tell you a little about Emel, how her voice inspired millions across the Arab world who were protesting against authoritarian regimes during the Arab spring. We memorized her songs, and chanted them in demos, we played her at parties and at any moment in the day when we needed the courage to be steadfast in the face of oppression. Emel is from Tunis, and her reach is Arab and international. She is famous for her support of Palestine and is the voice of the free in the world today. We are so very happy that she is with us today, no musician I know is better to celebrate ten years of Masahat with. And now please join me in welcoming Emel Mathlouthi to the stage.
Zeina: Now, we are so proud to introduce the opening artist of tonight: an exceptional talent and a fearless voice. A singer and songwriter with an impressive career. Since her debut in 2004, she has released seven albums, won the Spellemann Award, and toured extensively across Norway. She is widely recognized for her powerful stage presence and music that resonates deeply with both heart and mind.
She is also a trained nurse with a strong social commitment. She has worked in psychiatry and addiction care in Bergen and has served as a health worker during the refugee crisis in Greece and in Palestine.
PLEASE JOIN ME IN WELCOMING MARTHE VALLE