Tinariwen and America's history in the Middle East

Tinariwen


Lately, I've been listening to a fantastic group of Tuareg musicians from Mali called Tinariwen "deserts". I had the good fortune to see Tinariwen in Poland last year at the Open'er Festival in Gdynia. They mystified the homogenous European audience with some of the best music I've heard in years. With twangy guitars, long, droning rhythms and beats, the band, adorning traditional Tuareg attire, made the evening a truly unforgettable one. Here's a song by them that I heard that night.

Here's an English translation of the lyrics, courtesy YouTube's  TheMehdieval :


THE TRAVELLER IN THE DESERT

I am a traveller in the lone desert
It's nothing special
I can stand the wind
I can stand the thirst
And the sun
I know how to go and walk
Until the setting of the sun
In the desert, flat and empty, where nothing is given
My head is alert, awake
I have climbed up and climbed down
The mountains where I was born
I know in which caves the water is hidden
These worries are my friends
I'm always on familiar terms with them and that
Gives birth to the stories of my life
You who are organised, assembled, walking together
Hand in hand, you're living
A path which is empty of meaning
In truth, you're all alone 


I am still searching for a translation of Chet Boghassa.


What fascinates me about this group is their history, and the utter originality of their style. It's as ithey took Brian Eno's and David Bryne's My Life and Bush of Ghosts,  stripped it down to bare musical rudiments, and mixed it with traditional Tuareg song.





Here's a really great summary of their history:


"Of course, it is difficult, and wrong, to ignore the band’s cultural background and amazing history. They are cultural representatives of the Touareg both by choice and by default. The Touareg are nomads of the Sahara desert who migrate through Mali, Libya, Niger and Algeria. The band’s origins date to the early 80s when unemployed Touareg men, their economy destroyed by fifteen years of drought, were encouraged by Muammar al-Gaddafi to train in Libyan military camps in the hopes of turning them into his mercenaries. Ibrahim formed a small musical group called Taghreft Tinariwen to entertain the members of the camps. Throughout the 80s, they entertained and informed Touareg populations around the desert, their reputation spread by countless duplicated cassettes. Several members of the band were active participants in the early 90s rebellions against the Malian government until the conflict was finally put to rest in 1996. At that point they turned their attention full time to music. Since the release of their debut ‘Radio Tisdas Sessions’ in 2001, Tinariwen have toured heavily, but within a very well defined milieu." - David Dacks, Aol Music

What I love about them is the way in which they utterly efface of stereotypical trappings of Western-sponsored "World Music" by being an unpretentious, authentic and meaningful group. There's no sense of gimmickry. Here's a video that's totally unrelated to my assertion about New Age gimmickry:



For those of your who are truly fascinated by the Berbary nations, if only to better understand their culture, this short documentary is really worth checking out.




"Barbary" Berbery States

During my undergrad studies, I took a course on Middle Eastern history. In retrospect, it was more like  a journey through time! The detail that I gained from my former professor was painstakingly nuanced. I decided to study the area for a simple reason: 9/11. For all of the platitudes that Americans offer on the reasoning of the perpetrators of that hellish atrocity, one thing is certain, we will always benefit from knowing more about their motivation. Though it's pathetic to suggest that it took a national tragedy to interest me in the event, in all truth, the Middle East was simply not a main interest of mine until that event occured. Some of my closest friends were of Middle Eastern decent, but that was not really particularly vital for me to ruminate over.  Now...well, we all know why it's important.

In my time during the course study, I picked up a very interesting work on the history of American involvement in the Middle East. One can easily infer that it has a pro-American bias, but regarding its historical accuracy, its a highly objective work. Here's a lecture from its author, Columbia University fellow Michael Oren, speaking at UCSB.

Interestingly, Tinariwen is consists of Berber musicians. It's interesting to contrast their dignity with the portait of the Barbary States.

In general, I very much hate the idea of calling Berbary peoples "Barbary". The clear implication is that they are pirates. Without question, some engaged in piracy, but to reinforce the word as an affirmative way of describing North African nations is deplorable. I'm glad Mr. Oren does not. To be clear, some leaders of 18th Berber states were not civic leaders with the vision of individuals like Mustafa Kemal Attatürk or Sadat, they presided over regimes sustained by religious fervor and plunder, but to be sure, that depiction is not relevant for modern day Berber inhabited North Africa - region that people in America could benefit from knowing much more about.

Fun fact: Did you know that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams signed the second treaty recognizing the United States with Morocco?