by Sara “Felukah” Elmessiry

A powerful African proverb says when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. In other words, the collision of two powerful forces always affects a third party in the process. Crisis affects the global pain-body, the collective consciousness of all people in society. The pain of the world is felt deeply by artists.

If you look at crisis like a wound, it is where the light comes in. It allows society’s people to reflect on their wounds, awakening waves of relatability and empathy that may have been dormant in them for years. Truly, crisis has a miraculous way of inspiring solidarity across various groups. We are all pulled into the call for freedom from occupation; it begs of us to tend to the wound. Artists have an exceptional way of tending to the wound through timeless creation.

We are currently looking at people suffering on both sides of the Palestine-Israel genocide. Thousands of innocent people have been born into a fight they had nothing to do with. Of course, historically speaking, one side has been hurting for seventy-five years, while the other has been vocal about hurt for the past three weeks. While one side controls major news outlets, the other has been cut off from water, food and electricity. You have people who claim that the Palestinian land is theirs, and yet they continue to destroy its historical landmarks and burn its olive trees. It is not telling of someone who cherishes the land they walk on. The ethnic cleansing we are witnessing is indicative of a deep-rooted fear that insinuates that unless we fight for space and resources, there will be none left for us.

We are also looking at fear in another paradigm. The fear that prevents people from speaking their truth and having to face real consequences because of it. The idea that you may lose your job or jeopardize relationships because you spoke your mind. But perhaps these losses are not losses at all. Perhaps they were never in alignment with you, to begin with. There is undoubtedly a greater fear that the average citizen has been conditioned into to prevent them from experiencing mental and spiritual liberation. It is no more than a tactic of power and control used against us: once realized, it is reversible.

In comes the artist, a humanitarian first and foremost. A lover of expression and an alchemist of emotion and mass appeal. Artists can turn feelings into portals through which people can experience what is being described. Indeed, they can make the most unimaginable things feel relatable through song, image, dance, and more. Furthermore, artists influence thought perhaps more than politicians do. Ask yourself, do people memorize speeches? Or do they memorize songs? Whose faces are printed on t-shirts? Presidents or artists? The influence of the artist is tenfold. It must also be said that it is not a numbers game when it comes to the work and impact of an artist; one piece of art may affect a few people very deeply and incentivize them to act upon how they feel. This is not the case with other people of influence who rely on polls and numbers of supporters to claim their power.

Let us consider artists who have used their voices to inspire change in times of political strain or crisis. In 1971, Marvin Gaye’s hit record, “What’s Going On”, helped to raise major social awareness around America and the Vietnam War. Gaye writes, “War is not the answer / For only love can conquer hate.” The artist had a remarkable way of channelling the pain of a nation through verse and lyricism, begging those in power to end the war once and for all. Similarly, and this time garnering direct results, Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane,” was released in 1975 and critically addressed the falsely accused and imprisoned boxer, Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. After raising $100,00 for Carter during a benefit concert, Dylan continued to raise his voice and channel his efforts towards freeing Carter. Fascinatingly, in 1985, Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin ruled that Carter had not received a fair trial and overturned the conviction.

To bring the matter regionally closer to our issue, iconic actress Faten Hamama starred in the 1975 film “I Want a Solution,” which shook so much ground that it changed Egyptian family law to be more equitable in divorce. Before the film, women had little to no rights in the divorce process. Hamama spoke up on behalf of women across the region and demanded that their rights be honoured.

We arrive at the present day, where artists are slowly but surely unlocking ways to express their support for the oppressed in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Haiti and Hawaii. For those heavily indoctrinated into the matrix of capitalism and individualism, any effort seems futile. They have lost touch with their true power as artists, caught in the vortex of vanity and protecting their business relationships, even though these relationships may go against everything they believe in. Of course, you also have artists who are stepping up to the plate and empowering people to use their voice, if not to help amplify the artist’s voice on the topic. I urge artists of today to look towards the icons who came before us. Social and artistic icons like Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Faten Hamama set the blueprint for how art and change-making can and often do work hand in hand.

After all, is one of the most beautiful aspects of creating art the very truthful place from which it stems? Is it not the sheer honesty with which real artists express their emotions and the bravery that so many others, unfortunately, lack that draws thousands of people to them in the first place? Society has blurred the artist’s vision and clouded it with a need for immediate gratification, praise and capitalist pursuits. I’m not saying the model of the starving artist is the only way to inspire change; on the contrary, we must unite as a global community to support each other when the infrastructure we so heavily relied on fails us. We must turn to look inward and identify our own like-minded people, organisations and spaces. I call upon artists of all mediums to reignite their flame and channel their power towards raising awareness for those who need us right now. For Palestine and for all people fighting for freedom and another sunrise. You have what it takes to speak your truth, the path is set. May you use your voice while others stay silent. May you truly embody the change we all await.