Refugee Week music

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 11:37 AM

greg-check your messages, i sent you a pm about this stuff.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 10:18 AM

Thanks for all that info JOhn. I see in the apers today that a survey has been published of various economic stuff about English cities. In income per head, Hull comes bottom, and Stoke second to bottom. We do have a lot in common.
   Alas, when it comes to supporting multi-cultural music etc there's a big difference. Hull coughed up £6000 for regugee week artistic events..the concert you described, John,I'm glad it went so well. I tried to get some financial assistance for some similar activities in Stoke. Result, £0. But we went ahead and did it anyway, and had a great time.
    By the way, it was £0 from the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Staffordshire University, God bless them ,came up with £200. Not quite in the six grand league, but any port in a storm.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 09:02 PM

There was a big refugee concert in Hull City centre, loads of people went and it was really nice.

There is loads of stuff going on here at the minute, our local radio station BBC Radio Humberside are doing a good job with there series for refugee week.

Greg-Your city [Stoke] sounds very much like Hull, Most [I would guess well over 90 percent] of the folk here are either welcoming to asylum seekers/refugees, or dont mind either way, BUT, there is a stupid small minority that come out with crap like " them pakis are nicking our jobs".

The BNP had candidates in a few wards here in the recent elections, they did not do very well !
most they got was about 300, in one ward, i cant remember the results off hand , but the winner in that ward had about 25,000 votes.
I think the BNP will realise they are wasting there time here, and piss ff back to where they came from!

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 05:44 PM

Thanks for everyone's stories.The one useful thing we can all do is get instruments to asylum seekers. it doesnt have to cost much, unwqnated guitars, accordions. Drums. the explosive party dancing generated by supplying Kurds with hand-drums has been one of the great joys of my life for many years now, once a week in the Stoke asylum-seekers hostel.
   To continue my earlier accounts of the week, the visit to middlewich Folk and Boat Festival went very well. Particularly good was the afternoon session in the Boar's Head, with many local musicians(plus the lovely Liz from Montana), some of the Steamehead brass players. and Don and Nash from Zimbabwe who came witht us. It was heartening, after a couple of African classics, to see people queuing up to buy the lads drinks....because mostly here in England all we hear is people whining about asylum-seekers stealing our jobs, being a burden on the state, and eating our swans and donkeys. It's wonderful how beautiful music shared in a pub can conquer so many prejudices.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: polaitaly
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 11:31 AM

Here in Italy it's the same thing - we have gone everywhere like emigrants until a few years ago, and now that we have become a land of immigration there is a lot of racism and a lot of people who want treat all the immigrants like criminals. There are the "detention centres" that are like prisons, no more and no less, and sometimes is heard of the police beating the inmates.
Cobber , your song is great.
paola

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: ranger1
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 11:18 AM

I live in a neighborhood that has a large Somali, Sudanese and Bosnian refugee population. I love having them here, crime has dropped significantly since they have moved into the neighborhood. The smells of their cooking drift out of the windows, as does the sound of their music. I hate the circumstances that has forced them to leave their own countries, but I feel fortunate that they have settled here and enriched my life.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: JennyO
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 11:03 AM

Today I went with the Solidarity Choir to Villawood Detention Centre, where we sang for the people there. This is the third time I have been there with the choir.

We sang many songs of freedom and struggle in as many languages as we could, particularly where there were people of that nationality present - including Xue Ran Di Feng Tsai, Bella Ciao, Nicaragua Nicaraguita, March for Love (Korean), and a number of African songs. They loved it, and some sang along with great enthusiasm. We also took some snack foods too, because it had been timed such that the ones that were keen enough had to miss their lunch in order to see us.

Even though we were in a low security area of the detention centre, the security was rigorous - just like a gaol.

Although this place is not as bad as some in Australia, the worst aspect must always be the length of time people are kept in these places, with no indication as to how long they will have to stay. My heart really goes out to them. These are not criminals, and yet they are there without a trial, and do not even know the length of their "sentence".

I know that what we did is not able to help much, but one likes to think that at least maybe we were able to give a few people a little encouragement and hope, and the knowledge that at least some Australians care about their plight and are working for justice for them.

Jenny

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LEAKY OLD SHIP (John J. Armstrong)
From: cobber
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 05:49 AM

I wrote this song a couple of years ago but I haven't done a lot with it. If anyone wants to sing it, pm me and I'll send a midi of the melody, which I don't have with me right now.

THE LEAKY OLD SHIP

The old folks all died and my young daughter too
In the year 1865
The blight took our crops and we'd eaten our seed
And we didn't know how we'd survive
So we traded our home and all that we owned
For a berth in a leaky old ship
Heading for the great south land to start a new life
If we just could survive on the trip

Just a leaky old ship between us and disaster
But we had a brave crew and a resolute master
Battling disease and storms on the seas
Some made it and some of us died
And the people there welcomed us to the new land
And we gave them our hearts and we worked with our hands
Building the nation so the new generation
Looks back on our efforts with pride
Looks back on our efforts with pride

A hundred years later the heroes returned
But the whole world was lying in flames
And they realised the truth that they'd squandered their youth
As pawns in some terrible game
And my father looked round at the world that he found
And a future he just couldn't see
So he got us a berth on a leaky old ship
And we trusted our lives to the sea

Just a leaky old ship between us and disaster
But we had a brave crew and a resolute master
Battling disease and storms on the seas
Some made it and some of us died
And the people there welcomed us to the new land
And we gave them our hearts and we worked with our hands
Building the nation so the new generation
Looks back on our efforts with pride
Looks back on our efforts with pride

First came the soldiers, then came the rebels
Then soldiers came back again
But then the next time the rebels returned
They took away all the young men
As we crawled from our hiding place hugging our children
We knew that we had to get out
So we traded our home and all that we owned
For a berth on a leaky old boat

Just a leaky old ship between us and disaster
With pirates for crew and a desperate master
Battling disease and storms on the seas
Some made it but so many died
But the people there turned us away in their fright
And they treated us like we were thieves in the night
And they watched children drown in the ships that went down
And they turned their deaf ears to our cries
They turned their deaf ears to our cries

Well, the earth is a leaky ship, we are just passengers
Trying to sail round the sun
But I can't help from thinking we'll all soon be sinking
When I look at the things that we've done
We've cut down the trees and we've poisoned the seas
We've polluted the water and air
We've ravaged the soil and we've murdered for oil
And it seems there's not many who care

Just a leaky old ship between us and disaster
With a dollar-blind crew and an idiot master
Creating disease and storms on the seas
And maybe we're all going to die
We'll need to work harder to keep her afloat
For like it or not we're all in the same boat
And as far as we know there's no place else to go
And we won't make it if we don't try
We won't make it if we don't try

Or will the new generation look back in frustration
Will they curse us and spit in our eye
Will they curse us and spit in our eye.

Copyright. John J. Armstrong. Bushland Music 2002

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 03:13 AM

Thanks for the amazing contribution, Freda,I look forward to reading more. The things people have suffered before escaping to England(or Australia) are often beyond belief. And indeed they often continue suffering after they get here, at the hands of bureaucrats and racists (though not on the same scale, thank God).

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 11:12 PM

Sunday, June 20, 2004. 12:21pm (AEST)ABC website; Asylum seeker hospitalised after overdose

A man held at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia is recovering in hospital in Adelaide after an incident at the facility yesterday. The man climbed onto the roof of the centre at about 6:00am ACST yesterday and took an overdose of pills. An Immigration Department spokesman says the man, an Iranian asylum seeker, was brought down and taken to the Port Augusta Hospital. Last night he was airlifted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital where he is in a stable condition.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 08:51 PM

I don't think you better sing my song Freda - you might be jailed for encitement to riot... :-)

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 08:26 PM

ps jennyo and other members of the Solidarity Choir in Sydney are going out to Villawood detention centre today, to sing to the refugees incarcerated there.

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:18 PM

Ali and Ibrahim limped onto a wooden deck, and down a ladder into a wooden hull crammed with people. People sat like sardines, their knees close to their chests, to make more room so that everyone could fit in. At the back sat some families, with children, nursing sleeping children laid across various laps. Ali and Ibrahim had joined a couple of hundred Turkish and Iraqi asylum seekers in the smelly hold of the tiny boat. By the time they walked up the ladder, it became clear that this was no luxury liner, but it was too late. They had given all their money to the smugglers, and this was now their only chance. And so they set sail in the darkest hours of night in a tiny, smelly, leaky Indonesian fishing boat, tossed to and fro on the wild and open ocean.

Ali's stomach was empty, he had contracted "Bali belly" three weeks ago and had been living with severe stomach problems ever since. White faced, skeletal, and now with hollows under his eyes, he sat quietly through the night, drifting in and out of consciousness as the boat titled, rolled and heaved from side to side. Water gushed down from holes in the clapped out old vessel, an old fishing boat that like Ali had seen better days.

Ali's head rested on Ibrahim's shoulder, a tendon in the left side of his neck rigid like concrete, carrying a sharp deep pain from his shoulder to the back of his head. His shoes were sodden, feet wrinkly, sitting in water that washed around the floor of the boat, up to the top of his ankles. Morning came and with it some relief in the thought that, as promised by the people smugglers, they would get to Australia soon. However on the first morning the boat's engine broke down. They were stalled, becalmed, left to be buffeted by the currents and waves of the sea, as the boat slowly filled with water. Each day became a nightmare of fear, recriminations and mounting despair as those on board frantically bucketed out the stinking water from the hull.   For many long hours and then days they were packed into the hull of the boat, sitting in rows with their knees to their chests, to help make room for everyone. Below deck, the hull was thick with the odour of petrol fumes and vomit. Full of holes, the water washed in and out, and the salt water mixed in with the stinking petrol slick and body wastes. The waves were so fearsome that the boat continually lurched onto its side and back, people were gripping onto the deck, floors and walls of the boats, and to each other.

The boat was marooned and was slowly filling with sea water. There were only two buckets and one was being used as a toilet. The other was used to continually bucket out the rising water in the hull of the boat. Tensions on the boat were pushed to the limit. People prayed, cried, and wailed to the open skies. Those who could no longer stand the stench downstairs went up on deck for fresh air. There, they could smell fresh air, but clung to the boards at the sight of enormous waves tossing the boat like a toy and washing across the puny deck. Few remained on deck for more than a few minutes. Most were too frightened of being washed out to sea and stayed below deck, keeping to themselves, waiting and hoping that something or someone would save them all from sinking into the vast, ferocious ocean.

The boat drifted for what would become twelve long days and nights. The hull was slowly filling with water, and the travelers were now up to their waists in water. Children were being cradled in arms by weary parents. Twelve days of tense exchanges, of prayers and desperate cries to the heavens for help, of crying children, and of diminishing food supplies. What saved them was an Iraqi car mechanic. Without any plans or proper tools, he slowly pulled the boat's engine apart and examined its rusting parts. By the tenth day, he had it back together again, and there were cheers and sobs when the engine heaved, choked and started up again. It became clear that the Indonesians had no idea where the boat was. One of the Kurds took command of the boat, using the position of the sun and a rough hand drawn map, took charge of the wheel and set the boat in the direction of Ashmore Reef, a tiny outcrop of rocks and sands in the Pacific.

By the time they arrived, twelve days from when they first left Indonesia, the hull of the boat was three quarters full of water, and everyone's belongings, including clothes, passports, papers, letters, and photographs of family members back home had dissolved into the wet, stinking water in the hull. The asylum seekers walked, crawled or were carried from the boat to the rocky outcrop, Ashmore Reef. They gripped the land like they had gripped the heaving boat, and walked or lay disorientated and swaying on the solid, unmoving ground.

They were there for four days, hungry, thirsty, and without shelter. The boat was so dilapidated that it looked like an ancient wreck on the shore. On mass they lay or sat, burning, sweating and steaming under the hot sun. Some still had food, which they shared with their family. Others watched hungrily, parched, starving and aching with exhaustion and bitterness at their fate.   On the fourth day they heard a distant buzzing, and stood waving their arms, jumping and shouting to a tiny airplane which circled the reef a couple of times and then flew on. A few hours later an Australia navy ship arrived, complete with water, food, blankets, toilets and showers.

(from a book i'm attempting to write about refugees) - freda

Subject: RE: Refugee Week music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:56 PM

You're welcome to sing Aussie Politics :-)

Subject: Refugee Week music
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:13 PM

I've had a remarkable and moving week, being involved with various activities involving International Refugee Week. On Sunday we took some young lads from Iraq, Iran and Liberia to the Lake District for three days, to rehearse a show about a boy escaping from oppression in his own (fictitious) country, and arriving in Stoke. Illustrated with lots of live music, plus some beautiful recordings I made a year ago of asylum seeker singers in Stoke.
Then on Wednesday we came back to Stoke, and toured the show round primary schools in the area for three days. Three of the cast had been in England for less than six weeks, so it was a fairly mind-blowing experience for them.
    Today we had a big bash for refugees, lots of exotic food, and I invited many local refugee musicians to come and play, and great music and dancing was enjoyed by all. It looked like the United Nations at the party, i couldnt begin to count how many countries were represented.
    Tomorrow(Sunday), to finish the week,we are off to Mddlewich Folk and Boat festival. I am playing with the Boat Band in the main marquee for the evening concert(with the Levellers)...and as it is refugee week we are going to surprise the audience and bring along some very very special guests. So if you are in the region of Middlewich, Cheshire, England, UK, Europe, the World etc etc, come along and enjoy something very unusual.
    Anybody else been involved in anything refugee-ish this week? I hope JOhn from Hull will check in to this thread, I know he's been up to something in Hull today.