Simon Dubois

Streets songs from the Syrian protests

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Since March 2011, the Syrian uprising has created spaces for popular expression that were restricted during the preceding four decades of dictatorship. Numerous productions of texts, poems, caricatures, and songs began to appear on social media sites, and activists then gathered them onto networks providing local alternative information. These networks included websites, blogs, YouTube channels, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

They often contained sections titled „Art of the Revolution“ or the like, which listed the cultural production of the protests.

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This article is part of a study conducted online via networks (for instance, F.N.N,¹ Deir Press²) and websites or YouTube channels that focused on the revolution’s music, such as „Music from the great Arab revolution“ (موسيقى الثورة العربية الكبرى),³ or Dndne Indesasye.⁴ An initial survey of protest songs, conducted between October 2011 and March 2012, revealed a vast production of protest music. This research presents some of the results of a global analysis carried out on a collection of material composed exclusively of demonstration chants, which represented cultural production in the service of protest. Videos of the demonstrations that frequently accompany these chants have a special status, since they are evidence that the protest rallies really took place, a fact that was repeatedly denied by the regime at the beginning of the protest movement.

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In this research, demonstration chants are determined by two criteria. First, there must be interaction between the public and the singer; that is to say, the audience has to be active, repeating some lyrics that constitute the chorus. This allows us to distinguish chants from poetry recitals (in which the audience merely listens), or from slogans (repeated solely by the public). Secondly, the singer must be an adult, since the chants sung by children display a different emotional dimension and children generally cannot be considered as their authors.

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The time frame of the corpus ranges from 22 April 2011 until mid-March 2012. It can be divided in two parts: the first part runs from the beginning of the revolution to early August 2011 (when the Free Syrian Army was created) and corresponds to a phase of peaceful demands based on the people’s legitimate rights for power. The second part, from August 2011 to mid-March 2012, reflects a progressive rise of armed struggle alongside more peaceful demands, an evolution that is perceptible through the different chants. Some results and observations of this research are outlined in the following analysis of four chants. The lyrics in Arabic are available in the appendix. The transcription tries to respect the main characteristics of the Syrian dialect while remaining understandable to all Arabic speakers.

Chant 1: „Get out Bashar“ (يلا ارحل يا بشار⁵)

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The well-known chant, „Get out Bashar“ (يلا ارحل يا بشار), is attributed to a singer from Hama called Ibrahim Qashoush. He sang it for the first time on 27 June 2011, and had his throat cut a week later, on 4 July. His identity as the performer of this song is contested, since we can find other songs attributed to him post-mortem, such as „Oh my eye, oh my soul“ (يا عيني يا روحي⁶), sung on 30 July 2011). Therefore he might have been the author of the chant, but not the singer.

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With this chant, Ibrahim Qashoush became both a symbol and a martyr of the Syrian revolution. His murder revealed the regime’s fear of artistic and popular creativity, which pushed it to resort to the murder or mutilation of artists (the caricaturist Ali Farzat had his hands broken in August 2011). This chant was taken up, modified, and adapted by each singer and province. The representation of its singer-leader-martyr appears throughout Syria, as we can see with the emergence of singers nicknamed „Qashoush from so-and-so“; for instance Qashoush from Harasta (a town in the north of Damascus), who was killed on 5 February 2012, or Qashoush from Jarjanaz (a town in the north of Syria, next to the city of Maarat al-Numaan). We can even note the appearance of the term Qashoushiyyat, meaning chants made in Qashoush’s style, defining an integral type of protest music.

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„Get out Bashar“ was released following the speech of President Bashar al-Asad on 20 June 2011,⁷ in which he affirmed the existence of an international conspiracy against Syria – one of the reasons why demonstrators call him a liar. The term also refers to the president’s promise of numerous reforms, none of which would effectively change the functioning of the state.

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The chant was the first „hit“ of the Syrian demonstrations. It drew its immediate popularity from the reappropriation of the Arab revolutions’ key expression, „Get out“ (ارحل), in a Syrian chant for the first time.⁸ An analysis of the collected material indicates that it is the most used expression against Bashar al-Asad. We can find the insult „donkey“ (حمار) and other animal names, which are a way to break down mental barriers after forty years of dictatorship that completely forbade any form of insult to the president. The most used adjectives are „executioner“ or „butcher“ (جزار), „murderer“ (مجرم) and „killer“ (قاتل). The prevalence of adjectives related to murder reflects the popular opinion that Bashar al-Asad was the one responsible for the massacres. This has some significance, because at the beginning of the uprising and its early repression, a section of Syrian opinion believed in a puppet president, guided by his mother and brother. This „traditional“ approach was disproved after the first massacres. The theory stemmed from the modern and reformist image of Bashar al-Asad created when he came to power in 2000, as a leader whose methods were very different from those of his father.

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Ibrahim Qashoush emancipates himself from the language conventions and insults Bashar al-Asad directly; „طز فيك„, for instance, can be translated as „screw you“. It reveals a double transgression. First, the singer avoids the morality that implies a decent language (for the general public) by referring to the bottom. On the other hand, it is an insult openly addressed to the president, something inconceivable until then. In the video clip we can even hear the astonishment of the public when the word „ass“ (طزّ) is used, followed by applause, as if a mental barrier had been broken down.

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The lyrics of other chants could be even more vulgar against Bashar al-Asad. For instance, „you will definitely be knocked over“ (اجباري بدك تقلب, containing a sexual meaning), or the insult „ديوث„,⁹ which means not only „pimp“, but also the pimp prostituting his own family. To exceed the imposed boundaries of correctness enables protesters to demystify the regime in everyday life, and to introduce the act of criticizing it directly and radically. In contrast to the „nukta“ (joke) and its tendency to remain within the limits of what is politically acceptable, the humour and explicit parodies used in the current Syrian context – including the enjoyment of insults and foul language – radically affirm the novelty of the revolutionary atmosphere: a time for freedom of action, of speech and of creativity that defy the tyrannical regime’s norms.

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Bashar is called an „infiltrator“ (مندس), Maher al-Asad an „agent of the United States“ (عميل الامريكان), two terms frequently used by the regime’s propaganda to describe the rebels, and based on the widespread anti-American sentiment among the Syrian population. Turning their own dialectic back on the members of the government represents a common reappropriation in the chants.

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The author also refers to a group of thieves (حرامي), composed of the president’s brother Maher al-Asad and his cousins Rami Makhlouf and Dhu al-Himma Shalish, who are at the heart of the state. These families control the Syrian regime’s strategic positions and are related by marriage alliances to the president (Anisa Makhlouf is Bashar al-Asad’s mother and Naisa Shalish is the mother of Hafez al-Asad). They are called „thieves“ in reference to the widespread corruption in the Syrian government. Bashar al-Asad’s clan represents the second part of the „villains“. They are called „the al-Asad gang“ or „the al-Asad mafia“ ¹⁰(العصابة الاسديه). Indeed, we can find many references in the corpus to Maher al-Asad and Rami Makhlouf, who control the country’s powerful military and economic sectors, representing the clan’s hegemony over power.

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The regime’s supporters transformed this song into „We are your men oh Bashar“ ¹¹(نحنا رجالك يا (بشار„). Through this version we can see the difference in resources available to each side. The regime’s product comes with a high quality video, as well as rhythmic background music, contrary to the original that presents only few drum sounds. It has everything to delight the Syrian audience in its musicality and high-quality technical production; it is not a song with a limited or even non-existent budget, such as those produced by the protesters.

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However, some music bands supporting the revolution from abroad seem to benefit from financial resources, such as „Al Huda International Band“ (فرقة الهدى الدولية). The musical confrontation also appears in other kinds of songs that are perhaps more suitable for a verbal contest, such as rap. For instance, the rapper Mc Roco, in the song „Warning from an opponent“ (تنبيه من معارض), uses extracts from other pro-regime rappers at the beginning of the song in order to discredit them. ¹²It would be interesting to compare the opposition’s chants with those created or parodied by the regime’s partisans, and to see how the usual „pre-revolution“ production is affected by the freedom of speech and broadcasting adopted by the protest movement.

Chant 2: „The hearts of the army are dead“ ¹³(ماتت قلوب الجيش)

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The singer of this second chant is Abdul Basit Sarut, a former goalkeeper from Homs. He joined the Syrian revolution on 14 March 2011, participating in a demonstration. The lyrics address the soldiers from the regular army, calling on them to rebel against the regime’s orders. He considers the army an ally and confers on it a kind of morality, even if it had been one of the main repressive forces since the uprising started in Daraa in March 2011. Considering the soldiers as a potential ally was a diplomatic way of showing that not all choices had been made, leaving the field free for a hypothetical rebellion of the regular army. At that early stage, the fact that the army backed the people in Egypt (or at least did not stand on Mubarak’s side) was probably still fresh in the protesters’ minds, hence the insistence on fraternity between the people and the army. Subsequent chants clearly differentiate between the army of Bashar al-Asad and the Free Syrian Army.

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The collaboration between the Syrian regime and Israel is also mentioned. The Asads always highlighted their pseudo-resistance to the Zionist State through a collection of symbols: the non-recognition of the State of Israel, the Liberation War (1973), the image of being the last bastion of resistance against the enemy of all Arab countries, and so on. However, the protest established a dialectical reversal. In this chant, for instance, Bashar al-Asad „protects the security of Israel and uses planes to bomb his people“ (يحمي امن اسرائيل يضرب شعبو بطيران). The regime passes from the status of a member of the resistance to that of a collaborator. Moreover, the image of Israel in Syria parallels the image of the liberation of Palestine. We can see the emergence of the same discourse on the rebels’ side, in which they speak about liberating Syria from the Asad clan’s rule, just as Palestine would be liberated from the Zionist occupation. This kind of discourse is also present in reports from the Free Syrian Army, when they speak about the „liberation“ of Syrian cities and localities.

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In addition, the regime is accused of confessionalising the crisis – drawing attention to the country’s various religious and sectarian divisions – in contrast to the idea of unity defended by the rebels in the lyrics. The confessional aspect is almost imperceptible in the chants studied, with only a few referring to it. The term „confessional“ (الطائفية) occurs rarely and is generally mentioned as a reminder that it was the government, not the demonstrators, who used it as a strategy. Only the unity between Muslims and Christians and the people is mentioned (as in this chant), but at no point is there any reference to the Alawite community. However, for some Syrians an allusion to this community may be behind some statements, as for instance in the expression „the Safavid gang“ (العصابة الصفوية, Safavid referring to Iran because of the name of the Iranian dynasty in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries). This could be an allusion not only to the alliance with Iran, but also to a „Shiite alliance“¹⁴ that would impact Syria. The precautionary approach when using the terms Alawite, Shiite, Christian, Druze, confession, and minority are surprising and at the same time revealing of a certain diplomatic logic: these minorities must not be frightened. The constant fear of an ethnic massacre is in everybody’s mind. Since confessional references could serve as a catalyst for fear, protesters chose to omit them and to speak only of national unity when evoking (or avoiding) the subject, in order to reassure.

Chant 3: „The martyrdom’s dream“ (حلم الشهادة¹⁵)

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Abdul Basit Sarut sang this third chant in December 2011. It is carefully written and far from the other „mobilizing forms“ generally found in the corpus. Indeed, it is close to a „normal“ song in its images and constructions that are specific to poetry. Its lyrics are in dialect, but from a high-level language.

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The lyrics are the most religious in the corpus, referring repeatedly to God. The author places his arguments in a religious context, where putting an end to the dictatorship is equivalent to defending the religion, and thus to reaching paradise. The terms „martyr“ and „martyrdom“ (شهيد, شهادة) appear frequently. However, the semantic evolution before and after August 2011 is more explicit: we pass from martyr to martyrdom. The chants from the first part of the corpus refer to people being killed and tortured. They underline the sanctity of bloodshed and the impossibility of turning back, as expressed in: „The martyr’s blood cannot be sold“ (دم الشهيد مابينباع).¹⁶ In the second part, the chants begin to praise martyrdom and its necessity, calling for the need to fight impiety through religious arguments.

Chant 4: „Flow oh tears of the eye, flow for the martyrs and the youth of Syria“ ¹⁷(سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا)

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This fourth chant (its author remains unknown) presents a musical reworking. First, it is a Skaba, a traditional form of chant (Sabah Fakhri sang a famous version¹⁸). This new version first appeared in the street. Later, Wasfi al-Masarani reinterpreted it,¹⁹ probably in early October 2011, in honour of Mishal Tamu. The latter was a Syrian activist from the Syrian National Council and a defender of the Kurdish cause, who was killed around that time. The song’s evolution is relevant. The chant comes from a pre-existing cultural heritage; it is modified according to the demonstrators’ needs and achieves the status of a protest hit when it is sung abroad by one of the star singers of Syrian protest music. This process illustrates the reappropriation of a form in order to insert a new meaning, making something new out of the old. Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison defend this „mobilization of traditions“ for protest action as a process that modifies the traditions and creates new cultural references.²⁰

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The chant includes a tribute to different insurgent cities, a common theme in my sample. Places in Homs governorate, such as districts like Baba Amr and Khalidiya, or provincial cities like Rastan, Talbisa and Tal Kalakh, are mentioned most frequently. The allusion to rebel cities serves to illustrate the bravery of their inhabitants, their sacrifice, their morality or „value“ (نشامى), or even their virility and sense of honour. However, the cities are mentioned with a reversal of reality, the lyrics describing a combat situation or power relationship that is contrary to reality, for example, „at Homs where the Shabiha are crushed“ (الشبيحة بحمص بتنداس).²¹ It is the opposite of what was happening in the city’s streets, where its population was being massacred. This is an attempt to convert atrocity into moral strength, rather than to be overcome by desperation. We cannot forget that we are in the frame of an act of propaganda that aims to unite, and to strengthen the demonstrators’ determination.

Conclusion

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A new identity of political struggle is found in the lyrics of demonstration chants. They define a space of affinities by identifying the enemies. Bashar al-Asad personifies the regime, and his figure appears constantly. The Asad clan embodies a second level of enemies. The army holds a neutral position, despite the reality of the repression, until the emergence of an alternative armed force – the Free Syrian Army.

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A political discourse seems to be emerging from the affirmations. It is interesting to note that both the government and the protesters use the same argument, each accusing the other of collaboration with the „Americans“ and, more importantly, with the „Zionists“, exploiting the widespread sentiment that the United States and Israel are the essential enemies. We can also observe the absence of communitarian issues, except in instances where the two parties fire arguments at each other based on sectarian division. The frequent expressions of national unity in the corpus can be considered as the rebels’ response to this accusation. Indeed, they implicitly advance the view that all Syrians are under the rule of a single clan that holds power, without ethnic or community differences. Therefore, they can fight against this clan without considering its religious affiliation. In some chants we can observe the development of a religious dialectic that justifies the revolution as a religious act, and places the image of the martyr in a religious context. However, the two forms of martyrdom – religious and revolutionary – coexist.

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Finally, demands such as „the fall of the regime“, „get out“, „freedom“, are common to other countries of the Arab Spring. The borrowing of slogans belonging to other countries that have lived through an uprising is widespread. There is also a shared humour, particularly evident in the constant recycling of expressions employed by the regime’s own propaganda to describe protesters, such as „bacteria“ in Syria and „rats“ in Libya.

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These chants share the special feature of using regional dialects. Although many previous chants used vernacular language at the beginning of the revolution, the regional dialect particularly characterises the language of the people in the current frame of opposition to the regime’s propaganda, in clear contrast to standard Arabic, the language of the president and the media. The dialectal specificities require further research, in order to draw up a typology of these characteristics by comparing the different chants, or even the different versions of a same chant, according to the place where it has been sung. It would also illustrate how the public text is fixed in a particular local space that carries, once again, a subversion of the centralizing official discourse of the Baath regime.

Author:

Simon Dubois is a PhD candidate at the University of Aix-Marseille in France. He wrote his MA dissertation on protest songs in Syria. Email: sidubois.n@gmail.com

Appendix

„Get out Baššār“ / „يلا ارحل يا بشار„

ويا بشار مانك منا

خود ماهر وارحل عنا

وشرعيتك سقطت عنا

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

ويا بشار ويا كذاب

تضرب أنت وهلخطاب

الحريه صارت على الباب

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

ويا ماهر ويا جبان

ويا عميل الامريكان

الشعب السوري ما بينهان

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

يا بشار ويا كذاب

تضرب أنت وهلخطاب

الحريه صارت على الباب

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

ويا بشار طز فيك

وطز يلي بيحيك

والله قرفان نطلع فيك

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

ويا بشار حاجه تدور

ودمك بحماة مهدور

وخطأك مالو مغفور

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

لسا كل فترة حرامي

شاليش وماهر ورامي

سرقوا اخواتي وعمامي

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

ويا بشار ويا مندس

تضرب انت وحزب البعث

وروح صلح حرف الاس

ويلا ارحل يا بشار

„The hearts of the army are dead“ / „ماتت قلوب الجيش„

ماتت قلوب الجيش ماتت به النخوة

ليش يقتلنا ليش جيش والشعب أخوة

اصحى يا حرّ الجيش اصحى يا عربي يا سوري

عزة وكرامة عيش وارمي أسد الفجوري

تقتل شرفاء الأمة على شان مجرم غدار

رد الظالم عن ظلمه يا حامي الديار

حدد عدوك مين واضرب بيد حديد

بشار مجرم ولعين احرار الامة يبيد

خلي السلاح لعداك عدوك اسرائيل

الشعب السوري وياك سرطان الامة يزيل

تقتل أخاك ليش سوري الوطن واحد

واحد شعب وجيش أخوة العدو واحد

بيدك تقتل و تدمر بيدك تبني و تعمر

اقضي على الاستبداد حتى الحرية تزهر

بيدك تقتل أطفال بيدك تحيي القلوب

حكم الظلام زال لابد تحيا الشعوب

سلام يا جيشي سلام لا ظلم ولا احقاد

نفذ امر بشار يعصي رب العباد

خلا جيشو عليل خارج سور الأوطان

يحمي امن اسرائيل يضرب شعبو بطيران

الجيش والشعب ضحية احذروا الخوان

زرعوا الطائفية شتتوا الاخوان

كلمة وآخر كلام للجيش وللحكام

الجيش يحمي الشعوب والحر ما ينضام

صحي قلوب الجيش صحي به النخوة

واصرخ بأعلى صوت جيش وشعب إخوة

ماتت قلوب الجيش ماتت به النخوة

ليش يقتلنا ليش جيش والشعب أخوة

„حلم الشهادة„/ „The martyrdom’s dream„

حلم الشهادة يابا حلمي من سنين

بدمانا نرضي يابا رب العالمين

أنا وحيدك يابا إبن العشرين

حلمي بشهادة يابا بالنصر تنين

بالنصر تنين بالنصر تنين بالنصر تنين

وطنا بينزف يابا ترابو حزين

والطفل بينده يابا مين لبى مين

مين لبى مين مين لبى مين مين لبى مين

عارٍ علينا يابا نركع للَعين

نرضى بالذل يابا نخسر الدين

نخسر الدين نخسر الدين نخسر الدين

ثورة كرامة يابا راح نحمي الدين

راح ندفن استبدادو ونحيي الملايين

نحيي الملايين نحيي الملايين نحيي الملايين

ثوب المذلة يابا منّا لابسين

ثوب الكرامة والعزة ثوب الصالحين

ثوب الصالحين ثوب الصالحين ثوب الصالحين

الدنيا بزوال يابا وكلنا ميتين

ويعيش الحر يابا أهل اليمين

أهل اليمين أهل اليمين أهل اليمين

فاقد هويتي يابا القاها فين

ولمستا بثورة يابا ضد الظالمين

ضد الظالمين ضد الظالمين ضد الظالمين

على الشهداء يابا تــدمع العين

محلا الشهادة يابا بدربا ماشيين

بدربا ماشيين بدربا ماشيين بدربا ماشيين

يا ربي يا رب المجيد الله الله

فرّح كل أم زفّت شهيد الله الله

أموت شهيد يابا موت الخالدين

جنات الخلد يابا فيها مخلدين

فيها مخلدين فيها مخلدين فيها مخلدين

„Flow oh tears of the eye, flow for the martyrs and the youth of Syria“

„سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا„

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

حيو اللادقيه بسهولا ورملاها حيو الصليبه هم أهل الشجاعة

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

شامنا حرة بريفا وميدانا حرستا ودوما هم أهل الكرامة

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

شامنا حرة بريفا وميدانا عربين ودوما هم أهل الكرامة

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

صرخت إدلب جبلها وقراها مطلبنا الموت مذله ما نرضاها

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

دير الديرية هم أهل النشامة صرخت بوكمال جيناكم فزّاعة

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

ردّ الكرامة ليوم القيامة دمّك بلالي برقبتنا أمانة

سكابا يا دموع العين سكابا على شهداء سوريا وشبابا

بشار الخاين ما صان الأمانة خان الوطنية وعيشنا بمهانة