By Sheikh Saaliq
Photos by Alison Klein and Timmy Hung-Ming Shen
This is a story of a man who wants to bring a message of hope after a tumultuous war.
Aeham Ahmad, a pianist in a Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, took a piano with him to the bombed-out streets of his Syrian neighborhood to play music in the middle of the ruins. Before the conflict, children used to gather around and sing with him.
“They used to love the music. It used to make me so happy,” said Aeham, who played during the opening ceremony of the Global media Conference 2016 in Bonn.
When he plays, Ahmad found that the people shared their stories of the war after listening to his music. That’s when he found a powerful story of how music can bring a message of hope even in the face of war, famine and bombs.
“The media in Syria was not showing the actual reality of the war because of government censorship. Through my music, I used to tell the stories of the war that killed many. It was my humble contribution for my people,” Ahmad said.
After the conflict started to escalate in Syria in 2011, the Yarmouk camp was put under blockade. Ahmad’s family had to survive with no food and water, as people die around them. Thinking about facing an inevitable death, Ahmad decided to face it with dignity by lighting up hope among the camp’s inhabitants with music.
“I put my piano on a wagon and pulled it onto the street, where I would play songs I composed, inspired by the situation in the camp and in Syria,” said Aeham.
Ahmad considers himself an artist, somebody who is trying to tell stories of war and terror in the conflict-ridden Syria that today is.
“People say I am a star. I am not a star. I am a refugee. I am a refugee artist who is trying his best to tell his story and the story of his people,” Aeham said. “I am a story teller—a pianist who tells stories with his music.”
Aeham caught immediate attention of the international media with his singing and piano-playing skills in the middle of Syria’s rubble. During the worst of Syria’s violence in 2011, people used to post videos of the demonstrations to YouTube. That’s when Ahmad’s videos of playing the piano started flourishing Youtube.
“I didn’t know in the beginning that so many people will listen to my music through the Internet. I thought only few in Syria listen to me but it was not so. That’s the power of Internet and media. It helped tell my story and the story of Syria to the whole world,” said Aeham.
Aeham thought of moving out of Syria in the late 2014 after the Islamic State militia burnt down his piano saying it’s un-Islamic. He crossed Homs in central Syria, intending to continue on to Turkey, Greece and finally, Germany. But he was arrested in Homs for nine days, and had to let go of his wife and kids back to the camp in Damascus. He later arrived in Germany in 2015 without his family and “sought to bring comfort to the residents of the asylum seekers in Germany.”
In Germany, Ahmad has played piano in as many as 120 concerts. “All of these songs bring up deep, mixed emotions inside me, bitter memories and sweet memories of Syria which people around the world should know about,” said Aeham.
Ahmad said that he will continue playing piano not because he loves to do it, but he has to do it.
“I will tell the story of Syria everywhere. [For] people to write about Syria or tomake films on it. My channel of spreading information about Syria is music,” Aeham said.
When asked how he sees his future and the war in Syria, Aeham exclaims: “I don’t need a war. Nobody needs it. The war came to us. It came to me. And it will end.”
