Saved by music
A story from my own life which shows how discriminated can we all be: by our origins, injustice or just by destiny.
I hope the world will change. I hope we will change it by all means that we have.
I would like to tell you the story from my own life.
I spent about 9 months in Rostock, Germany, making my EVS. Several weeks since my arrival, I appeared to sing in one, I'd say, multinational band, by an accident.
There were 5 of us: two Germans, one Belarussian, one Syrian and me, Ukrainian. The language of music united us all from the very first drum beat, the first guitar chord, the first note…
We had great time together and we communicated a lot. One of our breaks between rehearsals turned into a long sincere conversation about our origins and the purpose of living in Germany.
It appeared that our drummer, Sammy, hadn't seen his family in Syria for two years by that moment. Why? Because if he had come back just to visit them, he would be taken to the army immediately and forced to fight. So, he had nothing to do but study in Germany and work hard, in order to maintain his life and, may be, take his family ever to him. He had very sad eyes as he spoke about this. The thing is, he was not alone. In the dormitory, there were lots of Syrians, who treat each other like brothers. Like one big family outside the homeland. And all they could do in Germany was to make anti-war videos together and promote them in the Internet, hoping that more and more people understand that war is useless and horrible.
During this conversation, it also turned out that our guitarist Andrey, from Belarus, wanted to emigrate from his homeland since the very childhood. Because, despite the absence of wars, lots of Soviet Union remnants still remain in this country, and that leads to lack of opportunities and hope for any quick progress. According to Andrey, people in Belarus walk on the edge of a knife: everything seems to be calm while you walk straight. But do just one step in another direction, even may it be just one word or phrase, and you will fall right to the hands of powerful government and meaninglessly strict legislation.
Along with these two stories I could also join these two people in the question of getting visas just to enter the European Union. And the feeling of fear and injustice at 6 a.m. in the morning while standing in a long row near the embassy, hoping not to get a refusal in visa without any explanations. And even though my country is more democratic and I’ve got more chances to succeed in my life, I still feel discriminated.
And there we sat on the floor of our rehearsal room. We, three foreigners, who jumped the borders in order to find a better life outside our countries, and the two Germans, who were shocked by our stories, but who though also jumped over the boundaries to help us and to unite in one band, to create our own multinational universe with no restrictions, prejudices or discriminations.
Music became our solution. We jumped over the boundaries.