Palestinian hip-hop band DAM launched today their new video clip “If I Could Go Back In Time” (Law arja3 bl zaman) in a press conference in Ramallah, hosted by UN women, who supported the clip.
The new song from their new album “Dabke on the Moon” – “Nudbok al Amar”, features the Palestinian artist Amal Morkos, and addresses the killing of women, often justified on basis of “honor”.
DAM is the first hip-hop Palestinian band, founded in 1999 became very popular worldwide, for their song “who is the terrorist”. Its members: Tamer Nafar, Suhel Nafar and Mahmoud Jereri are from the Palestinian city of al-Lydd, which was partly ethnically cleansed in 48, and now considered a mixed city in “Israel”.
Their new clip, addresses an important issue, often ignored by the society, the killing of women for being women. According to women’s rights organizations, over fifteen Palestinian women were killed in 2012 (in historic Palestine), mainly by family members, brother, father, or partner. Such crimes were often titled the “honor crimes”, but women’s movement has been challenging this concept stressing that there is no justification, killing is killing.
The song combines between pop music above hip-hop rhythm, and classical Middle Eastern melodies preformed by the well-known artist Amal Morkos. The clip starts with featuring a women murdered by her brother and then goes in reverse trying to figure out why she was killed, ending with her birth, as female.
In a telephone conversation with Tamer Nafar, he said: “The story featured in the clip is the story of dozens of women killed just because they were women, denied their right to make free choices regarding their own life.“
“We wanted to contribute to the struggle in breaking the taboo on this issue and awake the society’s silence. We also wanted to stress that no justification is accepted for killing.” He added
The group says the idea for this song started many years ago, and they were happy it finally came out.
DAM will be launching their new album in Haifa on November 15th, in Ramallah on November 22nd, and in Jaffa on November 27th.
Lyrics:
Suhel Nafar:
Before she was murdered, she wasn’t alive
We’ll tell her story backwards from her murder to her birth
Her body rises from the grave to the ground
The bullet flies out of her forehead and swallowed into the gun
The sound of her echo screams, she screams back
Tears rise up from her cheeks to her eyes
Behind the clouds of smoke, faces of her family appear
Without shame, her brother puts the gun in his pocket
Her father throws down the shovel and wipes the sweat off his forehead
He shakes his head, satisfied from the size of the grave
They pull her back to the car, her legs kicking
Like a sand storm, she’s erasing her own tracks
They throw her in the trunk, she doesn’t know where she is
But she knows that three left the house and only two will return
They reach the house; throw her to the bed in violence
”So you want run away huh?” they wake her with violence
Amal Murkus (Chorus)
If I could go back in time
I would smile
Fall in love
Sing
If I could go back in time
I would draw
Write
Sing
Mahmood Jrere:
She dreams before falling asleep
We’ll tell her story backwards, maybe understand
The clock hands move right to left
She reconstructs her steps as if she were lost
She sleeps prepared, money for the taxi
Plane ticket and passport under her pillow
Answer: leave the clothes in the close; she plans to wear a new life
Question: what if they ask what the suitcase is for?
She went to bed, leaves table
Eats well, she must act today
Her nose stops bleeding, that’s what they see
But it’s a fresh wound; before they will beat her she will beat them
Her mom says “your life is like heaven”
She’s right, if you taste the forbidden you better know someone is watching
Two hours before dinner, the phone hangs up
Her mom is shocked “the flight is delayed”
Phone rings
Amal Murkus (Chorus)
Tamer Nafar:
Before she answers, she isn’t even asked
The story is like the logic in her life, all backwards
Her hands up in the sky, begging for help
Their hands up in the sky reciting the Fatiha (ceremony before marriage)
The calendar page moves one day back, the time is
Afternoon, the argument is over, her brother commands her
Blood flows from her lips to her nose
A sound of a fist, his hand jumps from her face
It’s the first time in her life that she says “NO!”
Her mom announces happily “tomorrow you will marry your cousin”
If I look through the album of her life
I won’t see a photo of her standing up for her rights
It’s hard, the pages are stuck to my hand
Her past full of blood and tears
But we promise you, from her murder to her birth
Their expressions filled with anger as if someone announced a crime
”Congratulations, it’s a girl”
The beginning.
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