How the past year has changed what it means to be a Palestinian artist

A year after the October 7th attacks, amidst Israel's ongoing invasion of Gaza, Palestinian artists are working hard to ensure their culture remains strong, despite unimaginable levels of destruction.

Saeed Teebi is a writer and lawyer. He was born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait and has lived in Canada since 1993. His debut collection of short stories, Her First Palestinian, was a finalist for multiple literary awards, and the title story was shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize. John Kameel Farah is a Canadian composer and pianist whose work draws inspiration from baroque music, Middle Eastern music and forms of electronic music. He was born near Toronto in 1973 to Palestinian parents.

Today on Commotion, Teebi and Farah join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about how October 7th changed their relationship with art, and led them to embrace their Palestinian roots in a whole new way.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: John, as much as you're comfortable talking about, talk to me about how you were feeling last October. What was your response, your reaction as an artist in a different place?

John: In the first month or two, I felt like it was an affront to just make music. The idea of just being creative like I normally would felt like to make light of everything that I was witnessing, and I felt completely frozen until I started feeling in conversations with friends and loved ones that I had a responsibility. I got a sense when I put my toes in the water that people really wanted to hear from me and from other artists, that they were searching for something. They felt just as lost as I did, and I had a responsibility to address that somehow. 

I had to feel my way out as I went in front of audiences. How am I going to not only make music, but place my words in between the pieces? I had to address it. The response I got trying to be sensitive to my audiences, that was what they wanted. And so it's sort of a mutual healing process that's going on, in trying to move the dialogue about all these issues that are being confronted now. 

Elamin: I'm interested in this, John, because before October 7th, you sort of chose not to foreground your Palestinian background. That was not particularly a part of your work as an artist. And it feels like maybe that changes in the face of the past year. How does it feel now that you're on stage and you're sort of owning your roots and incorporating that into the work? How has that changed for you? 

John: I mean, let's say it was always there, but I felt that the best activism I could do was being a good musician, being articulate, being funny that then people, by association — often being the only Palestinian that a lot of people knew … I think I was playing a subconscious game to be the "likable Arab" or the "likable Palestinian."  This has forced me, in a way, to realize that there was an illusion in that.

You know, the wool was pulled from our eyes in terms of the societies that we're living in, and I realized that I was subconsciously going along with that. So I had to kind of rebuild myself. I'm in a process of doing that according to my actual values. And speaking to what I feel is important, that's an ongoing process. It's sort of restructuring everything for me.

Elamin: Yeah, I can imagine that restructuring process is not something that is particularly finite. It's not like you arrive at a certain turning point. 

And we're also very fortunate that Saeed literally wrote the book on this, because you wrote Her First Palestinian, a collection of short stories. But this is a frame that you introduce: the idea of feeling the pressure to sort of be the representative for an entire people and everything that they have gone through, and everything that somebody thinks about them. How do you think that dimension has changed in the last year, Saeed, as a Palestinian writer, but also as someone who, when introduced as a Palestinian writer, is now kind of freighted with the weight of the last year? 

Saeed: That's a real thing, in terms of what you talk about, of being freighted with that weight. A lot of the early days of my life as a writer … I was presented as somebody who writes literature; it just so happens to be about Palestinians, but it's a literature like anybody else's literature. And yes, Palestinians have their specific political and social contexts that impinges on the characters. But that's really the extent of it. You can read the stories for other reasons. Once the war started, all that was out the door. The thin veneer that that was, was out the door. 

Now, you are the Palestinian that people want to come to, as I think John alluded to, for some kind of solace, leadership, representation. A whole bunch of things become put on you, and you want to take it on as an artist because you feel, again, that you're otherwise useless if you don't take it on. So I no longer think of it as a burden. It felt like a burden before October 7th. I now think of it as a responsibility that I'm happy to discharge. It's a difficult one, and it's a taxing one, but if I'm able to do it, I'm in a better position than many others who wish they could do it. And so for me, it's something I embrace, even though it's a tough load sometimes.

John: I think that what Saeed said applies to me as well. At first it was daunting, uncomfortable. And then when you get used to the water, so to speak, then this is not only something that I am okay with, it's actually been burning inside me for a long time and I have been suppressing this. So if anything, I became more myself in it.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.