LOLA Issue Four

Mohammad Abu Hajar
Music in Exile
Above: Mohammad
(second from right)
with Mazzaj Rap.
Survived Hitler’s War
Although it was still standing,
by the end of the war the
gate was badly damaged.
Bullets and nearby explosions
left holes in the columns,
and only one horse’s head
from the original Quadriga
survived. The head can now
be found in the collection of
the Märkisches Museum.
“
For me, what matters is that we don’t only
fight Trump, but we fight the infrastructure
that created Trump and will create
other Trumps in the future,” Mohammad tells the
protesters who are cheering him on during the grey
mid-winter day. “I’m not here only for Muslims,
I’m here in solidarity with my white fellows not
represented by Trump. I’m not here only because
I’m Syrian or an Arab. I’m here for humanity.”
Mohammad goes on to speak of a dictatorship
that has been in power for half a century and has
ultimately destroyed his country. “I don’t wish it for
the rest of the world,” he continues. “I think it’s so
important to start dismantling the whole mentality
that brought about Trump. It’s not only people standing
in solidarity with Muslims. We are standing in
solidarity with each other.” The cheers grow louder.
He reiterates that despotism is never far away.
Backed by the vast sandstone columns of the Brandenburg
Gate that somehow survived Hitler’s war,
Mohammad says that Berlin understands this well.
A flag of the Syrian revolution flutters above
the crowd as Mohammad introduces a rap song
he wrote on his first day as a political prisoner.
He says that his interrogators would ask him if he
wanted freedom. If he responded ‘yes’, they would
torture him. “That’s the freedom you deserve,”
they would say. That night he wrote a rhyme in
response to his beatings. “Do you want freedom?”
it begins. “Yes, we want freedom and we want Syria
to be a country for all, and we want this world to
be a place for all.” Mohammad soon has the whole
crowd chanting, “yes, yes, yes,” in Arabic.
Partly inspired by emerging Arab rappers in
countries such as Egypt and Lebanon, but also by
elements of traditional Middle Eastern and Sufi music,
MC Abu Hajar was one of Syria’s first political
rappers. A then-Marxist and atheist, he was barely
20 when he was first jailed in 2007 for making music
that was critical of the regime – in particular, a song
that criticised honour killings of women by men,
who are rarely prosecuted for these crimes. That
was the year he also formed the band Mazzaj Rap
with local Tartous musicians, Alaa Odeh and Hazem
Zghaibe. Mohammad’s birth city of Tartous, on the
Mediterranean coast, is fiercely pro-Assad.
Having already gone into exile in Jordan to study
following his initial incarceration, in 2011 Mohammad
was inspired to return to Syria during the Arab
Spring to take part in the first spontaneous peaceful
protests. After decades of emergency rule, of
extreme intimidation and fear among a heavily-policed
populace, this was a bold grassroots demand
for civil and democratic rights that was inspired by
revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Mohammad and
his collaborators never worked for a political party,
nor did they later fight for the Syrian Free Army
when an exercise in civil disobedience became militarised.
He was there as a citizen, simply campaigning
for freedom of expression among all Syrians,
whether Arabs, Muslims, non-Muslims or Kurds.
As the revolution spread across Syria by late
2011, Mohammad believed that the regime would
relinquish power, just as the Mubarak dictatorship
had done in Egypt. But a few months later, he was
back in detention, a victim of a vicious crackdown
by a desperate government that didn’t shy away
from killing its own people.
Mohammad first told us his story in a café in
Wedding that had recently been opened by members
of the growing Syrian community here in Berlin. As
we sat and drank tea, he pointed across to a man at
the next table with long hair. It was Ahmad Niou,
the Mazzaj Rap percussionist with whom he shared
a jail cell in early 2012. After being arrested, the two
were beaten and then accused, without evidence, of
unauthorised political activism. They suffered daily
torture, from whippings to beatings with electric
prods. Mohammad was witness to the killing of one
prisoner, and heard of the deaths of many other
inmates. He doubted whether he would get out alive.
Mohammad was released two months later, but he
was pursued again by secret service agents and one
day was forced to flee over his back fence in his pyjamas.
Soon after, he left Syria for the last time, arriving
in Lebanon before travelling to Europe. He lived
in Rome for a couple of years, where he finished his
master’s degree in political economics. Mohammad
then came to Berlin, in part because a strong community
of Syrian political exiles was already established
here. Ahmad Niou, also from Tartous, came to join
Mohammad in Berlin. Mazzaj Rap were reunited, this
time joined by Matteo Di Santis, a friend from Rome
who provided electronic beats and samples.
In 2016, the core band evolved into another project,
Mazzaj Raboratory, which includes Alaa Zaitounah
(oud) and Zaher Alkaei (violin), who also made
circuitous routes to Europe from the Syrian cities of
Swaida and Homs. Beyond the hard-edged American
rap idiom, Mazzaj Raboratory are forging
Summer 2017
35