The Beauty of a Beat

Could music be the one thing that brings peace to the Middle East?

The concept sounds a little, well, frankly, a little "hippie," but, maybe we haven't given those guitar-strumming flower children enough credit. In the immortal words of Madonna, "Music makes the people come together," even if it is for just two fleeting minutes at a time.

A YouTube sensation in the Arab world, the hip-hop dance remix of an incensed speech by Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi thrown over Pitbull & T-Pain's "Hey Baby", "Zenga Zenga Song" has accomplished the nearly impossible. It has brought an ever-so-slight breeze of humanity through the strangled air of the Israeli-Arab socio-political relationship. The track, of course, appreciated by both Arab and Israeli folk alike, was crafted and remixed by Israeli, Noy Alooshe.

In an interview for public radio, Alooshe admitted that he received death threats at first, after Arab fans of the video found out that he was an Israeli, but eventually, they came around and admitted to him that, although they did not like HIM, they appreciated his music.

And, oh that rhythm did never sound sweeter...

Mideast peace and mainstream media responsibility

Every day the fighting in Gaza, headline after headline, yawns over mainstream news websites, television programs, and looms behind every radio program and podcast. Danger, red alerts, alarms sound, hate and violence are everywhere you look. If you never looked outside of your own door, you'd think that's what the world had amounted to.
Over the past month or so, I've been following people who have a different agenda: grassroots organizations, individuals and scholars who are looking for an end to the fighting. What amount of glory do these people get in the news? Not one blurb, mostly. It seems as though none of these peace-seeking missions deserves coverage, according to the press, because, it just doesn't quite get the ratings that bloodshed and violence do.
Thankfully, bloggers who care about these causes do exist, and journalists like me, who managed to get one article regarding The Mind of Peace Experiment, a revolutionary project that no one seems to know anything about, yet has received attention from heads of state and scholars from all over the world. How much attention will it take for the world to see that publicizing peace is just as important as publicizing war?

Peace in Gaza

Over the past month, I've had the fabulous opportunity to be in a front row seat to an amazing experiment for peace in the Middle East. The article is posted here in the St. Louis Beacon, and I will continue to follow it in upcoming months.
There is hope!