Al-Kamandjati Music Center set on fire

 

"Oud" instruments burned at the center - Yedioth Ahronoth

Continuing my previous posts about art-related events and incidents, I found this piece of news on the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth online.

Al-Kamandjati Music Center in Jenin, West Bank, was found burned to the ground on Monday night. The center’s director and staff have informed the police, but no one really knows who exactly caused this. The fingers seem to be pointed at Hamas sympathizers and fundamentalists in the mainly Fatah-run territory.

This is truly a tragedy. The center’s press release called it “a crime against humanity and against the right of Palestinian children and Palestinian society to culture and education.”

Around 80 young Palestinians from the Jenin Refugee Camps come to this center to learn music. Its expertise, as its name indicates, is the violin (al-kamandjati means the violinist). Founded in Ramallah in 2002 by a stone-thrower-turned-violinist, Ramzi Abu Radwan, it has hosted and encouraged so many cultural and musical events around the West Bank, Gaza and southern Lebanon. Its international headquarter is in Agers, France, where Abu Radwan studied violin professionally.

I emphasize again how important art in all its shapes for the difficult life of a Palestinian living in the Territories, and anyone in any conflict. This center has filled the time of so many young Palestinians with productive knowledge when they could have been violently protesting outside or serving jail time in Israeli prisons. To destroy it is to destroy a bright opportunity, a window to vent frustrations and a better life.

Nothing has been mentioned about the finances needed to restore the building and buy new instruments. I reckon it would be quite expensive and restoration will be slow.

Until then, these Palestinian youth must find another hobby. 

Ramzi Abu Radwan - UNRWA article