{"id":6421,"date":"2021-12-20T10:45:07","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T08:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=6421"},"modified":"2022-12-17T11:04:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T09:04:43","slug":"music-in-the-middle-east-business-cant-buy-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/music-in-the-middle-east-business-cant-buy-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"Music in the Middle East: Business can\u2019t Buy Authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SOUNDSTORM 2021 featured Armin Van Buuren, Adam Beyer and others in Riyadh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Melissa Chemam, columnist<\/h4>\n

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As I anticipated in last month’s column<\/a>, the EDM festival SOUNDSTORM took place in mid-December in the Saudi capital Riyadh, attracting more than 180,000 participants, despite Covid and its new threat of the Omicron variant. Many in Saudi Arabia celebrated the event as a major success for their diplomacy.<\/p>\n

This year, the country also welcomed a Formula 1 competition and an international film festival \u2014 it is impossible not to see these events as a part of the country\u2019s soft power and policy to whitewash its terrible human rights record.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XYSBcOWH5SU<\/a><\/p>\n

For someone like the Washington-based Lebanese\/Dutch journalist Kim Ghattas, author of Black<\/em> Wave<\/em>: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry that Unravelled the Middle East<\/em>, it is obviously the goal. During the December 17 British podcast Oh God What Now?,<\/a> <\/em>she said that the objective is \u201cto give Saudi Arabia a shiny outside image to the outside world, make everyone forget about some of their past and still present abuses, whether it is women who are still in jail, the murder and dismembering of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018, and other aggressive foreign policy moves like the war in Yemen. This is all to show the world a different image.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a Human Rights Watch opinion<\/a> about the festival, published on the 15th<\/sup> of December and written under the pseudonym of Arwa Youssef by a staff member, who fears for her\/his security, HRW argued, \u201cGlobal music superstars slated to perform at the upcoming MDL Beast Soundstorm Festival in Saudi Arabia should speak up for human rights or else not participate.\u201d The anonymous staffer went on, \u201cThose performing in the event, which is sponsored by the Saudi government, as well as the influencers who promote it, should distance themselves from the country\u2019s attempts to whitewash its horrific rights record.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sad state of affairs unfortunately leaves musicians and artists from the region with very limited freedom to practice their arts in a respectful and progressive environment. On the one hand, the festival has obviously been used by the Saudi government, which invested in it. But on the other, as Kim Ghattas also noted, for Saudi citizens, these events are in part good news, showing that a segment of the population benefits from the ripple effects of this new-found external policy, so they are able to enjoy themselves, and that\u2019s a novelty.<\/p>\n

For other commentators, it is the only way for the region to create its own cultural infrastructure. In an article in Music Week<\/a><\/em>, the Tunisian journalist Sofia Guellaty, founder and creative director of creative agency Mille World \u2013 an advocate for Soundstorm \u2013 explained that with more than 60% of the country\u2019s 35 million population being under 30, a new music-driven culture is emerging in the region, and it should be something to celebrate. \u201cAt the core of this has been a government-led initiative to open Saudi Arabia to the world,\u201d she penned, \u201cand more importantly, to show the world what Saudi Arabia is truly made of. I am talking millions of kids who, after years, now have the license to explore who they truly are by being offered cultural content that is unbounded, unfiltered, and, more importantly, authentic and relevant to their own stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guellaty sees Saudi Arabia as a leader for the Arab world, and an inspiration beyond the Western model. \u201cHere, millions of people who never dared to dream of making it in creative industries are offered incredible opportunities they would never find abroad,\u201d Guellaty added. \u201cAnd MDLBEAST is one of them.\u201d She concluded: \u201cWhile I\u2019m not Saudi, I take a huge sense of pride in what\u2019s happening as an Arab, and I want to be a part of this new shift.\u201d<\/p>\n