Editor’s Note: We asked Smilja Brown, the driving force behind last year’s “We Are ALL Refugees” benefit concert, to reflect on last year’s event. Below, she shares what motivated her to organize the concert and what made it so incredible.
Dear Yabangees, Istanbulites, and other engaged readers,
In a few days the Yabangee crew will once again host a fundraising event, We Are ALL Refugees II, for all those individuals who have fled the horrors of war in Syria, and are now living and sleeping on the streets of Istanbul – yes, probably on your street, too. If you have already heard about this event, or were there last year and plan to do it again – awesome, bring even more friends with you! But in case you’re still undecided, read on through as I try to explain why we did what we did, and, more importantly, why it is essential to keep it going and keep it growing.
To begin with, when talking about the war, not much has changed since last year. Less and less is discussed in the media, but more and more people are dying and millions have been displaced. The most recent estimate on the death toll is 310,000 people as of April of 2015, according to CNN, with another 6.5 million displaced, including 4 million refugees who have fled the country and are now living in camps around Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey or on the streets as your neighbors around Taksim, Sultanahmet or Fatih. That’s a third of the Syrian pre-war population, and a large majority of them are women and children.
Compared to them, you must admit, most of us reading this site have it pretty good — well-fed bellies and roofs over our heads, an ability to work hard and the freedom to play harder.
As we were thinking about this — our privilege and their misfortune — as most of you probably are as well, and talking about it with other kindred souls on our daily meanderings through the city, we decided that something can and should be done. That’s how “We Are ALL Refugees” got started! Or, as one of the co-organizers put it, “It came out of collective good will, consideration, a bit of planning, and some fortune. That’s all it took really. The idea came out of a bar conversation between people who wanted to do something, primarily, and more importantly, the knowledge that we were not the only ones. That was the good will bit. Done.”
Once we had the concept and the idea, we kicked the project in high gear. Running through the mental index of skills and competencies, connections and possibilities, we quickly decided that the best plan was to organize a music- and art-infused fundraising event that would allow us to collect the materials that people on the streets needed and also to come together as a community. We also wanted to raise awareness about this war that was happening right next door, but for the most part went unnoticed in our immediate surroundings, despite the ubiquitous presence of refugees. The rest was easy. “A few people knew some artists and other people of good-will, these people of good-will knew of places that would be willing to host an event, with the right capacity and scant care for minor difficulties.” We made sure that yabancı, Turkish and Syrian artists were represented. On the night of the event, more than 500 people showed up and brought bags upon bags of amazing and useful stuff.
The extraordinary number of donations and the love with which some of them were prepared was the most wonderful surprise of the evening. We decided to not deal with money, as money has particular ideologies and issues attached to it, but we had managed to collect all this stuff – “stuff that simply flies under the radar of economies, organizations and governments,” from those lovely Erasmus students and always curious English teachers as they were leaving the city and getting ready for another adventure. When talking about it later, one of our Syrian teammates remarked: ”First, I was surprised by the amount of the donations received! This means that sympathy exists more than we think, it just needs a trigger and some organizing to extract it from people (people=us). Usually our sympathy towards people who we don’t know personally remains dormant… but it’s there, just a small blow from someone or something and it wakes up to different degrees. This is what happened here!”
Another incredible part of the process was the interaction and communication that opened between the people, between Syrians who for the first time felt that someone in their new community was paying attention to their stories of sorrow and their hosts and neighbors who came in huge numbers to show their support. The highlight, for me at least, was the moment when 7ajezz Band – a band that you can still see performing with their ouds and qanuns around Istiklal — played some traditional Syrian songs and the dance floor of Tunnel Sahne was transformed to a time before the war had started; everyone in the Syrian community danced together, and were embraced and followed by all the others.
When it came to distributing the aid, we really made sure that it went to the right people, meaning sources we knew would reach those most in need, We even went down personally to Süleymaniye neighborhood where we knew many families with little children who lived without electricity and basic supplies. This was the moment when the full meaning of the phrase “We Are All Refugees” finally became real to all the members of our team, and all the hard work put into organizing and running the event seemed worth it.
What started as a sad story – the story of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria whom we encounter among the ruins of Istanbul’s old houses and buildings — was transformed in this process of giving and connecting and remembering that in the end WE ARE ALL REFUGEES. Come May 30, I hope that you will remember this too, and come out to Tunnel Sahne one more time to show your support and give a little, to get a lot. Have a glorious gathering everyone and much love from far away New Zealand!
Smilja x