MIDDLE EAST PROFILES SERIES – INTERVIEW WITH IRAN’S ARASH SOBHANI OF KIOSK – PART 2

Freedom Beat teamed up with Arash Sobhani of the Iranian band Kiosk, and Iranwire.com on a series of documentary profiles of contemporary Middle Eastern music artists who engage in nonviolent resistance through the medium of music. Arash traveled with journalist Jahanshah Javid of Iranwire to Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon in August of 2013 to meet musicians, interview them, share ideas, and to play music together.  Following his trip, Freedom Beat had a chance to profile Arash himself, his band Kiosk, and his reflections on the Green Movement and the role of music in nonviolent resistance.

Create, Capture, and Disseminate by Tim O’Keefe

When Arash Sobhani first told me about his planned trip to the Middle East in August 2013, it seemed serendipitous that it was right before Freedom Beat’s Fall 2013 launch.  Our conversation soon led to us collaborating on a series of video profiles of artists Arash interviewed in Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey, artists who engage in music of nonviolent resistance in their respective countries.

As a musician with an awakened political consciousness, I found the artist profiles we produced to be encouraging, inspiring, and energizing.  I was encouraged to see that the mission Freedom Beat co-founder Daryn Cambridge and I formed is shared by a diverse group of musicians and nonviolent practitioners from around the world.  I was inspired to see the work of these artists, and to see how their music impacted a movement.  I was inspired by how their music became the voice of a movement, empowering its participants.  I was inspired by how they used music to shine a light on the policies and actions of overreaching governments.  Often their lyrics not only triggered our hearts to action with tales of injustice and corruption, but they also stimulated our intellect with their lyrical humor and wit, ridiculing the unjust actions and policies of a heavy-handed regime.

I am energized because I see the importance of the work we are doing at Freedom Beat.  I see the importance of ‘culture’ as a change agent within societies bound by repressive regimes.  Access to cultural products and creative tools is key to change, be it political, social, or economic.  Whether it is the music they are making or accessing via the web, the videos they are capturing on their phones and transmitting to the outside world, or the communities their forming online that are then manifested offline and onto the street, the artists are becoming empowered.  We have hit a critical point where the ease and inexpensive cost of media creation and distribution can empower a people who live under the control of a system trying to constantly subvert their power.

The series of artist profiles we produced brought together three key components that I see as crucial to any contemporary nonviolent movement’s strategy – the triad of music, video, and new media.  Each of these key components has their own role within a movement in addition to an integrated role at the core of a movement’s media strategy.  Working in conjunction with one another, they are powerful, expressive, creative, documentative, journalistic, and communicative.

Each component serves an important role within the movement itself in addition to their role in linking the movement to the outside world of observers, supporters, and potentially new participants.  They create, capture, and disseminate ideas in the form of music, video, posts, tweets, and shares.  They help to bring attention to a movement through creativity and digital dissemination, which can result in outside pressure on a government hoping to silence its own people under the cover of a traditional media blackout.

This media triad is expressive in nature, using each of its components as a ‘tool’ of creation to communicate and deliver ideas, criticisms, experiences, and to thereby trigger action among observers who have not yet crossed the barrier of participation.  The triad is communicative, broadcasting the movement’s messages, calls to action, and documenting any potential heavy-handed response on the part of the government.

Arash described a movement using the analogy of society as a pan of boiling water.  The water slowly warms up and then reaches the point where it begins to boil.  At this point everyone is trying to express their feelings.  A lot of people come to the streets and start chanting while some may throw stones or form sit-ins.  All of these are ways for people to show their disobedience towards the government.  Like many others, Arash’s way of showing his disobedience is through writing songs.  It’s music.  So when the water boils, we encourage you not to pick up a stone, but to pick up an instrument like Arash and the artists we feature on Freedom Beat.  Music will reach much further and be more effective than any stone you could ever throw.

Tim O’Keefe is music composer/producer, and the co-founder of Freedom Beat.  In addition to his musical endeavors, O’Keefe is a digital media artist with an MFA in Digital+Media from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and a B.A. in Political Science from The University of Rhode Island.  His particular area of interest is in the role of the arts and new media in nonviolent civil resistance movements.

follow Tim on Facebook or Twitter.

Executive Producers: Daryn Cambridge, Tim O’Keefe
Produced by Tim O’Keefe
Directed by Irene Su, Tim O’Keefe
Edited by Irene Su
Interview by Tim O’Keefe, Irene Su
Camera & Sound by Irene Su
Freedom Beat logo animation by Sang Un Jeon
Freedom Beat Middle East Series animation by Beth Wexler
Music by Tim O’Keefe

Special thanks to Iranwire.com and The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict for their support & collaboration in the making of this series.