For a child to repeat the anthem everyday,
does it make him loyal or submissive to the authorities?
Everyday I sing:
I
will
sacrifice
my
blood
to protect you.
UAE
National
Anthem
As I was growing up in UAE, I used to stand in the morning queue everyday at school with the other students singing the Emirate Anthem, replacing carefully the word «Our Emirate» with «Our Palestine» with no one noticing.
In this video I sing the Emirati Anthem and I do what I used to do when I was a kid, replacing the words.
Space: “Unmapping The World”, CIG-Chaumont, France 2015
In some countries, the national anthem is played to students each day at the start of school as an exercise in patriotism.
What does it mean to belong? What defines belonging? Is it the place where I live or the place that resembles me the most?
This work sheds the light on the Palestinians life in the Arab countries where they have to prove their loyalty to the host country but also maintain their Palestinian identity and faithfulness to the Palestinian cause. This faithfulness that becomes sometimes a romantic dreamy perception due to the distance.
