Dear Fallujah, 

First the sound was soothing. Now it has started to scare me. The ringing won’t disappear. Years go by. The drought drowns out the life of my fields. Distorted, some of us remain. The birds are back, but the palm trees are sick. They ring with pain to remind me to remember. The land doesn’t sound like it used to. Can we grow a garden in this hell? 

“We elders know a rhythm of life that is attached to moving to and from places. Death is when we cannot reach those places. …The young ones have to learn to live in Hades year-round, and still make a garden there.” 

Kali J. Rubaii, Counterinsurgency and the Ethical Life of Material Things in Iraq's Anbar Province. P. 169

“What is being dried out in Anbar, therefore, is not a population —not dates or farmers or Anbari men— but any set of relations among them that runs up against the interests of neoliberal extraction, 24/7 production, and full integration into global capitalist speed (Tsing 2005).”

Kali J. Rubaii, Counterinsurgency and the Ethical Life of Material Things in Iraq's Anbar Province. P. 387

Dear Fallujah,
I think of you every time I come across moisture in dry places.

Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.” 

Kali J. Rubaii, Counterinsurgency and the Ethical Life of Material Things in Iraq's Anbar Province. P. 173

“Iraq is drying up. I noticed when I tried to pollinate the dates that the flower had no natural moisture. It wasn't making nectar, so I thought about how the woman must have moisture to conceive. I felt very silly to do it, and I waited until I was alone to try it. Then I thought, could it be that the trees need to cry, to make the moisture of mourning. I tried to make it have tears with an onion. I cut the onion in half and held it up to the flowers and blew pollen onto them. It worked! I was surprised. But this is how we will repair Iraq. With tears, with onions. It is beautiful, no?" 

Kali J. Rubaii, Counterinsurgency and the Ethical Life of Material Things in Iraq's Anbar Province. P. 416

Dear Fallujah, I figure I might be egocidal. I feel the need to heal from healing. So I go out and slap the water. 

“When people feel grief and despair or suffer from suicidal thoughts, they may feel like they are dying inside. In order to regain the will to live, Rosen believes, only a part of them – a false self – needs to die. When the false self is permitted to die symbolically (egocide) through creative expression, a kind of mourning process is set in motion. When the cycle comes to an end, the person is transformed and experiences new life, a rebirth of purpose and meaning.”

Jungianthology Podcast - Transforming Depression Through Symbolic Death and New Life: Using the Creative Arts

Dear Fallujah, this field is “chemically castrated”. Is that why this burning flame sounds like a bell? 

Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced.
What was inside it and what was outside it
depended upon which side of it you were on.

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

What are they hiding behind this wall? 

When the wind blows in our direction, we can’t breathe. Half of the seeds I sow don’t survive. 

“Hospitality” not only as the custom of invitation, hosting, and social debt, but also as the kind of labor required to make a place (or human body) livable.”

Kali J. Rubaii, Counterinsurgency and the Ethical Life of Material Things in Iraq's Anbar Province. P. 396

The birds don’t seem to mind.

fallujah

You’re in Ardjan, Gammarth. 

Your ears are full. 

You spill out of a club into the maze of the complex. 

You pour into its channels, where volumes are carried by waves 

You stay here for a while, in the buffer zone. 

In between. 

The smog is thick. 
The longer you stay, the more you see. 

I drink the disorder of the world is a sound piece composed by Emily Sarsam, which invites listeners to stay with the noise for a while. 

Fascinated by the notion of sound pollution and sonic densities in club complexes such as Ardjan in Tunis and Piazza Vuccheria in Palermo, Emily uses audio software to manipulate field recordings, and build sonic atmospheres that transcend ideas of pollution and nuisance and stimulate the sensory, emotional and visual imaginary.

I drink the disorder of the world asks listeners to listen deeply and observe their bodies. Which noises evoke a sense of ease? What about fear or discomfort?  Are these feelings consistent and isolated or do they morph and melt? When do the lines blur and when do they crystallize? 

Sound piece composed for "Je bois le désordre du monde", curated by Camille Lévy and organized by Kadist, at El Warcha in Tunis (September 2023).

I drink the disorder of the world

A composition blurring sonic material from transit zones with drones and percussive elements from Dhrupad practice and Sufi chanting in the Sidi Qasem Shrine in Sidi Salem, Tunis.

behind the yellow line

A vocal reflection on the tanpura and the street sounds from my apartment in Omrane Tunis.

Emily Sarsam

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