The Greatest Show on Earth — for Kids Who Need It Most | Sahba Aminikia | TED

16,334 views ・ 2024-12-20

TED


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Back in 2018,
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I was visiting the city of Nusaybin,
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which is close to the border of Syria, almost on the border.
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And this city has been the center of a lot of conflicts
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between the Turkish government and the Kurdish militia in north Syria.
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So we were visiting that area and suddenly, like 50 children,
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they gathered, and they saw me and they want to talk English.
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So I asked them one by one to sing a song, and I started recording it.
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And at first they were very shy and just hesitating.
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And then there was a fight over who's going to sing.
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And this got to a moment
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that there were like, literally tanks roaming around in the city.
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So I had to get in the car
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because I'm an American citizen and that could create a lot of issues.
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And while we were driving away,
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I remember like 100 children were running after the car,
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and they were just saying,
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the one next to the window was shouting,
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"One more song, one more song."
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So I realized that I'm blessed in the West
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with all these beautiful friends and connections
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and the work that I'm doing.
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But it seems like this place needs me more, you know.
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My name is Sahba Aminikia,
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and I am an Iranian-American composer.
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I was born in the '80s in Iran,
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and this was the time that Islamic revolution just happened,
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and Iran was also engaged in an eight-year war with Iraq.
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It was a dark period of Iranian history
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because my family are followers of the Baha'i Faith.
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Relatives and family and friends were constantly being harassed,
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arrested and imprisoned by the Iranian government
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and were subjected to show trials and even executions.
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I remember these weekly gatherings at a friend’s house in north Tehran
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that we would all gather, people from all ages
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and Baha'is coming from all backgrounds,
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and this was a time that these people were going through really difficult times.
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But they were very artistically active, playing music, singing, dancing,
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creating theatrical experiences.
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It was all about creating a vital refuge for Baha'i community in Iran,
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because otherwise we wouldn't survive
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with all the dark experiences that was happening.
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I know the significant effect of exposing children
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and communities who are suffering to extreme beauty,
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to something that is truly, truly beautiful and magical.
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Our Flying Carpet Festival is the first mobile festival
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for children living in difficult places and conflict zones.
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We mostly operate around the city of Mardin.
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We organize workshops,
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sometimes up to 20 a day:
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dance, circus arts, live music, visual projection.
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We have face painting, for example,
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a two-hour storytelling experience, and also a puppet performance.
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We go through the city with children and with the puppet,
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and people start to follow us.
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And we go back to the performing place,
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and now we have 2,000 people as audience.
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And we have established a system over six years
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that we can basically travel anywhere.
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We can go to small villages, we can go to gigantic cities.
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I love us to show up at places that there is less possibility, actually.
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So this includes a small community in the middle of some village
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in the middle of desert in Mesopotamia that has only 70 residents, you know,
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and so sometimes our own staff are more than the people living in that place.
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But also we have performances in cities
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that 2,000, 2,500 people is normal for attendance.
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I want to go to the most risky places, in fact,
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because those are the children who are stuck with the decisions
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that adults made in that community.
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Today, we are living in this world that obviously, politically is so divided.
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We were hoping that we can create something
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that people of different backgrounds,
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without being looked at as a certain --
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a representative of a certain ethnicity or a certain race
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or a certain culture can come together,
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be looked at as one, regardless of the color of their skin,
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their religion, their background
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and would serve as one full soul.
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The ultimate power is in unity,
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and unity is what connects us all,
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and that's separate from what we think,
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what we think politics should be.
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I see human connection beyond that and above that.
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I strongly believe that arts and artists today
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can be the closest thing we have to spirituality, in fact.
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Because every other way has failed significantly.
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So I think art can still be relevant,
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and it can be extremely useful
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for social progress, for political progress.
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Because they envision and they show you a better version of ourselves.
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And either we accept it or not, it's up to us.
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So I like the kind of art that doesn't tell you what to do actually.
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I love the kind of art that just presents the issue in front of you
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and let you decide as a human which side you want to hear,
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and there is no good or bad side.
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In fact, people just have different opinions.
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And I don’t think there is any evil in this world.
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There is no evil in this world.
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It's just people being misinformed or not informed about certain things.
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And I think there is a huge responsibility for people who know things
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and they can improve things to be educational.
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And education can only come through love and no other way.
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So by shouting and cursing at people, people wouldn't learn anything.
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You just have to be lovely to them.
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(Laughs)
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