Healing Trauma through Music – Syrian Musician Wassim Mukddad's Story
Former medic turned musician Wassim Mukddad spoke of healing himself and others through music last month at St Hilda's College, Oxford.
From the safety of Oxford’s calm and tranquil heart, it’s easy to forget that war rages across the globe.
It’s not just wars raging at this moment. It’s wars that have, as we’ve watched, transfixed, exploded onto our screens, momentarily stunning us with sudden, shocking violence, before seemingly vanishing in smoke.
We may be forgiven for thinking they were over.
But war scars the body, the mind and the human spirit.
For centuries, we have been searching for ways of helping those who carry those scars, to heal.
And, for some, it is those scars that provide the motivation, the impetus, the deep urge to heal others.
Wassim Mukdad is one of those people.
He’s found a particular, and perhaps unique, way of taking that need to heal, and transforming it through music.
Born in Syria, Wassim originally studied medicine, as well as the oud and piano at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus.
When war came to his country under then-president Assad’s brutal regime, he was able to use his medical training to help others, serving as an emergency room medic before becoming a prisoner himself, simply for participating in peaceful demonstrations.
Eventually, he would also experience the torture that Assad’s criminals now infamously used against their own people.
Yet during the seemingly never-ending Syrian conflict, Wassim was able to transform himself, then others, through his love of music.
Now based in Berlin, it is this love that he channels through his chosen art form to help heal children traumatised by war, not just in Syria but children from Iraq and latterly, Palestinian children.
Wassim also believes in justice, not only for himself, or for the children he works with, but for his beloved Syria and for anyone victimised by conflict.
He has since served as a key eyewitness for the first ever war crimes trials for Syria.
Last month, he appeared at a symposium called Justice for Syria at Oxford’s St Hilda’s College, alongside of Dr Patrick Kroker, Human rights lawyer for ECCHR (European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights), who represented Wassim and other survivors at the trials.
Accompanying them was former US Ambassador for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp, Chair of The Commission for International Justice and Accountability, and Blavatnik Senior Fellow. Rapp, who ran a covert operation throughout the conflict, gathered evidence he now describes as ‘richer than Nuremberg’.
Their story is told in ‘The Trial of Anwar Raslan’ presented by Nina Donaghy for Al Jazeera.
Federica D’Alessandra - Deputy Director, Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at Blavatnik School of Government also made an on-screen appearance from New York.
But first, the audience was treated to an hour of Wassim’s mesmerising oud playing, featuring his characteristic fusion of Tarab, dance, and medieval genres.
After the event, I spoke with Wassim, where we began our conversation by exploring the healing power of music for traumatised children.
The Healing Powers of Music for Children
Wassim believes that music can be instrumental in transforming pain into something beautiful, providing a sense of community, a way of taking back control.
Resolving the trauma resulting from pain, in his opinion, is complex a process. Wassim’s observations after working with trauma is that one of the most devastating aspects of it is loneliness, feeling that you are left alone to suffer from your experiences.
During his work, firstly as a medic then later as a musician, he began noticing that children could be helped to deal with their trauma creatively by playing music, choosing songs from their background, letting them get to know one other.
He discovered that although the goal is for children eventually perform on stage, he now understands it’s the creative, unifying process that takes place beforehand that’s key.
Children encouraged to go on stage and sing about their dreams or about memories, in turn help their families heal too.
His goal now is to encourage everyone experiencing trauma to come together, build new communities, sing with one voice. For music to fully express itself, he says, to reach its full potential, everyone needs to join in and help create new and beautiful harmonies.
Wassim’s personal journey
And what of his own personal healing journey?
Already an accomplished poet and musician before the war, he began composing music to accompany the demonstrations he participated in, while simultaneously using his medical expertise, working as a field doctor in a camp for Palestinian refugees near a mosque.
Bomb shelter transforms into a concert hall
There was a defining moment he knew that he was able to help people heal their souls as well as their bodies.
Leading up to this, he describes total siege: constant bombing, no electricity, no water, everyone hungry.
The hospital crew decided to organize a concert to celebrate Eid. In that moment, going on stage, playing in a cellar, they felt saved from bombs. They turned a bomb shelter into a concert hall.
It was an act of resistance through music.
Playing by the light of donated candles, Wassim knew then that he was a musician. He describes a feeling of relief, allowing himself to “dig deep in it, like digging in the mud in order to take the drill out.”
Everyone cried. Everyone danced. Healing began.
Since then, he has dedicated his life to telling his story though his music as well as bearing witness at the war crimes trials that have taken place in Berlin.
Does he believe justice has been done?
He is circumspect, responding, “I need to understand what justice is, to be able to say if it’s done or not. And I would argue justice is an idea…to keep us together as a society in order to prevent our falling apart once a crime is committed.”
Justice, then, like creating music, is a process, a group activity, best done together, for everyone.