Laura Hassler - Musicians Without Borders
Laura Hassler is the founder and director of Musicians Without Borders, an umbrella organisation working with local musicians to bring social change and peaceful, liveable conditions to their own communities.
Laura started the organisation 20 years ago and in that time has established impressive programmes and training workshops in countries around the world.
Musicians Without Borders is the cause supported by the MTF Splice Trackathon release from last year - and streaming or downloading the EP contributes to the charity.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, music, musicians, war, organisation, working, connect, projects, peace, singing, charity, laura, borders, grew, community, called, kosovo, local musicians, years, voice
SPEAKERS
Laura Hassler, Andrew Dubber
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. I’m the director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast, at MTF Stockholm last year we ran the splice trackathon kind of a 24 hour hackathon for music producers. winners of the trackathon had this songs compiled and released as an EP to raise money for charity. And there are some fantastic songs on there. The calibre is just incredible. Just listening to the EP makes a difference, and you can also buy it to download. The links are at Music Tech fest.net slash trackathon. So the overall winner of the live triathlon event was Ruben Svensson, who produced the song Cold with Nina Butler. And Ruben got to choose the charity that any proceeds would go to. He took that responsibility really seriously and went and did a whole bunch of research before coming back with musicians without borders as his chosen charity, which, of course, we thought was absolutely spot on. When we got in touch with musicians without borders to let them know what was happening. They were really excited. It’s such a great fit for what they do. I had a chance to the charities founder and director Laura Hassler about what they do, why it matters, and where it comes from. Now, Laura spent her life as a peace activist and grew up in the heart of the American Civil Rights Movement. She started musicians without borders 20 years ago, as a way to bring together her activism and her love for Balkan folk music. On the line from the Netherlands. This is Laura Hassler. Laura, thanks so much for joining us on the MTF podcast, you want to tell me a little bit about what musicians without borders is for
Laura Hassler
sure. But musicians without borders is sort of at the place where music and peacebuilding peacemaking, social change, intersect. So we we began, this is our 20th anniversary this year, we began 20 years ago, during the last of the Balkan Wars in Kosovo. And with with the idea, a number of us were musicians who had basically used music within our own societies to connect people across lines of culture and history and their past. And, personally, I have an early background in the peace in civil rights movements of a number of decades ago. And so the idea was, well, could we actually use music as a tool for reconciliation, peace building and helping to heal the wounds for and that is our core business. Right? So it’s not specifically about using music to end war or to heal during war, but it’s once war has happened to to sort of bridge the boundaries between different places. Is that the idea? Yes, we are. I mean, mainly also, just because when war is going on, it’s quite complicated to to intervene as musicians. But we are, for example, working in Palestine, where there is active conflict going on, or active violence. In any case, most of the places where we’re working our post war, some of them are quite a long time after the war, as in El Salvador, or Rwanda, others, you know, in the Balkans, we’ve been there since really since the year after the war in Kosovo ended. So that was quite immediately post war. And, and you know, many of many of this type of conflicts, the war stops, the shooting stops, there’s some kind of a chord. But very often, the effects of the war go on for years, and often the conflict is still going on, it’s just going on at another level. So a lot of what we see our role as doing and then we’re not, we’re not working on huge types of mega projects, we’re working on grassroots projects to kind of slowly sow the seeds of peace in various ways in different places. So whether that’s bringing together young people in an ethnically divided, city, bringing, bringing those young people together through rock music, for example, which we do in Kosovo, as a way of literally bringing together people who have been divided along ethnic lines by war, or whether it’s reaching out to young people and children who were affected by HIV as a result of sexual violence during during the genocide in Rwanda. There are different approaches, but they all have that common denominator of using music as a way of giving a space for people to heal and to reconnect.
Andrew Dubber
Right I can imagine sort of the cynic approach to this would be well, surely music is just entertainment and distraction will work genuinely good thing can do in this context. What would your kind of response to something like that be
Laura Hassler
well, as a musician and also as someone who has read and studied and met many people who who are experts on this I know that musics basic property, which is also why why people find it such a source of entertainment and, and relaxation. But the fact is that all human beings have music in them. It’s in our DNA, it’s in our bodies, and it’s in every culture. And music has, for all of time, been away that societies have have been able to connect that people have been able to connect with each other, if you just look at the ways that music is used, in so many societies around the world as something to do when you’re working, when you’re playing with children, when you’re mourning or celebrating or grieving, or if music is the means of expressing human emotions, and therefore we, we connect with each other for that reason. And in, in Western societies, which, which are pretty much commodified, where almost everything has been commodified. Music has also been commodified. But the deeper reason that that’s possible, and the deeper level of what music can do is something that’s very fundamental to human connection. And that’s the level that we’re working at.
Andrew Dubber
And how does that play out in terms of the actual sort of on the ground? Do you have a team that sort of parachutes and does some music and then disappears again? Or is it about building capacity in the places that that you work?
Laura Hassler
Mostly, it’s that second mostly, we work in long term collaborative projects with local musicians and local organisations. And so for example, I mentioned bringing young people together in a divided city in Mitrovica, which is ethnically divided city in the north of Kosovo is left after the cost cost of a war divided literally along the banks of a river, with ethnic Serbs on one side of the city and Albanians on the other. And this was a city that before the war had had a very kind of booming rock music scene. And so we’ve established a rock music school, where young people can meet each other, we have two separate branches on both sides, but we bring them out of the city to meet each other before mix bands, we work to keep those bands going together. But that’s a process that takes years. And so last October, the mutual Rock School celebrated its 10th anniversary. And while it’s become an independent institution, it’s still musicians without borders, that’s behind it. And and that is this sort of helping to guide and steer that process. In some projects, where we’re only somewhere for a few years, as in El Salvador, for example, where we’re training music teachers at the request of UNICEF and the Ministry of Education. We’re training music teachers to use music as a tool to help children to feel safe and to develop their sense of self and their sense of community within the context of a country, which is really suffering very much under the burden of gang violence and criminal violence. And which is also a legacy of the of the word El Salvador. That’s a more limited intervention. But most of our own projects are long term, right? I mean, I guess over the last 20 years, you’ve had some real highlights of, I guess, sort of kind of landmark projects that have made a real difference. Can you tell us about a couple of those? Sure. Well, one of them is the one I just mentioned, the Rock School in Mitrovica, which is still going strong. We’ve also been on the West Bank in Palestine, working with marginalised children and youth for a very long time. And there we’ve trained several hundred school teachers and social workers to use music in the class to help build children’s sense of self and, and their, their connection with with other children and with the community. We’ve also worked there with rappers and and given them the the both the training and also the facilities to be able to become teachers. So they become teachers of rap to young children giving children a way to express themselves through poetry and rhythm. We’ve also worked there with with drummers, we work together with a organisation called sons of Palestine, which basically teaches children to play instruments and sing in choirs. It’s all about using music in many, many different ways to to help create a sense of community and build a culture of non violence. And then Rwanda is also a long term project. We’ve been there now, since 2012. And there we’ve trained more than 150 young people who are living with HIV, as community new music leaders to work with children who are also affected by HIV. And then we’ve also trained a cohort of young musicians working in a refugee camp where 50,000 refugees from Burundi are housed. So that’s really working with very marginalised young people and children to give hope through music. Other projects might be shorter term, for example, we’re now working in, in a couple of European countries together with larger NGOs, where we’re going in and training groups of local musicians to be able to work with refugees who are on the move in southern Europe, especially in Italy and Greece, and know also in Bosnia. Right.
Andrew Dubber
Okay, so So how did the start? And Was this the idea that you had, that you’re doing now, all the way along? Or has it changed over time?
Laura Hassler
Well, it started actually, it started actually with a concert. I was I was working at that point as a choir director and leader of vocal groups and ensembles. And, and one of my great loves was always singing folk music from the Balkans. And we were invited in the Netherlands where I live to do a war memorial concert that is usually second world war memorial concert here in the Netherlands. And it was during the Kosovo War. So we did actually a concert dedicated to victims of wars going on at that moment. It was very moving concert, as he once in a while, are lucky to have as a musician where where people, all audience and performers all have the same kind of sense of intention, I guess, it’s very emotional concert. And afterwards, we were we were sitting talking with a group of the musicians and one of them said to Laura, we should this was a very powerful moment, we should take this concert and put it on a train and send it to Kosovo and stop the war. And that was a kind of, what would you say lightbulb moment or a Zen moment for me with where something was said that was actually so impossible? And yeah, crazy idea that I thought, well, let’s think about that. And started calling people. And within a couple of weeks, we had an office, and we have a kind of a reception, an international peace organisation and some advice and worked as volunteers for several years. And the original idea really was to go to war areas, connect with local musicians, and see what we could do to promote reconciliation and stopping war indeed. So how we would do that was not exactly clear. But, but but it’s been a pretty consistent path. If you if, if you look back, somebody once said to me, You have a very good retroactive strategy. So you could sort of see the steps, building starting with exchanges with musicians in the Balkans, who we did, in fact, find and we’re, in fact, interested in connecting. And then moving from there to the idea of Yeah, well, going back and forth, and sending musicians back and forth is all very nice, but it doesn’t actually change the situation on the ground. How do we connect with local communities and work together for lasting change? And on that trajectory, we’ve really been for most of our existence. Right,
Andrew Dubber
right. I’m interested in how you got there, though. I mean, what did your parents do? And how did that affect where you ended up?
Laura Hassler
Both of my parents were professional peace activists. My parents both worked for an inter religious peace and non violence organisation. I grew up outside of New York in an in cooperative community, interracial, into religious living community. So it was a very unusual American upbringing, I guess you could say, your time for it. Yeah. In some ways. Yes. And, and, I mean, my, my father worked with Martin Luther King, in developing communications tools about the civil rights movement. As a child, I was already on picket lines and demonstrations and, and, and there was always music, and I loved music. And I, you know, I took music lessons and and became a kind of musician activist, you could say, when I was in a piece of civil rights movement, activity, I was always the one leading the music and when I was a musician, I was always looking for ways to let that music be a way of connecting people and and pointing to the bigger issues in life. But and and so most of my life, I sort of wandered those two paths and, and found ways to connect them when possible. And so musicians about borders looking back at it all was kind of the coming together of that. Right.
Andrew Dubber
So where did the interest in Balkan folk music come from?
Laura Hassler
Well, I guess I grew up singing songs, international folk songs. That’s what we did when I was in our community. Somebody played guitar and love singing and nobody had any money. And so we did a lot of singing and at some point, I heard Heard, actually an American group called The Pennywhistlers, who sang this music and I was just, I think I was in my teens. And I was just riveted by the sounds of the voices, but also by what happened in that music because the ball consisted, of course, a cultural crossroads, and has been for centuries. And, and that has led to clashes, of course, but it’s also led to very interesting cultural mixes, including in the music. And I think the thing that fascinated me the most was the ways in which musical elements from east and west met in that music. And then the other thing was the use of the voice, especially in the in the folk music, which is really, you know, country singing, so sort of strong use of the chest voice and something that enchanted the world later on within misstated well, Gar and that kind of ensemble. But But I just loved that combination. And now, when as soon as I got to a point where I could actually sing it and bring a group of women together to perform it together, I did that.
Andrew Dubber
So how good do you think we are? I mean, having this, this, this history growing up in the civil rights movement and starting your own charity to address issues like this, how good are we now as a society at something like activism, is this changed? Is it improved? Has it become easier?
Laura Hassler
I think it’s becoming more apparent that it’s something that needs to happen continuously. I think that the last 40 years, you know, when I was young activism was well, when I was a child, there were activism was was, there was a very small amount of activism in the West. And, and it was quite difficult because I grew up during the Cold War, and the McCarthy period, and so forth. And, and that was, that was quite difficult. But we sort of gathering steam, and then into the 60s and really propelled a lot by music, obviously, and by sort of shift in consciousness of especially young people around the world. And there was an enormous sort of in the 60s and 70s, of course, enormous growth of, of activism, which really brought about a lot of change. And after that, I think that I’m not sure exactly what happened. But maybe people were tired, or maybe young people grew up in the next generation, sort of felt that everything was basically okay. I think that one of the things that’s happening now, as we see this rise in right wing populism and Neo fascism, really, in our own societies is that people are starting to realise, wait a minute, that’s not something that you can just assume that things are fine, that, that the achievements that have been made will always be there. That I was, I saw, so I looked it up the other day, because I remembered it. I think it’s called freedom is a constant struggle. And I think that that’s, that’s a fact. And I think that people are starting to realise that that’s true, and that things are not going to steadily improve on their own. There are always people doing work, and they’re always people doing things, but but I think you need to keep one foot in the activist shoe, I would say,
Andrew Dubber
right, so you don’t imagine a day in which we’ve won and everything solved. But the fact that you continue as the as the point?
Laura Hassler
I don’t think that history is linear. And I think that, that there are cycles, and you see this very often. And I mean, if you if you think that the you know, there were huge movements against nuclear weapons, and which one which really put a lot of pressure on political leaders to work towards accords and those that was to some extent happening, that hasn’t happened in a long time. And now you see, again, this, this rise of militarism, and, and, and again, some resistance coming up. But But, you know, we sort of lost that. I think we lost the power of activism for a number of decades. And I think it’s being rediscovered and the big question, of course, always is well, is are we on time?
Andrew Dubber
That is a really good question. Is that something that you’re optimistic about? Or is that something that that causes you to despair at nights? How do you interpret that?
Laura Hassler
Both I think, you know, there’s, there’s a very interesting, saying that I kind of hold on to, which is that that hope is merely the decision to act, I think that we’re living in in a time in which, you know, we’re seeing a number of stories playing out at the same time. On the one hand, you have the, the growth of militarism and, and, and, and the use of fear and the spreading of fear as a tool to control people and the growing control and the rise of the number of of these. Yeah, kind of what would you call them macho on steroid type of leaders all over the world and that and it doesn’t seem to be connected to, to a political ideology so much as, as as a power, power and money in control issue. At the same time, I think there’s never been so many people who have been aware of the interconnection of all life and the sacredness of life and the need to protect the Earth and the environment, I don’t think we’ve ever seen as much of that as there is now. And these are, these are playing out at the same time. And so and you also see the the the loss of species and, and destruction of rain forests, and climate shifts and the disasters that that’s causing, at the same time, and you’ll see people that are sort of becoming active to really proactive to, to, to try to protect the Earth. And, you know, I guess it’s lucky that we don’t, we don’t, we’re not really able to predict the outcome, the history is always been full of surprises. But I think that it’s the I really believe in that the, the acting is really what hope is, it’s acting, it’s doing things, it’s, it’s being grounded, it’s being able to breathe, it’s being able to connect with yourself, and it’s also action, and agency. And, and so, you know, we don’t control the end, we can only deal with where we are. And even if, you know, whatever happens, I also think this is the best way to live. So there’s not really a choice there.
Andrew Dubber
So do you have any particular recommendations about how we should act or just that we act as the important but
Laura Hassler
I well, recommendations I you know, I believe that I, I told a story recently about having I was a young woman, I worked for a year for the Vietnamese Buddhist movement during the Vietnam War. And for that was an office that was led by Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Vietnamese Zen Master, I don’t know if you know, him, writer, poet, leader of sort of the the, the bringing of the concept of mindfulness to the west. Yeah, for sure. Um, and, and I remember in in a period where the, the western peace movement was quite divisive, actually, and quite fractured. And I went home, he said to me, Americans can’t be peacemakers until they learn how to breathe. And I think that it’s, it’s, it’s important to, for people to be able to do that, it’s important to be able to, to ground yourself to be present, to be present for others to be present for yourself, and not to be in panic and not to be in stress. And learning how to do that, whether you do it on your own, or whether you do that with a group. I think that’s very important. And I think it’s also important not to leave it there, it’s important to then take the step and be active and like myself, I I take a lot from the theory and practice of non violence, referring a lot to the teachings of Martin Luther King. And that includes so you know, if for activists that includes principles such as do no harm, and it includes stand with those who are oppressed, and it includes being willing to take on suffering, and and to stand for social justice. So those are kind of principles that that I believe in. And I also believe in the idea of being grounded in oneself.
Andrew Dubber
It’s interesting that the the idea is that in order to be peacemakers we need to learn how to breathe, and the message is being given to a singer. And I think that’s, that’s a really interesting thing is to take the kind of the control of the human voice and the use of the human voice through expression and artistic creation, but also, you know, in a choir setting, particularly you’ve got this as collaborative co creation of a singular, you know, shared voice. I think there’s something at least poetic in that.
Laura Hassler
There. There definitely is and there’s something else about singing and music and voice and bringing that back to the question of war and armed conflict. There’s there’s a professor of peace studies and he’s also been a negotiator in in an actual cessation of wars, named John Paul Lederach. And he talks about the issue of voice. That often when when people have been in a conflict area, and the conflict has been settled that they speak about having no voice. And he talks about what usually we understand that as people not having a voice in the decision making, which is one of the problems of course, in in, you could say, standard conflict resolution. But he says there’s, there’s another issue, which is that people who have been through this kind of traumatic situations have often gone through situations, which are literally unspeakable, they’ve gone through experiences, to which they can give no words. And, and for which there are no words because they’re so horrible. And that one of the things that music does, is it gives us space for the expression of those feelings. And it gives us space for reclaiming the rest of who you are other than just being the victim. And I think that’s very central to the to our work is to create that safety space where people can find themselves again in the music and don’t have to talk about what happened, or don’t have to talk about the divisions that are there. And this is one of the things also when we’re working in these situations, we never asked people about what they went through. We never talk about ethnicity, we only talk about music, and we create a space where people are free to experience the who they actually are and to connect with people and they make those decisions themselves. And that’s the way that process works.
Andrew Dubber
That’s really interesting. Like it’s both connects with and kind of explains, to a certain extent, something that I experienced, I worked with charity in India, called Music Basti, which brings music workshops to homes for street kids. And, and of course, all of the sort of the theory around it about sort of, you know, singing, counting, clapping, it was about numeracy and literacy and socialisation and, and all these sorts of things. But what we discovered, and and what the kids themselves said is, you know, all that’s kind of interesting and important, and all the rest of it, but, but when we sing people listen. Yes. And and that is the case, ordinarily, we’re invisible, were unheard. But But when we sing people listen, and I thought that that’s what you’ve said, is kind of kind of unpacks that quite quite well.
Laura Hassler
Yes. Yes. It’s it’s actually giving a voice back to the voiceless in that way. Right.
Andrew Dubber
Right. So do you feel like you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve? Or are we I mean, in terms of the creation of musicians without borders, and the infrastructure and not, you know, to achieve the objective of world peace, but, but that it, it’s set up and it’s doing the thing that it’s meant to be doing, and it’s in the shape that it’s meant to be? Or is there a kind of a grander objective that you’re working towards, still,
Laura Hassler
I think we’re on the path. And I’m very proud of the organisation as it is now, I think, you know, the, the projects that we’re doing are our true to the goals there, and, and the people who are working together also working as a community, which, to me is also important, it’s important that we treat each other well. We know this, you hear very often of idealistic organisations, where everybody’s overworked, and everybody’s stressed out. And, you know, and and I think it’s, it’s important that we take care of each other, I think we could grow some more, but I, I think that I basically, sort of trust the organisation to, to grow as, as much as it needs to grow. And, and we are, we are having an impact beyond our own projects as well, because we also, for example, offer trainings and various levels for musicians around the world, in several different countries, so musicians can join us to, to spend a week learning the skills that we’ve picked up and developed over the years. And that way, they take them back to their own places and their own projects. And and we’re starting to publish more articles and I’m working on a book and you connect with more with different sectors with academics and with people who are who are active in in other areas with people who are working on the environment. I find it very stimulating, and it’s a very, it’s very challenging to, to kind of try to guide that growth and make the right decisions. But I definitely think we’re, we’re on the right path. It was a real struggle for some years, but we had no money and nobody knew us and, and nobody seemed to think that this idea was coherent or, or useful, and now suddenly everybody’s are many people are realising the power of the arts and especially music in addressing some of these issues. And, and meanwhile, we’ve been at it for 20 years. So we’ve become one of the one of the leading organisations worldwide and people are looking to us for Yeah, sometimes for guidance or for collaboration. And to me, that’s we’re still learning we’re learning organisation, but I think we’re on the path that I would have hoped that we’d be on when it started.
Andrew Dubber
Fantastic. Well, we had a trackathon event at Music Tech fest.com in September 2018. And as you know, the winner, Ruben Svensson producer chose musicians without borders, as the as the charity for which the EP that gets released was to raise funds for so the idea is that the Music Tech Fest community is by people listening to the track or downloading it buying it is contributing to musicians without borders and the project that you’re doing. But is there anything else that our community could think about or contribute? or How could they get involved? You know, what more can we do?
Laura Hassler
It’s wonderful already. This is this is wonderful, and we’re very grateful for this obviously, and also grateful for Ruben to Reuben for having chosen us. I think people could sign up for our newsletter, follow what we do, musicians out there might be interested in, in participating in one of our trainings. Obviously, we’re always interested in you know, if people want to contribute some money, we also collect instruments that are in in good shape, which which we pass on to musicians who lost their instruments because of war and conflict. So there are many different ways but I think the best way to find out how would be to visit our website, which is m web dot NGO.
Andrew Dubber
Fantastic. Laura, thank you so much for your time today. It’s really a pleasure to have you on the show.
Laura Hassler
Thank you so much.
Andrew Dubber
Laura Hassler, founder and director of musicians without borders, and that’s the MTF podcast. You can have a listen to the MTF splice trackathon EP and raise a little money for the charity. And you can also get involved as Laura suggests, just go to mwb.ngo, enjoy, make a difference. Have a fantastic week and we’ll talk soon. Cheers.
