At the WOMEX 25 award ceremony in Finland, the founders of the Syrian Cassette Archives, Mark Gergis and Yamen Mekdad, declined to accept the Professional Excellence Award.

“Everything we do at the Syrian Cassette Archives is done in celebration of our people — the musicians, the singers, the resistance, the pacifists, the farmers, the mothers and fathers, the daughters and sons.

Our people from Gaza to Sur al-Maniyah, from Masr to Aleppo, from Daraa to Jerusalem, from Homs to Beirut. The genocide against our people in Gaza has been ongoing.

It has broken us into pieces. Yet we continue to do what we can to stand against it.

When we were notified that we would receive the Professional Excellence Award from WOMEX, we were genuinely happy to see our work recognized and celebrated.

Yesterday, just before our panel discussion, we met a friend in the main hall who invited us to an urgent meeting called by concerned pro-Palestinian participants and activists.

We joined, and to our surprise, the group was drafting a letter to circulate among WOMEX attendees, calling out a festival decision to program an Israeli artist who, in late 2024 — over a year into the genocide — had attended a fundraiser for the Israeli military forces and publicly expressed support for it, among other things.

This was a shock to us. It crossed a red line, and we realized we had also not done our due diligence in researching the artist.

If we had, we would not be here. We trusted WOMEX’s curatorial choices and responsibility to do at least basic background checks, especially in the midst of a genocide.

In a way, it’s a good thing this happened — because it has created a necessary moment for accountability.

Once this was brought to our attention, we met with the WOMEX directors and asked them to publicly acknowledge that this programming decision was a mistake and to reflect on how and why it happened.

We explained that if they could not recognize this as a problem, it would no longer align with our values to accept the award.

They refused to make that statement, but they gave us time yesterday to discuss the issue and have been kind enough to give us this platform today.

So, regretfully, today we are declining this award — because WOMEX has platformed an Israeli artist who has not acknowledged or spoken against the genocide, has made no statement about the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, and has supported a fundraiser for the Israeli military forces.
We believe that silence and normalization are forms of complicity.

Culture is never neutral. Those of us working in music and the arts are responsible for the narratives we platform and for the power structures those narratives reinforce.

What we choose not to acknowledge can quickly become a form of complicity. We cannot ignore how colonial frameworks and ongoing occupation continue to erase Palestinian lives, history, and culture.

This is not about singling out individual artists because of nationality or background; it’s about recognizing the imbalance and the ethical implications of showcasing Israeli state-linked artists in the midst of a genocide.

WOMEX can take meaningful steps by acknowledging the system it operates within and by developing a clear ethical approach when programming artists from places living through occupation or conflict.

This is about holding accountable the structures that keep reproducing oppression through cultural programming. Programming in the name of inclusivity and neutrality often comes from a well-intentioned desire for balance and the belief that music transcends conflict.

But in a time when the Western — or Western-aligned — world funds, supports, greenlights, and upholds an apartheid state dedicated to the erasure of a people in the most blatant shows of impunity and exceptionalism, we believe that those well-intended hopes for inclusivity need to be paused and reassessed.

This is about care, context, and responsibility — making sure that the stages we build do not erase those already fighting to be heard.

Thank you.”

(Audience cheering)

Note: News and Noise was not present at WOMEX this year. It concerned the Iranian-Israeli actress, singer, and dancer Liraz. This information and transcript come from a video of the speech kindly shared by Eli Silvrants.
Photo: © Eric van Nieuwland