Once upon a time, when the children were still singing … …
No, it is not a fairy tale, but a real incident that happened on 9th February 2020. On the 9th day of Brexit, my children choir was singing in the Worship service. The dark cloud of Brexit cleared up a bit because of the children.
During the first week of Brexit, my friends living in England and I chat a lot about it. Brexit is sooner or later the fact, sad still no surprise. However, the way it triggered populism is sending shivers down our spine, one of those example was the “Norwich Brexit-day Posters” . Populism is pandemic disease. It is not something new, it is a constant battle to fight against. It will spread faster when people is indifferent to it, contrary, it can be restrained when everyone care about it.
Let me come back to the children. 9th February in church: one girl arrived with her bike, said “hello” with her brightest smile; Another girl was sitting on a chair with her overweight eyelashes, after I said “good morning” to her for the second time, she just realized someone was talking to her; A boy was running marathon from bench to bench; A girl danced in her lace dress; A girl was panicking about her eyeglass and music score were lying on her desk at home, but her dad fetch them for her. Each of them is unique and lovely in their own way.
My mentor and I arranged where to place the music stand, grand piano and the children. Everything has its place and this picture will be carried in my mind for a long time. A Sri Lanka girl was standing next to a German girl, next to her was a Chinese girl, and next to her was an Indian girl, then a German boy, and his best buddy in choir the Sri Lanka boy and many more children with different cultural background.
The rehearsal started, I from Malaysia indicated my mentor from Hungary to play the lively happy intro on piano. When the intro almost done, I gave the signal to the children to sing:
Komm wir wollen Freunde sein, sing mit mir mach mit.
Lachen, streiten und verzeihen, ich tu den ersten Schritt.
Es ist mir ganz egal, aus welchem Land du kommst
Ich versuch dich zu verstehen.
Alles was uns trennt, hat hier keinen Platz,
Komm lass uns miteinander gehen.
Komm wir wollen Freunde sein… …
English translation:
Come on let us be friends, sing and join me.
Laugh, argue and forgive, I’ll take the first step.
I do not care, which country are you come from
I’ll try to understand you
Everything that separates us, will find no place between us
Come on, let’s walk together.
Come on let us be friends … …
This is our message, this is our response to the populism.
Text and Melody: Daniel Kallauch