| Terror in the sky. again!! Kulna Sawa Band Responds It is really strange and disappointing to all 12 members of Kulna Sawa band, to be accused of learning music to hijack an American flight in the USA. Yesterday we were shocked by the abundant number of calls and emails we received from the press asking us to comment and respond to an accusation of an attempt to hijack Northwest flight number 327 heading to California from Detroit, while we are still in Syria!. Without getting into details of the story that was reported by an American journalist and made America agitated, which could be easily obtained in details from the internet; we the members of Kulna Sawa band respond to all of these as follows: for more than 10 years, Kulna Sawa (Together in English) band put all its efforts to sing for Peace, Love, Tolerance, and above all human-well being. We, as Christians Muslims Syrian Arabs, believe that only arts and music can realize peace between nations and societies, and bridge the gap between the east and west, away from politics and politicians. Kulna Sawa were overwhelmed by the invitation of RASIT (a non-governmental organization affiliated with the United Nations/DPI), to tour the United States through its program Culture for Peace, which will begin on November 1st of this year. The tour includes 22 concerts in churches and American cultural organizations, in addition to the main UN establishments These concerts are dedicated to provide the American audience with a better and more accurate understanding of the religious and cultural dialogue between our two worlds. following to the announcement of our tour in the US, we believe that our band's name was intentionally brought up by some people who are trying to involve us in a matter concerning terrorism, and to raise question marks that will be associated with each member of the band for the rest of their lives. From fear of exposure to the true ideas and concepts of the Syrian mind, they are trying to create obstacles that will hinder our band's movement that is simply trying to draw the real image of Syria, and to reveal it to the American society. Even that we wasn’t on board, we were harmed by this incident and became direct victims of the illusions of this writer who reacted by writing racist accusations that someone use it in order to harm us and ruin our image even before the beginning of our tour. We, as a Syrian band composed of individuals from different religions, are greatly shocked and disappointed when we realize that this is the reward we get for all our struggle and efforts to go to the other side of the world in order to begin the dialogue of culture in the name of peace. This incident has taught us not to give up, to fight for our ideas and beliefs and to insist on overcoming all obstacles, since we have faith that these racist accusations do not represent the American society how believes in "dialogue and understanding". We, as young educated Syrians, have made a commitment to this sacred human cause. Kulna Sawa Members 28/7/2004 |
| KULNA SAWA / Together in their first U.S tour for PEACE |