Kurdistan and Iraq

Composed by the Iraqi poet Asaad Al-Ghariri, with music by the legendary Iraqi singer Kazem Al-Saher, released in 2008 during one of the darkest periods of Iraq's modern history, a time of sectarian violence, civil conflict and the aftermath of foreign military intervention.

The song was conceived as a message of national unity, resilience and shared identity for all Iraqis. Its lyrics invoke Iraq's ancient civilisations, the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), the cities of Ur and Babylon, the land of prophets, as a reminder of what endures beneath the conflict.

Because of its deeply unifying character and widespread popular resonance, Salamun Alaika has frequently been proposed as a candidate for a new Iraqi national anthem, replacing politically weighted earlier anthems.

That Marwan Samer chose to perform this song, in Rome, in 2016, before a Kurdish musician, is not incidental. It was a declaration, made through music, about what he believed Iraq to be.

"Khallini Ma'ak" (Keep me with you) is a contemporary Arabic pop and romance classic, originally released by the Lebanese-Palestinian singer Ramy Ayach on his 2004 album Ya Mosahar Ainy. The performance opens with a vocal improvisation in the Mawwal style, a freely structured, emotive form of Arabic singing rooted in classical traditions, before settling into the melody.

While it is a modern pop standard rather than an ancient folk heritage piece, Khallini Ma'ak has been widely covered and reinterpreted across the Arab world over the past two decades. Its emotional directness, a plea not to be left alone, carries a resonance that travels beyond its pop origins.

Marwan describes the encounter as an act of transmission, that what happened between the two musicians in that small room in Monti did not stay between them. It reached the forty people listening. He speaks of love, peace and spirituality not as abstract ideals but as things that were actually present that evening.

He is speaking in Italian, not his first language. The simplicity of his phrasing, "la convivenza è la cosa importante", is not a limitation. It is the most direct statement he could make.

"Dewrano" (also spelled Devrano) is a traditional Kurdish folk song whose title derives from Dewran, meaning Time, Fate, or the Turning of the Ages. Addressing Dewran in Kurdish folk culture is a way of calling out to the hardships, cruelties and changing cycles of fate: speaking to time itself as if it were a person responsible for what has happened.

The song is deeply embedded in Kurdish musical heritage, interpreted and transmitted across generations. It carries the characteristic emotive, modal storytelling style of Kurdish traditional music, often sung as a reflection on collective endurance, longing and the passage of difficult years.

Serhat Akbal described himself in the 2016 interview as coming from Kurdistan in the Turkish part. As a Kurdish political refugee living in Rome, choosing Dewrano was not a neutral act. It was a song about what his people had lived through, and what they carry with them.

Serhat speaks about individual responsibility and the role each person plays in working toward peace. The musician contributes through his instrument; the filmmaker through the camera; the activist through protest. For Serhat, making music is not separate from political action, it is a form of it.

Speaking in Italian, not his first language, Serhat's words carry the directness that comes from saying something important in a language you are still learning. Nothing is abstract. Each word is chosen.