{"id":165188,"date":"2020-07-20T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=165188"},"modified":"2020-07-18T05:40:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T04:40:44","slug":"she-waved-a-rainbow-flag-at-our-cairo-show-tragedy-followed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/07\/she-waved-a-rainbow-flag-at-our-cairo-show-tragedy-followed\/","title":{"rendered":"She Waved a Rainbow Flag at Our Cairo Show. Tragedy Followed."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

That Sarah Hegazi felt safe enough to honor our music with her bravery is thrilling; that such a simple act forever altered and then ended her life brings me great sorrow.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

16 Jul 2020 – <\/em>Last month, Sarah Hegazi, a 30-year-old Egyptian L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist, took her own life in Canada. Far away from Cairo, her home, she was profoundly haunted by what had happened to her there over the past two and a half years, having been arrested, tortured<\/a> and hounded into exile. Her transgression? She raised the rainbow flag \u2014 unabashedly and joyously \u2014 at a concert in Cairo.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

I was onstage that fated night, Sept. 22, 2017, with my band Mashrou’ Leila. We\u2019re an indie group from Beirut and have played across the Middle East and beyond for more than a decade now. Our Arabic lyrics tell stories of love, hope, loss, inequality and corruption, speaking to the ills that plague our region.<\/p>\n

Performing onstage has given me my proudest memories. From where I usually stand, I look out at the sea of dreamers holding signs, waving flags, laughing, screaming and singing their hearts out. Collectively, we \u2014 band and fans \u2014 do what the Middle East\u2019s leaders won\u2019t: create a home for all of us. Class, race, sexuality, gender, politics and religion all fade away for two hours. Such a version of what the Arab world could be is a powerful rebuke and a threat to what the dictators, Islamists and sectarians have been offering us instead for decades.<\/p>\n

Though we have performed at some of the most iconic venues across the globe, that concert in Cairo was our largest ever, with 35,000 people in attendance. To perform for so many in the soul of the Arab world, as Egypt is considered, was a milestone for us and a testament to that hunger for change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n