It's more of an incantation than a song but it's asubiquitous as the sound of gunfire on Syria's frontlines and has become theundisputed anthem of the revolution. In Syria's rebel-held areas, the words arespray-painted on walls, blared on minibus radios and exchanged as mobile phoneringtones: "Yalla erhal ya Bashar" (It's time to leave, Bashar).
Huddled fighters intone the song-cum-slogan as a battle crybefore mounting military operations against Syrian army forces. And in Syria'sstreet protests, demonstrators chant it to open and close marches against theregime of President Bashar al-Assad. "Get out Bashar!", demands thesong. Its creator paid dearly, however. Ibrahim Qashush, a singer from thecentral city of Hama, was little-known before the Arab Spring reached Syria inMarch 2011.
A few months later, a shaky recording of the nagging mantraperformed by Qashush and echoed by a chorus of demonstrators at a night protestin Hama went viral on the Internet. "You have lost your legitimacy...Freedom is within reach... The martyrs' blood doesn't come cheap," saysthe song, whose unlikely rhymes never fail to trigger laughter. It even pokesfun at Assad's slight lisp. Qashush was soon arrested and his body was reportedto have been found in a river in July last year.
The man nicknamed "the mocking bird of therevolution" had had his throat slit and vocal chords ripped out. In manySyrian towns where anti-regime protests carry on, organisers call themselvesQashush in a homage to the slain activist.
If the Syrian revolution had a soundtrack, "Yalla erhalya Bashar" would be the theme song but anti-regime music has flourishedover the past year. The anti-regime repertoire flooding the Internet includeseverything from a rap remix of Qashush's song to heart-wrenching tales ofbereavement mixing in soundbites from orphaned children backed by Araborchestras heavy on whining violins. The revolt has forced Syria's celebritiesto take a public stand and some of the Arab world's best loved artists whochose to extoll the virtues of Bashar and his regime, such as actress Raghda,are now hate figures in rebel strongholds.
"You know, when your lips have been sewn shut for solong, people want to sing," said Abdallah. "They want to shout."
