Moghran ya Layl by Ragheb Alama' and Time Travel

In the first half of the '90s, I was involved passionately with one of the great causes of my life and it was at that time, when my daughter was a toddler, that I encountered 'Moghram ya Layl' on the site of a fellow activist.  He was a very compelling individual and I suppose we became infatuated with one another based almost entirely on our intellectual internet postings, articles and work.

The song still sends shivers down my spine.  It is curious but I never liked romantic songs in English.  They are rather off-putting to me.  The songs I like tend to be rather caustic... songs like Lou Reed's 'Sweet Jane', 'Heroin' or at an extreme, Kimmel's song, 'STFU'.  In French, Italian or Arabic, however, I love romantic songs, listen to them without ever tiring of them.  Is it because the lyrics, filtered through interior translation, are not as obvious?  Is it because I do not dissect them intellectually the way I would do always with English lyrics?  Who knows?  The truth is therefore, that most of the romances in my lifetime have been accompanied by songs in another language or entirely intstrumental mainly Classical pieces, even when the object of my desire was an English-speaking individual.  He probably never knew which songs conjured his image.

So here I am, decades later, listening to 'Moghram Ya Layl', thinking about a man I never met but whom I knew very well over the course of the two years when we were in almost constant contact.   Although tempted, I never succumbed to his invitations to visit him, mainly because I felt he had a false image of me and I realised that he fundamentally would expect me, despite my persona as a social and political activist, to be a submissive partner in any personal relationship.  Indeed, he wanted me to officiate on a cooking show on cable television at one point... a role to which I was entirely ill-suited.

But never mind all that... in retrospect, I see that Romance with the capital R is mainly built on illusions and dreams.  Real relationships, however successful or satisfying, usually are not THAT romantic at the end of the day.  What sustains ordinary life is support of all sorts and not romantic illusions.  One still sometimes dreams of having it all, but I have come to the point where I would be satisfied if my physical mobility were restored.

So A...., this is for you... memories of opportunities not taken, a future never created, just as the Homeland never has come into being either...  I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I gone to Al Khalil ... but I was more responsible than that, more practical than that, once I became a mother.  Before that, I probably would have gone as an adventure, even if not ultimately a Romance... and perhaps we would have worked well together on the ground as well as the very new world of the internet that was.

I look back on the early '90s when we were pioneers of the chat rooms and internet sites, finding that politically, cyberspace was as revolutionary to politics as the gun was, giving us equality and a voice to the whole world when otherwise no one listened.  A thousand protest marches and nothing changed but a few internet publications and our cause was HEARD at last, even if hostility often was the result... I always felt that if we could educate even one individual, we had not wasted our time and I still believe that.

What happened ultimately was that I realised my political activism could endanger my child potentially in the post-11 September atmosphere, and I stepped back gradually from my reckless, if entirely honest stance...  gradually I lost the fire that was at the very heart of my soul.   I do regret that a little, although, in fairness, I began to realise that the leadership was corrupt and that, while noble individuals were willing to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods for a JUST cause, the vultures would be the winners in the end, greedy entrepreneurs and ego-swollen politicians, rather than the  people for whom we tried to speak and act.  People who lived in refugee camps still while their so-called Leaders swanned about the world acting as though they were the heroes.  Nor was there any unity even within the cause.  From the earliest days of my activism when I discovered that, if one faction were invited to an event, two others would refuse to attend, this sorry state of affairs continued to bedevil us and that only benefited the enemy and made a mockery of our attempts to change the political map.  Division between political factions and between religious factions and different religions and traditions... when very real and significant problems such as lack of water, lack of a home, lack of any livelihood was destroying the real PEOPLE.

It is very easy to tear down a structure, but not as easy to rebuild, and that is the problem that afflicts many revolutionaries and activists.  They can criticise and protest, but they are not terribly good at creating a firm foundation of unity for the future.

So there it is.  My life in that decade was very circumscribed socially but politically, I was a firebrand and I lit fires thousands of miles away on occasion, whether or not they had any real effect ultimately.  It still made me feel I was doing something worthy.  I have not felt that way for a long time.

The lyrics of Moghram Ya Layl:

 مغرم يا ليل يا ليلي مغرم يا ليلي بسهر الليل
مغرم يا ليلي يا ليلي مغرم و قلبي مايل ميل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل
لو عالنجوم عديتهالك
لو عالبحور عديتهالك
x2
و اعنتني وعديتهالك
و لحد امتى حتبقى تقيل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل
سهرتني و سهري حلاله
و اعشقت حلك و حلاله
x2
طب ليه بعادي بيحلاله
مكفايا بعد كفايا رحيل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل

In English, the title translates to 'I'm in love with you, O Night!'

Moghram Ya Layl 

Moghram Ya Layl, live 


Moghram Ya Layl, early live rendition