asakiyume | read the comments

It's a general truth of online life that you shouldn't read the comments--it's where the virulent nastiness lives.

Every now and then, that's not true though. After falling in love with the song "Xam Xam," by Cheikh Ibra Fam, I let Youtube take me on a tour of related songs.

It brought me "Gambia," by Sona Jobarteh, a beautiful song written to celebrate 50 years of Gambian independence (in 2015).

I happened to glance at the comments, and--my heart!

I'm a German, 55 years and my husband was a Gambian. He died here in Germany in 2011 (cancer). Today he would have celebrated his 62nd birthday. In 1998 he took me to his country and we spent there two years. This was the most beautiful time in my life. For the first time in my life, I felt like real living – I felt alive like never before. So I want to say "thank you" to my husband again, who showed me a place where my soul could breath. Whenever I feel down, doubting what this life is all about, I go back in my mind and think of those glory days.

And this...

Oh, i can recognise my grandmother at the end of this clip dancing with a group of women's. Thank you sister sona for futuring my granny. This will go down in history. Gambia for ever true.

And this...

I am from Ukraine and this music made me cry. It touches something deep in my heart. I think we missed Africa and we miss it. I play it and dance in the kitchen. I would like the whole world to go out in the streets and dance African dances. As not only live in our brains, but also in our bodies and our hearts.

And this..

From Somalia 🇸🇴 much love ❤️ our brothers & sisters 🇬🇲 beautiful country & beautiful people ❤️

And on and on...

"Am from Uganda ... I am from the Caribbean ... I'm a dutch old (63) man ... I'm latina from Colombia ... Je suis de la Côte d'Ivoire 🇨🇮 ... I'm Argentinian ... I'm a Proud ERITREAN-AFRICAN ... I am from India ... I'm a japanese student ... I'm from Morocco ... I am welsh ... I am from Spain ... I am white African from Mozambique ... I'm Nigerian ... I am peruvian ... I am from Croatia ... I am from Bangladesh .... I am Congolese... Sending love from Ghana ... Greetings and best wishes from Latvia..."

(And several from the United States, too.)

All full of love for the song. Really made me feel like part of one human family.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wow, those are just lovely.

I also see lovely comments for vids aobut helping animalos, and for the Chinese travel blogger I follow. (I think the audiences for these sorts of things are looking for the positive.)

Aren't they? I got all teary-eyed all over again writing the entry!

I think you're right: I think some corners of the internet and some topics do attract people who are eager and willing to enjoy things and see the good.

All full of love for the song. Really made me feel like part of one human family.

*hugs*

Those are very good comments.

These are the people singing things into being instead of X-ing things out.

Oh wow, this is wonderful. Thank you for sharing them. And thank you for sharing the song, too -- that was beautiful! The video and the music both.

I'm so happy you watched it--yes, it was, both aspects! I bought the song.

I usually avoid the comments completely, but it's always a wonderful surprise when they are almost unanimously positive. I'm glad people liked the song and that it spoke to people from such diverse places.

sartorias suggests, I think there are some topics that are more likely to bring out positive responses--but yes, in general it's wise practice to avoid comments.

Thank you for sharing these songs and comments!

I found the music pleasant to listen to, and I went and found English translations of the lyrics of each song. I love the positivity of the lyrics and the comments you shared, and the colors and musical instruments and dancing and carving and other creativity shown in the videos! 😊😊😊

----------------

...I hope you are OK with the rest of this comment including some less positive thoughts. (If you prefer, please feel free to stop here!)

----------------

I think I may be somewhat unschooled in appreciating the medium of music videos—I find that I get somewhat distracted by costume and jump-cut scene changes. Something about the contrast between the continuity of the music and the lack of obvious temporal sequence in the visual imagery bothers me. (Does anyone else here experience that?)

After reading the translation of the Gambia song, I found myself sadly longing to feel as positive about my own country, the USA.

I also found myself feeling curious about the country of Gambia (which I know basically nothing about), so I went and looked up where it's located and read some of the Wikipedia article about it. Almost everything I read surprised me. I am still curious to know more, but what I read seemed to show that the people of Gambia have as many problems in & with their country as we do in the USA. So, now I feel wistful about the gap between what we want our countries to be and what we may actually experience, but I don't feel envious of the people of Gambia, in particular, anymore. (And that is a breath of relief—a milder version of the kind of difference that comes when I stop making an experience worse for myself, reducing unnecessary 'suffering' to simpler and more manageable 'pain.')

Back to a positive frame of mind—I feel thankful for human creativity, in its many beautiful forms, and for the senses to appreciate them, and for everything that helps us learn what creative people make in places that are not physically nearby!

\🙂/ \🙂/ \🙂/ \🙂/

Thanks, again!

(My apologies for accidentally double-posting—I've deleted the extra.)

Oh! I sent you a PM because I thought you'd deleted the comment altogether! LOL, I should have looked at the entry before sending the PM!

Not a problem! 😁

I'm absolutely okay with wherever your mind takes you!

I know what you mean about wishing you could have that positive feeling about the US. I think maybe/probably you CAN feel that way about some aspects of things in the US--just, you don't feel that way unconditionally, or maybe not even about most things--but maybe about some things. (That statement represents how I feel, anyway.) And I think the same would be true for people in the Gambia--or for example, in Colombia. In all the television shows we watch from Colombia, people are always saying "En este país..." and then going on to talk about some corruption or weakness. And yet the people in the shows love Colombia, too. And that definitely reflects the opinions of the real-life people I've talked with in Colombia as well.

Sometimes when things are really bad, the way they are politically here, it can be hard to muster ANY good feeling. But for example, I love that even though this country has plenty of racist xenophobes, it's also full of people who come together to *help* refugees and immigrants (etc.).

I agree—there are definitely still good aspects to this country, and many good people working to sustain and expand them, and it's good to notice and appreciate that!

What do you think about the tendency for some 'patriotic' songs to depict the particular country as flawless?

I have a sense of distrust about those kinds of songs, because they seem to me to cross a line from "focus on the good" (which has value in some contexts), into the propagandistic territory of "ignore/deny the bad, and uncritically commit to whatever those in power tell you is patriotic, based solely on emotion and peer pressure."

I missed answering this! Apologies!

What pops into my head when I first read "patriotic songs" is the things we learned in school, like "America" and "America the Beautiful," but those are more songs praying for blessings on the country than they are claims to flawlessness.

But I know there are jingoistic songs out there. And for sure, I don't like it when people use music (or anything else, for that matter) to whip people up in zero-sum-style love of country.

My husband likes the hymn "This is my song," to the tune of Finlandia, as an alternative to patriotic national hymns.

So lovely! Thank you for this share.

My pleasure--I'm happy to have a place to share and people to share with <3

What good music. I know very little about Gambia, but now I'm going to look into it more.

Yeah, I was surprised to discover I already had a Gambia tag! I know very little about it too. (VERY little)

The first song is actually by a guy who's Senegalese--I love that one too, and when it's available for purchase, I want to get it. (I already got the other one!)

read the comments

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject