Dance or Die — The story of Ahmad
When we welcomed Ahmad at the European Parliament on the eve of his performance we couldn’t help but notice the innocent joyfulness of his eyes. Like the eyes of a child that is amazed at simple and banal things. Yet Ahmad’s amazement was more than that. It was his first time visiting the pulsating heart of Europe’s democracy and at the same time performing his dance of peacefor such an important institution, and for the many refugees around the world.
As we walked with him around the Parliament’s main highlights, he told us of how privileged he felt to be here and how beautiful and unique the history of our Union is. After all, since the establishment of the European Union, Europeans have enjoyed more than 60 years of peace and no longer really know what it’s like to have war at one’s door.
Ahmad is one of the hundreds of refugees that fled persecution and terror for a better future. But he does not like to be considered and labelled only as a refugee, as he is, primarily, a dancer. Dancing was his dream since he was a child living in a Palestinian refugee camp and became his mission back in 2015, when the Islamic State broke into his city on the outskirts of Damascus. The Syrian civil war had already destroyed his home and killed five members of his family when Islamic State militants began to threaten to kill him if he did not stop dancing and teaching childrento dance. However, this did not stop Ahmad who, in defiance of such intimidation, had the words Dance or Die tattooed on the back of his neck, the spot where the blade would be applied in case of his execution.
“When I was still in the camp, my dream was to be an international dancer. During the war I had almost forgotten about it but something inside was telling me “no, keep going, keep going”. I was practising on the roof and everywhere I could. I never gave up and look at me now, travelling everywhere in Europe to dance and share my message of peace!” Ahmed recalls.
Today Ahmad has fulfilled his dream. He moved to Amsterdam with the help of Dutch National Ballet in 2016 and has become an internationally renowned dancer, also active in charity work in support of Syrian refugees. But his dreams are bigger: “I am here in Europe and I want to learn as much as I can because one day I want to go back to Syria and create the Syrian national ballet, my dream”.
On World Refugee Day, as part of a broader event in support of solidarity, we invited him to perform at the European Parliament. A moment of lyrical poetry, a message of peace and hope in imagining a more open society where we can all live together peacefully.
Ahmad’s performance was in fact like a hymn to life, a reminder of the great power that art can have in healing and uniting us in a common cause. And our cause today is solidarity. Our cause is to fight to have a better Europe that is capable of sharing the burden of solidarity and of welcoming those who are left behind by terror, wars and persecution. Ahmed’s dance of peace was its symbol as well as a story that tells, as in his own words, that “our mission as refugees is to take this great opportunity to live in Europe and learn as much as we can because sooner or later we will be called to go back to our country and rebuild it”.
But before leaving, Ahmad also left us a message to pass to Europeans: “Why do people consider refugees as something bad? We’re all guests in this life, we’re all refugees after all”.
Indeed, we‘re all refugees, we’re all temporary inhabitants of this earth. Let’s make sure to always remember that.
