The story behind Empathy, a three-track EP by Chinmaya Dunster
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I was mostly in tears in October last year while this track unfolded on my guitar beneath my fingers.
It was a space where all feelings were magnified – terror, horror, anger, as well as love and gratitude. The Middle East was exploding again and my Israeli partner Naveena and I felt it in our guts. For Israel now is not just her homeland, her family, her friends; after twenty-five years together these people and places are also mine. With each passing escalation of the violence, she and I are in increasing terror for what is coming to pass for them.
Then there’s my horror at what is being done to them and all the ordinary people on both sides. My head fills sometimes with anger at the perpetrators of all this down the years. How could we have let people apparently without empathy become our leaders?
Now, as I watch so many people taking extreme positions and looking for someone to blame, I try not to feed such polarization in my own head.
“So do you have an opinion on the situation?” Goldberg asks.
“Of course I do,” replies Mendel, “but I don’t agree with it!”
There’s a quote from someone running around my head: “Whenever I despair about humanity I remember music.” Sharing these tracks, I feel so lucky to have music to cling to.
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