arts Article Refugees for Refugees: Musicians between Confinement and Perspectives Hélène Sechehaye 1, * and Marco Martiniello 2, * 1 2 * Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences Sociales, Musicologie, Université libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Fund for Scientific Research-FNRS and Faculty of Social Sciences, Liège University, Bâtiment 31 Boîte 24 Quartier Agora—Place des Orateurs, 3, 4000 Liège (Sart-Tilman), Belgium Correspondence: hsecheha@ulb.ac.be (H.S.); m.martiniello@uliege.be (M.M.) Received: 26 November 2018; Accepted: 7 January 2019; Published: 16 January 2019



 Abstract: Driven by the solidarity movements following the “refugee crisis” of 2015, the Brussels-based non-profit organization Muziekpublique, specialized in the promotion of so-called “world music”, initiated the Refugees for Refugees project. This album and performance tour featured traditional musicians who had found asylum in Belgium and had artistic, political, and social goals. In comparison to the other projects conducted by the organization, each step of the project benefited from exceptional coverage and financial support. At the same time, the association and the musicians were facing administrative, musical, and ethical problems they had never encountered before. Three years after its creation, the band Refugees for Refugees is still touring the Belgian and international scenes and is going to release a new album, following the will of all actors to go on with the project and demonstrating the important social mobilization it aroused. Through this case study, we aim at questioning the complexity of elaborating a project staging a common identity of “refugees” while valuing their diversity; understanding the reasons for the exceptional success the project has encountered; and determining to what extent and at what level it helped—or not—the musicians to rebuild their lives in Belgium. Keywords: refugees; diversity; migration; world music; fair participation 1. The “Migrant Crisis” in Brussels By the end of summer 2015, the “migrant crisis”1 reached new dimensions in Europe and shook public opinion (Georgiou and Zaborowski 2017). Belgian political authorities did not adapt quickly enough to receive migrants who were arriving on their territory: hundreds of them,2 as they were waiting to fill in their asylum application at the Foreigners’ Office, were staying in the nearby Parc Maximilien in Brussels.3 In this tense context, numerous solidarity and humanitarian initiatives flourished.4 Several actors in the cultural sector, whose activities do not specifically concern refugees, decided to contribute in their own way. The radio station Musiq’3 set up the project “Musiques d’exil” [“musics 1 2 3 4 Also referred to as “migrants’ crisis” by the media, or “welcome crisis” in the more engaged media (for an analysis of the lexical treatment of the event, read Calabrese 2018). The estimated figure varies between 600 individuals (Wahoud Fayoumi, “Réfugiés à Bruxelles: “Jamais je n’aurais imaginé un camp en Belgique” [Refugees in Brussels: “I’d never have imagined a camp in Belgium”], rtbf.be [online], 9 September 2015) and 1200 (Thomas Mangin, “Parc Maximilien, le village pour réfugiés s’organise tant bien que mal” [Parc Maximilien, the village for refugees is getting organized as best it can], Le Soir [online], 16 September 2015). This problematic situation has not ended with the so-called “welcome crisis”: in 2018, hundreds of migrants are still gathering around the Parc Maximilien where they sleep at night, or are taken care of by associations. September 2015 saw the birth of the non-profit organization Plateforme Citoyenne de Soutien aux Réfugiés Bruxelles [Brussels Citizen Platform for Refugee Support], which coordinates all the initiatives and is still active three years later [http: //www.bxlrefugees.be/en/ seen 8 August 18]. Arts 2019, 8, 14; doi:10.3390/arts8010014 www.mdpi.com/journal/arts