“Fire, fire!
” A guide to the music of Palestinian-Swedish band Kofia
Since the Nakba, Palestinian art and culture have walked a fine line between maintaining
tradition and absorbing other modes of expression. After leaving Palestine for Sweden
during Israel’s colonising war of 1967, Nazareth-born songwriter George Totari began to
chart a new artistic path, forming the band Kofia with other Palestinians and leftist Swedish
musicians. Between the band’s inception in 1972 and the 1987 outbreak of the Intifada in
Palestine, Kofia released four albums, three vinyl records and one cassette, all without
record industry support or major label attention. As a new short film shows, the Kofia story
presents a unique mode of grassroots action. This article offers a brief introduction to their
recorded work.
Palestine My Land (1976)
“Fire on the Zionists, imperialists and reactionaries.” Kofia opened their debut album with a
militant and daring message, backed up by a powerful rhythmic unison of oud, Greek
bouzouki and percussion. Lyrics in Swedish and Arabic sent a defiant message to both the
Israeli regime and to its allies among the European ruling classes; Swedish politicians had
rolled out the red carpet to Golda Meir, who had recently declared that the Palestinians
didn’t exist. Continuing in the same musical scale maqam kurd, the second song Pansar Och
Canoner/Midfa’iyya Wa Dubabat (‘Artillery and Tanks’) took direct aim at Zionist military
leader Moshe Dayan, singing from the perspective of a woman whose husband had joined
the guerrillas: “long live the people’s revolution!”
Link: Eld/Nar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTQLSe5wC64
If the music and message was relentless, the album notes and photographs offered
historical context. They record the words of a refugee woman, Umm Ali on the condition of
near starvation in the Jordanian camps after the 1948 Nakba, saying she encouraged her
children to confront the imperialists, Zionists and Arab reactionaries. There were songs of
commemoration for the massacres of Tel el-Za’atar (1976) and Kufr Qassem (1956), the
1
latter ending with lost ones finding “love and protection in the earth.” In Dom Dödar Våra
Kamrater/Yiqtilo al-Rifaq (‘They’re killing our comrades’), Totari sings in Swedish, “I long for
stones, mountains and valleys.”
If the urban soundscape of Gothenburg was a far cry from the rural surroundings in which
the Palestinian musicians had grown up, the blend of instruments, voices and activism
offered strength in numbers. The second half of the album was recorded live at at
Sprängkullen, a leftist cultural centre at that time frequented by thousands, and the energy
and enthusiasm of the concert participants is audible. Flutist Bengt Carlsson recalls:
“When you came to these concerts, they provided people with rhythm instruments
and said, ‘play with us’… people could take part in the concert, which was quite
nice.”
On the song Palestinas Dotter/Ibnat Falastin (‘Daughter of Palestine’), a female vocalist
leads the battle cry, “No, no, no, no, we will never submit”. On this first album, the
musicians’ identities were kept anonymous: “We were doing our duty, our names were not
important”, explains Totari.
The album ends with Baladi (‘My homeland’), a traditional song with new lyrics by Totari
focusing on the right to return to Deir Yassin, Galilee and Yafa. A repeated melody evokes
the improvised sung poetry of Palestinian turathi (‘heritage’) songs. The live recording gives
a taste of a vibrant underground music scene, with rhythmic clapping, zaghareet (ululations)
and effervescent violin.
Link: Baladi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE2lNDSE6TQ
Earth of My Homeland (1978)
Thinking back to discussions on the cover of Kofia’s second album, singer Carina Olsson is
proud that they chose a photo of a “strong” Palestinian woman baking bread. With no lack
2
of militancy, the band now sang about the fertility of the land, of Palestine’s towns and
villages and the strength of steadfast refugee women. The title track is the first of two odes
to Galilee, referencing olives, greenery and soil. Totari sings in Arabic, calling on the youth of
Palestine to rebel against the colonisers, oppressors and sell-outs (Sadat had just signed a
deal with Israel and the US). Next, the Sång om Galiléen/Ughniyya ‘an Jalil (‘Song for
Galilee’) sees the oud backing up a female chorus, singing of the vibrancy of Land Day. Totari
explains:
“I lived in Sweden and decided that it was my duty to help the Swedes understand
our cause. They didn’t know anything about Palestine. Our songs told the stories of
historical events, from the voices of mothers who had lost their sons, daughters and
everything.”
In Nasaret/Al-Nasira (‘Nazareth’), lyrics by an unnamed ’48 Palestinian are set to oud-led
music, with flute lines responding melodically to Totari’s singing of the town he left behind
in 1967. The writer describes Nazareth under siege, “while I sang to the winds of a storm”,
and promises that Palestinians would one day celebrate their return with a mawwal melody.
Link: Nazareth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Gz7SWvsrI
The album was also characterised by a strong sense of internationalism; many of the
musicians had also been involved in Vietnam and South African solidarity movements. Kofia
sang or arranged anti-imperialist anthems dedicated to the people of Chile, Oman and Iran,
where the group were invited to perform in February 1980 on the anniversary of the
revolutionary overthrow of the Shah.1
Earth of My Homeland ended with what is now Kofia’s best known song, with the Swedish
hook ‘Leve Palestina’ (‘Long Live Palestine’) and entitled Demonstrationssången
(‘Demonstration Song’)/Tahiyya Falastin on the album. With a catchy repeated chorus,
Totari’s composition was simultaneously a manifesto for liberation and right of return, a
connection to a homeland and a defiant call for solidarity. Depicting the wheat and olive
3
harvests, stone and rocket-throwing confrontations with colonisation in a now world-
renown struggle, female singers led the call and response:
And we will free our land
From imperialism
And we will rebuild our land
For socialism
And the whole world will witness
Long live Palestine!
Crush Zionism!
Link: Leve Palestina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8Iglq06-0
As if to underline the vitality of the message, Leve Palestina became a staple of left and pro-
Palestine protests in Sweden for years to come. On International Workers’ Day 2019,
marchers in Mälmo were attacked by the Swedish Social Democratic government for singing
the song: prime minister Stefan Lofven labelled his own party members as anti-Semites for
singing the anti-Zionist lyrics and called for the song to be banned. As in Britain, Germany
and other heartlands of capitalism, Palestine solidarity is under attack, yet the songs and
stories of resistance continue to resound.
Mawwal to My Family and Loved Ones (1984)
The words and music to Kofia’s third record were composed in dark times, with Beirut
ablaze and Israeli-sponsored fascist massacres of Sabra and Shatila still painfully fresh in the
memory. But, like the embrace of traditional song, dabke or tatreez embroidery (featured
on the album cover) with the renaissance of Palestinian nationalism since the 1960s, Totari’s
songs carried a sense of life-affirming celebration:
Clap your hands and dance with me
4
Your husband is returning today
Drink the arak Ramallah
And eat the tabbouleh, wallah
- Klappa dina händer/Za’af wa ra’s ma’ya (‘Clap your hands and dance with me’)
Link: Klappa dina händer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCb-YE1gfSc
The song gave space for improvisation by the melodic instruments, offering a vision of
freedom with the release of a loved one from prison, with subtly reverbed violin soaring
over a droning, pulsating rhythm.
Thematically, Kofia blended vocal support for the armed guerrilla struggle with stories
upholding the resilience of the Palestinian masses. In Bomba inte mer/La Tiqtilu al-Atfal
(‘Don’t bomb’/‘Stop killing the children’) youngsters are depicted playing together in peace,
building a new lives and homes for future generations. There are parallels between Totari’s
writing and the stories of PFLP leader Ghassan Kanafani, which the songwriter readily
admits:
“I got to know his work intimately in Al-Hadaf magazine. Of course, I was influenced
strongly by what I read and interacted with.”
The catastrophes of Lebanon weighed heavily on Kofia’s repertoire around this time,
mediated through the voices of Palestinians on the front line. The song Södra
Libanon/Ijtiyah al-Janub al-Lubnani (‘The invasion of southern Lebanon’) was like an
“eyewitness report”, according to Carlsson. For percussionist Michel Kreitem, whose family
fled their Jerusalem home in 1948, “every song was a story”.
Bombs came from all directions
From the west, from the east
They want to burn all that exists
We shall fight with all our courage
We shall prevail against fascism and Zionism
5
Against the devil and all his friends
Link: Södra Libanon/Ijtiyah al-Janub al-Lubnani https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=bK_PsQP9w30
Long Live Palestine (1988)
A fourth album was recorded amidst the upheaval of the uprising in 1988 and, like the
Palestine-based guerrilla musicians of the intifada, Kofia operated on a budget, releasing
through the vulnerable medium of the cassette. Totari reflects that “the problem was
always resources, no money and so on. The only help we got was from the Swedish
musicians themselves.” Its cover carried the dedication “in memory of the fallen leaders of
the Palestinian revolution and of the heroic Palestinian people” and featured Sliman
Mansour’s illustration of a dove breaking through the bars of a prison.
Unusually for Kofia, all of the songs were sung in Arabic, with stripped-back instrumentation
focusing on Totari’s voice. The lyrical content and can be read as a postcard to those who
remained in Palestine, to a land left behind and showing a hunger to be involved.
Send greetings to the loved ones and relatives,
To Palestinian eyes and Nazarene eyelashes
- Sallem (‘Greetings’)
Love and art
Your beauty, Yaffa
The lighthouse on the beach swaying and seducing
- Jafa
Link: Jafa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_PsQP9w30
6
Other tracks are dedicated to Gaza, Jerusalem and Galilee, remembering the community
spirit of small town life, villages and valleys, and praising the bravery of the youth.
While it would be unfair to earlier musicians to say that the involvement of activist guitarist
Mats Lundälv took the Kofia sound to a new level from their third album, there was certainly
a difference to the musical arrangements of the fourth. The 12-string and electric guitar
layerings of the riff to Eshtana (‘I've missed you’) gives the track a propulsive quality and
Lundälv plays a leading role in Malak Ya Assmar (‘You’re an angel, dark skinned one’), with
Mahmod Abu-Elkheir’s Arabic tabla carrying the driving rhythm from song to song.
Link: Malak Ya Assmar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_PsQP9w30
For Dalal, Peter Jansson’s bowed bass intro borrows from Arabic ornamentation, followed
by Carlsson’s vibrato flute and Totari’s oud, which subtly carries the vocal. The lyrics are
bittersweet, but hint at the optimism at the heart of the Kofia project:
Salam to your eyes, Dalal
On the wings of a bird, you come to safety
With the blood of the martyr, our soil is watered
Kofia: A Revolution Through Music
Link: #kofiafilm trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t50GnBzmoYY
At the time of writing, George Totari is leading work on a new Kofia album. The short film
Kofia: A Revolution Through Music narrates part of their radical history, as another
illuminating example of how Palestinians have dealt with exile, leading a fierce critique of
Zionism, imperialism and compliant Palestinian leaders.
By becoming musically and linguistically bilingual, Totari and other leading musicians have
led the transmission of Palestinian militancy and socialism. One one level, the coexistence of
7
diverse influences is nothing new, but the dispersal of refugees by the Zionist project has
accelerated the process, unintentionally planting seeds of opposition to its own existence.
The Kofia story is still being written. This music will not be silenced.
Louis Brehony
8
1
For more on Kofia’s trip to Iran see https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200131-baladi-iran-
playing-palestinian-music-in-revolutionary-tehran/
