Imagine that all you know of the visual world is through the description of others; colours are just names, the sky is just an image they draw in their minds, people are only voices that talk to them, and most of all shapes are just identified by touches. This is the life of the over 1 million visually impaired in Egypt, and millions of others around the world.
In an attempt to allow people to live the experience of those who lost their sight, the Embassy of Switzerland in Cairo launched a “Concert in the Dark”.
The concert’s main concept is to take away people’s vision for an hour, in which the audience will listen to live music, performed by two famous Swiss musicians Sandro Schneebeli and Max Pizio, in the dark. On their way into the totally dark room, four visually impaired volunteers guide the attendees to their seats, exchanging the usual roles of who takes care of whom.
In the darkness, focusing on the music without any other visual distraction is the only option people have, without knowing the width of the room a person is sitting in, or the person who is sitting next to them. Feeling the music with all of their other senses is the only option people have.
“We wanted to raise awareness about the challenges that blind people face in their everyday life,” said Markus Leitner, Ambassador of Switzerland to Egypt. “At the same time, we wanted to showcase the huge potential that the people with sight loss have if they have access to education, training and technology.”
“People should know that darkness is not a reason to be scared, it’s actually very calming and romantic,” said Sherine Omar Ali, one of the blind volunteers. “Darkness is a form of innovation, when we want to dream, we close our eyes.”
Ali, who works as an international relations consultant at National Council for Disabilities, said she had to be a part of this unique event that “people won’t forget”. She also believes that society has a problem in understanding that disabled people are normal people, just like others, who want to feel accepted and to be dealt with normally in their daily lives.
“We can be successful at our lives just like anyone else if only the obstacles we face are removed,” she said.
To get people’s perspectives in life, you have to live the way they do. Hopefully after this event, people would get the chance to understand our lives the way we live it, she added.
While Ali believes the experience is a form of teaching attendees the meaning of being blind, Ibrahim Omarah, another volunteer, believes it’s a form of connecting people to others.
“Darkness lies inside people’s heart s and minds, not vision,” he commented. Omarah works as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Literature, Tanta University. “I never felt that I’m missing anything compared other people, I’m as normal as they all are!” he added.
Anyone can lose his sight at any given moment. This is a form of telling people that being visually impaired is not the end of the world. During the frequent power outages, people’s lives would literally stop and they would feel paralysed and unable to do anything at the dark. Meanwhile, it was a normal thing for blind people. So maybe it’s about time for those who lost their sight to teach those who still have it how to live, according to Ibrahim.
Adel Moustafa, another volunteer, is the first blind tour guide at the Egyptian Museum, and the first blind director in Egypt. He started his career studying the whole monuments shown at the museum by touching them until he became fully aware of each and every one of them by heart.
Sabri Atteya, a world karate champion, won the gold medal at the local competition five times. Ever since Atteya lost his vision, he insisted on delivering the message that he can achieve more things than normal people can, so he started learning karate.
All four volunteers admitted that the main problem they face is dealing with people and the environment around of them. “The biggest struggle we have in Egypt is a simple walk down the road,” said Ibrahim. “Roads in Egypt are not qualified to support any disability, whether a visual, physical or hearing.”
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Moreover, they admit they feel culturally unaccepted. “We’re usually looked at with sympathy as if we’re weak, dependant and miserable, without people noticing that most of us are successful in our lives, on both the personal and professional sides,” Ibrahim added.
Further, the way the visually impaired are portrayed in the media is another thing which the volunteers opposed.
“We’re only presented as people who can easily be manipulated, or someone who’s using his disability to make people laugh, as in ‘Al-Kitkat# movie. Why can’t we be presented as we are, people just like any other ones?” Adel questioned.
In the film, actor Mahmoud Abdel Aziz plays a very cheerful blind man, who lives in a lower-income neighbourhood, Al-Kitkat. At the funeral of one of his neighbours, he starts revealing the scandals of everyone in the neighbourhood, including his own son.
“This is a whole new experience for me,” said 27 year old Tasneem Ali, an attendee of the concert. “Listening to a music concert in the dark made me focus on nothing but the music and the instruments the musicians used to make us feel several emotions at the same time.”
Understanding the way the visually impaired feel was definitely a gain out of this night, she added.
Around 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide: 39 million have total vision loss and 246 million have low vision, according to the latest statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO). In Egypt, around 1 million people have vision loss and 3 million are visually impaired, according to World Health Organisation (WHO). They endure many medical and social challenges.
Through their musical performances in Egypt, Sandro Schneebeli and Max Pizio supported individuals with vision loss in Egypt, while allowing audiences to enjoy the unique concert by performing their jazz music, fused with the soulful energy of their diverse instruments, including the acoustic guitar and the saxophone.
