The Human Condition: The silver donkey

By Daniel Schnee on May 4, 2022.

With all the strife in society these days it is easy to forget that good things happen, that in the unseen places of private life, small wonders occur all the time. These are moments of joy and peace, when we are taught what is best in life. Thus it was on a gloriously sunny autumn morning in the Middle East that I learned the lesson of a lifetime.

While teaching at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Israel I was asked to do a woodwind clinic for a group of immigrant schoolchildren in East Jerusalem. They had come from around the world for various reasons, and from a great variety of ethnicities and religions. The one thing they all had in common though was that they were poor, so a little free, live music was an uncommon and welcome addition to their day.

I taught clarinet and saxophone lessons at the conservatory, so I decided to demonstrate both, starting with my B-flat clarinet. The kids were mildly interested, but I could see them looking curiously at my giant bass clarinet. So I demonstrated some modern jazz music with it, which they loved due to the instrument’s low, raspy sound.

Then it was time to play a little trick on them using “circular breathing,” holding a note much longer than is naturally possible with a single breath. The children were amazed. At that point I knew it was time to bring out the real star of the show: my silver-plated soprano saxophone, whimsically nicknamed “Himar Fadiy” by a renowned Egyptian singer I once worked with.

I had hidden the horn behind its case before the children entered, and thus asked them if they had ever met the Himar Fadiy (Arabic: “silver donkey”), who was eager to meet them. When they said no I brought the horn out, and they marvelled at its sparkling features.

I then proceeded to make the most flatulent, absurd braying noise possible… and the children lost their minds. They had never seen anything so hilarious. As children are apt to do, they asked me to make the noise over and over again, laughing as hard if not harder with each passing sound.

After it was all over a little Armenian girl came up to the soprano sitting in its open case and whispered, “I love you, Silver Donkey.” It was so incredibly cute, but a part of me wept inside.

How did we adults stray so far? How did we older ones find so many excuses to hate everyone and everything, while children love so freely they can be infatuated with a saxophone? Because we choose to remain bound by vulnerability or helplessness when faced with uncertainty, and with fear. We love closing our minds and baring our fangs; we lash out instead of “love out.”

The world is complex, but hate is not: it will never solve the problems that it created in the first place. So while endless antagonism and violence rocks a country like Israel, those children still love to laugh and play. It is they who truly make it a Holy Land…

Dr. Daniel Schnee is a cultural anthropologist and jazz drummer.

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