On this World Refugee Day, June 20, 2026 Musicians Without Borders expresses our disappointment with the European Union’s adoption of the new Return Regulation, making asylum in EU countries, family reunification, and other basic human rights more difficult for people in forced migration, while making it easier for states to exclude, mistreat, or deport people seeking refuge.

Musicians Without Borders works with people and communities struggling with the impacts of war and armed conflict, including displacement from their homes. Our projects in the Western Balkans, Western Asia (Middle East), Central Eastern Africa, and Europe include both internally displaced people and people seeking safety in other regions. We know that people do not leave their homes unless they are forced to by war, persecution, grueling poverty, or climate disaster and there is no other choice.

We are alarmed at the increasing rhetoric of war in Europe, the sowing of fear, and the steady increase in weapons and military spending, at the cost of care, attention and resources for actual human needs, affecting all people living in Europe, whether native-born or newcomers. We believe that these developments run counter to the best of shared European values.

History should warn us that the simultaneous decrease in resources for an inclusive society– for art, culture, education, healthcare, and housing– and increase in militarization, fueled by fear of the outgroup, lead to authoritarianism and even to fascism.

Musicians Without Borders stands in solidarity with people in forced migration—including in the EU—as we use the power of music wherever we can to connect people across borders and to say to all: you are welcome here.

The three artists have combioned and channelled their energy, and in doing so, they make history as the world’s first Eurovision Boyband. Ever!

The Boyband EP is a celebration of friendship and bringing together many different musical styles, all of which lead to the perfect creative chaos. Joost, Käärijä, and Tommy all believe that art and artists can, and must, serve a purpose beyond entertainment, and so all revenue generated by the lead single, ‘I Miss Us’, will be donated in full to Musicians Without Borders!

You can watch the video and listen to the single below:

Thiago is like Madonna, he doesn’t need a last name, said Kylie to me when I couldn’t remember Thiago Avila’s surname. We were sitting in the Dominicus Church in Amsterdam, waiting for the start of a program of speakers for ‘Stop the Nakba’, the culmination of a Hague Group conference on stopping the genocide in Gaza. Both of us had followed Thiago’s activism for the Global Sumud Flotilla, his inspiring leadership in this nonviolent attempt by world citizens to break the blockade of Gaza, his gentle, inclusive, inviting charisma, and his bravery, which he wore as if that were easy.

Kylie walked over to check the table selling buttons and bags. Then, I saw Thiago nearby, just walking around ahead of the program. Walked up to him, introduced myself, gave the shortest ever elevator pitch about Musicians Without Borders and our program in Palestine. He was so warm and welcoming, so appreciative, that I dared ask him to record a few words. Which he did, talking about how music has always been crucial to struggles for liberation and justice, naming Bob Marley, Victor Jarra, Mercedes Sosa. And sending greetings to Musicians Without Borders.

I stood, holding my phone, the tears running down my face. 

We proudly published Thiago’s statement—by that time, he was on one of the Flotilla boats, the largest group ever of citizens from all over the world, sailing from southern European cities toward Gaza, bringing humanitarian help for people suffering the most visible genocide ever committed, while world powers watch and do nothing—well, next to nothing. 

Turns out, he also sings and plays guitar, as some of the Flotilla reports show.

Decades ago, during the US war in Vietnam, my father Al Hassler and Vietnamese Buddhist peace leader, Thich Nhat Hanh together founded Dai Dong, a short-lived initiative to re-define global relationships based on the principle of  ‘a world of togetherness’, like the South African concept of Ubuntu (I am because you are), a vision of a world in which every person sees their own children in every child.

Thiago embodies that vision—read his letter to his 3-year-old daughter, Teresa:

Dai Dong never took off, perhaps we had not yet seen clearly enough the suffering of others to understand the critical necessity of this principle for our common survival.

Perhaps now is the time.

Thiago is now in an Israeli prison, subjected to beatings, torture, intimidation and threats to his life. The same fate for his Flotilla friend and comrade, Saif Abu Keshek, also the father of beautiful young children.

Reports are that both young men are on a hunger-and-thirst strike against their detainment. Whether through their conscientious refusal of food and water, or through the maltreatment by Israeli forces, both of their lives are now in grave danger.

Please, everyone, do what you can to stand for Thiago and Saif, to put pressure on governments to demand their release, to share and publicize their situation, to spread their message of justice, nonviolence and peace—for Gaza and the world. Because if the world is to survive, then we all, like Thiago, need to see those children as our own. 

Laura Hassler, May 8, 2026

Update: On the 9th May 2026,0 it was confirmed that Thiago and Saif would be released and returned to their home countries. The were reportedly released on 10th May.

Main image photo credit: Ilia Yefimovichvia Getty Images

Antonio Gramsci, prophet of our times: the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.

Gramsci wrote this in 1924, in an age when European colonialism still thrived in all its racism and barbarity, an age in which the end-product of capitalism and imperialism on the home front – fascism – grew. 

Imprisoned from 1926-1937 – 11 years – Gramsci died shortly thereafter.

These days, many quote him, especially these prophetic words. ‘Now is the time of monsters.’

Reading about Gramsci, I notice that all the philosophers he quotes, all the Marxists and revolutionary leaders whose theories are discussed and debated – they are all men. Of course. The brilliant women thinkers of those times went largely unnoticed. Today, wanting to understand what is happening, I follow more sites and podcasts than is good for my own mental health, and notice, even today, that most of them are moderated by men, and most of their guests are men. And most of them, not all but most, are talking about war, about weapons, about economics, about power struggles. Very few are talking about life, about protecting life, about cherishing life.

It is not for a lack of smart, informed, reflective women. In the last few months, I have attended inspiring talks by several of them, including Naledi Pandor, Noura Erakat, Mariam Barghouti, Sally Rooney, and Varsha Gandikota. Women, one and all, who speak about the human values, the life realities, the impacts of global politics on human beings that are so basic to the reasons to oppose the political and military powers of our day. Why are they not on the mainstream news, not even the alternative mainstream? 

Meanwhile, I chat with a colleague, a young man, smart, skillful, professional, who talks about his baby boy and how they see that the little one loves music. How he loves to walk with his little son in a carrier, close to his chest. When I was a young mother, only the women carried their babies. Fathers, it seems, couldn’t connect with infants, and waited to bond with children until children were old enough to hold rational conversations. 

In my mind, I make a connection between the inability of that generation of fathers to embrace an infant, and the age of monsters.

Today, while the old colonialism is dead, neo-colonialism is alive and well: the men of the ‘white’ countries still dominate, controlling most of the world through banks and debt and corrupt client regimes, extracting natural resources from the global south, dominating economies, trade and global wealth. Look at the US, demanding jurisdiction over the Strait of Hormuz – a half a world away – threatening to destroy an entire civilization. Look at western-led corporations, stealing the wealth of the Global South. Look at the domination of western military power across the world. (The US alone has more than 800 military bases in other countries.) And also: look at the billionaire ‘tech bros’, claiming that empathy is our greatest human weakness. And look at the continuous squandering of the world’s wealth on the war industry, on bombs and guns and fighter jets and drones and AI targeting and all the bloody rest.

Yes, there is now some resistance – whoever imagined that a country like Iran could successfully challenge US hegemony in Western Asia, the results reverberating across the globe? 

But it’s still the men, vying for military, physical, economic power. And meanwhile killing mercilessly – first 165 schoolgirls, and then thousands more across the region. And the podcasts and talk shows focus on the strategic and military response to western power. But it’s still only about physical, military power. Not about life and protecting life, not about survival, connection, community. Not about that which connects us – empathy, our ability to understand our common humanity.

Can this new generation of men, who know how to hold a baby, align with women who step into leadership in opposing genocide, opposing militarism, standing for our human and planetary rights – can we together be the force that brings the change we need, that confronts the monsters and steers us away from them?

My dear colleague, with his little boy, there’s some hope for us all.

Laura Hassler, May 2026

It is not that I love girls more than I love boys—I love them all and hope that my children and grandchildren can attest to that.

It is that, in almost every place in the world, little girls are the most vulnerable, while also the greatest promise for the future. In almost all societies, where misogyny has dominated history, where girls are systematically repressed, under-privileged, married off, beaten, raped, assigned to subservient roles, or simply never considered… it is they, the little girls who carry the promise, maybe the only hope for the future of humankind.

We live in a fragile time when, despite brutal, noisy propaganda to the contrary, our true strength is in our vulnerability, our wisdom in our compassion, our survival chances in our abilities to care for each other. And these are the natural talents of girls, or maybe the evolved talents of girls who throughout time in most societies have been left with the ‘support roles’, or simply left to figure it out themselves.

Girls are physically more vulnerable than boys, the bigger, stronger, often more aggressive of our species. But vulnerability teaches us kindness and tenderness for those needing protection: today, just about everybody and every living thing on our planet.

And not that boys are incapable of compassion—I’ve known many who disprove that—but to girls, it seems to come more naturally. The quieter ones in the school class, the shyer ones on the playground, girls get the chance to see and identify with the vulnerable, and this creates compassion.

And service of course, the cliché of womanhood, and we learn it as girls. Being good at school, helping friends, helping at home with cooking and cleaning, with younger siblings, homework and music lessons and sports, and… helping Mom when she’s tired. (I remember this so well, bless my wonderful daughter.)

I live in one of the most “emancipated” societies on earth, the Netherlands. And yet, last week, my 13-year-old granddaughter, playing outside with two other girls, was hit on her face by a cork thrown aggressively by some boy, biking through the neighborhood with a couple of friends.

Why? Just an aggressive kid, wanting to bully… a girl.

So I read the reports of 165 girls in Iran killed by US bombs, the very first victims of the latest US/ Israeli war of aggression in the region. How totally, sickly appropriate in a world where political, military powers begin yet another horrific war, scorning the most vulnerable, raining destruction on a girls’ school, killing 165 school children, 165 girls.

And I think about Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old girl killed by IOF soldiers, who fired 335 bullets at her while she was alone in a car, surrounded by her dead family members, desperately calling for help.

Little girls, how we need them.

And I also see the little boy alternatives: the little Palestinian boy in Gaza gone viral, holding his black cat in his arms, showing us his garden, his tomato plants, the vegetables he’s grown from seeds. Big smile, gentle, full of energy and life force in one of the deadliest places on earth. Here’s a little boy who has learned the little girl lessons of kindness, compassion and service.

And I weep for all the children who suffer from this abhorrent violence against civilians, for the sake of what??? Land theft, oil, wealth, the ambitions of powerful (white) men who want to dominate the region, own its resources, control the world. The sick version of masculinity that has ruled our world for hundreds of years, always there in the background but now unmasked and clear for all to see. Unlimited violence now being played out in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, to name only a few of the countries in one of the most war-torn parts of our world, “normalizing” the principles of might-makes-right for our collective future.

It’s time to pick up our feminism again, in defense of all little girls and all little boys, acknowledging the powers of vulnerability, compassion and service—the unacknowledged strengths of our species, the only hope for our survival. As adults who were once little girls or little boys, we must stand for them now, against the war machine, against the billionaire bosses, against the corrupt, aggressive forces of greed, violence and domination that have infected our societies at almost all levels.

We owe it to them, to give them the chance to rebuild our broken world from the spirit of vulnerability, compassion and service.

Laura Hassler

So we share some music to express our anger and horror:

To express our belief in the possibility of public resistance:

And to express the longing for peace for all of humanity:

Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an

Ein Beitrag geteilt von Windborne (@windbornesingers)

Don’t give up, do what you can, support every effort for peace and justice in this aching, beautiful shared world, every effort to resist the war machine, every effort to comfort and help its victims, every effort to speak truth to power, and every effort to sing and play the reality that we all long for into being.

On behalf of Musicians Without Borders,

Laura Hassler, Director

But we also knew about the other end of the spectrum: the people in Europe who hid escaping Jews in their attics. The abolitionists, the Underground Railroad. The nonviolent movement in India that freed millions from British colonization. The pacifists who went to prison in refusal to kill. The Sufragettes, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, the liberation movements in South America, Africa and Asia, the western anti-war movements that finally brought the horrific US-sponsored wars in southeast Asia to an end. 

Somehow, we (or perhaps I should just say I) saw these opposing forces as continuous struggles, continuous choices, continuous needs to resist, build alternatives, create community, connect. A flux with, more or less, equal chances of success if we just kept going. Somehow, we also held a common belief, especially following the traumas of World War II, that there were universal human values, that we as ‘humanity’ could name them and subscribe to them, and that they could protect us from the evils that haunted our world. This seemed to give us space to act for the good, the just, the value of the universality of human rights.

Today, I’m not so sure of that. 

Like so many others, I am unable to ignore the news about the latest horrific war, launched by the US and Israel against Iran, also unable to ignore the Epstein files and the revelations of the systemic corruption, the evil – no other word for it – that is built into the structures of power that rule not only the US, but the entire ‘western’ world and all that it dominates, while pretending to represent ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’.

And the direct connection of these forces to the most evil, or at least the most visibly evil, disaster of our current period: the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And the connection of that genocide with the global arms trade, the US/UK/EU/Israel weapons and surveillance deals. The establishment of concentration camps in Albania for refugees seeking safety in Europe, the cyber-technology that identifies desperate people at the EU border in eastern Europe by the warmth of their bodies, and sics Frontex attack dogs on them. 

‘The cruelty is the point.’ I’ve read this so many times about Israel’s policies and practices toward Palestinians, so extreme in Gaza, only slightly less so in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Children shot in the head, chest, genitals – target practice for IDF soldiers. TikTok videos making fun of Palestinian mothers grieving for their murdered babies. Israeli soldiers blowing up hospitals, universities, schools, refugee camps, and then sharing this online as if they are party jokes. Even a so-called ‘humanitarian aid program’, luring starving people with food, and then shooting them as they desperately scrounge for a pack of flour or rice. 

‘The cruelty is the point.’ 

And now the back story is revealed: Epstein’s circle of powerful white men, linked to child trafficking, rape, torture of the most defenseless, the most innocent, the least resilient. Meanwhile, these men run the most powerful countries in the world, lead the international banking establishment, steal resources from the citizenry, protect each other, trade off deals, influence, and wealth: ‘the Epstein class’, as it is now being called. Within this cabal of evil-doers are the so-called ‘trans-humanists’, wishing to leverage their power to give themselves eternal life – while meanwhile calling for the killing of ‘all the poor people.’

Look at them. 

Blank, empty eyes. Stiff bodies. Angry faces. Immature, not as innocent children, but as confused, grown-up boys who never learned the most important lessons, who think they’re powerful because they have a lot of money. People who have understood nothing of the essence of life, people who have probably never held a baby in their arms, never grown a garden or helped a neighbor, never walked through a forest in wonder. Rich kids with simple, under-developed spirits, lured by superficial values and massive monetary wealth, now imagining their own eternal longevity. Men coming from loveless backgrounds, who, in our societies dominated by competition, individualism and greed, have come to own the earth’s resources and rule our world. (Mostly white) men, compensating for their own moral voids with fantasies of unlimited power, fueled by cruelty. 

It is easy to trace the origins of this evil: oppressive medieval Christianity, white European supremacy, patriarchy built on the violent domination of women, greed and vacuous cruelty. Domination through violence and fear of violence.

The cruelty is the point.

Well, guess what.  There are other forces alive in today’s world. Decades of resistance to domination and colonialism, the learnings of movements across the global south, the freedom that western hedgemony for a few decades inadvertantly released on its majority population, and access through social media to some of the reality of the actual horrors perpetrated in our names have together led to a worldwide awakening to fundamental injustices, and a worldwide longing for a liveable, connected, surviveable future. 

How to capture this reality, how to describe the alternative to the evil cruelty that so dominates the stories of our time?

Let’s consider the idea of Radical Empathy, which, I believe, is our only hope.

What is Radical Empathy? We know these two words but, together, what do they mean? 

Empathy is the ability to feel what the other feels, not the ‘sympathy’ of feeling sorry for someone, but the ability to identify with the feelings of the other, to engage with those feelings as one’s own. To connect with other people, with other living beings, to connect with the planet and all life on it. Perhaps we can describe empathy as a mix of compassion, identification, and solidarity. 

And radical means going to the roots, going all the way to the source. Radical has often been interpreted simply as extreme, but that does not do the concept justice. Radical means rooted, grounded, solid, strong.

Combine these two, and see here a powerful concept to help us resist the cruelty and evil now dominating our airwaves, threatening the future of all human and other life on our beautiful planet, threatening the planet itself.

Radical Empathy must be fierce, stubborn, creative, persistent. We must hold on to each other, build community, be willing to take risks and accept consequences. Seek alternatives. Stand in solidarity with all who resist oppression and the violence of power and greed. 

We must hold and nurture our sense of humor: not joke-telling, but the ability to see oneself in perspective, gently; the ability to use our creativity and the power of the unexpected to flip the story, turn reality around and move it in another direction. We must have the courage to stand up to unjust power, take the risks and accept the consequences.

And we artists must nurture artistic bravery, using the power of the arts to tell truth, to build community, to turn our capacity for radical empathy into a force for good.

There is no time to waste, no neutral space ‘in the middle’. Clearly, in our own innocence, we have not taken seriously enough the depraved power of greed and cruelty, nor understood how far evil has reached. They have grabbed it all… almost.

What they do not yet control: our spirits, our creativity, our ability to defy cruelty, to invent and re-invent Radical Empathy. And, thank you life, they do not control the youth of our world, who increasingly stand bravely against the organized cruelty of today’s powerful.

There is no guarantee that Radical Empathy will prevail, that the powers of connection, compassion and love will be able to carry us to a place of repair, redress, reconnection, rebuilding, for all who have suffered from the unlimited cruelty of our time. There is no guarantee that our children and our grandchildren will grow and thrive in a world of compassion and connection. 

But even if we do not succeed to turn the global tide, we will still be living our best possible lives as changemakers, planting seeds of change, creating islands of survival. 

I remember, reading Joanna Macy, her admonition to embrace your grief. Look straight at the horrors, acknowledge the dangers, the threats to our world, the destruction, the cruelty.

And then look beyond, choose, and move together.

Laura Hassler

March 2026

You can be part of our team of volunteers, raising vital funds and giving people the chance to be a festival rock star.

Every Air Guitar sold funds real music programs for people affected by conflict.

Our special Air Guitar shop does exactly what it says – we sell “Air Guitars” in return for donations to help buy real instruments and fund real music programs in our project regions

Our shop has a range of models, each with a price point attached that directly relates to costs within our music programs worldwide. For example, the purchase of an air guitar might fund a packet of strings for a violin student in Palestine, a music workshop in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or a month of therapeutic music sessions for children with disabilities in Rwanda.

After every purchase/donation, people have the chance to try out their new Air Guitars in our performance area, complete with rock star wigs and photo opportunities. 

And each Air Guitarist will receive a physical item to take with them, for example a Musicians Without Borders guitar pick, pin badge, or wristband

So, we need volunteers who are ready to bring the full air guitar rock star experience, and are ready to sell the power of music. Each conversation with a potential “customer” is a chance to talk about Musicians Without Borders’ music programs for people affected by conflict, and help to spread the word about our vital work.

What to expect from your volunteer experience: 

There will be two shifts per day, between 14:00 and 19:00 (including the Children’s Parade), and between 19:00 and midnight. There is no obligation to do back-to-back shifts on your selected days. There will be a team leader each day, to make sure things run smoothly. 

Every volunteer will receive a briefing session in advance, to talk through everything, and prepare ourselves as well as possible to make each day fantastic. 

By volunteering for 1 or 2 days, you will receive an entry pass to the festival for those days. But if you volunteer for 3 or more days (consecutive or spread out), you can receive a pass to the entire festival. Passes give you free entry into the festival grounds, and also allow you to see all shows for free (provided there’s space in the performance areas). All volunteers also receive free refreshments from the backstage areas, and can buy vouchers for reduced prices on drinks and food from concession stands.

Need accommodation? Volunteers can also camp for free at the backstage festival campsite!

Sound good? Fill out our form now and let us know your availability!

This wall belongs to the Lipa reception center, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just kilometers from the European Union border. Practically, it is a wall built to enclose a camp. But it is also symbolic. It mirrors the physical, political, social, and economic walls Europe has built to decide who is welcome, and who is not.

Choosing to sing a love song when living within this reality is a radical act of resistance.

Being a person who is experiencing forced migration is to be constantly defined by what you lack: a home, a passport, and a legal status. The European Wall seeks to strip individuals of their complexity, and reduce them solely to their struggle. The system expects people to resign to their fate in such an environment. It expects the person to be crushed by the weight of the journey.

But by stopping to sing a love song, this young man refused that narrative. He declares that he is still a person who loves, who remembers, and who feels joy. It’s a refusal to concede his humanity and dignity to the concrete walls surrounding him.

During his performance, around 50 people gathered in total silence to listen in a collective moment of humanity. They were resisting the pressure to become nothing. They were reclaiming their right to be.

This moment emerged organically during one of our music workshops. Towards the end, instruments were picked up. People strummed guitars and mandolins. Another played a tarabuka softly. Chord patterns were improvised, and a natural rhythm settled. Then one participant began to sing and everyone in the group started singing along; the song belonged to all of them. Nothing needed to be explained. It just flowed. The next day, our team came back to film him singing this song. He said he would remember this moment for the rest of his life, like us.

Our team at Welcome Notes Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), supported by our partners Caritas BiH works directly in these environments. We see this work as a shared resistance.

For Mia and Jasmin, our workshop leaders in Bihać, this is the core of their work. They are there to build a bridge through sound.

Mia’s journey began in 2019, when there was a media focus on Bihać because of inhumane conditions at one of the camps near the town. When she remembers seeing arrivals come in from this time, she speaks of the “mix of joy and sadness in the air” and the challenge of bringing a smile to the face of a man who feels the world is his enemy. Jasmin described the privilege of stepping outside “traditional musical frameworks” to experience music in a deeper, more human way.

Our team brings music to these soulless walls not to drown out the reality of the border, but to amplify the humanity of those standing outside of it. We provide the psychosocial support that comes from sharing a rhythm, recording a track, and moments of collective creativity. We don’t give people a voice because they already have one. We simply provide the space where that voice can be heard above the noise of exclusion.