Originally published in Reportage Online June 29, 2015.
Australian author, curator and jazz singer Gill Hicks thought she’d never sing again after a blast from a terrorist bombing in the London Underground in 2005 severed her legs and damaged her lungs.
But fast-forward a decade, and she is starring in a newly released song called ‘I want to tell you’.
The song is being launched jointly with a social media campaign called #TellYou, which aims to give victims of extremism, as well as former extremists, a chance to tell their experiences.
“It will offer a platform for the voices of those who know a life without peace,” Gill Hicks says, “particularly the voice of former extremists. What they can offer is so powerful to an audience who perhaps are being persuaded by the rhetoric of very destructive ideologies.”
The Federal Government plans to implement new laws that would strip extremists and former extremists of their Australian citizenships, provided they have another citizenship to fall back on. But Gill Hicks is “concerned” that plan could alienate and radicalise people.
“I think it’s a very complex issue,” she says. “While I do not want anyone whose aim is to harm citizens to be in Australia, I do think we need to listen to people’s experiences. We need to focus on prevention, prevention, prevention. And that could be happening in how we teach children in schools. That can be happening with how we’re working with local community. But I think we really need to listen to the people in these areas and learn from their experiences.”
The #TellYou campaign is just one of many initiatives started by Gill Hicks. After the London Bombings, she became a peace campaigner, a trustee for several cultural organisations, a motivational speaker, and she was named 2015 Australian of the Year in South Australia.
She was only recently inspired to start the #TellYou campaign when she met musician Gary Burrows, who mentioned that he had written a peace song, ‘I want to tell you’. Mr Burrows has long, messy hair and he wears a peace symbol around his neck. He is a “very old-school” musician.
“I’d had a conversation with some friends some months ago about song-writing,” he says, “and it came up that there was no one pushing peace anymore since John Lennon. And then one morning I woke up with a song in my head, and it was a peace song.
“The song was polished until I thought that it could give a message to the world. And the chorus was something that I thought kids and people of all ages could pick up and easily sing.”
Mr Burrows says music is the “common denominator”, and has always been used as a tool to spread messages. “Music’s been used since time began to pass down stories,” he says, “because you always remember the stories much better when there’s music attached to them.
“We hope our song will be a tool and a reminder to people that they don’t have to live with violence and aggression, and that if we all think peace, if we all try to act peacefully then surely we’re going to impart that to future generations as well.”