Mohammad: I was annoyed when I heard my own voice for the first time. It was recorded on a cassette to be sent to a relative in Iraq sometime in the mid 1980s. Of course I forgot this later, until I gradually discovered that the voice we ourselves hear when we speak, sing, shout or cry is not the same voice that reaches others. It is completely different. And I get annoyed when I hear my voice from an external source.

Iman: An accent only becomes a source of shame or anxiety when it signifies the lower status of the voice speaking to the ear listening. What determines status usually amounts to more than just the voice and its intention. It may be any of a number of relationships: that of the center to its periphery, of the colonizer to the colonized speaking his language, of the urban to the rural, or of the fortunate classes to those less privileged. I can’t imagine someone with an Oxford accent feeling ashamed when speaking to someone with one of England’s working class accents. Nor would a Parisian feel anxious listening to his accent side by side with that of an immigrant from Senegal. An accent is thus a transparent metaphor for relationships of power.

Hany: I'm the slain, that's my name

I'm the slain, that's my name. No shame, and I’ve lost the way

I'm the slain, Haj Omar. La la la la la la la la

I'm the slain, mate

By God Almighty, I'm the slain

Ahhh ... la la la  ... la la la

Yasser: At dawn on the fourth day I awoke covered in sweat; the fever had broken and I was weakly regaining consciousness. There had been a downpour during the night but as I recuperated the rain stopped. I could hear the fall of heavy drops from the dense Ficus tree outside my window that had been washed clean by the rain. I heard the sound of a bicycle rustling dead leaves beneath its tires, the steady squeak of its cogwheels as its rider heavily pedaled, an old man riding at dawn. From where had he come and to where was he going? That sound was the first sign of humanity to have reached my senses in days, as though it were an aural signal that had picked up on the vibration of life flowing through my body following my near-coma of illness.

Waiel: But can we miss here, at the threshold of the open door, the strangeness of the voices without bodies, voices that, unattached, roam the space of a text, in violent search of an ear to listen to them? We should be a little apprehensive, at least because, as Nietzsche tells us, “the ear is the organ of fear.” We should be weary of this strangeness, of hearing voices we cannot associate with bodies, of being haunted by these voices and losing our minds, of receiving a visit by the ghost of the murdered king, under the guise of a father, to demand that we avenge him in an issue we might not care that much about.

Doa: What I directly feel is that the talking voices as inner voices move like long threads into my head and there cause a painful feeling of tension through the poison of corpses which they deposit. In contra-distinction to these inner voices I hear outer voices particularly spoken by birds, which come to me from outside, from the birds’ throats.

Hany: You received the pledge from your servant, father don't break it

Like those before us said, the eye is never higher than the eye-brow

And if you love you must ... If you love you must be sensitive

Search your soul habibi

Bibi, Bibi, Bibi

Paul: Against a backdrop of elements borrowed from traditional music, the conversation between a girl and her fallen father took place. He lamented his meaningless death, wished himself reunited with his family again and demanded that his fellow fighters should abandon fighting and rather return home. The theatrical piece of music got broadcasted into the night jungle for hours on end from loudspeakers mounted on a helicopter. Its effectiveness remained somewhat doubtful and might even have turned out to be counterproductive on occasion.

Haytham: Sit for half an hour amidst this maddening cacophony. Allow the sound waves to sweep away any thoughts or impressions you may have. Contemplate the impossibility of focusing your attention on any one thought. Half an hour later, turn the electrical appliances off one after the other. Sit in the silence left behind by the aborted noise and try to relax. You will hear a vague drone, the result of the halted churning of the atmosphere. You will slowly notice that your self is rising to the surface of your consciousness in the form of cohesive lumps of forgotten moments, exactly like lumps of cheese rising to the surface of curdled milk.

Hany: I'm the slain, that's my name

I'm the slain, that's my name. No shame, and I’ve lost the way

I'm the slain, Haj Omar. La la la la la la la la

I'm the slain, mate

By God Almighty, I'm the slain

Ahhh ... la la la  ... la la la