When Icianvers started it was a straightforward idea to produce good quality danceable pop music.
Over the last three years we have been able to work consistently as a trio and have come to a point of unison in our sound
through a dedicated discipline of daily practice together. In this time our efforts have been impacted by the politics
surrounding the status of our percussionist Fehmi. At this point in time he has been deported to Serbia. It is not the first time.
Bands become disrupted for any number of reasons but for us the obstacles we face in order to keep our group together and productive
are based in a great injustice that affects not only Fehmi and our group but millions of Roma people across Europe.
We see our activity as very positive and the forces that would disrupt it as very negative therefor we decided to continue working as simply
replacing Fehmi and abandoning him to his fate was not an option.
This decision has altered the perspective of the group so we cannot claim any longer to be a simple pop group. Inevitably the experience begins
to form the outlook and content of the artists involved. Our latest production "Chirikli" reflects this.
Below is a text we have used for the many legal and diplomatic efforts to overcome Fehmis difficulties.
It is a summary of the events that have shaped Fehmis life so drastically.
Fehmi Kajtazi was born in Kosovo with a Serbian nationality. His family were Roma who have been settled in the area for centuries with property and businesses in textiles and leather, exporting to Germany. In 1974 his father moved to Germany to work in that end of the busisness. Fehmi was four years old when he first came to live in Germany and has since lived there for most of his life in Gelsenkirchen, only returning to Kosovo for holidays & family visits. He largely followed the normal life of a German citizen, completeing school and then taking a technical training in leather work and then working in a leather clothing factory. Following Roma tradition he married young and started a family. All was going well until the outbreak of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. In 1990 because of his Serbian nationality Fehmi was obliged to do his national service in the Serbian army, where he received training as a sniper. Following his service he remained in Serbia because of passport problems until 1992 when he was reunited with his family in Germany. From this point the family tried to rebuild their former life but now the whole group was obliged to return to Serbia every three months the reenter Germany. The reason for this was that because Fehmi had been obliged to stay out of Germany for more than six months he and his family lost their rights of residency in Germany. At this point their lives were transformed from that of normal German citizens into the shadow world of the refugee. The fight to reclaim their rights was to continue for the next sixteen years without any result and with many difficult consequences. In 1999 his wife and children were deported to Kosovo from Germany. Fehmi was not at home during the raid and thus was separated from his family but was able to arrange through the family that his wife and children would be housed in the old family home in Kosovo. Tragically this house was destroyed by NATO bombing in the region and consequently the family was returned to Germany as refugees in 2000. This moment of reunion was marred by trauma and in unusual development for Roma people Fehmi and his wife separated, unable to live together. The illusion of a normal life was now completely fragmented. Fehmi made his way under difficult circumstances and in one way or another managed to support his family while the struggle with the authorities continued without a solution until it seemed to become the normality. However in an insidious manner these things begin to take a psychological toll and grind a person down. You may not travel. You can only work in a defined zone. Your wages have to remain above an unrealistic monthly level or your passport is taken away. To travel from one city to another within the country you must apply for a permit. If you are caught without this you have to pay a very heavy fine. With all the psychological stress, frustrations and personal pain things inevitably come to a boiling point. After all the years of bureaucratic games whereby he and his family were knocked from pillar to post Fehmi began to feel anger as his daily condition; this could only result in a violent expression of suppressed emotion. This came frighteningly close one day when he lost his temper and had an aggressive confronation with a civil servant over his sons work permit. Fortunately his father was present and took Fehmi away from the situation. At this traumatic point Fehmi decided to give up in Germany and try to look in another country for the possibility to build a normal life. He decided to move to Antwerp in Belgium where he had supportive family connections. Fehmi is an exception in his family in that he is the only one to become a musician. His father had a large collection of recordings of Oriental music and popular and classical Balkan traditions. As a child Fehmi was fascinated by the music and listened to it constantly. He was particularly intrigued by the rythmic structures and taught himself to play these rythms on any pots or pans that were available until he was able to have his own Tarbuka. From his early teens he was asked to perform in Roma and Turkish music groups. Through his life his love for this music and his instrument stayed with him enabling him to ocassionally earn some money playing in Balkan and Roma groups, funk and jazz bands or as accompanist for belly dancers. Through the years he aquired a deep and broad knowledge of the art of rythms and percussion and developed a solid discipline as a reliable, experienced musician. As he walked around his neighborhood in Antwerp Fehmi often heard, from an open window, the sounds of a good conga player practising. One day he decided to make contact with the conga player and called out to the open window. The musician was John Boko, a Togolese percussionist from Ghana. The two got on and practiced together and became friends through their musical compatibility. John knew a group that was looking for a versatile percussionist and John introduced him to the group, Icianvers. Icianvers was an idea of two Antwerp artists, Giles Thomas and Patries Wichers that had long been active in the experimental music scene in Belgium. These two had started developing ideas and songs and were looking for a creative percussionist to complete the project. They had tried with other musicians but it had never worked out, with the arrival of Fehmi in november 2008 all this changed. Fehmi immediately revealed himself as a disciplined artist and the group were able to start a daily routine of work over the long term which resulted in the creation of a full repertoire of songs and the production of their first CD in 2009. This was well received by the public and music press. Fehmi is registered with SABAM the Belgian music rights organisation and has a one third right in all material produced by Icianvers. The trio is now a dynamic creative machine from which no member can be missed and who look towards an exciting creative future. In the same period of intense creative activity and productivity the asylum request in Belgium for Fehmi was ongoing. The beginning of this process was full of trepidation for Fehmi with his experience of the endlessness of the buraucratic experiences in Germany. Again a time when he may not work for a living, would have great difficulties in finding and paying for a living space of his own, could not travel and was completely dependent on others for his survival. During this time the bond within the trio became deeper because of the difficulties surrounding the situation, inevitably the other two became involved in the sadness of his situation and the bond developed a strong emotional, family character; tears for one were also tears for the others. This was particularly true on the days when Fehmi had to rise early and go to Brussels for his interviews with the refugee services. invariably on these occasions he would have to wait up to eight hours sometimes only to be told they couldn't see him that day and he would have to return at a future date. This process continued for more than a year and at times Fehmi descended into deep despair but always came through thanks to his remarkable character and the support of friends and family. In all this time Fehmi never missed a rehearsal and continued to contribute to the creation of the music. The exception was during the four days preceeding his last appointment, he became so nervous that he felt unable to play although he came by every day to sit and chat over a coffee. Unexpectedly on the last evening he announced that we shoiuld go in the studio and play as it might be the last time that we could play together. The group did this and sadly it turned out to be true as the following day he was arrested during his interview and taken to locked repatriation center 127bis as it had been decided that he must be forcibly repatriated to Germany. His colleagues did everything possible with the intervention of lawyers up to the last minute but with the very short time available nothing could be done and he was returned to Germany to start the whole hopeless process again there. Ironically it is a mere 200 km away but it is enough to totally disrupt yet again his attempts to make a life for himself and a negation of all that he has achieved during his stay in Belgium. The group has decided that this will not be an end to their activities but the beginning of a new phase whereby the work will be adapted to the new situation which will itself become the subject of future production. In this way we hope to demonstrate that the importance of human relationships and what that can create will be a clear thread through the destructive fragmentation that political policy can make in peoples lives.