Safer: a Syrian Story of Migration and Becoming in Egypt

Safer: a Syrian Story of Migration and Becoming in Egypt

When Hadi Birajakli, a Syrian multidisciplinary artist now based in Cairo, began writing his latest song Safer (2025), one word came to him first: safer, Arabic for “to travel.” But for Birajakli, who left Syria for Cairo in 2012 amid the war, the word holds far more than its literal meaning. Rather, for Birjakli, the word carries the weight of movement, of longing, and of questioning. It holds years of navigating life as a stranger in a strange…