After the War: An Ultrasonic Meditation

Composed by Yehuda Sharim (UC Merced) aka Y(E)S, After the War is an ultrasonic documentary album that testifies to the myriad ways war has taken over our lives, its ongoing harm and callousness, and the possibility of replacing suspicion and fear with compassion, liberation, and self-determination. We share it here as a meditation in conversation with the UC Humanities Network’s annual theme, Entanglement.

We wake up into mornings of trauma and fear daily. Then we become our fears. After the War is a visual and sonic meditation on days where suspicion is replaced with compassion, self-censorship with trust, and division with kindness. This work is an attempt to turn cinema and documentary sound work away from capitalist structures and wannabe celebrities and into community work, serving communal needs, histories, and changing challenges. A turn that allows us to be fully at rest, imperfect, where laughter and pain reside. This sonic documentary project is not about a utopic future after the war, but an invitation and provocation to return home, come to terms with the harm and injuries that we committed and carry, and turn internal spite into UNFLINCHING DETERMINATION AND tenderness in a world obsessed with calamities and rancor.

This work started in October 2024 as a response to war and the horrors that follow immoral acts. At the same time, my father began fading and losing his memory, which made me think about ways to cling to our shared memory and visions of co-existence where the past, present, and future are part of the same exact moment, not separated, always connected, always here, listening to us as we listen to our days. Listening and listening and listening. I began thinking about ways to create peace in the face of loss and trauma, not depending on the politician of the day or changing laws (that do not always have anything to do with justice); peace that is not a ceasefire, but acceptance. I was thinking about the multiple wars that have taken over our lives, the declared and undeclared ones, and the hurt, suspicion, and angst that have become an integral part of our day-to-day lives. 

I began recording everything. Phone calls, birds, passing cars, dry leaves down the pavement, my children playing, then crying and then singing. I wanted to listen better, deeper. Then, I invited friends to share their days after the war, and I kept reminding them that the experiences they shared could be of war, loss, trauma, or hurt. Can we imagine days when we are not dominated by fear and hurt? I wanted to know if we can create our own sense of justice and how it will look. I wasn’t sure it was possible: How can we live without war? Are we not only in a post-truth moment, but a post-justice one?

Can we listen to our trauma? 

Can listening be part of our healing? 

How can we return to listening and listening and listening? 

How can we allow ourselves to rest as a way to heal and fight against changing injustices? 

I began listening as a gesture to touch our collective wounds. 

I began thinking about sonic documentation—and by documentation, I mean aligning sound with the poetic essence of our times.

Can we think about community dialogue through listening? 

I record YOU now so please speak gently. I record as an invitation to stop running. Enough with restlessness. I know HOW beautiful you are. I record YOU as I write to you. I hear you. Your voice is gentle. We are more than sorrow and trauma. I write this for you. It is not a film or a book, just simple words written for YOU, whispering in your ears: Keep doing the best for this world. 

Shiraz Noonani

War was never a distant event for me; it has shaped a significant portion of my life. I grew up in an environment where every morning’s newsbreak brought reports of killings, injuries, or explosions. War was not just a backdrop; it was woven into the fabric of daily existence, shaping conversations, relationships, and how people perceived the world. In academic institutions, parks, cafés, and taxis, discussions revolved around its impact. Among these, I carry the memory of one of my dearest friends, Mohammad Rahid, who was tragically and brutally killed in the Kabul University attack in 2020… War is not just about the destruction of cities; it is about the transformation of the people who suffered it. In that transformation, we must remain aware of the kind of person we become.

                                                                                                             –Shiraz Noonani (UC Merced)

Ruben Sanchez

Ruben is the only person who asks me about my well-being and then stays there to listen to my answers. We meet and don’t plan our talk and then call for coffee as I tell him about my father, dementia, nurses, corridors of urine and music of heavy breathings…the beautiful man he used to be and still is, today wanting to return home, tomorrow not knowing where home is. Ruben talks about his wife, the day she died in his arms…they were on the mountaintop. I guess we are all on the mountaintop, tearing into coffee cups. My father doesn’t remember my name or whether I visited him or not…the mountaintop of wounds… the mountaintop of daily defeats…from where I can see how wounded and vulnerable I am. Then, shiny plates busy with eggs, dead bread, and some oily potatoes. I think to myself, it’s too much…too much oil, potatoes, and death…too much pain…too many days without answers. Too many days without admitting that I fail to understand, to make sense, don’t know how to move forward, and cannot forgive the time and what it is doing to my father. Ruben asks for more coffee and then tells me, “It is clear (pause), we have to resist, fight back, and it is not about winning, it’s more about being, being kind, being together.”

                                                                                                             –Yehuda Sharim (UC Merced)

 Bethany L. Padron and Chiquitha Aminsalehi

My personal experiences reflected in this project have lingering touches of surviving. Because the wounds have been deep from vicious spaces, I wear red lipstick in the filming (and often) as a reminder that I am alive. The memories I carry have never been siphoned under bombs or collapsing smoke. Instead, I am of wars beyond the imaginary that have taken post-slavery embodied experiences to remind me of who I am…I could rattle off a list of ways I have survived living in this body, but the settlement is at the roots under the soil, as a reminder to nurture others. 

                                                                                                         –Bethany L. Padron (UC Merced)

Despite how uncomfortable it is, I must show compassion for the old memories that haunt me, haunt nations, and haunt possible futures. And overcome the fear of repeating mistakes—whether in the inner conversations I had with myself or in my interactions with others in the world. These memories include the injustices that remain vivid in social memory, crossing physical, mental, and geographical boundaries. My goal was to write to my past and future self, using each word as a bridge between time and space, offering sweet gestures of compassion, love, and hope to all experiencing the same circumstances.

                                                                                                      –Chiquitha Aminsalehi (UC Merced)

Hussein Al-Khudari and Iris Argaman

Iris taught me how to tell stories. Hussein taught me how to find peace in stories, stories that started the day he told me that finding refuge in the USA can help one feel safe. But safety is never enough without love. The next month, Hussein said that life cannot be just going to the gym, buying food, work, TV screens, and more gym. At night, he would make portraits of his Baghdad…the trees and rivers…a year of paintings. Then he returned to the place where safety is a meaningless word, but love is a daily act. And now he is calling me from Baghdad, and I don’t know if it is a dream. Wars and hatred surround me…massacre of children…our children, all our children. Calling hours after his wedding, he insists: “We must become the light. We are the light. We must be the light.”

                                                                                                             –Yehuda Sharim (UC Merced)

***

_{Bethany L. Padron is a mother, partner, scholar, multidimensional artist, and PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Humanities, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program at UC Merced. She is a Chancellor’s Fellow for Inclusive Excellence, the Graduate Student Representative (GSR) for the Academic Senate, Board of Admissions and Student Relations, IH Conference Chair (2025), a CSU Stanislaus Social Justice Conference Planner, and serves as the GSR Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Anti-Racism, and Equity. She has published books and albums as a writer and musician/singer, and fashions paintings as a discourse for her research on Black Feminist Theory and Thought.} 

_{Chiquitha Aminsalehi was born in Chicago and raised in a musical family. She has been a performer since the age of seven. She has learned several instruments and found that singing is her most authentic form of expression. After a long career outside of academics, she returned to school to pursue her PhD at UC Merced. Her studies explore vocality and how singers convey perseverance and strength. She has always brought the melody of her heart to the forefront of creative expression, and now she seeks to connect that passion with her academic journey. Her greatest accomplishment is nurturing her family—her husband and son.}

_{Shiraz Noorani is a third-year Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate student at UC Merced, focusing on documentary filmmaking of refugee communities. His work aims to illuminate the experiences and resilience of refugees, blending academic research with powerful storytelling to raise awareness and foster empathy.}

_{Hussein Al-Khudari is an artist and dentist who works and resides in Baghdad, Iraq. His creative work and paintings have been featured in galleries worldwide. He has appeared in three films documenting the experiences of new arrivals in Houston, Texas.} 

_{Iris Argaman is a celebrated and award-winning storyteller and author. She has a BA in comparative literature and education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MA in literature from Tel Aviv University. She is the director of children’s literature at the Karev Project for Educational Involvement, a nationwide enrichment program for disadvantaged children. Argaman is also a curator and a lecturer on children’s literature; she holds writing workshops for the young and writes activity books for kids that promote museum education. She has published nine books for children. Her book Bear and Fred was awarded the Yad Vashem Prize (2016) and the Giovanni Arpino Prize for Children’s Literature (Italy, 2017).}

_{Ruben A. Sanchez works and creates in Merced, CA. His life work documents the experiences of campesinos across the fields of the Central Valley. His paintings have been featured in prestigious art venues, museums, and film festivals within and beyond California.}   

_{Micaela Sharim is a seven-year-old artist who likes to read and draw in her free time.} 

_{Gloria Sandoval is a Merced-based activist dedicated to fighting for affordable housing, equity, and social justice.}  

_{Taara Clarke is an Afro-Caribbean woman and practicing child therapist. She earned her bachelor’s degree in cognitive sciences with a minor in sociology from Rice University and her master’s in social work from the University of Michigan. In her therapeutic work, she believes that individuals are the experts of their own experiences. In her artistic work and engagement, she embraces art’s capacity to create space for individuals or groups as the experts of their own experiences, offering opportunities to both recognize and be recognized by others and oneself.}

Image Credit: Sharim Studio

The full album is available on Spotify, YouTube Music, and Deezer.