MSc Development Management student Salma Saleh reflects on how music and politics are interlinked. 

I was seven at the time of the Arab Spring, making my memory quite hazy. However, what stuck was the art created during the time – especially the graffiti and music. This art remained in my subconscious as I studied political science during my bachelor’s degree. Most of what we studied focused on the role of overt resistance, which was direct and clearly seen. I found myself questioning in what way art- particularly music- can be a part of resistance movements and politics.

Music has constantly been linked to politics. Many songs I have grown up listening to were linked to political events and often were used as an attempt to resist the status quo or norms in place in a society. These include the songs of Cairokee, an Egyptian band that emerged during the protests in Tahrir, as well as several songs from The Beatles, such as Revolution. Historically there have been many cases of music being used in liberation movements.

Arendt’s Action

This later became the topic of my undergraduate thesis, in which I adapted Hannah Arendt’s concepts of labour, work, and action to the topic. I focussed on two cases: the folk songs of Sayed Darwish created during the Egyptian independence movement and the Palestinian mshafaraat folk songs used during both the Ottoman rule and the British Mandate of Palestine. To explore the connection of music and politics, I used Arendt’s conceptualisation of the public realm, particularly to the idea of disclosure in the public.

In The Human Condition, Arendt divides human activities into a spectrum going from labour to work, then action. Action is characterised by people existing in this world together, thus taking place in the public realm. Speech in particular was the activity most associated with action in which people can disclose, or reveal, themselves to others. Arendt presents disclosure as a binary activity- meaning that it either happens or doesn’t. I argued that viewing disclosure outside its binary form can be useful in identifying resistance, especially in highly restricted situations. Using the two case studies, I showed that that disclosure can occur in forms other than speech and can be imagined as a spectrum rather than a binary.

Indirect Disclosure

Indirect disclosure can occur through the use of several literary and musical devices. Sayed Darwish, often dubbed the father of modern Egyptian music, made music that was meant to be performed in protest or theatre settings. Even today, it is constantly sung in protests and cultural gatherings. Darwish included metaphors, allegory, and double entendre (double meaning), allowing him to indirectly disclose the true meaning of his songs.

For instance, Darwish responded to a ban on the mention of Saad Zaghloul, the revolutionary leader exiled in 1919, in his song ‘Ya Balah Zaghloul’ by singing about Zaghloul dates, which share his name. Darwish also disclosed meaning through the sound of the music he created. For example, in the song ‘Aho Da Elli Sar’ he maintained a sombre tone for the music, unlike his usual patriotic tone, indicating a need to become serious and mobilise.

Disclosure as a Spectrum

But disclosure should be seen as a spectrum rather than binary. For instance, Mshafarrat – encrypted Palestinian folk songs, depended on disclosing the content of the song to some people and not all those who heard it. This music was often sung by women near prisons to help men escape and reach their villages. Descriptions of how to escape and directions were sung, except that the words to the song had extra ‘l’ letters making them hard to understand. This was meant to confuse British soldiers standing guard who were not native Arabic speakers- in reality even as a native Arabic speaker I still struggle to understand the words as well. Thus, in this case, the survival of the act of resistance depended on the women disclosing to their intended audience and not others. This is also similar to the songs of the underground railroad, which were songs used by slaves in the United States to signal to others how to escape.

Thus, disclosure can occur in or through music. Musical disclosure remains in the case against the Rwandan musician, Simon Bikindi, at the International Criminal Court [ICC], which has charged him with incitement to commit genocide. In this case, the evidence listed included many of his songs, in which he encouraged violence against Tutsi minority as well as Moderate Hutu groups. His music was often played on the national radio during the genocide – he even took a car around Rwanda with a speaker system blasting his music to the public. While the creation of the music itself was not seen as complicity to genocide, playing the music through public speakers on his car alongside some other actions he performed was found to be sufficient evidence for incitement to of violence, leading to a 15-year prison sentence.

In all, it is important not to romanticise or exaggerate the role music plays in political movements. Music is not a determining factor in these movements’ success nor an indicator of hope, but it is still a factor to consider. In my opinion, music can be especially important to understand how everyday resistance can occur and spot opposition to social norms as well as an indication of popular sentiment.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of the International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Featured image: Dunk via Flickr