MofA Week 10.

Music and Politics: hegemony, and resistance

General considerations

Distinguish:

• music of hegemony and music of resistance
  • national anthems
  • revolutionary songs
• explicitly political and implicitly political music
  • overt, literal statements, with political intent (e.g. Shaykh Imam)
  • covert, symbolic statements, with political intent (e.g. Ahmed Adawiyya, Idir)
  • music that takes on political valences, without overt political intent (e.g. Saudi Qur'anic recitation signifying conservative Islam; Lebanese female singers' clips signifying liberalism/globalization)
• the music of politics and the politics of music

Music...

• ...encodes political messages (explicit or implicit) regarding
  • political values (general, abstract)
  • political situations (specific individuals, structures of power)
• ...helps shape the broader political landscape
  • Music is relatively limited form of discourse
    • Produced slowly, by specialists
    • Hard to engage in musical dialogs, discourses
    • Much of music's social force is non-referential
  • but lyrics contain referential content
  • factors compensating for discursive limitations:
    • music's affective power, imbuing a felt sense of truth
    • music's social power, gathering people in groups (live or mediated), nucleating subcultures
  • and non-discursivity is perhaps a form of coercive power (as Marxist anthropologist Maurice Bloch famously wrote: "you can't argue with a song")

Music and politics in the pre-Islamic Arab period

Various pre-Islamic poetic genres--chanted and sung, quickly memorized and disseminated-- effected political roles:

• Hija': poetry of critique (for one's enemies)
• Madih: poetry of praise (for one's rulers)
• Ritha': elegy
• Mufakhara: inter-tribal poetic competitions, enabling inter-tribal dialogs, and helping unify polities

The Arabs of pre-Islamic Northern Arabia formed a Kulturnation; only with Islam would they unite to become a Staatsnation. Public poetic recitation (inshad, nashid, tartil) in a heightened voice may have played a significant role in creating and sustaining the Arab Kulturnation within such a mobile society.

Music and politics in the golden age of Islamicate civilization

• panegyrics (praise) written by the most famous Arab poet, al-Mutanabbi, for his patron, the Emir (prince) Sayf al-Dawla (916-967, r. 945-967) of Aleppo, ruler of northern Syria under the Hamdanid dynasty (al-Farabi was another prominent figure in Sayf al-Dawla's intellectual circle)

Music and nationalisms

• Muhammad Fawzy: personal vs. state patriotism (read Frishkopf article)

National anthem of Algeria, composed by the Egyptian Muhammad Fawzy.

Text for Algeria's national anthem

Music and resistance

Idir

Shaykh Imam

This Egyptian singer (b. 1918), raised in the singer-shaykh tradition, became Egypt's most well-known political singer after 1962, in collaboration with poet Ahmed Fu'ad Negm.

Bio

Article

Song: "Guevara Died"

(composed 1967: Ahmed Fu'ad Negm and Shaykh Imam). Performed by contemporary revival group Eskanderalla.

Ahmed Ismail

Text for Guevara Died

Song: "O Palestinians" (1968)

0 Palestinians, the fusilier has shot you

With Zionism which kills the doves that live under your protection

0Palestinians, I want to come and be with you, weapons in hand

And I want my hands to go down with yours to smash the snake's head

And then Hulagu's law will die

0 Palestinians, exile has lasted so long

That the desert is moaning from the refugees and the victims

And the land remains nostalgic for its peasants who watered it

Revolution is the goal, and victory shall be your first step

Politics and Egyptian shaabi

Shaaban Abdel Rahim

Music and Palestine

• Palestinian rap group DAM

• al-Hulm al-`Arabi

Generation after generation will live in the hope of realizing our dream

As what we say today we will be called to account for throughout our lifetime

It is possible that the darkness of night

May render us far from one another, but

The beam of light can

Reach the farthest of skies

This has been our dream

All of our lives:

An embrace that will contain us all together

Marcel Khalife

Musical activism, musical controversy

Political songs, in collaboration with Mahmoud Darwish (Voyageur)

Music and freedom of expression: "I am Joseph, oh my father"

Criticism from the left: politics of musical aesthetics (Colla, Elliott and Robert Blecher. (1996) A New World Order, a New Marcel Khalife. Middle East Report, No. 199, Turkey: Insolvent Ideologies, Fractured State. (Apr. - Jun., 1996), pp. 43-44.)

Politics and videoclips (your input here)

Everyone please select a Youtube video and insert link here, along with a line or two of comment - we'll watch and discuss on Thursday Nov 18.

You can select clips to be analyzed for nationalistic sentiment, or search for national anthems of the various Arab countries, or look for implicit themes of power (in domestic relations, say), or select clips which address political themes explicitly. I realize not knowing Arabic may be an impediment, but you can select/discuss based on imagery, and you'll find many clips with translations included. (To get started, try searching for "Arab political music", or look for music by artists mentioned above.) You'll learn a lot by reading the clip's comments (if they're in English).

Amanda:

Patrick:

Mahsa:

Justina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLI36kvvu9k
This song is by Djur Djura - a Algerian woman, b. 1949 (?) raised in France, who sings about Women's rights and feminist issues a lot.

Manya:

Adrienne: