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 functions:

• 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 what scholar von Grunebaum termed 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. Poetry also served to delineate inter-tribal political boundaries, to support one's own tribal leadership (especially the shaykh al-qabila) and denounce the enemy.

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

The patriotic song was generally known as nashid watani and occurred with increasing frequency following the success of independence movements. Some sang for the state out of personal feeling, others for economic advantage, sometimes with state sanctions, and sometimes without.

• Umm Kulthum: sang for the king; criticized post-revolution (1952) and was withdrawn from radio, before returning to sing for Egypt and the Arab nation.

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

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

Text for Algeria's national anthem

• Mohamed Abdel Wahab: pan-Arab nationalist song (1960, composed to celebrate the short-lived union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic)

Watani habibi watani al-akbar (my beloved homeland, my greatest homeland)

• al-Hulm al-`Arabi (1998) (contemporary pan-Arab nationalist song, with lots of cynical comments logged on youtube. Includes singers from nearly every Arab country; funded by Prince Walid bin Talal)

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

Music and resistance: against state power

Shaykh Imam

Imam Mohammad Ahmad Eissa or Sheikh Imam (1918-1995), raised in the singer-shaykh tradition, became Egypt's most well-known political singer after 1962. Collaborating with poet Ahmed Fu'ad Negm, he became renowned for singing on behalf of the poor and working classes.

Bio

Article

• Song: "Guevara Died"

(composed 1967: Ahmed Fu'ad Negm and Shaykh Imam).

Text for Guevara Died

Performed by contemporary revival group Eskanderalla.Performed by Ahmed Ismail

• Song: "O Palestinians" (1968)

Text for O Palestinians

Politics and Egyptian shaabi music

Shaaban Abdel Rahim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ5Xk3pmqgI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh91s-7wwNw

Political rap

• Palestinian rap group DAM and their most famous song, Meen Erhabi (Who's the Terrorist?)

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: