What Does Resistance Sound Like?
Each generation creates its own sounds, vocabularies, and rhythms to express its individuality and to create belonging. Without constant renewal, culture stagnates, and new growth is inhibited. If you’ve ever noticed that you see the same faces, hear the same chants, and walk the same routes at your local marches, you may have felt frustrated that your movement isn’t growing and attracting new energy. Artists and musicians are integral to the success of our movements, because, as hip hop artist Guante argues in these pages, “they have the power to turn social movements into social/cultural movements—to change not just circumstances but hearts and minds as well.”
The Arab Spring and successive waves of that movement have changed and are changing the Arabic music landscape forever. Though they were sometimes detained, tortured, and in some instances killed, musicians—professionals and amateurs alike—rallied crowds during long protests and gave a voice to the revolution. Fresh waves of hip hop emerged from young revolutionaries emboldened by the mass uprisings. In Syria, traditional freestyle spoken word flowed into new anthems. One amateur poet from Hama, a cement layer by trade, is thought to have penned “Come on, Leave Bashar,” which soon became the rallying cry of the uprising against Syria’s president. This young protest singer, Ibrahim Qashoush, was found in the Orontes River with his throat cut and his vocal cords ripped out a year ago this month. Young and old still sing this song in the streets.
Later that same year, thousands of people around the United States—many of them younger and less experienced in mass actions—found themselves huddled together in city parks with some hand drums and guitars and a limited repertoire of songs that spoke to the present moment. They ran through a few of the 60s standards and some older folk tunes, goofed on some top 40 pop songs, took turns freestyle rapping about unpaid bills, and then started riffing on the emerging slogans of the 99 percent. Soon there were music working groups and celebrity rockers and hip hop artists in Zucotti Park and elsewhere. Now there is an unofficial release called “Occupy This Album” with tracks by famous and hitherto-unknown artists spanning hip hop, folk, country, soul, indie rock, electronic, and more—99 tracks by 99 artists for $9.99, with proceeds going to Occupy Wall Street.
This issue of WIN samples some of these phenomena across three centuries. Educator Mel Motel illustrates the power of teaching social justice through culture—in this case, getting at discussions of race and class through hip hop lyrics. And Guante directly addresses the connections between art and activism with some concrete pointers for forming and nurturing those relationships. He cites as an example Hip Hop Against Homophobia, a project he started with a Minneapolis activist, which raises awareness and funds for LGBTQ groups. A list of heavy metal antiwar songs compiled by C. Moen shines a forgiving light on those cassettes in your closet, giving you reason to revisit some of those not-so-guilty pleasures, and a review by Judith Mahoney Pasternak of a Joe Hill biography rounds out our look at resistance music with some early 20th-century American labor organizers and one of their favorite troubadours.
In addition to these soundtracks, we bring you two voices of resistance to militarism: Hashmeya Muhsin al–Saadawi, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union in Iraq and the first woman vice-president of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers in Basra; and the late Bayard Rustin, conscientious objector and civil and gay rights pioneer (who would have turned 100 this year). Both describe, in their own words, the damage and pain brought on by U.S. occupation and the potential for organized workers to achieve true democracy.
