Sonic Weapons

I'm not sure I completely agree with the premise of this story—to quote the author, that "R.E.M.'s Out of Time is the most politically significant album in the history of the United States. Because of its packaging"—but I was not aware of the role that the inclusion on the cd longbox of a Rock the Vote petition in favour of the Motor Voter bill (which would have allowed U.S. citizens to register to vote while signing up for or renewing a driver's license) may have eventually played in its passage as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army (FARC-EP), which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its struggle against the Colombian government this year, has just released a rap song calling for peace in Colombia. The song, which features Dutch FARC member and negotiator (as well as alleged terrorist, according to the U.S. government) Tanja Nijmeijer (who is referred to as "the Dutchwoman" in the video) and Cuban group Cuentas Claras, is at once a rallying cry for peace ("In the name of the exploited/of barefoot and malnourished children/of bad-paid [sic] and poorly educated women and men/of threatened peasants/we have come to talk about peace without any fear"), a strident attack on "...that circus that you call government..." ("to keep on killing/that is what pleases you/To dialogue with the people/of course you don't like that") and a call to arms ("Like Don Quijote without fear of being defeated/The people should unite/the truth should be discovered"). While the song is in Spanish, it is also clearly addressed to a global audience, ending with a message in several languages ("Support the peace process in Colombia").

Today marks Music Freedom Day, a global event for freedom of musical expression organized by Freemuse–an international organization fighting to prevent the violation of musicians' rights. This year, Music Freedom Day comprises events in 18 countries that are "self-organized by artists, cultural operators and media operators" and include concerts, conferences and workshops. In Canada, the only planned "events" are a post about Music Freedom Day on the CBC Music's blog (which includes an excellent playlist of "songs of exile, protest and hope") as well as reports throughout the day on CBC Radio 2.

In the early days of the Arab Spring and the Syrian uprising, I often posted about musicians who entered the fray by recording songs in support of or opposition to those who demanded Bashar al-Assad's departure. While a new New York Times piece suggests that South Lebanese singer Ali Barakat's pro-Hezbollah, pro-Assad "Seal Your Victory in Yabroud" ("The soldiers are coming/they will give you dark days/O Hezbollah, God be with you/seal your victory in Yabroud") has opened what it describes as a "new musical front in the bloody civil war", it is not quite true that this is a new phenomenon. After all, this blog documented several anti-Assad songs, and pro-Assad musicians have been producing songs for some time.

Nevertheless, this article does a good job of documenting the impact of Barakat's song both on his own personal life ("The insults and threats flow to the singer...around the clock" and "make his cellphone perpetually ring and buzz") and in inciting reactions ("Those backing the government of President Bashar al-Assad have spread it on social media. Rebels and their supporters have recorded their own musical rejoinders..."). BuzzFeed's Mike Giglio  also wrote about Barakat in December, noting that the singer "hoped his songs would help to prepare Hezbollah and its supporters for the continuing battle" (Barakat believed that he had helped to inspire Hezbollah fighters triumph in the battle over the Syrian town of Qusayr) as well as to memorialize the fighters killed in Syria ("We don't cry when our martyrs come home. We make a nice song", said Barakat).

Freemuse, an international organization advocating and defending freedom of expression for musicians and composers around the world, released its 2013 annual statistics on violations of freedom of expression for musicians this week [full table above or here]. According to Freemuse, there were 109 violations of rights (from simple censorship to assassination) in 33 countries in 2013; these figures account for 19 musicians who were killed last year, as well as several instances of censorship in several countries that are ostensibly rights-based democracies (including Canada, Sweden and the USA).

While such numbers are disturbing, Freemuse notes they "are not a complete survey and do not give full picture of the situation globally; they only represent the tip of the iceberg", as they only include publicly known violations. In fact, the real numbers could be much higher if unpublicized threats in fundamentalist or totalitarian regimes as well as the effects of internal conflicts on musicians were to be included in these statistics.

I apologize if this is old news to some of you, but I came across this series of photos featuring Nadia Tolokonnikova modeling clothes by brands such as American Apparel, Guess, Evil Twin and Glamorous for Russian online store Trends Brands just yesterday (the shoot is titled Nadia Tolokonnikova: Beautiful and Free). The photos were taken shortly after Tolokonnikova's release from prison.

While the notion of modeling for an online clothing store may appear to be in contradiction with both Pussy Riot's anti-capitalist and feminist views (which members of the Russian feminist collective re-emphasized in an open letter to Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina earlier this month that described them as former members of the group), The Calvert Journal reported that Tolokonnikova justified this on her Facebook page by saying that she wanted to thank her "capitalist friends" for the clothes that they donated to her while she was serving her prison sentence. 

Nevertheless, this still seems a bit strange coming from someone who founded an feminist activist collective of women who originally challenged the Russian social order "[b]y hiding their faces and raising their voices" (here, she quite literally is beautiful and silent!) and rejecting the notion that women "are there to look pretty" and "to have babies and cook and clean", as Miriam Elder pointed out in an excellent piece on Pussy Riot for BuzzFeed.

This remains my favourite among the documents that I have unearthed over the course of my research: a 1953 letter from Woody Guthrie to the remarkable author, folklorist, Ku Klux Klan infiltrator and activist (among many other hats!) Stetson Kennedy, who was living in Berlin, Germany at the time. I placed a FOIA request in early 2012, and the letter was declassified in May 2012 (probably because it could finally be released to the public following Kennedy's death in 2011).

Since arriving in Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, on Sunday night, Nadezdha Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina (formerly?) of Russian political punk collective Pussy Riot have been arrested and detained for allegedly stealing a woman's handbag in the hotel in which they are staying. According to their lawyer, Alexander Popkov, there have been numerous incidents: first, the women were questioned on the night of their arrival, allegedly to determine their identities; on Monday, they detained for several hours; on Tuesday, they were arrested yet again on theft charges, but were rapidly released after another interrogation (The Guardian's Shaun Walker has a full report on these arrest).

Upon their release, the women performed a new song, "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland", on the steps of the police station and took part in an impromptu press conference where they discussed their arrest as well as their reason for being in Sochi (to criticize the "huge corruption" of the Olympics). While I don't necessarily with Stephen Marche that the best response from the rest of the world would be to bring their athletes home (I appreciate the sentiment, but a lot of Olympic athletes have spent decades making huge personal and financial sacrifices for an opportunity to compete that may only come around once in their lifetime), his post about the arrest for Esquire raises some important points about Vladimir Putin's motivations (let's assume that he had a hand in the arrest of the recently released activist/musicians) in placing two of Russia's most famous dissidents behind bars again–if only for a few hours.

Yesterday (Wednesday), Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and others (including one man) put on Pussy Riot's distinctive and colourful balaclavas and took to the streets of Sochi to stage and film a performance of their new song (which may actually be titled "Putin Will Teach You How to Love" or "Putin Will Teach You How to Love the Motherland") under a sign advertising the Olympics. There, they were accosted, bruised and bloodied by whip-wielding Cossack militias (the Cossacks were reportedly hired to perform some security duties during the Olympics). You can watch a video of the bizarre and disturbing attack here. Despite the attack, The Guardian reports that Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and two unidentified others performed the song again later that day in front of Sochi's city hall, without incident. Although the staging of yesterday's performance as well as the strange and almost theatrical "whipping" at the hands of the Cossacks may arouse some suspicions, the picture tweeted by Alekhina of the "traces" left by the men on one of the participants would seem to dispel any doubt as to the reality of the attack.

As for the song released by Pussy Riot yesterday, it is now accompanied by a video (which you can view here) that features several powerful images and captures the events of the past week in under three minutes. I cannot comment on the song's content–I would be infinitely grateful to any Russian speakers out there that could translate the lyrics for me or point me to a reasonably accurate translation–but it is certainly the catchiest and most melodic offering to be released under the Pussy Riot banner. This is also perhaps the first song from these women that sounds less like the product of an amateurish art project and more like a visceral, political rock band.