On January 26, a group of activists with Organizing for Occupation (O4O), Housing is a Human Right and Occupy Wall Street interrupted another foreclosure action in Brooklyn with their singing. (Frida Berrigan reported on the first of these actions back in October.) As you can see from the above video, after selling only one house out of four, the auction was aborted and 39 people were arrested.

In an email interview with Karen Gargamelli, an attorney with Common Law who is involved with O4O, she explains why they have chosen this melodic tactic:

We sing because it is non-violent and because it is beautiful. We hope to confound the systems that evict New Yorkers (the courts) and the elected officials that refuse to regulate the big banks with loveliness.

With this easy-to-learn song, O4O hopes these blockades will spread across the country, and effect what Gargamelli called “a people’s moratorium” that would create “real negotiating power between homeowners and lenders.” The next singing auction blockade is planned for February 17th in Queens.

A checkpoint run by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) at Baba Amr, a poor district in the southwestern part of Homs. Photo from Der Spiegel.

Say the words, “Free Syrian Army” in nearly any gathering of Syrian expatriates lately, and their faces break into wide smiles of appreciation. Say the same words to people in Syria, and they say, “They will liberate us.” This sentiment is growing all over Syria, as the defected soldiers that make up the FSA wage battle against their pro-regime counterparts. But will such optimism last?

Nearly 11 months into the Syrian uprising, ordinary civilians, once certain of the effectiveness of civil resistance, are losing hope. They turn to the FSA for protection. The world has been in awe of the Syrian revolution and its peaceful activists (“How brave!” “Such tenacity!”), who vow to oust the Assad regime once and for all, and the peaceful protests continue daily. However, many of these demonstrations are protected from Assad’s army and snipers by the FSA, where and when possible. The presence of the FSA at protest sites has re-energized protesters, who are coming out in increasing numbers even as the regime escalates its violence against them.

Given the FSA’s popularity in some communities, many argue that the full-scale militarization of the Syrian conflict is inevitable. But FSA successes in Zabadani, the eastern belt of the Damascus suburbs, and Homs, among other areas, have given Syrians renewed hope. Their hope stems not from the thought that military help is coming from the West or NATO, but that it comes from home-grown forces: brothers and fathers and uncles who could not face the thought of shooting at their own unarmed people, and who defected. As of this writing, FSA soldiers in Zabadani are facing a massive assault by regime forces, and the FSA has vowed to fight back until “we are all free or we are all dead.” Its determination has inspired others to go out and protest despite the fighting.

Is this the end of peaceful resistance in Syria? Does the emergence of the FSA mean that nonviolence is a thing of the past? Apparently not. Protesters now seem emboldened by their protectors, and have engaged in ever more creative forms of peaceful civil disobedience.

Today, the city of Hama commemorated the massacres of 1982, in which Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar Al-Assad’s father, killed as many as 40,000 people in just over a week. (It’s a sad irony that over the past year, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Hama alone by the junior Assad, including more than a dozen today; more than 6,000 more from around the rest of the country have died as a result of the continuing crackdown.) In preparation, the entire city of Hama shut down on Thursday as security forces descended upon the city to thwart any commemorative demonstrations. Much to the surprise of Assad’s security forces, residents observed a general strike throughout the city—but not before painting streets red and throwing dye into the famous water wheels on the Orontes River. Activists spray-painted graffiti on the walls: “Hafez died, and Hama did not. Bashar will die, and Hama will not.”

In Daraa, another flashpoint city (aren’t they all, at this point?), protesters clapped in union and chanted, “He who kills his people is a traitor.”

All over Syria, in virtually every city, town and village, pro-democracy activists distribute leaflets, create new anti-regime songs, draw caricatures and stage plays to voice their opposition to the Assad regime. The nonviolent part of the movement is still very much alive.

Across continents and oceans, Syrian activists in Toronto, London and Vienna are staging flash mobs in public spaces to let the world know what is happening in their homeland. In Manchester, England, nonviolent activists created a video, “The Whole World Supports Syria,” which shows young people from around the world holding up signs of city names, victims’ names or inspirational messages.

In Washington, D.C., Ottawa, Berlin, Cairo and other world capitals, Syrian activists are doing sit-ins at Russian embassies and consulates to protest Russia’s staunch support of Assad in the United Nations Security Council. Detroit, Chicago and LA are holding sing-alongs and fundraisers to buy and deliver medical supplies.

Another form of nonviolent resistance are the Twitter campaigns designed to stretch the Friday protests in Syria into the weekend, worldwide. One of them is directed by the Free Syrian Twitter Army against the “minhibakjis,” the pro-Assadists who like to intimidate and harass Syrian activists around the world. The FSTA focuses on the minhibakjis by sending targeted messages just to irritate and annoy the enemy. The FSTA has simple rules: no profanity, no personal attacks and tag all tweets with #FSTA.

For now, at least, the nonviolent movement remains alive and thriving. Scholars of civil resistance understand full well that short-term gains by the FSA today do not necessarily mean a democratic Syria tomorrow. And while the FSA enjoys popular support in certain cities now, many activists—especially those watching events in Egypt—wonder whether they might be trading one military dictatorship for another. Historically, an armed revolution tends to lessen popular participation; however, thus far in Syria, that hasn’t been the case.

The short-term issue which birthed the network now being called Occupy Nigeria was the hastily-announced January 1, 2012 end of the federal fuel subsidies which had enabled average Nigerians to afford gas pumped from oil reserves on their own land. This resulted in an overnight 120 percent price increase, and an outburst of fury at decades of governmental collusion with the multi-billion dollar oil industry. The initial demands of the movement—to simply return to the status quo before 2012—were quickly followed up with calls for an end to the nepotism of politicians and an improvement in infrastructure. By the end of the first week of local protests, Nigerian police had killed at least ten activists, and a call went out for a nationwide, indefinite strike which would halt the Nigerian economy. Many mainstream professional associations joined the call, including the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association. Ongoing and intensified shut-downs promise to paralyze international oil supplies.

The fact is, for many long-term observers, there are no surprises here; Nigerian society may be crippled by the violence of multinational greed but has long been a staging ground for peaceful resistance to the neocolonialism of oil companies and their foreign profiteers. Nigerian educator Judith Atiri, in our recently published Seeds Bearing Fruit: Pan African Peace Action for the 21st Century, testified to the “fertile soil and inspiring possibilities” deep in the history of Africa’s most populated nation. Early examples of creative anti-colonial challenges included a popular tax resistance campaign in the 1920s, and a series of general strikes throughout the 1940s. After independence in 1960, protests became more localized and region-specific with the discovery of oil and movements for secession taking center stage. It was quickly evident that direct British colonization had been replaced by the all-consuming power of the empire-building multinationals. The 1990 coming together of nine separate associations of the indigenous Ogoni peoples of the southeast set the stage for modern Nigerian resistance.

Ken Saro-Wiwa

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), it should be remembered, was a coalition demanding both control over natural resources as well as general self-determination. Their Ogoni Bill of Rights gave a detailed set of demands for a greater share of the oil revenues amongst all the people of Nigeria, greater national attention to environmental clean-up, and greater political participation and transparency. Though the multinational oil companies and the Nigerian federal government ignored these demands, protests continued with intensified issues raised: that the Ogoni people have a right to refuse further oil production on their land, and that reparations be paid to make up for centuries of colonial theft. By 1995, MOSOP and their supporters were able to successfully shut down several plants, an act now being repeated by the Occupy movement. Nigeria’s infamous response was swift: MOSOP leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues were hanged by the state. Though Ogoni leaders noted that MOSOP and all the peoples of the Niger Delta region were “barricaded by excessive violence” throughout society, and even tempted by violence, they remained a movement committed to nonviolent social change.

Though conflict and violence has been characteristic amongst many competing groupings in the Niger Delta, with disputes over political representation, work contracts, land issues, and personal rivalries, the overall struggle for unity against corruption and greed continues to take peaceful forms. Women have always been active and leading participants in Nigeria’s freedom campaigns, but the initiatives of the past decade have seen more specifically women-led campaigns than ever before. Nigerian legal scholar and conflict resolution practitioner Ifeoma Ngozi Malo wrote poignantly about the 2002 waves of protest against Chevron-Texaco, where women seized control of several oil terminals, with no ensuing violence. “Armed with only food and their voices,” Ngozi Malo explained, “these village women carrying their children on their back occupied the various oil facilities and the terminals for weeks. They barricaded a storage depot, thus blocking docks, helicopter pads and an airstrip, which covered all the entry points to their facility. Their presence prevented well over 700 workers from working or leaving the premises until the company agreed to certain conditions.”

Part of the successes of these campaigns can be explained by the “shaming” aspect of women’s power in Nigerian society. With strong social bonds in a society where cultural traditions are taken very seriously and honored, a simple dance can have greater impact than an apparently militant protest with angry placards. During many occupations of the past several years, dances were specifically developed to ridicule the unjust practices of local, regional and international businessmen. Using embarrassing songs with satirical and sardonic lyrics, these women-led actions have had lasting effects on their communities. Even in cases where corporate promises were quickly broken, the power and possibility of nonviolent direct action and occupation was fused into the consciousness of civil society.

Perhaps the most unique and ingenious tactic of the modern Nigerian women-led movement has been the threat of nakedness. With its roots in traditional protest amongst the peoples of eastern Nigeria, public nudity symbolized a “permanent curse” of political, economic and physical impotence for the men before whom women were provoked to disrobe. Never taken lightly, contemporary instances of the threat are carefully woven into strategic thinking about escalating campaigns. Warnings are always given by the women, and negotiations often take place before a public disrobing is deemed necessary. It could be said that the idea of public nudity and shaming still strikes fear into Nigeria’s body politic. In any case, clothed or not, it is clear that nonviolent tactics are far from new to Nigeria’s large, heterogeneous, neocolonial society.

Presumably this comes as part of Occupy Lincoln Center, which on December 1 held a protest attended by Philip Glass, Lou Reed, and Laurie Anderson. That night, the Met performed Glass’s opera about Gandhi, Satyagraha. One sign read, according to the LA Times, “Gandhi would be pepper sprayed.” Like the other Occupy actions under the umbrella of Occupy Museums, these protests oppose “cultural institutions that serve the nation’s wealthiest citizens at the expense of the vast majority.” (It doesn’t help that people aren’t being allowed to protest on Lincoln Center’s plaza—apparently, it’s Koch-Blocked. Or that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s media is one of Lincoln Center’s chief funders.)

More from Occupy Museums:

We believe that institutions promoting a cult of celebrity, unfair labor practices, extreme commodification of art, and which trivialize or glamorize political struggle and protest are only the logical outcome of an entire culture stolen from the people by the 1%. We point to the visual promotion of corporate or private sponsorship seemingly without limit—as if this small group, not the public, truly own our cultural commons.

Some people at the December 1 protest reportedly complained about the high ticket prices at the opera; to that, Seth Colter Wells at The Awl responds well:

[A]t the Met, the most expensive opera tickets are indeed expensive, but you can stand behind the orchestra section—or even sit at the upper reaches of the house—for less than the cost of an IMAX showing at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 multiplex up the road. This persistent fiction of “elitism,” and contemporary classical music’s supposed inaccessibility, is one of the strongest propagandistic tools ever devised by the titans of corporate pop culture. They would prefer you not ever cost-compare a Family Circle seat to Satyagraha alongisde a 3D screening of Transformers 3. … [W]e can take a page from Adbusters‘ “every dollar spent is a vote” ethos and decide what do with the $20 bills that we do control.

It’s also worth mentioning the $20-25 rush tickets for orchestra seats, or the Met’s “Live in HD” program. Still, those programs depend heavily on 1-percenter donors, so point taken: there needs to be more public support for the arts.

There’s a better point these protests call us to consider, though: are we really listening to the operas themselves?

Both Satyagraha and Faust carry quite radical messages. Glass’ work confronts us with the politics and spirituality of Gandhi’s life. When this production of Satyagraha first came to New York in 2008, as I wrote back then, the Met even put on a publicity blitz with messages on posters like “Could an opera make us stand up for truth?” and “Could an opera make us warriors for peace?” Reasonable questions. As usual, though, audiences attended, reviews came and went, life went on. It was just marketing, after all.

The new production of Faust—an opera composed in mid-19th century France—has a polemic of its own. Director Des McAnuff sets it during World War II, with Faust as a nuclear scientist. Fat Man and Little Boy, the bombs that would fall on Japan, dangle overhead behind him. It’s a conceit that works remarkably well with the libretto and is remarkably damning—literally, to hell—for a country that for more than a half century has built its quest for global dominance on possessing enough nuclear weapons to bring about the end of the world at will. (The Met has previously taken on similar issues with performances of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic.)

Why, then, are these operas not treated as revolutionary? Why are they not causing their establishmentarian funders to stand up (“for truth”), leave, and take their money with them? Probably the simplest answer is that the productions enjoy the benefit of what’s now quite distant hindsight: it’s easy enough to pretend that the empire Gandhi opposed and the Promethean dawn of the nuclear age are past. Of course they’re not. But they’ve now taken ostensibly different forms, which somehow makes it conveniently optional to translate these operas’ implications to the circumstances of the present.

The Occupy presence, for all its rough edges, might at least lend the performances of works such as these the urgency they deserve. This is not polite social commentary, the protesters say—this is a crisis. This is our crisis. Listen harder.

I am a lousy singer. Lots of enthusiasm, but little talent. That’s why I like singing in groups. I can participate with enthusiasm and the people listening don’t need to don ear muffs.

Recently, I have had a little video on auto replay on my computer. The production values are not prime time ready. In fact the images are literally shot from the hip on a tiny hidden camera (I know I should not sound so awed, but at a time when most people have little cameras on their cellphones or smart devices—I am so behind the times that my spellchecker still wants to turn the word cellphone into cellophane). The action opens at the beginning of a foreclosure auction in a typical courtroom—this one at the State Supreme Court in downtown Brooklyn. People are sitting in the benches and up front a woman sits behind a low bench and begins the process of selling someone’s home—a building on Fulton Street being foreclosed by a company with a money-dream name of Instant Capital.

And then a rupture in business as usual—voices; not of auctioneers or buyers or gavel-whackers, but of people. They implore, they entreat, they demand, they sing:

Mrs. Auctioneer,
All the people here,
We are asking you to hold off the sales right now,
We are going to survive but we don’t know how.

The words are simple. The tune is catchy. The sentiment is strong. People who are getting kicked out of their homes are not alone, we are all in this together, the systems and institutions and cogs that grind away at people need to be infused with humanity, with voices, with song. The auction is disrupted, the court room cleared, the singers threatened with arrest. They stay, they continue to sing, and they are taken out in flexi-cuffs. 100 or so people outside hold signs and banners and commit to disrupting future auctions that make people homeless and put money in the pockets of corporate interests.

I have watched it over and over again. And I cry each time… Because it is so brave and it is so beautiful and so different. It is hard to describe, so I will just ask that you watch it.

The group who planned the October 14th action is called Organizing for Occupation. It is small and informal and committed to helping people stay in their homes, challenging the banks and the Instant Capitals and the shysters that offer a quick buck and—with fast talking and a sleight of hand—rob people of their futures. They say:

We firmly believe that safe and affordable housing is a human right, and that the government and the private sector have failed to meaningfully address this crisis. Therefore it is up to those who are most afflicted by the lack of affordable housing, homelessness, and foreclosures to actualize that right themselves through non-violent direct action.

They have been doing amazing work and are gearing up for more.

Song is powerful. It has a way of getting attention, of cutting through the endless mobius strips of argument, bureaucratic rationalization and political entrenchment. Witness Against Torture, another small and informal group, has been working to close Guantanamo and end torture since 2005. We are trying everything. Last year, one of the things we tried was “Guantanamo prisoner walks” through the halls of Congressional office buildings. We wanted to haunt the corridors of power with the silent and miserable specter of justice delayed and denied—many of the men at Guantanamo have been deemed no threat to the United States and cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama administrations and then left to languish there because of political cowardice and partisan brinksmanship.

We ended our haunting solitary vigils by coming together beneath Alexander Calder’s huge “Mountains and Clouds” sculpture in the Hart Building lobby and singing “Courage, Muslim brothers, you do not walk alone, we will walk with you and sing your spirit home.” It is a twist on the song South African prisoners during the Apartheid regime sung to those being taken off to torture and death. Our singing is not as good as the O4O folks, but we definitely got the attention of everyone in the building as we—ever so slowly—exited the building (The link includes a reflection on the action and a video, I can’t remember who wrote it, but it was not me—even though it says Frida Berrigan’s blog at the bottom).

Singing is primeval, elemental. It is woven into what makes us human. And we respond to it at a deep and instinctual level. It touches us all. Hearing singing makes us want to sing, which is why it is such an effective and affecting tool in the activist toolbox.

Here are a few other great singing actions (some political and some not so much, but all staggeringly beautiful interruptions of business as usual).

In May 2010, activists took over the lobby of the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco with a brass band and sang a version of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance (“Boycott the Bad Hotel”) to support union organizers working for affordable healthcare and a fair contract.

In April 2011, the Alliance for Greater New York showed up outside a private Bryant Park breakfast hosted by the Wall Street Journal where the head of Wal-Mart was speaking and sang “Mr. Wal-Mart” to the tune of Jean Knight’s “Who Do You Think You Are?”

Courage to Resist members interrupted a private breakfast with President Obama, serenading him about Bradley Manning in April of this year. It was all very polite and decorous—as befitting a $5,000 breakfast, I suppose—and only one or two singers were escorted out of the hall. Obama thanked the singers and remarked that they had “much better voices than mine.”

On July 4, 2006, more than 300 activists in Copenhagen marched on the U.S. Embassy there wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods. In front of the Embassy, they sang “Amazing Grace,” calling it a “birthday card” to America.

I might be a bit of a sap, but I find all of this very moving. Even that sort of hokey Hallelujah choir at the food court in the Welland Seaway Mall in Ontario at Christmas last year stirs me deeply.

Singing is also a metaphor for good organizing. It reminds us of the power of cooperation. One voice singing invites harmonies, gets stronger the more people join in and makes room for others’ solos. Singing needs to be practiced and experimented with. And everyone can learn it: even those of us with scratchy voices have a part to sing. We can all be schooled into better singers—there is an innate talent in all of us that can be encouraged and honed and given center stage. People who sing well together work well together, and the labor is made lighter by the beauty of the voices weaving together.

This summer, as I was sipping coffee with a friend in downtown Guatemala City, I was introduced to a news reporter who agreed to take me with him as he visited murder sites. The next day I arrived at his office at 6 a.m. and immediately we received our first call: a young man with signs of torture had been shot and thrown down a ravine, his hands and feet tied. In the next thirteen hours, we received twelve such calls.

Guatemala is nowadays one of the most violent countries in Latin America, with an average of 45 murders per 100,000 people each year. (By comparison, the homicide rate in the US stands at about 5 per 100,000 and in Mexico it was 22 per 100,000 last year). Most of these murders are attributed to gang violence, especially males. This notion is supported by continuous reports of the brutality of gang violence and by the fact that 90% of the people murdered were males under the age of 29. Indeed, male youth in Guatemala are committing atrocious acts of violence, but blame now falls indiscriminately upon all youth. Tattoos, piercings and a fashion style that looks very much like US rap artists, are now considered the “markers” of violence. As a result, the youth in Guatemala suffer from a dangerous stigmatization that places them in a vulnerable position when confronted by the police and angry mobs. This prevents many of them from making their way into society and fails to acknowledge that these youth are victims to violence themselves. Moreover, it encourages police to use brutality with impunity and promotes a disregard for the legal process.

Guatemala is about to elect a new president this coming November, and the two people now contesting are Otto Perez Molina and Manuel Baldizon. Both candidates have centered their campaigns on the concern for public security and advocate a stronger government stance against crime. More specifically, Perez Molina proposes a program known as “Iron Fist,” which has already been implemented in El Salvador (where it’s known as “Super Iron Fist”) and in Mexico. The core of this program is to increase police and military involvement in the persecution of drug traffickers and gang members or people suspected to be involved. However, both in Mexico and El Salvador this caused an explosion of violence and murders, which Mexicans will often refer to as a “war.” Accordingly, indiscriminate violence amongst the youth as well as against them has increased. The programs put forward by both candidates can only have the same negative impact, because violence foments more violence. I am afraid that no matter what the outcome of the election is, the youth of Guatemala will suffer even more in the coming years.

In the context of this reality one would not expect the youth to organize nonviolent actions, workshops or, as we shall see, an academy that teaches the principles of nonviolence. Yet, if we were to take a stroll down Calle 12 and 6ta Avenida, of Zone 1 in Guatemala City, we would find a group of mostly young men who celebrate the spirit of nonviolence every day.

Trasciende director Mr. Fer

Trasciende, an organization founded in 2009 by a group of five B-boys (break dancers), is a hip-hop academy that offers art workshops as a means to draw the youth away from violence and into a peaceful environment. Mr. Fer, the head of the academy, meets regularly with those who attend the workshops to discuss the four values Trasciende promotes—Peace, Love, Unity and Enjoyment—and how these can bring about real social and political change if only we commit to them fully. Mr. Fer told me he thinks Trasciende is now transforming into a bridge for the youth, especially men, who live in “territories owned by enemy gangs. They are starting to understand the core of the problem: that they have been driven to believe in false differences between them.” When asked what he believes is the solution to the violence in Guatemala he responded, “I can help by not helping violence. I will refrain from feeding my own humanity to the pool of blood already existing. And I hope I can inspire more youth to do the same.”

Aware of the escalating demand for military interventionism in the problem of gang violence and the potential threat to the youth, Trasciende has started to organize more venues to encourage the youth to join this hip-hop movement: national dancing competitions, graffiti and emceeing workshops and scholarships to compete overseas. Trasciende has taken hip-hop, an art form associated to masculinity, and uses it to fervently argue that there are men, thousands of them, who strive to live a life of nonviolence, challenging the notion of masculinity as intrinsically violent. “It is not ironic,” Mr. Fer said, “that those who are most heavily stigmatized are the ones refusing to be violent. It is simply perceived as an irony by those who perpetuate it… But we will not buy into that irony; we will make sure everybody understands this.” In spite of the threat of increasing persecution of the youth and the number of advocates of this movement that have already been killed, Mr. Fer, Trasciende and the youth continue to insist that the best way to start solving the problems of Guatemala is to make the decision to abstain from being a part of the perpetual cycle of violence.

The end has to start somewhere. That’s what brought A Ride Till the End’s Jacob George, Jerrad Hardin, and Russ Ritter to Bluestockings bookstore on New York’s Lower East Side yesterday, with their luggage-laden bikes in the back. For the next few weeks, they’ll be making their way down to Washington, D.C. on a Bikes Not Bombs Bicycle Tour, arriving in time for the planned occupation of Freedom Plaza that will mark the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, they’ll be a mobile speakers bureau and art collective, telling their stories in public and playing music, and raising money (in conjunction with Bikes Not Bombs up in Boston) to provide bikes for returning war vets who want to ride. At the heart of what they’re doing is a call for peace and, through it, a means of healing.

You can join them. I hope I will be able to. But in the meantime, you can listen to the whole Bluestockings event, including songs and stories from George’s recent return to Afghanistan with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, here:

Download [1:11:22, 32.7 MB]

In keeping with our recent discussions on the power of song, it’s worth checking out Foreign Policy‘s recent piece “Rapping the Revolution.” It talks briefly about the history of rap in North Africa and its role during the Arab Spring:

There is nothing new about Arab hip-hop. Scholars point to its nexus in Moroccan youth political dissent manifested in the vibrant cultural movement known as Nayda, which means “get up on your feet,” or “wake up” in Darija, the Arab dialect spoken in the Maghreb. Dissident rappers like H-Kayne and Donn Bigg, who called on Moroccans back in 2007 to “quit fear,” captured youth while rhyming about ubiquitous corruption and misery in Moroccan suburbs. Next-door in Algeria, famous (and banned) rapper Rabah started rapping during the civil war in 1994 with his group Le Micro Brise le Silence (LBS), “The Microphone Breaks the Silence.” Palestine’s Da Arab MCs (DAM) has produced a stream of powerfully political rap since their 1998 debut.

[...]

But there is no denying the outpour of creative, intensely politicized hip-hop that has accompanied the Arab uprisings. In Egypt, Adel Eissa, known as “A-Rush” from Cairo’s group “Arabian Knightz,” recorded a song on the night of January 27 called “Rebel,” which he quickly released on Facebook and MediaFire. Mohamed El-Deeb, known as MC Deeb, dropped a track ‘Masrah Deeb’ on February 3 in the heat of the Tahrir uprisings. #Jan25, a song spearheaded by titans of the genre Syrian-American Omar Offendum (Omar Chakaki) and Iraqi-Canadian The Narcicyst (Yassin Alsalman) generated hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. Over in Libya, Milad Faraway, a 20-year-old Libyan who created the rap group Music Masters with another young friend in 2010 tells Qaddafi to leave in “Youth of the Revolution;” in a track titled “17 February” by the group “Revolution Beat” (formerly called “Street Beat,” though their songs — due to fear of punishment — never did hit the streets) tells Qaddafi the fear barrier is broken.

“Arab rap is finally on the map,” says Amor. “And we’re blowing up the world.”

The rest of the piece is devoted to an interview with 21-year-old Tunisian rap star Hamada Ben Amor, better known as El General, who was arrested and tortured by the Ben Ali regime. TIME magazine has since placed him on its 2011 Most Influential People list. In answer to the question of what’s next for Tunisia, he had this to say:

The next revolution. We need a new revolution. We will protest again, we will take to the streets if we do not see change. There’s no magic button to press and start a new revolution, but it’s a national issue.I know my role is limited singing rap. But I’m ready to go to the streets and organize protests. And make people understand how dangerous the Tunisian situation is right now. I need support from scientists, politicians, educators. Everyone. We need massive participation.

I was invited to the American embassy in Tunis to arrange a meeting with the Essebsi and I will tell him the things that are wrong.

I’ll continue to speak my mind. And continue to watch everything around the region. Me, Tunisia, we inspired other nations. It’s not a competition. But it’s revolution time.

How should music rank among the ever-growing list of time-tested nonviolent methods such as boycotts, marches, strikes, sit-ins, and vigils?

Anthony Shadid of the New York Times reports that a song, “Come on Bashar, Leave,” is spreading across Syria, boldly calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down. (Bryan Farrell also wrote about it at Waging Nonviolence yesterday.) The article suggests that a young cement layer who chanted it in demonstrations was pulled from the Orontes River this month, his throat having been cut, and, according to residents of the city of Hama, his vocal chords torn out. Hama is where, in 1982, then-president Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president named in the song, gave orders to the army to massacre more than 10,000 in putting down an Islamist upheaval. Today, boys aged six years and older vocalize their own rendition of the original warbler’s song instead. As the song has sped across Syria, demonstrators have adopted it for themselves.

During the U.S. civil rights movement, “freedom songs” raised courage, stated the goals, declared commitment, united separated communities, and sometimes took melodic aim at notorious police chiefs. As a contemporary expression of spirituals, freedom songs derived from the black choral tradition that developed from the African and American experiences, matured in the fires of southern slavery. They addressed frustrations, forged bonds of personal loyalty, assuaged fear and dread, and fortified a people under stress. A strong tradition of composing during performance, in response to need, meant that new phrases would be added or a stanza changed to take up a specific issue, such as deciding whether to go to jail the next day. Song leading became an organizing tool. The civil rights struggle was profoundly rich in song, due to the significance of black congregational singing, nourished as it was by faith and resistance. The movement’s signature anthem, “We Shall Overcome,” has since become a universal expression of civil resistance movements across the world.

Later, music held a central role in the nonviolent revolutions of the Eastern bloc. On August 23, 1989, hundreds of thousands of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians linked hands in a human chain across 400 miles, “manually” connecting the capital cities of the three Baltic republics. As many as 2 million participants of all ages demanded the right to restore their independent statehood, as they sang folk and nationalist songs. They called their action the Baltic Way. Estonia’s struggle that brought independence is specifically known as the Singing Revolution.

During Ukraine’s quest for fair elections in 2004–2005, songs sung by rock groups contributed to the Orange Revolution movement. In 17 days in autumn 2004, massive rallies gained staying power from the efforts of musicians who performed around the clock. As approximately 1 million disciplined Ukrainian demonstrators camped out in Kiev’s Independence Square to protest rigged election results, their singing and music expressed their purpose. Everyone could participate, and music helped to assure the security personnel that the throng would be stationary. Music ranged from Okean Elzy, the most popular group in Ukraine, to the rock band Grandzioly (Green Jolly), which recorded the official lyrics of the Orange Revolution, “We Are Many, We Cannot Be Defeated.” In Ukraine alone, the song had 1.5 million downloads.

Why is music and song important in civil resistance? Several reasons leap to mind. One of the most fundamental requirements for a nonviolent mobilization to coalesce is the need to communicate clearly the nature of the specific grievance. The wrong that has brought people to shed passivity and actively wage the conflict without violence must be clearly grasped, if success is to be achieved. Songs can help in enlisting new recruits. When a group or society has decided to take history into their own hands and wants to act effectively to lift oppression, they must be able to put their point across intelligibly and compellingly. At the most basic level, the desired change can come about more quickly if the target group fully comprehends the basic injustice that has brought an organized challenge to its legitimacy and power. Songs can sometimes transmit the cause of distress more penetratingly than pickets, news releases, or press conferences—which is why the Syrian authorities have reacted to something as intangible as a song.

Music and culture, it must be remembered, are shared by police, security services, and the army, and therefore may help to turn the loyalties of state servants away from repugnant policies or regimes. Lyrics put to a familiar traditional melody can remind the populace and those in the security apparatus that they are one, and that they will together share the benefits of the change being sought.

As in the civil rights movement, singing the right song at the fitting moment can involve heart, mind, body, soul—one’s entire being—in making the decision to face fear, stand unflinching in attacking the political power of the adversary, or confronting likely grave retaliation. “This May Be the Last Time We See Each Other,” for instance, was a freedom song that we sang in the civil rights movement only when we were afraid that someone would be killed.

The New York Times yesterday reported on the origins of Syria’s protest anthem, “Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar,” or “Come on Bashar, Leave.” While there’s certainly no confusion over the song’s blunt lyrics and direct message, little is known about the person who created it. As reporter Anthony Shadid points out, however, there is near consensus on one point:

A young cement layer who sang it in protests was dragged from the Orontes River this month with his throat cut and, according to residents, his vocal cords ripped out. Since his death, boys as young as 6 have offered their rendition in his place. Rippling through the virtual communities that the Internet and revolt have inspired, the song has spread to other cities in Syria, where protesters chant it as their own.

[...]

The man pulled from the river was named Ibrahim Qashoush, and he was from the neighborhood of Hadir. He was relatively unknown before July 4, when his body was found, then buried in the city’s Safa cemetery, near the highway.

Video on YouTube, impossible to verify, shows a man purported to be Mr. Qashoush with his head lolling from a deep gash in his throat. Residents say security forces shot him, too. But people in Hama dwelled on the detail that stands as a metaphor for the essence of decades of dictatorship: That the simple act of speaking is subversive. “They really cut out his vocal cords!” exclaimed a 30-year-old pharmacist in Hama who gave his name as Wael. “Is there a greater symbol of the power of the word?”

In a rebellion whose leaders remain largely nameless and faceless, Mr. Qashoush has become somewhat celebrated in death. “The nightingale of the revolution,” one activist called him.

This has become the legend at least. There are some discrepancies as to whether the real singer was someone else with the same name. Others insist that the song was actually written by a 23-year-old part-time electrician and student named Abdel-Rahman, also known as Rahmani, who the Times managed to find.

Sitting in a basement room, Rahmani celebrated what he called “days of creativity.”

As the protests in Hama grew bolder and bigger last month, he said crowds grew bored with the old chants — “Peaceful, peaceful, Christians and Muslims,” “There is no fear after today” and “God, Syria, freedom, and nothing else.” Speeches were not much better. Activists soon managed to bring sound equipment, powered by generators tucked in the trunk of a car, he said, and he wrote his first song, “Syria Wants Freedom.”

“Come on Bashar, Leave,” followed, though he and his brother Mohammed argued for a week over whether he should keep a marginally derogatory line, “Hey Bashar, to hell with you.” It stayed, and now draws the biggest applause, cheers and laughter.

“What I say, everyone feels in their hearts, but can’t find words to express,” he said, dragging on a cigarette. “We were brought up afraid to even talk about politics.”

No matter the song’s originator, the true origins of the song seem to be years of pent up political angst. Such lyrics as “Hey Bashar, to hell with you” may seem juvenile to us, but they are exhilarating to the people of Syria who no longer have fear to speak their mind. Even the slightly negative tone of the song hasn’t prevented it from reaching and affecting people more in the middle or even on the regime’s side.

“It’s started to spread all over the country,” said a former Republican Guard officer who has joined the protests in Homs, an hour or so from Hama. “It keeps getting more popular.”

Shadid sums it up best when he says:

Tunisia can claim the slogan of the Arab revolts: “The people want to topple the regime.” Egyptians made famous street poetry that reflected their incomparable wit. “Come on Bashar, Leave,” is Syria’s contribution to the pop culture of sedition, the raw street humor that mingles with the furor of revolt and the ferocity of crackdown.

Calvin Trillin and John Lewis in 1961.

Everyone knows that memory, and its penchant for myth-making, obscures a lot of the dirtier shades of truth. Especially when, say, a social movement has been successful. There’s so much heroism on hand that retelling those stories takes up all the time one might otherwise devote to more dead-end details. Hence the curiousness of Calvin Trillin’s essay on the Freedom Rides in the current issue of The New Yorker, “Back on the Bus” (subscription required)—it dwells, mainly, in the dead-end. Curious, too, is the fact that the heroism isn’t really lost in these kinds of details; they’re there nonetheless, even if more by implication.

This, I think, is a lesson for those of us trying to meet the challenge of doing good writing about social movements. You don’t have to be a propagandist, believe it or not. Better not to be. You don’t have to ignore the wrinkles. The truth comes through.

Exactly 50 years ago now, Trillin was jetting around the South covering the civil rights movement—though not exclusively that, as he points out—for Time, which processed and rewrote his dispatches up in New York. He remembers the uncanny things he learned then, such as how to evaluate the degree of a person’s racism by how the word “Negro” was pronounced, and all the verses of “We Shall Overcome.” But he also remembers quite a bit of what we normally like to forget—for instance, the fragmentation and competition among the civil-rights movement’s various factions:

[T]he most cynical view of the Freedom Ride was that it was an attempt by [Congress of Racial Equality leader James] Farmer to gain some standing for CORE in the South, where they were jockeying for influence among the N.A.A.C.P. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

And he remembers the movement’s various modes of unpopularity—we remember the violent suppression, and so forth, but less the apathy and sense of futility:

[A]t a time when the Nashville sit-in movement had pretty much completed the desegregation of the city, … fifty-seven percent of Americans believed the sit-ins and other demonstrations would hurt rather than help the chances of Negroes being integrated in the South.

And he remembers the moral ambiguity, the people caught in the middle:

I … watched … a Greek-immigrant diner owner with tears in his eyes telling black sit-in students in Atlanta that, as much as he sympathized with their cause, serving them would mean the end of his business.

This ambiguity isn’t over, not any more than racism is over in the United States. Trillin takes us to some of the 50th anniversary Freedom Ride commemoration events around the country, and finds just how not-over the movement is. Nonviolent organizer and Freedom Rider Jim Lawson—whom I recently interviewed for Waging Nonviolence—refused to attend a Jackson, Mississippi, event, and co-signed a letter contending that “the Jackson commemoration was part of an effort in Mississippi that amounted to ‘stealing the legacy of the civil rights movement so they can profit from tourism.’ Some dismal statistics in living standards and education and criminal justice were presented.”

Trillin did go to Jackson, though. And, like any good journalist eventually does, he finds more ambiguity in the professional expectation of objectivity. Or fairness. Or “getting both sides of the story,” as we journalists are supposed to do. One question he faced back in ’61, for instance, was whether or not to actually get on the bus with the Freedom Riders.

I didn’t pretend that we were covering a struggle in which all sides—the side that thought, for instance, that all American citizens had the right to vote and the side that thought that people who acted on such a belief should have their houses burned down—had an equally compelling case to make. It wasn’t like trying to remain objective while covering the Michigan-Ohio State game. But at mass meetings I would never have put any money in the collection cup. When, at the invariable end of the meeting, people in the congregation locked arms to sing “We Shall Overcome,” I always edged away toward the exit. Still, I thought we should be on that bus.

So he bought a ticket and rode the bus. Now, at the commemoration events, Trillin is sometimes treated as if he had been a Freedom Rider himself. Instinctively, he says he’s not, but then he’s not so sure. The essay ends this way:

When one of the sessions in Chicago ended with people linking arms and singing “We Shall Overcome,” I made my usual quiet move toward the door. Suddenly, I felt someone lock arms with me. Instinctively, I started to pull my arm away while looking around to see who it was. It was an older woman in a wheelchair. Was I really going to wrest my arm away from an older woman in a wheelchair? I stayed. Then I joined in. It turns out that I still know most of the verses.

And so a white guy from a big Northern magazine, a guy seemingly determined to talk about the wrinkles of a hallowed movement—not vindictively, but because they’re true—gets stuck singing 50 years later. The truth gets a hold of you, I guess; it gets stuck in you like a song.

As U2 took to the stage at the Glastonbury festival last Friday, activists with Art Uncut – an offshoot of UK Uncut – inflated a 9ft-wide, 20ft-high balloon that carried the message: “U Pay Tax 2.”

Despite having permission from the festival’s organizers for the creative protest, security used excessive force, including breaking a finger of one of the activists involved, as they quickly brought down the balloon.

Nevertheless, the protest was widely covered in the mainstream media, with images of the action appearing on the BBC and many national newspapers. In the Guardian, Art Uncut founder and co-organizer Philip Goff explained the purpose of their protest:

The narrower point was to raise concerns about the irresponsible way U2 arrange their tax affairs. In 2006 U2 Ltd moved most of its tax affairs to Holland, seemingly in response to the Irish government’s decision to cap the tax-free exemption on royalties at €225,000 (before this, artists in Ireland were not obliged to pay any tax on royalties). Our concern is that when individuals and corporations “shop around” different countries for the best tax deal, this puts pressure on governments all round the world to lower their tax rates, which results in an ever-dwindling proportion of profits going to governments to spend on schools, hospitals and public services. Given the financial difficulties in the group’s native country right now, any tax revenue denied to Ireland hurts badly.

The broader point of the protest was to raise awareness of the connection between tax ethics and development. Christian Aid estimates that $160bn, more than the global aid budget, is lost every year to the developing world from multinational tax dodging. It’s clear that if we’re serious about making developing countries richer, we need individuals and corporations to take a much more ethical and responsible approach to their tax affairs.

Art Uncut aims to bring about a culture shift, to create a world where people automatically and instinctively think about tax ethically. We’re not claiming that individuals have a duty to pay as much tax as possible. Rather each of us has a duty to think about tax in an ethical context, to ask questions such as: what’s my fair share? What do I owe to the country that paid for my healthcare and education? What’s the spirit as well as the letter of the law? What effect does how I arrange my tax affairs have on the globe?

[...]

Second, we want to encourage consumers to make tax one consideration in their choice of which artists to support, or which companies to buy from; just as environmental considerations already figure in these decisions. We want to see a world in five years’ time when credible musicians just don’t do what U2 Ltd did, because they know the public won’t support it.

Existence Is Resistance, “an internationalist organization determined to promote non-violent resistance through cultural arts,” is about to release a film about their work bringing hip-hop artists from around the world to occupied Palestine: Hip Hop Is Bigger than the Occupation. See the trailer above. From the press release:

Existence is Resistance & Nana Dankwa present: Hip Hop Is Bigger Than The Occupation, a documentary about a ten day journey of artists traveling through Palestine, teaching and performing Non Violent Resistance through the arts.

The tour included M1 of Dead Prez, Shadia Mansour, Marcel Cartier, Mazzi of Soul Purpose, DJ Vega Benetton, Lowkey, Jody McIntyre and Trinidad, Brandon and Lavie from the South West Youth Collaborative/University of Hip Hop Chicago.

Staying in the heart of Balata Refugee Camp @ the Yafa Cultural Center in Nablus the group witnesses night raids, toured places like Hebron where there are roads for the Arabs and roads for the Jews, they meet families of shaheeds as well as young Palestinians who have been jailed, shot, humiliated, the group visits Bi’lin where they get shot at and tear gassed and experience first hand what it felt like living under occupation.

If you’d like to see more of the film, and you’re around New York, there’s going to be a world premiere screening at the excellent Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn, on Monday, May 30th at 6:30 pm. Details here. I’m sure that for those not in New York other opportunities will arise.

To get a sense for the kind of messages they’re putting out there, take a look at this video by LowKey, an English-Iraqi rapper and activist who appears in the film. The second verse makes a clear pitch for the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement, to the point of listing particular companies whose products should be avoided.

I just got a note from the incomparable Reverend Billy, the performance artist, activist, and post-theistic preacher, with news about his latest project, now running on Sunday nights at Theatre 80 in New York City:

Our experiment, “The Church of Earthalujah!”—is a playful but pretty basically new approach to environmentalism. Like our usual play—this iteration may be a political rally for the earth, or a post-theistic religion designed for hipsters, or a improvisational comedy show. And if it isn’t all three—we’re having a bad night…

We’re saying that we need a kind of faith to drive stronger analysis and direct action—for the crisis of the Earth’s physical systems. Prayers and rousing gospel, polemics like sermons and liturgy and the altar call—it’s a step beyond traditional environmentalism in 2011, which has fallen into a stupor since Copenhagen.

He’s definitely right about the stupor. And with the big climate meeting coming up this December in Durban, once again, there’s need to build a stronger, more creative, and more effective global movement than ever before to support real change. If you’re in town, you can start by catching Billy’s show!

"Cops like calendar photo"

The saga of our special correspondent Quince Mountain’s stay in the occupied Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, continues from yesterday. Today he remained inside; protesters who tried to leave even just for a breath of fresh air were not allowed back in. Authorities are clearly intending to make the protesters will leave, but they have yet to take forceful action to make them do so. Receiving his text messages over the course of the day was surreal as I worked at my computer, and rode my bike into Manhattan, and went to a dental appointment where CNN was reporting that Charlie Sheen is demanding a multi-million dollar raise. Needless to say, I was glad that at least someone was paying attention while history is being made.

Here’s a sampling of Quince’s dispatches over the course of the day.

9:17 am

There is a confrontation? Not clear. A guy in the center is yelling about tension. People are asking cops yelling why aren’t people allowed in?

Use of the word fascist. And peace.

These teachers union guys on the bottom are running a certain part of the show.

But I don’t feel a lot of confidence in a revolution this morning.

Coffee might help.

Now they’re singing “we love u” to the police.

9:45

Guy from fox business network clear to say he’s not fox news network. “we’re straight”

10:01

My friend just texted asking if I’m willing to get arrested.

“Why?” I wrote.

Oh. And now he wrote “jail is awesome for trans folks”. I suppose, huh?

[On what happened last night:] I walked in at this key moment where ppl were almost leaving but didn’t. Just chose not to. And last night so many ppl I talked to attributed that to who got on the mic when. Like these five ppl basically just worked the crowd and were like “we didn’t need to leave”. Like ending exactly when the main push to eject ppl happened. And they just stayed.

10:39

So it’s like… A standoff? 25 cops with dogs at every door and only letting anyone in for each person who goes out?

11:30

[While in the bathroom, he hears a noise.]

Is that a saw or grinder? Or some ocd senators beefcake electric toothbrush?

Oh. the grinder was to grind off the screw heads [to keep people from breaking in with screwdrivers]. They did a nice job. I’d give it a B.

11:50

Hymns.

Or at least hallelus.

12:37 pm

Tmrw at 4 pm the gov reveals probably nasty budget.

So ppl are trying to stay in bldg. Gov trying to “threaten and bully the senators”

People don’t even want to let the gov in the building. Though I’m sure he’ll get in.

1:06

Release: “no additional protesters allowed til the situation has resolved”. What situation???

Firefighters now in playing bagpipes. National anthem. A few ppl singing.

Right now it seems there are more cops than protestors.

Some ppl want to kill the whole bill. I wonder if some wouldn’t just settle for keeping collective bargaining.

Solidarity version of Barney theme song

There isn’t actually some clear unity of motive and method. Yet something coherent comes out of this. It’s quite a thing to see, for me.

2:51

Woman from Pakistan. “interesting. I’ve grown up in a country under martial law and it’s amazing how similar this is”

4:25

Keeping absent senator office warm while he’s in Illinois. Quiet place for napping, and someones gotta do it.

People talking about (second?) “jumper” who got arrested for climbing cap building.

“what an idiot. Makes us all look like lunatics”

There’s also the ecstatic dancing and the nightly “ohm in the dome” ritual and the unshaven days of sleeping on pieces of foil and the solidarity version of the Barney theme. I mean, just in case there were no building scalers to project lunacy.

What if some people just like climbing buildings better than singing we shall overcome?

I think much of this is aesthetic. Ritual. Tradition. Who you want to go to bed with.

Is that reductive?

Curled up under democratic senator chris larson’s desk.

Texting.

3:46

Ok so there’s lots of affidavit submitting going on.

One public health nurse testifying that she’s seeing symptoms of norovirus. Which is some respiratory nastiness that happens on cruise ships, people think.

Exiled senator chris Larson likes to run marathons and triathlons it looks like. There are some real swell pictures.

4:52

So I guess yesterday the teamsters ordered 500 pizzas when they meant pizza for 500.

Whoops.

5:15

Some woman just walked in and cops apprehended her but she just came in anyhow and they let her go.

Figuring out what orders police are operating under is like playing that summer camp game where people pass each other sticks a certain way and u do it right or wrong til you can infer what the rules are.

"Whilst channel 27 does a piece about how we have no access to food"

5:55

Things getting weird. I wanna leave but I’m not.

Ppl are making weird claims like that it’s been “extremely difficult to get food or basic medical supplies”.

At which I point out that I’ve eaten a bagel and a croissant and a pbj and 9 slices of pizza and a chocolate bar etc etc. And coffee and tea and donuts and.

And ibuprofen and lavender and skullcap and wipes and contact solution and foil blankies and and and.

I also ate two oranges, a banana, a pear, and a Clementine.

Oh. Did I say a croissant?

And a granola bar.

Homemade

There were cookies too

And the pizza had macaroni on it.

I haven’t had dinner yet tho.

Sandwiches and salad are coming.

So anyhow I just suggested at first gently that maybe we shouldn’t mislead people by saying it’s been Extremely Difficult.

it just seems like a pointless claim when there are so many blatant violations to focus on like people just not being allowed in there.

So anyhow. Re press release. They kept insisting how Extremely Difficult it was to eat here and I was like, “has anyone in this room wanted more to eat today or needed a medical supply and not gotten it? Have heard of anyone else with difficulty?”

Ppl Were like “I’m vegan so it’s been a little tougher” and “there hasn’t been enough lettuce”

Oh there were also scones.

8:20

Had a nice chat with representative Brett Hulsey. He talked about how freedom family fairness and future are core values that drill deep. Unlike, say, rights. Rights is secondary. Freedom is the core underneath.

I am happy for the freedom to use representative hulseys office.

9:19

News of window jimmying and directions in Spanish. People camping outside on the lawn. Tent city erected And razed Sleeping bags only on lawn I’m wiped. Mainly annoyed at everyone for being so busy and loud. For being good protestors, basically.