The songs of Bob Dylan, and Woody Guthrie before him, help ignite the revolution for social justice in 1960 America.
In 2009 Sheema Kermani is using a theater group, to advance the cause of women’s rights in her country, Pakistan.
What artiest, in any field, songs, plays, movies, tv, etc, do you think advanced the cause of social justice in your country, in your lifetime?
From a Christian Science article, by Huma Yusuf, about Sheema Kermani and her Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) troupe.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0608/p47s01-lihc.html
“KARACHI, Pakistan – Last December, when the theater troupe Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) performed in Orangi Town – the largest slum in the Pakistani port city of Karachi – it did not expect Muslim clerics to make up the bulk of the audience.
At the invitation of a nonprofit organization, the activist troupe was staging a play about child abuse, which features a cleric as a molester. “We were too scared to perform,” says Asma Mundrawala, one of the actors.
“But Sheema encouraged us to go on, reminding us that this was the exact audience we were trying to reach.”
Sheema Kermani is the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan, considered the cultural wing of the women’s rights movement in Pakistan. For 30 years, Ms. Kermani has staged plays in low-income urban and rural communities that touch on taboo topics, including domestic violence, rape, child molestation, the claustrophobic fate of unmarried women, and the importance of education for girls.
The troupe flourished in the 1980s, when then-military dictator Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq imposed draconian Islamic laws that curtailed women’s rights. One piece of legislature, for example, required the government to prosecute rape victims for pre- or extramarital sex. During that time, Kermani directed and acted in plays such as “Anji,” in which her character is raped on stage, and “Chadar Aur Chaardiwari,” in which a young girl commits suicide, which is illegal in Pakistan.”
“Two years ago, Kermani’s troupe performed a play about girls’ education in Lyari, a large slum in Karachi. The men of the community insisted on watching the play first, before their female family members, and eventually decided that the women could not see the performance.
“The decision should have made me sad,” Kermani says. “But it only reinforced that this medium is so powerful that people are scared of it. Those men thought the play would inspire or incite women to think for themselves – and that’s what we want.”
“For all her resilience, Kermani concedes that sharing ideas through theater is increasingly difficult. “When I was growing up, there was no stigma against dancing or acting. But that’s no longer the case,” she says.
“For years, I’ve been performing in all corners of Pakistan, and no one has shut us down. But the mullahs [clerics] in the crowd are growing in number. I don’t know if theater can defeat the fashion of fundamentalism.”
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June 10, 2009 at 4:51 am
lovewillbringustogether
Australia and the US have somewhat similar history and issues concerning social justice, both having been former colonies of the UK (we kept the UK’s Royal family and other institutions like government structure and currency to name a few, as a source of constant political stability for our country however)
while also displacing the local natives as legal owners of the country (we had them as slave labour along with orphans that Britain didn’t want and were placed in ‘Christian’ torture/concentration camps called ’schools until late in the 20th century!).
i can’t think of many local Artists who stand out above the rest as being responsible for significant social change.
That is not to say there were no artists involved, just that it was more of a slow gradual change without many notable ‘activists’ – many took part to achieve many minor victories, and not only artists.
Multiculturalism has been a source of considerable social change in Australia in the last 30 years or more and surprisingly it was politicians who were at the front of that ‘charge’.
We have quite a number of (minor) parliamentarians of both native and immigrant stock and the Aussie pride of giving all who integrate into our society a ‘fair go’ (along with a deal of sarcastic joking and ‘ribbing’) seems to have had a quite good effect in providing a reasonably just society – it is by no means perfect, i could write for weeks about all the many flaws – but it has done a few things to making this a fairer country than many of it’s neighbours and comparable nations.
There does remain – as in all countries – a ‘hard-core’ ( hopefully a vocal minority) of citizens who feel that ‘foreigners’ are taking over and have more rights than they do in their ‘own’ country and resent this.
This can easily be compounded by the ‘apparent’ inability of some more recent arrivals to accept and adopt what are seen as quintessential ‘Aussie ‘ ways but instead stay as an un-integrated isolated group within our society.
<B
June 10, 2009 at 6:28 pm
edfromct
I found a video by the band Yothu Yindu, made up of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal (balanda) members.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yothu_Yindi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7cbkxn4G8U
I also read about poet, and poltical activist, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, baptised Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska.
We Are Going (written in 1964)
They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.’
June 11, 2009 at 12:54 am
lovewillbringustogether
Yothu Yindi were the first entirely Aboriginal group to hit Australia’s mainstream pop music charts big time and Treaty was the first major hit for them . One of the dancers in the band, ‘Geoffrey’ Gurumul’ Yunupingu has made something of a name for himself – he’s worth a listen to – even if he speaks almost no English!
“A gifted Aboriginal singer who was born blind and brought up in poverty has taken Australia by storm, topping the mainstream music charts and earning plaudits for his “sublime” voice.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, 38, from Elcho Island in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, has been hailed as one of the brightest talents ever to emerge from the country’s indigenous population, with his debut solo album reaching number one in the country’s independent music charts and his recent concerts selling out. Critics have heaped praise on the singer and described his voice as having “transcendental beauty”. Sir Elton John, Sting and Björk are among his fans.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaHdwj1vCOE
<B
June 11, 2009 at 4:57 pm
edfromct
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has a beautiful voice, and sings with so much feeling. He sings from the heart. We don’t need our eyes to see with our hearts.
I also loved Bapa:
June 11, 2009 at 11:46 pm
lovewillbringustogether
There is a ‘universal’ passion in Gurrumul’s singing.
You might want to consider this: Linguists believe humans have had language for around 100,000 years. Most linguists say the ‘oldest’ language in use today are middle eastern or chinese languages and they date them to the time of the creation of their writing to some 3-5 thousand years old.
Gurrumul is singing in a language that likely has remained relatively unchanged for almost 40,000 years as the culture and environment that forms their language has remained unchanged for at least that long (the date believed to be that when Aboriginal ancestors crossed the land bridge from Asia into the north of Australia where Gurrumul came from..)
There may be African languages that have been spoken for even longer but not many people make million selling records of their languages.
<B
June 12, 2009 at 5:39 pm
edfromct
1) I have read that the Aboriginal people of Australia share a genetic link with the world’s oldest population, the San (Bushman) of southern Africa. The key to being able to maintain a language is to live in an isolated area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians
“The earliest definite human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man which have been dated at about 40,000 years old, but the time of arrival of the ancestors of Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers, with estimates ranging as high as 125,000 years ago.”
“Although there were over 250-300 spoken languages with 600 dialects at the start of European settlement, fewer than 200 of these remain in use – and all but 20 are considered to be endangered.”
2) An article about a book by American geneticist Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man: A genetic Odyssey, written in 2002, that identifies the San as the oldest population in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Man
“It is believed, on the basis of genetic evidence, that all humans in existence up to 60,000 years ago lived in Africa. The earliest groups of humans are believed to find their present-day descendants among the San people, a group that is now found in western southern Africa.
There are also peoples in east Africa today who speak substantially different languages that nevertheless share the archaic characteristics of the San language, its distinctive repertoire of click and pop sounds. These are the only languages in the entire world that use these sounds in speech.
Miriam Makeba was a popular South African singer who had a “hit”, Pata pata (The Click song) in 1966, according to Wikipedia, in her native language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Makeba
June 13, 2009 at 1:40 am
lovewillbringustogether
I loved the film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Must_Be_Crazy That was the first time i had heard of the ‘click’ language of the Kalahari bushmen ( closely related to the San people).
Much native african music seems to have a happy ‘upbeat’ sound that westerners also find quite appealing and Ladysmith Black Mombazo have proved a successful touring troup of musicians/dancers from Africa with a similar style to Miriam today.
Are there any American Native singers singing in their tribal styles today?
Our Aboriginal race is similar, i believe, in terms of different groups and languages in the different regions of the continent, to the American ‘Red’ Indians of Northern America before White colonisation ‘culled’ them as we did here to the Aboriginal communities – hence the very recent reduction in the number of ’surviving languages’.
Each language would have been primarily due to the isolation and location of the many groupings of Aboriginals across a vast continent (possibly up to 600 ‘nations’ of people and ‘their’ land) with next to no transportation other than on foot or via (ocean) canoe.
Even today with the many different kinds of transport available to us some westerners do not ever move more than a few miles from their ‘home’.
<B
June 13, 2009 at 4:23 pm
edfromct
Our Native Americans hold “Pow Wows” across the country, attended by non-Native Americans as well. They have traditional dancing and singing performances. They are very popular, and draw large crowds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pow_wow
http://powwows.com/
Traditional Pow Wow dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s9z3IOpH1g
A modern song mixing traditonal instruments and dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Une_itj_jns&feature=related
Native American singer Joanne Shenandoah
June 11, 2009 at 1:07 am
lovewillbringustogether
Gurumul’s success is made even more amazing by the fact that, unlike America which has a massive and thriving ‘black’ entertainment industry that many of it’s stars switch into the ‘mainstream’ white culture and music scene very easily, Australia has very little in the way of ‘recognised’ Aboriginal Artists – or ‘mainstream’ ethnic cutural groups of any of the more than 200 nations represented in our community.
Sport has previously been about the only arena that most Australians ever get to see ’stars’ of Aboriginal heritage. Evonne Goolagong (Wimbledon tennis Champ in the 70’s), Cathy Freeman (Women’s World and Olympic Champion 400 m runner) and several football players are about the few who have ever ‘made it’ in terms of public ‘acceptance’, reverence even.
<B
it is changing, but very slowly.
June 11, 2009 at 5:03 pm
edfromct
This is what I love about the Internet. I had never heard of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.
You have introduced me to one of the most passionate voices I have heard. I will post his songs on Twitter, and buy them on iTunes.
June 14, 2009 at 12:55 am
lovewillbringustogether
i like them!
The Native songs, like those of Gurrumul also, are more pleasant to our ‘western’ ear by reason of the inclusion of western ‘modern’ instruments and themes/effects.
That got me wondering about how the music would sound with just ‘traditional’ instruments and that reminded me of a somewhat ‘unique’ instrument – The Australian didgeridoo/yidaki.
it is basically a branch that has been made hollow by termites eating the core and has no holes for altering the sound wavelength like a flute or trumpet and has no ‘reed’ like a clarinet or sax.
It is also remarkable in that a special breathing technique called ‘circular breathing’ is used that permits the player to make the continuous ‘drone’ – something like a bagpipe player can – only using just the players cheeks as he breathes in through his nose… this clip gives you some idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g592I-p-dc
<B