Music, Power and Liberty

Nestor Torres Pictured with Tarik Abdallah at the Music, Power & Liberty Conference

In the first week of February from the 3rd to the 5th, the TODA Institute held a conference called Musique, Pouvouirs et Liberte (Music, Power and Liberty). The conference was focused on the various forms in which music transcends entertainment and becomes a tool for mobilizing people to action or addresses social issues. One of the main uses illustrated was a song which was a result of the so called Arab Spring of 2010. A song which is a collaboration of Tunisian and Egyptian artists which talks about believing in the dream of freedom and how as a people, they walked a long road to get to the point of liberating themselves.

One of the speakers, a Tunisian blogger during the revolt, commented that he thought the song was fluffy and insubstantial. He said “You can’t sing about revolution after the revolution”. I thought it particularly interesting and to some extent agreed with his sentiments. The song was aiming to foster a kind of solidaric revolutionary consciousness which already exists as a result of the revolution. Perhaps the song then was aimed at strengthening the already existing feeling.

Grammy winning flautist, Nestor Torres, was also a participant at the conference and commented on the fact that music is the one universal language. People from different backgrounds, languages and nations found common ground in some of the music that they listened to, therefore making it a massively powerful tool able to transcend all cleavages.

In an interview with Namibian artist/songwriter, actor and Big Brother 1 housemate, Stefan Ludik commented on the fact that a concept like Africanism is something that exists in the mind. Regardless of whether the music is produced in another country other than the one which it is said to originate from what makes it from a certain place is the fact that the creator has a consciousness of the place and that is carried within and carries over into the music despite other factors such as transnational cultural diversity.

What all these speakers had in common is the concept of a willingness to listen not only to the music but to each other. Dr. Ikeda said “From a healed peaceful heart humility is born, from humility a willingness to listen to others is born, from a willingness to listen to others mutual understanding is born and from mutual understanding a peaceful society will be born. Non violence is the highest form of humility, it is the supreme courage.”
The willingness to listen stems from the solidarity we all have in the mind as a race, the singularity of humanity. To limit ourselves as being defined solely by our differences is, as history can attest to, ungainly.