“The power held by singers as political agents and voices for movements is perhaps most evident not in the popularity of their lyrics, or the number of hits their videos receive on YouTube, but by the response of the political establishment to their work. After the eighteen-day uprising in Egypt, Ramy Essam, author and singer of the anthemic “Irhal! (Leave!),” was detained and severely beaten by the army. El Général was censored, prevented from performing, spied on and detained for three days by Ben Ali’s forces after releasing “Tunis Bladna (Tunis, Our Country).” Moroccan rapper Mouad Belrhouate, who raps under El-Haked (The Indignant), was imprisoned in September on fabricated charges of assault and only recently released, broke taboos with his lyrical challenges to royal power. Syrian Ibrahim Qashoush, described by some as a former cement-layer, by others as a fireman, turned his amateur passions for poetry toward creating Syria’s most popular piece of protest music, “Yalla Irhal Ya Bashar (Go On, Leave, Bashar),” which has been sung loudly by rallying crowds in his home city of Hama, was killed by Syrian security forces, his vocal cords cut out and his body left floating in a nearby river. The symbolism of the way in which he was murdered is inescapable. The crackdown on musicians is a tactic that seems to backfire on regimes. El Général’s arrest not only launched him to greater fame, but also enraged protesting Tunisians and demonstrated the Ben Ali regime’s growing fear in the face of an increasingly bold population. Moroccan El Haked’s imprisonment similarly served to highlight the ways in which the monarchy operates and to anger people who agree with his messages.”
— I have piece up at Guernica Magazine called “Troubadours of the Revolution,” out conveniently in time for marking the January 25 anniversary of the start of the Egyptian uprising. In it I discuss the important role that protest musicians like Ramy Essam, Ibrahim Qashoush and El Haked (among many, many others) have played in the Middle Eastern and North African revolutions of 2011. (via thepoliticalnotebook)
