Protest song

It is a setting of a poem by Friedrich Schiller celebrating the continuum of living beings (who are united in their capacity for feeling pain and pleasure and hence for empathy), to which Beethoven himself added the lines that all men are brothers.

Here the role and place of music needs to be interpreted through a broader framework in which tradition and ritual are understood as processes of identity and identification, as encoded and embodied forms of collective meaning and memory.

As the apartheid regime forced Africans into townships and industrial centres, people sang about leaving their homes, the horror of the coal mines and the degradation of working as domestic servants.

Examples of which include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi's "Meadowlands", the "Toyi-toyi" chant and "Bring Him Back Home" (1987) by Hugh Masekela, which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela.

For this reason, writers and musicians in which some of them veterans of anti-apartheid movements, are once again protesting against what they consider to be a government failing to uphold the promise of 'peace, democracy and freedom for all' that Nelson Mandela made upon his release from prison.

There is also a distinct feeling that the Afrikaner is being marginalized by the ANC government: Fokofpolisiekar sings in "Antibiotika" [Antibiotics], "I'm just a tourist in the country of my birth," Bok van Blerk sings in "Die kleur van my vel" [The colour of my skin] that the country does not want him despite his willingness to work, because he is white, even though white South Africans have the lowest rate of unemployment, [22] and in "Bloekomboom" Rian Malan uses the metaphor of a blue gum tree (an alien species) to plead that Afrikaners should not be regarded as settlers, but as part of the nation.

[citation needed] Hong Kong rock band Beyond's "Boundless Oceans Vast Skies" (1993) and "Glory Days" (光輝歲月) (1990) have been considered as protest anthems in various social movements.

[28] Artists such as Poojan Sahil, Seedhe Maut, Vishkyun, Prabh Deep, Rapper Shaz, Sumit Roy & Ahmer usually talk about social issues in their songs.

The widely acclaimed[34] documentary film, Jai Bhim Comrade, highlighted the work of Kabir Kala Manch and presented this form of protest music to both Indian as well as international audiences.

Similar organisations formed after the break-up of IPTA and highly influenced by its work, like the Jana Natya Manch (JANAM), also made protest music a regular feature of their plays.

[51] Later on that year, a different point of view of the song was introduced by the folk singer Meir Ariel, who recorded an anti-war version and named it "Jerusalem of Iron".

[56] During the 8888 Uprising, Burmese composer Naing Myanmar penned "Kabar Makyay Bu" (ကမ္ဘာမကျေဘူး), rendered in English as "We Won't Be Satisfied till the End of the World" as a protest song.

[citation needed] The international anthem girti hui deewaron ko aik dhakka aur do by famous poet Ali Arshad Mir created in the 1970s found profound place in various protests.

[66] It was common in the 1970s~1980s, especially before and after of the June Democracy Movement in 1987, and associated with against the military governments of presidents Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan reflecting the will of crowd and voices of criticism of the day.

[80] Several French songwriters, such as Léo Ferré (1916–1993), Georges Brassens (1921–1981), Jacques Brel (1929–1978) (actually a Belgian singer), Maxime Le Forestier (born 1949) or interpreters (Yves Montand, Marcel Mouloudji, Serge Reggiani, Graeme Allwright ...) often wrote or sang songs aligned against majority ideas and political powers.

A dissatisfied German youth in the late 1970s and early 1980s resulted in a strand of highly politicized German-language Punkrock ("Deutschpunk"), which mostly concerned itself with politically radical left-wing lyrics, mostly influenced by the Cold War.

Ermelinda Duarte, one of those women, wrote the song "Somos Livres" (We Are Free), for a 1972 theatre play called Lisboa 72, masking a deep meaning with catchy children's music.

One of the most important artists was Jacek Kaczmarski, author of such famous songs as "Mury" ("The Walls"), "Przedszkole" ("The Kindergarten") and "Zbroja" ("The Armor"), criticizing both the totalitarian communist government and the opposition.

As a tribute to Piotr Szczęsny, who used public self-immolation to condemn "the ruling party for the systematic violation of the law, inspiring discrimination against minorities, and deliberately destroying the country's nature and educational system,"[86] protest songs were written in 2017.

[87] In order to convince Andrzej Duda to oppose constitutional amendments, activists later that year performed a modified rendition on YouTube of the Christmas carol "Przybieżeli do Betlejem" in the places the Polish president visited.

In 1997, singer Ismael Serrano briefly revamped the style, being his song Papá cuéntame otra vez ("Dad, tell me again") a nostalgic hymn to the 1970s protests.

An important example is "The Triumph of General Ludd", which built a fictional persona for the alleged leader of the early 19th century anti-technological Luddite movement in the cloth industry of the north midlands, and which made explicit reference to the Robin Hood tradition.

The Lennons went to great lengths (including a press conference attended by staff from Jet and Ebony magazines) to explain that they had used the word nigger in a symbolic sense and not as an affront to African Americans.

'[110] However, as the 1980s progressed, it was British prime minister Margaret Thatcher who came under the greatest degree of criticism from native protest singers, mostly for her strong stance against trade unions, and especially for her handling of the UK miners' strike (1984–1985), the subject of Sting's "We Work the Black Seam".

Also in the 1980s the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a political pop protest song Two Tribes a relentless bass-driven track depicting the futility and starkness of nuclear weapons and the Cold War.

The video for the song depicted a wrestling match between then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko for the benefit of group members and an eagerly belligerent assembly of representatives from the world's nations, the event ultimately degenerating into complete global destruction.

The movements biggest stars included Puerto Ricans such as Roy Brown, Andrés Jiménez, Antonio Cabán Vale and the group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son.

[111] In response to Telegramgate, Puerto Rican musicians Bad Bunny, Residente, and iLE released the protest song "Afilando los cuchillos" on July 17, 2019.

Notable anti-war songs include "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" (1972) by Eric Bogle, and "A Walk in the Light Green" (1983) by Redgum, most often remembered by its chorus "I was only nineteen".

[114] Numerous songs were written and performed by protesters during anti-logging blockades in northern New South Wales, including "Behind Enemy Lines", "Tonka Toys" and "Hey Terania".