Do protest songs still exist?

 

Well, yes. Because history repeats itself but we're too busy to notice. The positive side of forgetting history (or not being able to see it change its clothes) is that you can propose a wider range of responses to the current situations , including responses that did not work in the past. One of these is pacifism, practically synonymous with protest songs since the 1960s.

 

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Today, “peace” is a topic not too frequented by the mainstream media. When they do talk about peace, they prefer to do it with a song. Much more than Dylan-‘63, John Lennon confirms his pole position as the most beloved “pacifist”. Thus Imagine has become an anthem for all seasons; to the point that some see it as a subliminal globalist anthem: “Imagine there’s no countries/It isn't hard to do.”

 

Elon Musk, instead, has used the anodyne populist title Power to the People to advertise his self-proclaimed anti-censorship openness on X/Twitter. And now Roger Waters, for pacifist reasons, starts playing Lennon at a @RageAgainstWar rally, concluding his speech with the notes of Give Peace A Chance as a condemnation of what he calls “the accepted modus operandi” of the “perpetual war model.”

 

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MLK instead popped up a few days ago in New York, cited by a guy in the context of the UN Security Council hearings. Ray, the guy in question, cites him when introducing the song that he then sings in front of a silent, small and powerful audience.

 

White hair and a white beard, his hair left a little long, an empathetic smile, sort of looking like Willie Nelson’s serious brother. But from what he tells the audience, Ray had worked together with Dr. Vincent Harding, known to most as the ghost-writer of MLK’s speeches.

 

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That song in that situation reminded me of a piece by Slavoj Zizek dedicated to the paradox that… very succinctly said, “punk criticism is also punk.”

 

In the piece, speaking of ideological rituals comparable to the UN Security Council, Zizek identifies the gap between knowledge and belief as a crucial element. A separation that allows most of us to “keep going,” through a detached ideological adherence, which does not pay attention to the “meaningless literality of ideological ritual.” When there is no more detachment, and this lack of meaning becomes evident and immediate, a sense of alienation inevitably assails us.

 

Zizek observes this happening with the ‘totalitarian’ music of Laibach, a hyper-intellectual Slovenian 'rock group' wearing military uniforms. In one tune they play the Russian anthem in the background, de-singing phrases like: “Violence is not a system or an aesthetic, let alone fun.”

 

At the UN, the gap was the one seen between Ray's knowledge (btw: his last name is Mc Govern and he's a former CIA official who, in his days,  compiled intelligence briefs even for the President) and the set of beliefs that fuel the ritual of the UN Security Council.

 

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That a (former) CIA man decides to sing a pacifist song at the UN and asks us to love our enemy, is incredible.

 

Strange times, guys.