Went to see Amandla last night. Not a very good film, but a really interesting topic. Well, I should expand on that. It was beautifully shot, and had good interviews with very interesting and influential people. But I didn't end up much better informed than I had been. And the range of people interviewed was a bit limited. It compared poorly with the Charlie Chaplain documentary I saw tonight, which was stuffed full of information and still managed to evoke a sense of the artist. Benefits of a smaller topic I guess. And rampant opinionatedness on my part :)
The main theme of Amandla was the place of ingoya (songs) in the freedom movement of the blacks in South Africa.
Some thoughts came and went while I was watching. I'm pretty much just noting them here, and I'll expand later.
Firstly, the places where songs are limited. There were some places where music was used during the Holocaust. But you don't hear of them being used as resistance tools or methods of warming the spirit.
Also the places where songs are used for political reasons in Western culture. Most of the songs that evoke a need to take action again injustice are union songs. The songs of workers who worked and died without ever getting enough money to build a better life. And some of the older hymns and the spirituals. Amazing Grace is a beautiful expression of hope in the face of an experience which makes you just wish to lie down and die. Also the role of song in the queer community. Not necessarily so many songs that were overtly written by and for queer people, but there were many songs which were adopted and subverted for queer purpose. Often by drag queens. 'I Will Survive' is one hell of a song.
I was also struck by the similarities between the white opinion of black music and musicality and pakeha opinions of maori music and musicality. Here were black people singing cheerfully about how they were going to kill the white people and the white people were saying "How nice, what lovely singing. How talented these blacks are. Can't work or vote, but very musical."
I was left thinking about the process of colonisation - particularly what the big fights are over; often land. But in this case also language (also true of New Zealand and Wales). It made me wonder what I'd choose to loose: land, language or history. Then I included food into the list.
I come from a very long list of migrants, going back 4-5 generations only a handful of my ancestors were born and died in the same place. So land would be my first to go.