When songs trumped rifles, new book

Subject: When songs trumped rifles, new book
From: Stewart
Date: 31 Jan 14 - 12:06 AM

When songs trumped rifles,
new book by Guntis Šmidchens
Review by Nancy Joseph
College of Arts & Sciences Communications
University of Washington

Songs are powerful weapons.

When the Soviet Union attacked the newly independent Baltic nations in 1991, Baltic citizens responded by gathering en masse and singing in nonviolent protest. The Soviets eventually backed down.

"Singing raises self-esteem and gives people a sense of community. It can calm violence in a really threatening situation," said Guntis Šmidchens, an associate professor of Scandinavian studies who leads the UW Baltic Studies Program. "In the Baltics, it was a way that each person in those demonstrations got their courage."

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Interesting power of songs
Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: When songs trumped rifles, new book
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 14 - 06:08 AM

post from Pete Seeger obit thread

extract from Scott Alarik's book about Pete in Spain.

THE POWER OF SONG

In the 1970s, Pete Seeger was invited to sing in Barcelona, Spain. Francisco Franco's fascist government, the last of the dictatorships that started World War II, was still in power but declining. A pro-democracy movement was gaining strength and to prove it, they invited America's best-known freedom singer to Spain. More than a hundred thousand people were in the stadium, where rock bands had played all day. But the crowd had come for Seeger. As Pete prepared to go on, government officials handed him a list of songs he was not allowed to sing. Pete studied it mournfully, saying it looked an awful lot like his set list. But they insisted: he must not sing any of these songs. Pete took the government's list of banned songs and strolled on stage. He held up the paper and said, "I've been told that I'm not allowed to sing these songs." He grinned at the crowd and said, "So I'll just play the chords; maybe you know the words. They didn't say anything about *you* singing them." He strummed his banjo to one song after another, and they all sang. A hundred thousand defiant freedom singers breaking the law with Pete Seeger, filling the stadium with words their government did not want them to hear, words they all knew and had sung together, in secret circles, for years. What could the government do? Arrest a hundred thousand singers? It had been beaten by a few banjo chords and the fame of a man whose songs were on the lips of the whole world. - Scott Alarik, Revival