BS: Banned Music, Banned Books

Subject: Banned Music, Banned Books
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 08:51 AM

Didn't want to clutter up the HP threads with this, as it is somewhat different. But as I was out surfing looking for more information on the banning activities of the conservative right, I also came across a number of websites about banned music.

It seems the number of challenges/attempts at banning music and books has been on the rise in the last couple years. Someone in the HP Good Witch thread suggested it might be to do with millenial fears.

Anyway, I thought I would give people this website on banned music, and ask about people's experiences with folk, trad, and blues music being banned as well. It seems there are a number of threads floating around at any given time on Mudcat about banning music (ie the current thread on "acceptable" Irish rebel songs, which seems to be the favorite music to ban amongst folkies). So I thought maybe music censorship deserved a thread of its own.

Thoughts?

Subject: RE: BS: Banned Music, Banned Books
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 08:52 AM

S**t. Did it again. The website:

http://ericnuzum.com/banned/

Subject: RE: BS: Banned Music, Banned Books
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:08 AM

And finally, I thought I would post this article from the Culture Kiosk website:

Smashed Hits Music and censorship or the tunes you didn't hear....

By Andrew Jack MOSCOW, 11 December 1998 - If the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in Britain in October refreshed unpleasant recollections of the hideous human rights' abuses of his dictatorship in Chile, the latest issue of the bi-monthly magazine Index on Censorship brings to mind a more subtle but equally damaging form of thought-control: the manipulations surrounding the composition and performance of music.

Entitled Smashed Hits, the publication's theme for November-December concentrates on one of the most long-standing but least explored targets of censors through the ages. From the condemnation of the use of specific intervals by Plato to the murder of the Berber singer Lounes Matoub in Algeria in June 1998, music has come under fierce attack.

But while other forms of censorship are regularly analysed, music has long been neglected as a focus for study - while being, in the perhaps debatable view of the editors of Index, the most censored of all art forms. The magazine's choice coincides with the first world conference on music and censorship in Copenhagen at end of November, and a concert of banned classical music in London during the same month.

There are some striking examples from around the world included in the issue. Many of the most eloquent articles come from the musicians themselves. Take the case of Mstislav Rostropovitch, for example, who was persecuted along with his soprano wife Galina Vishnevskaya after writing an open (and never-published) letter to the Soviet press in 1970 supporting Alexander Solzhenitsyn and offering him place in his dacha.

Allowed to leave the former Soviet Union in 1974 and stripped of his citizenship four years later, he was denounced in a cowardly article by Russian nationalist Igor Shafarevich, who said the musician had left the country of his own free will and that he like his fellow exiles had obviously "failed to act as they should" in order to be thus punished.

In an impassioned if immodest response, Rostropovitch replies: "There is so much I could do for my country if only they would give me my 'musical freedom' without 'cutting me down to size'. ... Physically one can bear almost anything ... But this is possibe only when there is a chance of fulfilling one's dream in the future. ... My wife and I ... did not leave because we did not have enough love at home, or recognition, comfort or money. .. We left only to fulfil our musical aspirations."

But Smashed Hits does not simply concentrate on historical examples. Indeed, one of the weaknesses of the issue is that the Russian examples cited are all rather dated with no effort to identify post-Soviet equivalents. But in other countries it highlights far more recent cases, including an interview with the Umit Ozturk, whose songs are banned in his native Turkey because they are in the forbidden language of Kurdish.

Or there is a striking description of the Talibans who have banned music in war-torn Afghanistan, and whose road-blocks are designed not just to eke out weapons but also recordings of anything other than certain religous chants. Gutted black and brown plastic innards of confiscated cassettes hang like streamers hanging from poles and trees alongside the roadsides of the country.

Yet, as the editors stress, modern censorship of music is for the majority of the world not engineered by intolerant governments but by other rather more subtle forces. While distasteful, the Nazi's ban on jazz as part of its "ordinance against negro culture" is hardly surprising. But in some ways it is even more distasteful to learn that the genteel British Broadcasting Corporation banned "hot music" from America until 1956, and its modern founder Lord Reith said the Nazis had dealt appropriately with "this filthy product of modernity." Even today, it is under-represented on the BBC's airwaves.

The BBC was equally culpable of censorship during the Gulf War, when it distributed long lists to its local radio stations of tunes with even the faintest anti-war theme that should be treated with caution, while broadcasting its popular Radio One's Simon Bates' show directly from the Gulf to boost the morale of British troops.

There are some extraordinary ironies in the history of music censorship. Wagner was notorious for his anti-semitism, arguing that Jew musicians were capable only of imitating and not of creation. But the consequence today is that his music is still not publicly performed in Israel - and that the Israeli Philarmonic Orchestra has removed Bach's Passions from its repertoire, over the sensitivity of the subject matter that Jews are blamed for killing Christ.

One frustration with Index is the lack of any value judgements in the very different examples of censorship cited and their potential justifications, such as against racist song lyrics in Scandinavia. The only exception is a tongue-in-cheek piece by Yehudi Menuhin in favour of censorship against all kinds of muzak including police sirens that increasingly invade daily life.

Most articles are frustratingly short, and often seem a little too much like raw material gathered together without much research or journalism: it would be good to read some more reactions from those affected, and to hold some of the censors accountable in print for their actions.

There is a slightly pat off-handed condemnation of the music industry itself - producers and retailers alike - by several writers, arguing that the "sole criterion of cash" is responsible for much contemporary censorship. Yet they do little to explore or justify the assertion, true though it might instinctively seem.

The editors also include a compact disk in the publication containing examples of banned music from a secret recording of songs by imprisoned Tibetan nuns to "spasticus autisticus" by the disabled singer Ian Dury, banned by the BBC for fear of offending sensibilities. Sadly they provide little further information in the form of articles on most of the tracks in the magazine itself. But their efforts are nonetheless thought-provoking and praise-worthy.

Index on Censorship. £8.99. http://www.indexoncensorship.org

Andrew Jack is the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times and a member of the editorial board of Culturekiosque.com. He is the author of a new book entitled, "The French Exception" (London: Profile Book).

Copyright © 1996 -2000 Culturekiosque Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved

Subject: RE: BS: Banned Music, Banned Books
From: Grab
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:20 PM

There's interesting lines to draw between "what offends ppl", "what damages ppl's safety" and "what allows freedom of expression". "Freedom of expression" does not extend to hate speech, or to publishing the names and addresses of abortion clinic workers so they can be attacked. Equally, "what offends ppl" doesn't cover the banning of gangsta rap, and "what damages ppl's safety" doesn't cover banning papers which disagree with the government's views.

This must differ with the mores of the society, so it will change with location and time. The best example I can think of is Agatha Christie's book "And then there were none". It was originally released in England as "Ten little niggers", and in England before Windrush there were so few blacks that this wasn't seen as a big deal. In the US, the name would have been a major problem, so it was renamed "And then there were none" for the US market. A stage adaptation and the later films (the last in 1989!) were all called "Ten little Indians"! I believe the book is currently sold as "And then there were none" to prevent any future problems with the title.

"Causing offence" may also include songs inciting violence against another group. "Come out you Black and Tans" would be a very good example of this. Folk musicians may defend this as a legitimate example of the music of the times; however, viewed impartially it must be regarded in the same vein as songs celebrating the bombing of Brighton, English soldiers killing Hindus in the various Indian uprisings, or Afghan songs of praise on September 11th. Such songs can only be regarded impartially as "music of the times" when the times are over, no-one can remember them, and no-one is directly affected by their aftermath. I doubt whether even songs about Oliver Cromwell would go down too well in Ireland, regardless of it being over 300 years since his death.

Basically, if you know there's no-one present of a group who can reasonably take offence at a song, then you can probably get away with it; if not, proceed with caution, and you still may cause offence. Note though that I only say "reasonably" - being offended at a song about a smith with a "skin as black as coal", for instance, is taking the phrase out of context and is therefore unreasonable.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Banned Music, Banned Books
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 03:14 PM

Jazz may well be under-represented on the BBC, but it still gets a lot more air-time than traditional and "folk" music!

See also these previous discussions:

Banned Music?
banned songs