SHOUTS - Music from the Rooftops!

This article was originally published by Inside Indonesia and written by Julia Winterflood. You can view the original here.

The history of music, though constantly being rewritten, is inseparable from that of social movements. From revolutionary symphonies to punk rock, folk to political hip-hop, most genres feature artists who’ve created works to condemn injustice and inspire change. In Indonesia, the Bali-based rock band Navicula has spent the past 25 years tackling some of the country’s biggest social and environmental ills — corruption, human rights abuses, religious extremism, pollution, deforestation — through powerful, gritty, anthemic tracks.

It was this quarter-century milestone that inspired development expert and long-term fan of the band Ewa Wojkowska to produce and host A Soundtrack of Resistance, a podcast series exploring 12 Navicula songs and the stories of why and how they were made. Along with the band, she collaborated with other music industry members, researchers, writers, and colleagues on the project. The first episode was released in mid-2021, and a few months later A Soundtrack of Resistance reached number one on the Apple Podcast charts for music interviews in Singapore and Indonesia.

As the series’ tagline goes, it’s ‘a social history of Indonesia through the songs of Navicula, the best band you’ve probably never heard of.’ If you are among those who haven’t yet heard of Navicula, comparisons could be drawn with America’s Rage Against the Machine, or in terms of lyrical content, Australia’s Midnight Oil. Navicula’s style is influenced by alternative ‘90s rock, particularly seminal groups such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains, while also incorporating indigenous influences and psychedelic rock. Many Navicula songs feature the elements of an anthem: a simple yet potent chorus, steady beat, and lyrics that unite those singing along at the top of their lungs — an integral part of the band’s live performances.

Navicula follows in the footsteps of Iwan Fals, a singer-songwriter who, as Rebekah Moore writes, was instrumental in defining the rock musician’s role as social activist in Indonesia. Vocalist and guitarist Gede Robi says in Episode 1, ‘As artists, I feel we have the ability to challenge the status quo. For me and my band Navicula, we love music and we care about social and environmental issues. We believe every generation has their own revolution — I think social and environmental issues are the crucial issue of our generation.’

Ewa speaks with Robi and his fellow band members — guitarist Dadang Pranoto, bassist Krishnanda Adipurba, and drummer Palel Atmoko — about their activism on and off the stage, along with the people behind the movements they support: prominent activists, academics, and development leaders. This is what makes the podcast a first in Indonesia: socially conscious musicians sharing a microphone with those who have also dedicated a large part of their lives to improving Indonesia, albeit using different methods.

Each podcast episode focuses on a particular Navicula song. Episode 4 explores Aku Bukan Mesin (I Am Not a Machine), which the band recorded in response to the terrorist bombings that shook Bali and Jakarta in the early 2000s. It’s an angry, frustrated track, with a propulsive guitar hook and erratic instrumental sections. Robi tells Ewa the lyrics were ‘just the pure reaction as a human being, as a Balinese.’ He was ‘thinking about the people who have losing (sic) their heart, losing (sic) their entity as a human to do such a cruel, unimaginable action. It just destroys everything. The effect of the destruction is affecting everybody.’ Ewa is also joined by Sidney Jones, Director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, who many consider as a ‘rock star’ of her field. She examines the role religion played in the bombings, what makes people turn to violent extremism, and whether it continues to be a threat in Indonesia.

Navicula at Soundrenaline Festival promoting the campaign to ban single use plastics in Bali / Kopernik

Episode 6 features Mafia Hukum (The Legal Mafia), one of the band’s most popular songs, which became the anthem of Indonesia’s anti-corruption movement. The episode includes a cast of heavy hitters in the civil society and development space: international development expert and former World Bank lead social scientist for East Asia and the Pacific, Scott Guggenheim; award-winning documentary filmmaker Dandhy Laksono; former deputy commissioner of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission, Saut Situmorang; and Indonesia Corruption Watch’s Sely Martini.

Reaching new audiences

Many of the topics at the heart of Navicula’s songs are also addressed by the Indonesia-based non-profit Kopernik, which Ewa co-founded in 2010. A research and development organisation, Kopernik works with diverse partners — including musicians and artists — to find solutions to social and environmental challenges across the archipelago and beyond. Recognising that music is a means to reach wider audiences and a key component of social movements, for the past six years Kopernik has collaborated with Navicula on various initiatives, the biggest of which is a campaign to reduce single-use plastic consumption. This collaboration culminated in the feature-length documentary Pulau Plastik (Plastic Island), which was picked up by Netflix in June this year. Alongside Tiza Mafira and Prigi Arisandi, the film follows Robi as he investigates Indonesia’s plastic pollution crisis and what can be done to fight it.

The Pulau Plastik campaign features in Episode 7 of the podcast, which delves into the song Saat Semua Semakin Cepat, Bali Berani Berhenti (As Everything Gets Faster and Faster, Bali Dares to Stop). Released in 2016, the gentle acoustic folk ballad is the band’s love letter to Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu annual ‘day of silence’, and an ode to the island’s bravery to continue celebrating its customs in the face of globalisation. During the episode, Ewa and Robi point out that Nyepi isn’t the only example of Bali’s bravery to buck the trend. In 2019, the province became the first in Indonesia to pass a regulation banning the use of certain single-use items including plastic bags, styrofoam, and plastic straws in restaurants, cafes, shops and markets, and inspired other locations in Indonesia to follow Bali’s example.

People power. As depicted in the documentary Pulau Plastik, thousands joined Navicula lead singer Gede Robi in a protest march in Jakarta / Kopernik

Navicula may not yet be that well known outside Indonesia, but the band’s music does connect with foreign listeners, even though most of their lyrics being in Indonesian. The band’s first major international exposure was with the song Metropolutan (Episode 2), which decries overdevelopment and pollution in Jakarta. The song took out the RØDE Rocks! International Band Competition in 2012. Their prize was a session at the legendary Record Plant Recording Studios in Los Angeles with the band’s ‘dream producer’, Alain Johannes to record its Love Bomb album. A viewer of the Metropolutan video, which Navicula submitted for the competition, commented, ‘I do not understand what you are singing, but I feel this song. I love it. Awesome voice, awesome grunge sound’.

Just as a foreign listener who could not understand a word of Indonesian was able to connect with Metropolutan, those who’ve never heard the band’s music will find much to engage with in the podcast. For those with little knowledge of the world’s fourth most populous nation, each episode is an accessible introduction to a particular period in contemporary Indonesian history, soundtracked by the band that has been at the vanguard of Indonesian music activism for much of its career. As Robi says in Episode 4, ‘As an artist, it’s really important to capture a moment. I see Navicula as a journalist using music as the medium, so it’s really important to capture the original feeling of what we feel at the time, like a historian writing a journal through music.’

Ewa Wojkowska and Gede Robi, A Soundtrack of Resistance, Podcast Series

Julia Winterflood (julia.winterflood@gmail.com) is a freelance writer, editor, and translator who has called Indonesia home since 2014. She contributed to the writing and production of several episodes of A Soundtrack of Resistance.

By Alessia Carnevale

Music genres such as rap have become the primary artistic means for expressing the discontent and aspirations of a new generation of activists in Tunisia. But the heritage of protest songs from decades before is still held in the collective memory of young leftists.

From the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s, during the regime of Habib Bourguiba, the protest song in Tunisia developed as a countercultural music scene. This is a period characterised by economic instability and waves of protest and political contestation.

The protest song was the product of the cultural work of Tunisian leftist parties and organisations, which were particularly active in the student movement and influential among grassroot unionists.

Why was such a popular art form important for the cultural work of the Tunisian left? In my research I argue that leftist activists found in popular culture – and in songs in particular – a powerful tool. It could raise awareness among young people, galvanise activists and spread socialist revolutionary ideas. These songs become a link in the longer chain of resistant cultural practices in the country.

Art and politics

In Tunisia, the protest song is called al-ughniya al-multazima in Arabic, or chanson engagée in French. Both literally mean “committed song” and put an emphasis on the political and social aim of this genre. Art, in this case music and poetry, was a vehicle to convey a message.

In the 1970s and 1980s protest song groups formed and artists were increasingly visible. Among the pioneers of this genre there were the songwriter Hédi Guella and the group Imazighen. They performed on university campuses and at unionist venues, animating political gatherings and events. They exhibited in cultural centres and some participated in important cultural festivals. Their songs were rarely broadcast on TV or radio, but tape recordings circulated widely among activists and students.

The songs were mostly typical of the Arabic musical tradition, created on instruments such as the oud, the nay and the darbuka.

Their political and cultural framework distinguishes these songs from previous popular chants of protest (for example against colonialism) as well as from patriotic songs (praising the nationalist regime).

A new popular culture

The 1970s and 1980s protest songs were expression of a counterculture that was at odds with the ideology propagated by the regime of Bourguiba, who died in 1987.

Bourguiba had come to power in 1956 as the leader of the nationalist movement against French colonialism. Educated, middle-class and rather Western-oriented, he promoted a modernist and reformist ideology. In the last two decades of his regime, he was losing consensus among the population at large and among the new cultural and intellectual elite.

The Tunisian radical left was increasingly influenced by Maoism and Arab Nationalism. They recognised that a connection with the working class would be impossible without an appreciation of the Arab-Muslim identity of the Tunisian people.

The left engaged in cultural work for the creation of a new national-popular culture. This needed to be rooted in the people’s culture but also be an expression of a progressive and socialist ideology. Marxist theorists such as Antonio Gramsci had become influential. His ideas on cultural work, hegemony (the dominance of one group over another) and common sense had penetrated the Arab intellectual world.

Songs were one of the most efficient tools for implementing this project. They were easy to propagate with the new and cheap technology of audio cassette. Concerts were organised on a small budget, attracting hundreds of people.

The oasis and the mine

Among the many interpreters of the protest song in Tunisia, two popular singing groups stand out.

Al-Bahth al-Musiqi (The Musical Research Group) hailed from the southern Mediterranean city of Gabes, which lies beside an oasis and has, since the 1970s, hosted a massive chemical industry complex. Awlad al-Manajim (The Children of the Mines) were from Moulares, a village near Gafsa, situated in a phosphate mining basin.

Both groups, still active in Tunisia today, were born from places where industrialisation and the exploitation of natural resources deeply transformed the once rural environment. This industry would ultimately impoverish and harm the resident population.

The members of al-Bahth al-Musiqi were university students active in the student movement. The members of Awlad al-Manajim were workers who supported the workers’ struggles in their hometown.

Both groups were cherished by leftist activists and unionists for their performances and for the strong revolutionary message of their songs.

Both groups created a popular yet revolutionary cultural product. To do so they drew from modern Arabic poetry, for example singing poems by Mahmoud Darwish supporting the Palestinian people. But in particular they drew on themes and styles typical of Tunisian folklore and vernacular poetry. They responded in an original manner to the need to create a new, popular, socialist culture for the masses.

They took inspiration from other Arab experiences. Composer and singer Marcel Khalife (Lebanon), experimental musical group Nass el-Ghiwane (Morocco) and especially the duo of musician Sheikh Imam and vernacular poet Ahmed Fouad Negm (Egypt). This musical production represented a new, revolutionary and genuinely popular culture.

Hence, al-Bahth al-Musiqi produced songs like Hela Hela Ya Matar (Come Down O Rain), Nekhlat Wad el-Bey (The Palm Tree of Wad El Bey) or Bsisa (a traditional southern dish). These juxtapose rural imagery with national symbolism and revolutionary slogans.

Similarly, Awlad al-Manajim’s repertoire includes local songs about the harshness of life in the mining region, like Ya Damus (The Tunnel), and songs calling for workers’ solidarity and Arab unity against imperialism, like Nashid el-Sha’b (The Hymn of the People).

A heritage of resistance

The popular protest song scene in Tunisia declined with the rise of the Ben Ali dictatorship in the 1990s. But it never disappeared. After the 2011 revolution forced Ben Ali from power, some of the old singing groups reunited and claimed their space in the newly democratised cultural scene.

In Tunisia today, protest music takes many forms, from rap to electro. However, the old protest songs are still chanted at political gatherings, commemorations and festivals.

Despite being scarcely documented and studied, the Tunisian protest song of the 1970s and 1980s is an integral part of a resistant collective memory. It is loaded with emotional and political meaning for a generation of political activists and unionists.

The study of this experience may offer a new perspective on Tunisia’s cultural and political life under authoritarianism. It sheds light on the continuing and constant presence of dissent and revolutionary culture in the country – one that paved the way for the events that, in 2011, eventually overthrew dictatorship.

Alessia Carnevale, PhD candidate, Sapienza University of Rome

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.