History

Over the past few days, Mubarak's reign in Egypt has finally collapsed; a remarkable video of a song that appeared just before he gave up and left the country. I don't know a translation, but it hardly matters – you see the faces, some of which look tired (it has been a long vigil) and all triumphant, the vivid feeling of change. Tunisia, Yemen, my own students' demonstrations in London – which haven't changed things here yet; but they will –

 

For more than a decade, I've tended to end my course on music and cultural theory of the past hundred years with at least symbolic optimism, using Björk's Unison for the past few years, which works well; I calmly summarize things they've already heard me say about musical and cultural change and how they are intertwined, and about the possibility that Adorno may have been wrong about what music needs to do to effect change, about how wider communications and a connected world may have already created a different era in music and the world since about 1997 – something that's no longer merely postmodern, but is much more than that. In a theatrically calculated move, I let the song gradually drown me out until she's all they can hear, for the end of the final lecture – and thank them for coming as we hit the hour mark on the clock.

Maybe this year I wouldn't be so oriented towards a possible or imagined world of change: maybe I should use something like this – and remind them of real change, right now.

Of course: maybe they don't need me to remind them....

Comments

[Nancy]

I have found more details, which you might find useful!

http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2011/02/sout-al-horeya-sound-of-freedom-in.html