Protest & Protest Songs

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Protest & Protest Songs

What is protesting?

• radical form of communcation
• people without power or influence find ways to have their voices heard
• message of dissent 

Which protests or protest songs do you know of?

Ghandi's Salt March

• non-violent march 
• British had a tax on salt; affected poor people immensely
• people only allowed to buy heavily taxed salt from British
  
  
• marched towards sea, where they gathered salt, which was against the law
  
• 60.000 people were thrown in jail
• afterwards they were released and the law was changed

Martin Luther King

• famous speech
• given after the Freedom March
• 250.000 people attended the speech
  
  
• MLK (and people attending the march) wanted more freedom and equality for Afro-Americans

Martin Luther King

Very effective use of language. MLK refered to:

• the Bible (America is very religious)
• The American Declaration of Independence (founding fathers saying all men are created equal)
• the American Constitution (right to free speech)
• the Emancipation Proclamation (president Lincoln stating all slaves were free)
• the Gettysburg Address (president Lincoln saying all men are created equal)

The Women's March

After Trump became president in 2017, many women went on a march.

• send a message to Trump and his administration
• Trump was very mysoginistic (hate against women)
• wanted to show the world women's rights equal human rights
  
  
• 470.000 people attended the march

Fridays for Future

• youth-led and organised global climate strike in 2018
• 15-year-old Greta Thunberg led a school strike
• wanted urgent action on climate crisis
  
  
• Other famous climate protestors: Extinction Rebellion

What about you?

Get in pairs / groups of 3-4

• What would you protest against or protest for?
• Think of a slogan for your protest. Explain why your protest works.
• How would you protest, demanding action?

A few examples

Protest Music

• Other way of protesting is through music. 
• We are going to listen to excerpts from a few songs

Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall (1963)

• sums up the tensions of post-war America 
• fear of apocalypse (nuclear war)
• written just before Cuban Missle Crisis

John Lennon - Imagine
(1971)

• states there are many issues/problems in our world
• thinks people should be more united instead of fighting

Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
(1989)

• states the Government should allow the Aboriginals to go back to their homelands

Rage Against The Machine - Killing in the Name Of (1992)

• In 1991 Rodney King (an Afro-American) was savagely beaten by the police
• RATM protested against police brutality
• they compared the police with the KKK, a supremacist terrorist group in the U.S.

Green Day - American Idiot (2004)

• protest song against president Bush
• Green Day protested against the war with Iraq, especially as this had lead to the attack of the Twin Tower on 9/11

Assignment

Get in pairs / groups of 3-4

• Go online and try to find more modern protest songs
• What is the song protesting against?
• What language do they use?
• Do you think the use of this language is effective?