Victory by collective song

The news of the last few weeks reminds us of the central role of songs in the heart of struggles without borders. Thus, since the death of Iranian activist Mahsa Amini, her country resonates with Farsi renditions of “Bella ciao”.

Shervin Hajipour, for his part, composed “Baraye” (“Because of”) based on tweets sent by his compatriots to denounce the oppression exercised by the mullahs’ regime against Iranian women and the people. In two days, his video has been viewed more than 40 million times.

A virtual international breath that multiplies its scope and gives it the status of anthem of the struggles launched by determined Iranian women. For a long time, songs have been weapons of mass protest against all forms of oppression. They speak to the hearts, they mobilize and share, they give the necessary courage for the revolt. They call for victory by singing.

Fighting! Songwriter it is a Collection of 24 songs that have marked or are related to history. It offers an itinerary, a singing tour of struggles from the French Revolution to MeToo. Those of the revolutionary period open the ball; they are part of our heritage.

Memory of struggles

Both the national anthem and lesser-known refrains such as “Le Départ des poissardes pour Versailles” – which evokes the days in October 1789 when women obtained the return of the king to Paris – awaken the imagination of the struggles. The nation was introduced to democracy with the tunes of “Carmagnole” or “Ça ira” and was built in song: “La Marsellaise” became its anthem.

Then, from “La Chanson des canuts” to “L’Internationale”, the notebook offers a selection of emblematic hymns of the social struggles of the XIX^e century Whether their immediate reach is local or wider, these songs, with the passage of time, settle down, maintain the memory of the struggles, (re)cede their place in history to actors of social conquests who knew, long before us, understand the power of this tool. .

They have a sonorous thread between yesterday and today, because it is easy to remember the claims expressed in a few verses of a song, to a melody, in militant circles but also and above all beyond.

The notebook also explores the songs of peace. Thus, “The Mothers’ Strike”, de Montéhus (1905), encourages them to take a fertility strike to avoid raising these children who will one day become soldiers and serve as cannon fodder. Singing against the war did not prevent the conflagration of Europe in 1914.

But what better than “La Chanson de Craonne”, composed in the trenches to express the anguish and feelings of so many soldiers caught in a conflict as absurd as it is deadly. The censorship and the repression headed by the “big mute” did not prevent it from being a success in the summer of 1917. The anti-militarism of the “Desertor”, by Boris Vian, it is echoed. Written in 1954, a key date in the collapse of the French colonial empire, the song was also censored.

With rock and then rap, the song is still the weapon of the voiceless. Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” closes the film do the right thing by Spike Lee, and brings the anger of the African-American community, always a victim of the segregation i racism In the 1980s.

The songs accompany the resistance, explain the collective emotion and bring the hope of a more just society.

You might think that nothing has really changed since then. However, the ” I can not breathe “ of George Floyd marks a turning point: the constitution of the Black Lives Matter movement has relaunched the mobilizations and inspired new socially engaged songs, such as young Keedron Bryant’s “I Just Wanna Live.”

The songs accompany resistors, they speak of collective emotion and bring the hope of a fairer society. In 2019, the singer Angèle composed “Balance ton quoi”. If it is difficult to accurately measure its weight in the mobilizations and struggles against violence against women, the title is now commonly sung during demonstrations.

The Belgian singer’s voice touched a contemporary generation of the MeToo movement and sowed the seeds of a future resistance against forms of dominance inherited from the past have become unacceptable.

Of course, this historical and selective jukebox should be supplemented with several volumes as the material seems inexhaustible. Nearly 400 titles are already presented by the four authors on their site, L’Histgeobox.

It is rumored that the writing of a volume dedicated to right-wing songs would have touched the minds of this small group of history and geography teachers. But it would be necessary to taste more military marches or war songs to have heart to work!

For Etienne Augris, Julien Blottiere, Jean-Christophe Diedrich i Veronica Servat, history-geography teachers at secondary schools and universities, also authors ofFighting! song book, Editions du Détour, 224 pages, 18.90 euros. Together they run the Histgeobox site.