Transcript:
Tonight I’ll be presenting some of the different contexts and concepts that I’ve been dealing with in my PhD, focusing particularly on the issue of nationalism. I’ve been doing research about the connection between traditional music and autonomous social movements over the last three years. A big part of this has been about anarchism – anarchist approaches and theory have been a big inspiration for me and many of those I have worked with during this project. A question behind everything is the continuing debate over the contours of anarchism and ideas around its proper development. More specifically, my work is interested in the connection between certain anarchist ideas and related sites of political articulation and struggle: the Kurdish movement, indigenous organising in the so-called Americas, and particular aspects of de-constructivist academic research. My work is based on the assumption that diversity is constitutive of the anarchist movement, but also that developing syntheses of some of these disparate elements is worthwhile endeavour.
One of the main reasons I am interested in traditional music and anarchism is the, from my perspective, clear relationship between musical subcultures and radical political movements contemporarily. At least since the second world war anarchist politics has been closely tied with what are commonly referred to as ‘youth subcultures’. Punk is the outstanding example, but different strands of autonomous politics can be quite readily identified with different types of music: rock, rave, hip hop or, also, folk and traditional music. One central thing I think is interesting about traditional music in this context is how it pushes back against certain assumptions that are built into this subcultural politics. Rather than focusing on the differences between the particular political group and the wider society, differences that no doubt persist, commonalities and points of connection are instead given more emphasis. The notion of youth that is often stressed in subcultural discourses is again problematised, with a stress instead on the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. The distinction between the sub and the culture of the central term is broadly shifted into a more dialogic one.
This relative opening up of subcultural spaces to traditional cultures brings it into a hotly contested issue within contemporary anarchism, as well as in wider discourses: nationalism. Anarchism has often taken a broadly critical approach to nationalism, seeing it as the reductive application of cultural practices onto a mass of people, largely through state institutions. This position has often led to a disengaged or even outright hostile approach to national liberation movements, in contrast to Marxist or, in particular, Maoist movements that have been consistently supportive of these movements. In recent years this position has come under attack, particularly from indigenous movements in the so-called Americas. The Zapatistas, for example, responding to an anarchist critique of their supposed nationalism wrote:
Our struggle was raging before anarchism was even a word, much less an ideology with newspapers and disciples. Our struggle is older than Bakunin or Kropotkin. Even though anarchists and syndicates have fought bravely with us, we are not willing to lower our history to meet some narrow ideology exported from the same countries we fought against in our Wars for independence. ( )
The Zapatistas – having a national liberation army after all – and other indigenous groups often take a more positive approach to national identity, seeing their autonomy as centred on the survival of distinct cultural practices – but also broadly in opposition to state centred nationalisms. These debates about nationalism are also bound to questions of universalism, particularity, modernity, progress and tradition. Murray Bookchin, for example, grounds his programme of communalism on ‘humanity’s historical emergence out of its animalistic background, its millenia-long development away from such biological facts as ethnicity, gender, and age differences toward truly social affinities based on citizenship, equality and a universalistic sense of a common humanity’. Decolonial critics would respond to this by pointing out how the enlightenment universality that Bookchin invokes, has itself been involved in the widespread destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures.
In my research I am interested in how these dynamics operate differently within distinct contexts across Europe. I will present a broad outline of the three territories that I have focused on: Ireland, Austria and Greece. My basic intuition is that these different contexts offer various possibilities and tensions for the development of anarchist politics and that the engagement with the historically constituted cultural practices in each is a worthwhile endeavour. I will finish this presentation ultimately conceptualising traditional music as an important site of democratic society, a notion drawn from the Kurdish liberation movement – a conceptualisation that emphasises the importance of expanding and defending free social life through our political movements.
Ireland
One context for my research has been the island of Ireland. In general nationalism has been a quite heavily debated issue in these parts, as most of you I’m sure are aware. This is also the case within the anarchist movement, particularly in the north. Some have been strongly critical of all forms of national identity, broadly framing their approach as anti-sectarian. For example, a recent dialectogram about the anarcho-punk social centre Warzone, argued that “the Irish music, dance and language events held at the Warzone rub against the expressed rejection of nationalist cultures associated with either ‘side’”. Traditional irish music, from this perspective, is understood to be sectarian, tarnished with its association with republicanism.
Perhaps unsurprisingly – given that I was mostly interviewing anarchist traditional musicians – this was not an approach that they generally shared. One person I interviewed for example argued that:
The learning and speaking of Irish language, and the promotion of Irish culture through music, it’s kind of like an act of decolonialization. It’s a variation from the mainstream capitalist, colonialist agenda and culture that has been foisted on all of us.
He continued saying:
Irish language activists that have been working so hard and really promoting autonomous that sense of autonomy that like it’s a pity that those two scenes didn’t connect at the time like, say the punk kind of left scene like Warzone that all these like, places like McCracken or Cluanard that are all Community grassroots places.
An argument I heard regularly is that the anti-sectarian aspect of this politics is emphasising that traditional music has historically been a shared culture between the different communities on this island, and that many musicians come from a protestant background.
These debates about the position of irish identity and history within autonomous organising are also not limited to Belfast or the north though. An activist I spoke to based in Galway talked about a common perspective from ‘middle class people from Dublin’
they don’t they won’t talk about colonialism Ireland, because, like, basically, we weren’t colonised, basically because we’re part of Europe and we’re benefiting from colonialism in parts of the world
She argued against this, though, saying:
It’s siding with and saying that we have more in common with, with England and the US and the European cultures… the capitalist culture, and we do. But you can hold both things like, we are unique in Europe in that we were colonized. We weren’t colonizers, you know? And like, why would we distance ourselves from that history?
In general, then, many of those I spoke with had a view of nationalism that bore similarities to the views coming from indigenous communities – centering the history of oppression and resistance, and understanding national culture as something to be brought forward and constructively engaged with in autonomous spaces, rather than transcended or ignored entirely.
Austria
Another of the central sites for this thesis is Austria. In general there is clearly less Austrian traditional music played by left-wing musicians here than in the other two territories. The reason is basically clear and shared by all of those I spoke with: the history of nazism and fascism in the region, and the association of this music with right wing, or at least, conservative social forces.
At the same time, different types of traditional music are played by individuals and groups in Austria. Often this is not Austrian music, or at least not in a simple ‘white german speaking’ sense. More commonly heard in alternative spaces in Vienna is jewish folk music, Klezmer, music from various migrant communities – Turkish, Balkan and Arabic, for example, irish traditional music, samba, and music from long standing ethnic minorities in the country, particularly Slovenian – often played by white, german speaking Austrians not from the groups that the music is historically connected with. One such musician described her history with a wide variety of traditions saying
I had to go so much into a different folk cultures because the German [language] folk culture was kind of destroyed by the Nazis I don’t know and I always had a longing for this. I really liked this folk traditions and I guess I have to look somewhere else.
I think this is a really important contribution, particularly within our current climate of rising far right nationalism: that the wider culture which fascists purport to support, end up themselves being destroyed by the reductive, chauvinistic version of it developed by these reactionary forces. A question that regularly emerged here though was around cultural appropriation. Those I spoke with were often negotiating a tension between the historical and ongoing exploitative and ignorant use of marginalised cultures as well as what they see as the vital importance of cultural exchange.
While less common than in the other contexts, engagements with traditional cultures from an autonomous leftist perspective do indeed exist. An interesting way of framing this came from one activist and musician in Vienna, who held a workshop called “queering folk culture”. This understanding of queering is a general one, based on challenging the stable binaries that this notion of folk culture is based upon. They said that:
Yeah, I think one thing was I saw queering also as breaking up binaries. Like, for example, Austrian culture always means white Christian people and saying like, no, that’s not true. There are like more different things within this. And for me queering it was more for queer reading and saying yes, yes, it is gendered. But there are always queer moments there
They thus emphasised minority elements of Austrian culture, aspects that fit outside of the heternomorative, patriarchal and capitalist norm. They also talked about engaging creatively with traditional cultures more readily associated with “Austrianess” – wanting to design a non-binary form of traditional dress, for example.
Interestingly, one person I spoke to specifically challenged the appropriateness of these engagements with rural folk traditions of Austria. He questioned the wisdom of, and I quote:
trying to reappropriate something which lies really in the past and which is in lots of ways connected to a past which is more the past of an oppressor and not the past of an oppressed
This aligns somewhat with the perspectives in Ireland – engaging with traditional culture when it is an oppressed minority culture, a culture of the colonized. This particular person argued that within a german speaking context engaging rather with the explicitly revolutionary tradition of the socialist workers songs would be a more appropriate strategy, “creating an awareness of the tradition of our struggles, connecting the past struggles to our future and our current struggles”.
Greece
The final place I have been conducting research is in Greece. There are roughly two types of music that I was interested in in Greece: Paradasiako, which actually translates to traditional music and refers to a variety of rural folk musics from various parts of the country (Cretan, Northern etc.); and Rembetiko – urban folk music played by a subculture from the underclasses that grew to prominence at the start of the 20th century.
I would broadly describe the historical position of folk music in Greece as particularly contested. Greek identity itself is often said to be split between a western-oriented imaginary, connected particularly with the importance of Ancient Greece, and an eastern directed one, connected with the Byzantine and Ottoman eras. These divisions can also be seen within the understandings of traditional music – Rembetiko, for example, was initially perceived by nationalists as un-greek and overly influenced by immigrants from Asia minor. It, and the bouzouki in particular, later though became a central symbol of greek identity. The music has also been more explicitly politically contested. The 1960s Junta dictatorship, for example, like many authoritarian regimes, drew and actively re-constructed folk music in line with their understanding of proper greek identity. At the same time, folk and traditional musicians played an important role in the resistance to this dictatorship. Composers such as Theodorakis and Hadjidakis, as well as many singers and instrumentalists, played a style of traditional music that incorporated elements of western classical music, while being connected to an anti-imperialist politics that criticised the US support for the dictatorship.
Another context for traditional music was offered by some interviewees: the relatively recent experience of urbanization in the country. Athens, for example, was comprised of just 400 houses in 1833, with it growing to its current size of 5 million mostly since the first world war. One folk dancer that I spoke to explained the current popularity of folk music amongst young people within this context:
I think that the collective memory still exists in the Greek society. They tried to find, a way of having fun, but in a more collective way.
He opposes this to a nationalised understanding of the music, referring to this as nostalgic, and arguing that people are truly longing for collective expression within an increasingly atomised world. He said:
It’s important to think about the, the origins of that music. Why those people dancing in the circle why they’re dashing in that way […] I think that it was a way to express the one to one one to another that they, they are community so they have the same needs the same problems. And the only way to fix it is to work as a community.
He argued that this is something that is lacking in the modern, urbanized world, but was pessimistic about the possibilities of such a collective life developing in Athens or in urban spaces in general.
This notion of community and collectivism is also strong in certain strands of the anarchist movement in Greece. While living in Greece I stayed in a squatted neighbourhood in the centre of Athens called Prosfygika. Informed by both the collectivist strand of platformist anarchism and democratic confederalism associated with the Kurdish liberation movement. They centrally understand themselves as a community, and that this is based on a common understanding – political and practical,, shared structures to deal with collective needs, and a commonly owned material infrastructure. Music also plays a role in this construction of collectivity – with their kiosk often involving singing of various folk songs and Kurdish folk dancing. As one member of the community put it:
If I didn’t come here to speak with the others and to know the others as peoples then we wouldn’t have this connection, this feeling of familiarity.
She referred to the kiosk as the “heart of the community”, building an interpersonal social base upon which the more political collective body can be built.
One slogan associated with this neighbourhood is that “Squats are Creating the Communities of the Future”. I think this is a really important and worthwhile framing that ties into important strands of anarchist thought: that while pre and non-capitalist communities offer important sites of collectivity, that these should not be relegated to the past, but that diverse communities can be enacted through political struggle outside and against the structures of power that are destroying them. It’s important to stress the different political function here: rather than a discursive engagement about notions of identity, the politics here is a constructive project of building anti-capitalist communities of resistance. Music is not only a method conveying political ideas, but it is a tool for constructing institutions and relations outside and opposed to capitalism and the state.
Democratic confederalism
Coming back to Ireland, these experiences have helped me to understand the political value of the music I am particularly interested in here: instrumental traditional dance tunes: jigs, reels and the rest. On the surface this music has no particular political content – it is not didactically educating the listener, nor making an argument for a particular political position.
One way to understand this is to take inspiration from the Kurdish liberation movement and to see it as an expression of democratic society. A rough context for this is the transformation of the movement away from marxist leninism to a libertarian socialist approach referred to as democratic confederalism. Central to it is that it understands human development in a persistently dual sense: comprised of free social life as well as structures based on monopolies of power: primarily capital and the state. Thus practices of communal social life are understood to be deeply rooted within all human societies, albeit to different extents, and the task of emancipatory politics is to expand and defend these practices. As Abudllah Ocalan, figurehead of the movement, puts it:
A dual as opposed to a singular existence of civilization is apparent in all areas of social nature. The issue is not to get bogged down by the official singular structure but to develop an analysis based on the naturalist side of this contradiction, and with it the diversity of free life that makes democratic civilization. (SoF, 189)
This analysis essentially foregrounds the immanence of collectivity to social life. It argues, in Bookchin’s words that “under the tightly woven political carpet of the State was an active, subterranean social world based on consensus, ideological agreement, shared customs and a commonality of religious beliefs”. (EoF 342)
Öcalan’s arguments, though, have a different form of universalism than Bookchin’s. The Kurdish author is not as tied to Enlightenment notions of rationality and human nature. He rather argues that the period since the emergence of capitalism has witnessed an unprecedented “societycide” – where the communal and collective institutions of social life have been attacked and replaced by states and capitalist structures, as well as being undermined through their mediation by electronic devices. And indeed, areas closer to the colonial core in Europe are understood to be more colonised than in the former colonies: that they were earlier and more fundamentally separated from the communal social life that they are emergent from. One such element of this would be the increasing commodification of music historically belonging to the social body. Again, though, this should be seen as dual in nature: that a free social activity continues to persist alongside this commodification, that the world remains teeming with practices of collectivity and liberatory potentialities.
What I understand the task in Ireland to be is to expand this value of collective, communal culture beyond the boundaries of the musical and aesthetic. We should see this music as expressing values of life that are fundamentally opposed to the structures of alienation, individualisation and commodification increasingly dominant across our societies. We should use it to collectively reorient our desires away from the materialistic and individualistic, towards the communal and ecological. While this music tells me that ‘another world is possible’, as the famous chant goes, one should not, following Öcalan, be satisfied with this as the end point. Rather “since the problems and madness of the ruling modernity are now perfectly apparent, one should [instead] ask “What alternatives can you come up with and actually build?”.
Thank you.