/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC: Make Music, Not War

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Carolyn Court

ADELAIDE, Australia, Mar 17 2003 (IPS) - Make music, not war – that is the message coming loud and clear from the international music festival called World of Music, Arts and Dance or WOMAD, just held this month in Australia and New Zealand, and now travelling throughout the year to Spain, Britain, Italy and Singapore.

More than 65,000 people attended the Australian WOMAD festival, called WOMADelaide Sounds of the Planet 2003, in the south Australian capital of Adelaide on Mar. 7-9. The festival featured 350 artists from 31 countries including, India, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Mexico, Senegal, Pakistan, Colombia, Algeria, Russia, South Africa, Britain, Canada, Japan and Australia. While WOMAD is a joyful celebration of the world’s music, arts and dance, it is also a political festival allied to a range of political and human rights causes.

”I guess what’s important about events like this at times like these is that it’s a more positive potential picture of the world,” says Rob Brookman, the artistic advisor to WOMADelaide who believes that while international music festivals might not be able to change the world overnight, they have a role to play in promoting cultural understanding. The festival becomes ”a place where people are actually interested in finding out about each other’s cultures and understanding each other, rather than the dominant media paradigm that the United States is trying to manipulate, which is to dehumanise and depersonalise and dumb down any debate or discussion about the issues in relation to Iraq,” he adds. During many of the WOMADelaide festival performances, musicians dwelled on the planned U.S.-led war on Iraq. The Pacific band Drum Drum, whose members come from Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia, introduced one of their songs with this statement: If ever there was a hyprocrisy regarding a war on terror it is now, this music is dedicated with love to all the people and especially the children of Iraq.”

The Mexican 10-piece Latin/Punk band, Los de Abajo, said of WOMADelaide: ‘This concert is for peace, no war in Iraq”. Benin- born musician Julien Jacob conveyed a heartfelt message through an interpreter, ”You love life, you are life, at this moment we must think of the people on the other side of the planet.” During the finale of the Australian festival, tens of thousands of people observed a minute’s silence, in respect for peace and the victims of war. Oxfam campaigner Sally McHenry, who was working on the ‘Big Noise’ Fair Trade campaign at WOMADelaide, says that the atmosphere of WOMAD inspires all who attend.

”It sounds like a cliche but it really is an atmosphere and environment here of how the world could really be, the music and artists and the people who come with an open mind and an open heart to what all different people’s and cultures of the world can bring and how we can share it all together, it really is the most wonderfully extraordinary atmosphere here,” says McHenry.

Asked about the significance of WOMAD music festivals being held in these times of conflict, U.S. guitar virtuoso Bob Brozman says he sees WOMAD as a political statement as well as a great musical event.

”I have some very strong opinions about it actually, one of the hidden values of any music festival is simply the public’s right to assemble,” he explains.

”That’s something in my country that’s really being eroded, they would rather that people stay at home and watch canned media on television and not form opinions themselves or have any kind of sense of community and with the latest street protests basically being ignored by (U.S. President George W) Bush, it’s very frustrating,” he adds.

”I really feel like music can almost be described as the language of the future, when people are able to better communicate with each other. At a festival like this, there’s a lot of collaborations and the communication happens on a much more flowing sort of higher level that’s much more efficient than language,” he continues.

Music and art, therefore, is serving as a bridge of communication among different cultures and musical worlds – and reflecting concern about many people, including musicians and artists, about today’s uncertainties and U.S. plans for an attack against Iraq. In the end, WOMAD organisers such Brookman see the festival as a great way to promote education and awareness – at the same time as having fun.

This attitude also shaped the selection of visual arts and dance performers such as this year’s performance on racism and refugee issues, ‘People from Away’, which was performed by the huge puppet characters of KneeHigh Puppeteers, as well as rarely seen ceremonial corroborees or ‘inma’ such as those performed in Adelaide by the Central Australian indigenous people, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara.