Clara Balingit

Juli Ruff
Humanities
7 March 2014
The Power of Music: How Music Affects Control and the World
Music is something that harbors the power to help communities overcome injustice and
keep communities oblivious to injustice. It can sway someone into a sweet swooning, tears or
into a riot. Music even exists for those who cannot hear in the vibrations under their fingers.
These feelings aren't simply physical, however; they're mental and emotional. Sierra Leone,
Cuba and South Africa are all stunning lenses to see how music has been a weapon wielded for
both good and bad to affect the landscape of the world.
Music gives people in desperate situations a voice, a clarity, and bonds of the same
interwoven heartache. One example of the sheer strength music can give to people is hidden
away in situations like in Sierra Leones Civil War, where people who were subjected to the
horrors of the RUF, who mentally and physically terrorized thousands of civilians. The
documentary Sierra Leones Refugee Allstars recounts the story of the band by the same name
made of people who fled from Sierra Leone how they were able to find hope and return home
through music, and in the process spread their hope to others. They eventually recorded their
music and traveled. Through their journey, they gave many people a voice. Their music said,
You are heard. Your problems exist. It gave the wound of their situation the best type of
medicine: saying that you exist, and sometimes that is all one person needs to keep on moving.
Music is a tool used to influence people, to keep them happy, to change them where they
are most affected - in society. In Cuba, while Fidel Castro was in power, societys belief was
manipulated by music. It was welded into a political sword that helped and praised the
government. In the documentaries Buena Vista Social Club and Fidel: The Untold Story many
people praise Fidel because, despite the poverty they still have to endure because of the US
embargo, Fidel still strived to support the artists and athletes. Though this is a beautiful thing,
Fidels actions were well calculated, the artists he supported wrote songs like Hasta Siempre
about him and Che Guevara, casting them in a beautiful, heroic light. These musicians
encouraged people to believe that their president was a wonderful man, despite the fact that
people who tried to leave the country were killed and he became the very thing he fought against
in his youth, a dictator. Music played a key part in his everlasting revolution.
Music is so overwhelmingly empowering that it strengthens people enough to stand
against unbearable oppression and scares the people it's used against into using violence. The
music in South Africa during the apartheid, from 1948-1998, was the gun of the people that shot
through the fabric of silence woven by a racist government. Documentaries called Amandla: A
Revolution in Four-Part Harmony and Under African Skies show how much the people affected
by apartheid had to endure, and how huge an element music was in overcoming it. Black people
who were subjected to the hometowns and townships and the constant unfair raids stood in the
streets and sang the cheery tune "Look Out, Verwoerd", which sent Vuyisile Mini, the person
behind the song, to the gallows, where he walked to his death singing. The government that sent
its people into such extreme segregation pointed guns at the thousands who marched through the
streets, singing, and dancing the Toyi-Toyi, which intimidated officials enough to use force.
Music made by Paul Simon and artists from South Africa, like the song Graceland, gave the
people attention and a voice, it made them real and noticeable to outsiders. And music such as
Ordinary Love praise Mandela, which continues to give light to the pain that they overcame
and a legacy to their epic forgiveness. Not only did music help tear the fabric of silence, it helped
it to never be sewn up again.
Music, ultimately, is a weapon. It is stunningly universal in its charms and its ability to
make people feel something. Music's in the birds and it's in one's subconscious humming or foot
tapping, it's on the speakers across the street. This thing that is so common and daily, which may
only be that little song in the back of one's head, has this intense ability to give hope, courage,
strength and on the other hand, anger, sadness, or even oblivion. It's not just entertainment, its a
force that controls or overcomes control through emotion.


Works Cited
Amandla!: A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. Dir. Lee Hirsch. Artisan, 2002. DVD.
Buena Vista Social Club. Dir. Wim Wenders. FilmFour, 1999. DVD.
Fidel: The Untold Story. Dir. Estela Bravo. 2001. DVD.
Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars. Dir. Zach Niles & Banker White. Cube Vision.Touchstone,
2005. DVD.
Under African Skies. Dir. Joe Berlinger. Sony Legacy, 2012. Web.