Music – Yet Another Reason Why the Taliban Sucks
Imagine for a moment the chorale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the “Ode To Joy”. Almost two years ago, this piece welcomed the new Millennium as it was played in cities around the world. Twenty three years before that event it – along with 10,000 voices and songs from around the world – was included in a disk of music attached to the sides of Voyager in the hope that an alien civilization would find this artifact and use it to learn about us.
Whether your taste is more Back Street Boys than Bach, there are few on this planet who cannot appreciate the spirit of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. The music grabs you by the shoulders, and lifts your spirits high, as if showing you a promised land that lays just over the horizon. It’s sentimental in the typical German style of the time – meaning that it isn’t the most subtle of pieces. The Ode is about power and transformation, not about surprise or artifice.
Music defines who we are. In broad strokes it tells us what culture we are from and what are values are. It defines subcultures within cultures, so that a Goth who listens to Marilyn Manson shares little (it is hoped) in common with the kid down the street who wears cowboy boots and thinks Garth Brooks’ is cool.
Most cultures use music to celebrate joyous times, and to solemnize sad ones. Imagine a wedding without music, silence taking the place of sappy guitar or poorly played organ music. How about a funeral without Mozart’s Requiem? Has any piece of music ever captured sadness in a more powerful way?
Music is a worldwide phenomenon. Wait for a stoplight in LA and one will hear at least half a dozen different types of music being played on car stereos. Walk the streets of Nairobi and it’s hard to escape the sounds of American rap music, Congolese soukous or reggae.
Music unites across cultures. During the Cold War, smuggled Beatles albums gave Soviet citizens a taste of freedom, uniting the Slavs with the frantically screaming boppers in the audience of the Ed Sullivan Show in New York 1964. Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel can talk just as much about 1960s folk music as he can on fighting oppression or managing a nation in its transition into a market economy. Or what do white kids from wealthy suburban families have in common with black kids from the projects besides Snoop Doggy Dog, Doctor Dre and Busta Rhymes?
Music is a weapon. Just ask General Noriega who was holed up in the Papal Nuncio in Panama City in 1989. US Forces used AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Van Halen, Ratt, Poison and several other 70’s and 80’s favorites to convince him to surrender. For a look at their playlist, click here.
Finally, music has been ever present. It is found in every culture going back to the dawn of the written record. Small lutes have been found dating back thousands of years before that. It is ever present in the Bible, Torah, Upanishads, and Koran.
As yet science has been unable to explain what music is and why we perceive it the way we do. But what is clear is that it is a potent force which may be bottled up for awhile but cannot be suppressed forever. When the Taliban left Kabul a few weeks ago, the streets erupted with the sound of music as old tapes and boom boxes were carted out from their hiding places.
Music brings joy to the listener. It makes memories sweeter and more vivid. And any regime that dares stand in its way risks getting as swept away by its force as the Baptist preachers who tried banning Elvis in the 1950s.
So dig out Beethoven’s Ninth. With luck Bin-Laden and Mullah Omar will hear it on their way to Hell.
