Music of Dissent and Revolution

Abstract

Since January 2011, the world has witnessed, via the media, the Arab uprisings. The role of music, and art more broadly, in these political upheavals is undoubtedly subject to many debates. Yet, the focus on now well-known artists who came to prominence during the protests obscures the much deeper and more conflicted role of music in the wider protests, no more so than in Tunisia. This article explores the inner political practices of the Tunisian underground music in its prehistory vis-a`-vis the revolution and during the most important protests. It highlights the connection between music and the social web and discusses the implications of that dynamic while raising larger questions about the nature of social relationships, identities and new practices of power in what I term the ‘new public cyberspace.’

Keywords::

• Arab uprisings
• dissent
• Internet
• Facebook
• revolution
• semiotic guerilla
• Tunisia
• underground music

Notes

¹ G. Le Bon (1912) La Revolution Francaise et la Psychologie des Revolutions [The French Revolution and the psychology of revolutions] (Paris: E. Flammarion).

² See, for example, J. Defronzo (1996) Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press); and J. Goodwin (2001) No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

³ Goodwin, No Other Way Out, p. 9.

⁴ R. D. Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster).

⁵ N. Vanbremeersch (2009) De la Démocratie Numérique (Paris: Seuil).

⁶ M. Granovetter (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties, The American Journal of Sociology, 78, pp. 1360–1380, p. 1360.

⁷ Author interview with Ahmed Galai, Bizerta, Tunisia, 2011.

⁸ Bizerte is the port town that was the site of the most important postcolonial insurrection, and which forced out the French navy in 1961.

⁹ Author interview with Altair, Tunis, 2011

¹⁰ D. Hebdige (1979) Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge).