What role do artists and intellectuals play on the frontline of popular uprisings?

[ensho]

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2011/02/201122374815992508.html


The political power of literature


-snip video-

For years, writers around the Arab world were silenced by the repressive mechanisms of dictatorial rule. Now the chains of censorship appear to be breaking as the region finds itself on the verge of a new political era.

Is the pen mightier than the sword? Can literature inspire revolutions? And what role do writers and artists have in social revolutions?

Joining us to discuss these electrifying moments are: Ahdaf Soueif, an internationally acclaimed Egyptian writer and cultural commentator; and Hisham Matar, an exiled Libyan writer, whose father, a political dissident, was kidnapped in 1990 never to be seen again.

Also on the show, world-renowned Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman who has been watching the historic scenes around the Middle East and remembering his country's own history as part of the revolution that swept through Latin America 40 years ago.

-snip-
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more power then realized

[Kolesar]

1. "The collective impact of a cream pie being dropped from a step ladder"

--Kurt Vonnegut
Sorry to be so down. :(

[ensho]

2. why are you 'so down'?

words and art have more power then violence

they affact minds in a different way then does violence

see! your two words prompted me to wonder 'why'

[27inCali]

17. if you really believe that you should watch the way

a crowd is so automatically pumped by some loud, thematically appropriate music.

the Nazis understood it. They were constantly blasting Wagner during their rallies -why? Wagner's music was the ultimate nationalist music, it got people pumped, it swept them up with emotion, gave them a sense of oneness with each other, filled them with a sense of vast possibility. And so for the evil, also for the good:

I guarantee, start with a fizzling crowd and add a rock band playing some pissed off protest songs and you will have bedlam in about 15 seconds.

[siligut]

3. The power of art

I think a link to Call Me Wesley's amazing and insightful drawings of Gaddafi belongs here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x492403

"The pen is mightier than the sword", the reich-wing has taken this to heart, but they give out short blurbs and sound bites. I still believe literature and art have a place in influencing the minds of men, but they are like bread and water compared to the candy and crack the right is spewing.

[siligut]

5. This is the one I really love

CMW captures the insanity and infuses it with palinesque crazy, a diagnosis of psychosis in pictures.

[Call Me Wesley]

7. The 'fluoridation' was just a classic to use.

I think he blames it all on drugs for young people. Not that it's less batshit insane.

[Call Me Wesley]

6. Wow, thank you!

:)

I'm not a cartoonist by all means, but if you look at journalism today, and especially U. S. journalism or what is left of it, you'll see that cartoonists like Lucovich. Mr. Fish, etc. bring it way more to the (unpleasant) point. I deeply respect them. I just doodle. ;)

[siligut]

11. SILENCE-I KILL YOU

:rofl: That just cracks me up. Very true, the cartoonists are the jesters, they can tell the truth because they are making it a joke. They also manage to get across a point in a very short time. You are a cartoonist; just not a published one. Or maybe you are published?

[Call Me Wesley]

14. Not published for this, no.

But there's a Sketchbook on tour right now in the U. S. I promise to remember to send you the link when its digitized. Are you on Face-a-book? I have some excerpts there. Shoot me a PM if you're interested. :)

[rrneck]

4. Atrmaking is the production

of "cultural DNA". It gives us the ability to consider what could be and inspire us toward that end. It's uses are more strategic than tactical.

[CTyankee]

8. A wonderful book and PBS series called "The Power of Art" by Simon Schama

addresses this. You can see his series on youtube. It's great!

[Lyric]

9. Look at William Butler Yeats' "Easter 1916" as one example.

It's absolutely haunting, if you know anything about the Easter Rising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter,_1916

Easter 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

[Rabblevox]

15. You made me cry 1st thing in the morning, damn you...

maybe because I'm half-Irish and my great-grandfather died in the troubles. Maybe because my best high-school teacher had a Yeats fetish and would not let up on me until I had read, and read, and spoken aloud, and taken him into my soul. Or maybe just because he's one of the best damned poets to ever write in the English language.

Despite morning tears, thank you for starting my day on exactly the right note. I'm wearing green today, in honor of my ancestors who fought and died for freedom, and in honor of every single person who fights for freedom today.

[Retrograde]

10. Artists, not nearly as much as they'd like to think

Intellectuals, maybe. IMHO successful revolutions need a lot of different factors to come together at the right time - a philosophical basis, effective leaders, and a final, last straw, we're not gonna take it anymore moment that gets the masses united behind the idea. Then there's the hard work of making sure the movement sticks.

[marions ghost]

13. Artists know,

guess what, that they are "ineffectual" in a direct sense.

Cartoons, documentaries, street art, even T-shirts and signs--are more influential with the masses than high brow art, and therefore those are the expressive choices of mass movements. Intellectuals appreciate the more intellectual political art. Just different ways of dealing with the same political realities. Linked in theme.

Artists are Inspirers. Political artists imagine and call for something different--in art, music, literature. They denounce exploiters and imagine a better way.

Linking the head and the heart. That's all artists do. They are not under any delusion that their work alone will save the world. Without direct action, nothing changes.

[guitar man]

12. I don't know about now

But they used to play a pretty important role

[27inCali]

16. They create the slogans, songs, poems, films etc.

that help crystalize the the various sentiments floating amid the crowd.

They give easily comprehended shape to the more amorphous and difficult feelings driving the revolt.

They also use art to make a much more powerful emotional plea than mere words can.

[Tikki]

18. A soon to be released Documentary film...they bring people together...

under one voice...a chance for joy in turmoil, a truth, the last feeling in your mind when you shut your eyes...

from the synopsis...

After taking over the country on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge began wiping out all traces of modernity and Western influence.
Intellectuals, artists and musicians were specifically and systematically targeted and eliminated.
Thus began one of the most brutal genocides in history, killing an estimated 2 million people - ¼ of the Cambodian population....
http://cambodianrock.com/synopsis/


Tikki

[Gregorian]

19. Having scrutinized artists for years, I say it's what kind of brilliant mind it takes to crreate art

Every good artist I have witnessed also has a keen sense of truth, fairness, good politics. I know that the art comes from these things, and not the other way around.

So in reality, it is the artist who has the truest sense of how the world should be run. That is my observation. And when they are not creating art, they are also citizens.

I believe artists use their art in crucial ways that are pivotal, and also are the most awesome people in our society. Shit, I can't think straight this morning. I'm asleep.

[Gregorian]

20. Here's an example

Just now, someone I know to be a brilliant artist posted this-