Zombie
Music is many things. It is a hobby or profession for some and an enjoyable way to pass the time for others. As a medium primarily meant for entertainment, the lyrics of songs have immense power to influence the minds of the masses without them even realising it.
An internet fad doing the rounds on social media of late is the 30 day song challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it has different prompts everyday to share songs that mean something to you. This is a great way to discover more music and find out that one of your friends has a similar in taste in music as you. While it was aimed at quick, low effort consumption, I felt it could have been so much more.
Inspired by the idea of the challenge, I decided I would do something similar. A series of small articles talking about some of my favourite songs with social, political or cultural messages or anything that I feel conveys a lot of meaning. If you know any other songs about the same, please feel free to share.
This is part three of the series and for those of you who want to read parts one and two, I’ll leave the links at the end of this article.
The arrival of the modern age was marked by the advancements of technology, particularly the development of advanced and tactical weaponry.
The history of weapons is long and interesting. In the early ages, all combat was done using wood, stone and come the bronze and iron age, metal tipped weapons or weapons such as swords made fully of metal came to the forefront. These primitives times did not last too long with the invention of gunpowder paving the way for the first guns and cannons.
From there, with each great empire striving to expand and conquer the world, weapons advancement progressed nearly as fast as the advancement of communication technology in the 21st century.
It was only in the early 20th century that people started to realise the adverse effects advancement in weapons technology had on our planet. World War I saw the use of chemical weapons despite international conventions which were in place against them. World War II, of course, infamously ended with the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man - the only nuclear weapons ever used in warfare - over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The effects of this inhumane act are still felt by the survivors and their progeny today. Collateral damage during war is one thing, but to target and exterminate approximately 200,000 innocent civilians was violence of the likes never seen before.
Despite the horrific events that took place, advancement in nuclear weapons continued with more and more countries developing nuclear warheads, mostly as a counter measure. The number of nuclear weapons has increased beyond measure and each of them is estimated to be 20–30 times more powerful than those dropped on Japan.
What has come to be the longest era of peace in modern history actually appears to be a classic cowboy standoff, with neither side willing to be the first to draw their nuclear weapons. This year saw the most frightening series of tweets as two people who are unfit to lead a marching band, never mind a country with nuclear weapons, joked about pushing the button on each other. The world watched on helpless as these two buffoons compared the size of their nuclear warheads (clearly compensating for something).
So it feels we must ask the question, when the richest nation in the world spends 54 percent of its budget on its military and has a monkey with a remote control at its helm on top of a history of wiping out cities at the fag end of a war, can we ever feel safe?
Many accounts of World War II conveniently state that the nuclear bombing of Japan led to the end of the war and saved thousands of American lives, which is simply not true, as will be evident from almost any neutral account of the incident. This is not where the warpath of the US ended either by any account.
In the name of democracy and aggressive counter-terrorism, their militaristic intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and many other countries has left the situation so much worse than before. The refugee crisis is at it’s worst with the UN estimating that 24 people are forced to leave their homes every minute (as of 2015).
A song that I think best captures the horrors described is Zombie by The Cranberries. It is a song written by the Irish rock band as a protest against the bombing of Warrington by the IRA (Irish Republican Army), a group that sought to free Ireland from the British, mostly through violent means.
The late Dolores O’Riordan (who died in early 2018, may she rest in peace) emotionally conveys the effects of war on the innocent by talking about the death of little children and the sorrows of grieving mothers. She feels that when the world refuses to speak out against such violence, something must be wrong.
“But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family” she sings, condemning those who do not speak up since the combat has not affected their near and dear.
Even in this - an era of so called peace, only 11 countries in the world have had no casualties as a result of external conflict (internal conflict is a much larger story for another day). Closer to home, news of shootouts on the Indo-Pak border grows more and more frequent followed by nothing but shouting matches on television with people trying to further their political agendas over the bodies of brave soldiers who left behind their families and their lives for no good reason.
The only choice we as people have is to care more about foreign policy and learn more about the culture and history of other nations. We must then apply this knowledge while electing our leaders and hold them accountable for their decisions that affect international relations. We have to stop being haunted by the ghosts of our violent past so we can avoid creating zombies of the future.
P.S. Rise Against (whose song Make it Stop was featured in part one) has brilliant songs which make accurate commentaries on war and the refugee crisis.
If you’re interested in reading the earlier instalments they can be found here
Part two — Words as Weapons
Part one — Make it Stop