Why do they hate music? Without music, life would be a mistake. ~-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1889) Why do the religious extremists and dictators have such animus toward music? We saw the Taliban forbid music in Afghanistan, dictators like Stalin send musicians to the gulag, Chile’s Pinochet murder nueva cancion (new song movement that championed human rights) artists like Victor Jara, and Argentine generals who threatened the famous singer Mercedes Sosa with death and force her into exile. Ditto for Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s. Ditto for South Africa under apartheid, where black music was censored and forbade any political or social messages. Black musicians got past government censors by writing songs with metaphorical content, often fables about animals. They got their message across to the oppressed black majority.
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