Toda Institute Music, Power and Liberty Conference

In early February this year I presented at the Toda Institute's Music, Power and Liberty Conference in Paris. The Toda Institute is infamous in my mind for publishing the first academic book on the subject of Music and Conflict Transformation entitled, funnily enough, Music and Conflict Transformation, edited by the director of the institute, Olivier Urbain. Due to the leading nature of such a publication I have naturally analysed pretty much every page in depth and I unfortunately found it generally wanting in terms of empirical and theoretical rigour or practical application. So it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation for this conference. I am happy to report that my fears were unfounded. I found the papers presented at conference stimulating, utterly relevant, and the approaches significantly more grounded and realistic than in the previous 2008 publication. There is a slight danger of perhaps too much cynicism, but there still seems to be enough drive and optimism to keep the momentum going.
The papers presented in Paris will eventually make their way into a book to follow the original Music and Conflict Transformation book, and since I will most likely be involved in this project to one degree or another, I will not comment on each paper just yet. Suffice it to say for now that there were three broad categories that were addressed:

1) Music, Power and Social Change: Music has been actively engaged with in the socio-cultural arena to influence the status quo; either to keep it static or to challenge and overturn it. There were many presenters from North Africa and their talks were completely resonant with my current research on the role of the arts in the Arab Spring.

2) Unification versus Censorship: There is the age old battle of using music as a tool of expressing togetherness and/or fostering social unification versus powers that would rather keep people apart, usually for social control purposes. There is also the continued battle between the romantics and the realists.

3) How music influences belief systems through education and technology: Increasingly researchers are talking about belief and how this is a key factor in behaviour and also how music and education influence belief. More recently there have been studies on how music and education is transmitted via social media and other technological platforms, thus effectively spreading belief.

Controversial Tunisian Rapper Arrested in Unclear Circumstances

Asma Ghribi | 27 January 2012 | 2 Comments

Tunisian rapper, Anis Mrabti

Anis Mrabti, a young Tunisian rapper better known by his stage name Volcanis, was arrested at his house on January 25th.

Statements made by Mrabti’s father after the incident, coupled with the political nature of Mrabti’s music, have provoked speculation about the motivations of the police action.

According to Anis’ father, Mongi Mrabti, six men in plain clothes broke into the family house, asked for Anis, arrested him, and confiscated his desktop and MP3 player. The father asked them who they were and they answered that they were police.

“They drove a tinted glass civilian car and they did not show me any arrest warrant or any police ID,” explained the father.

In an interview with Tunisia Live, Mongi Mrabti stated that the Mrabti family was not told where there son had been taken and were not informed of what he had been charged with for nearly two days, until the family received a call from a Tunisian citizen not affiliated with the police who had heard of Anis’ story and made independent investigations. The phone call apparently informed them that Anis had tested positive for drug use, and that his arrest came after others involved in the same “drug case” had given police Anis’ name.

Anis Mrabti became well known recently for his song “Matbadal Chay” (“Nothing has changed” in Tunisian Arabic), which contains sharp criticism of the current political situation in Tunisia. In the song, Mrabti criticizes the Tunisian government, accusing Tunisian politicians of running after power and speaking about the suffering of Tunisian people from bribery and social injustice. The controversial nature of the song has prompted some on social networks to speculate that Mrabti has been arrested for political reasons.

Anis’s father said some human rights organizations contacted him and told him that they will look into the allegation that Anis was arrested without warrant or due process.

The Ministry of the Interior released a statement on its official Facebook page in which they denied all rumors about the arrest being politically motivated, or having anything to do with the lyrics of Mrabti’s song.

This morning, Mongi Mrabti received a call from the police station of Wardiya, a suburb of Tunis asking him to collect his son’s desktop. He has been told that his son will be tried tomorrow in a drug case in Grombalia, in the governorate of Nabeul, the alleged crime said to have taken place in Hamamet, also in the Nabeul governorate.