“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” - JFK
Along with economic and political imperatives, history has shown that culture also plays a dynamic role in revolutionary change. Ideas like those of “national pride” or “cultural identity” were subjective motives that, when used appropriately, have led to changes in government and in some cases the actual independence and liberation of some nations. There are several instances where unity through culture has made some communities strong enough to stand up to authoritarian governments and demand the changes they needed. This has been portrayed in the revolutions that took place in Central and Eastern Europe between 1987 and 1991, counter culture in the 1960’s, the anti-colonial movements in the 1950’s, and as far back as nationalism in the 1910’s.
One moment in history where culture can be seen making way towards revolution was through music in what became known as the Singing Revolution. After decades of Soviet oppression in Estonia, it was towards the end of the 1980’s that a selection of Estonian nationalist songs helped pave the way for a nonviolent, Singing Revolution.
Unlike the United States, when the need for revolution came, Estonia, one of the smallest countries in the world, used music as their weapon of choice. During the time of the Soviet occupation, crowds numbering in hundreds of thousands gathered and sang songs that had been strictly forbidden by this cruel, authoritarian government. An annual festival called Laulupidu that was held gained more and more popularity as the years passed, and with this strength in numbers came courage. After decades of living in oppression, it was Estonian folk songs that gave people hope and willpower to hold on to their Estonian identity. No matter the Soviet’s attempts in silencing the music, the Estonian people persisted loudly and proudly with songs like “Estonian I am, and Estonian I will be” and “Cherishing the Beauty of the Land of my Fathers”. The Estonian people continued to gather and sing and then eventually began displaying the colors of their country’s flags, until finally one day masses of people sang nationalist songs and flew their Estonian flag without fear of being trampled by the oppressor.
Around the same timeframe, Romania was about to experience a different type of revolution: a simulated one. Mass media played a front and center role here as it acted as a critical observer of social change. If film was possible, than history too is possible. This idea encouraged people to believe that they were victorious because television was on their side. Film caught a crowd turning their backs and walking away from Ceausescu, their tyrannical dictator, while he was giving a speech: this was a very significant symbol of revolt and rejection of government policies. As riots occurred, people became more aggressive as they noticed they were being recorded. They fed off of the belief that revolutions were meant to be violent. Even though this was all simulated, the virtual became reality. The Romanian revolution was made up of a week of violent, bloody riots between the people and what was at the time a communist dictatorship. It ended in the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife by a firing squad on Christmas day of 1989 after they had been caught attempting to escape the country. Romania became the first country of the Eastern Bloc to overthrow the government by force and execute its leaders.
Cultural identity is what gives an individual a sense of belonging to a specific group or community, and during the 1950’s this was what fueled those suffering from colonial oppression to fight back and regain self sovereignty. To the colonizer, he is teaching these savages by ripping them away from their barbaric lifestyle and introducing them to a “better”, metropolitan way of living. He suffers a superiority complex as he invades foreign, undeveloped lands in order to save its inhabitants from their backwards way of life when they never asked to be saved.
The worse mistake would be to follow in Europe’s footsteps and create nation-states, with a complete disregard of the cultural values of the inhabiting communities. The nation, after all, is a bourgeois phenomenon which did not exist until the 19th century. Colonized states haunted by violence are a product of colonization. Specifically when it is countries like France mapping out states like Algeria. Algerians did not think of themselves as Algerians until colonization began. It has become a country created by arbitrary borders with no regards to the cultures and lifestyles of those inhabiting it.
Nationalism plays a unique role in people’s lives and is almost literally two-faced. On one side, it can be a good trend. An example of this was the Singing Revolution of Estonia, where proud Estonians used folk songs of national pride to demand recognition of their state. On the other hand, it could also work as an alley for evil. This could be seen when the Germans under Hitler’s rule preached extreme nationalism and race superiority in order to justify the extermination of six million souls.
The youth of the 1960’s in the U.S. brought revolution to the streets of America and becoming a revolutionary peace movement wrapped in drugs, music, and flower power, also known as counter culture. Drug use today does not compare to hallucinogenic influences of the sixties. Today, people do drugs to get high. During the sixties, people did drugs to open up the world and create a spiritual connection. They were attempting to reach higher levels of consciousness. It was common to see groups of young adults gathering to listen to music of the times and really trying to break down and find meaning to the lyrics of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.
This counter culture movement was kicked off by the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam. A group known as the Weathermen had pushed the Students for a Democratic Society off center stage, when they made the movement a more violent one. Their theory equated standing idle in times of self-repressive violence to actual violence, and in order to change this they intended to bring the war home by making it visible in the U.S. In the summer of 1969, they moved off campus and integrated with working class youth in an attempt at applying human intimacy to political collectiveness. The Weathermen became more and more radical as they felt their work was going unnoticed, and they were eventually called a public threat by the F.B.I. This did not impede their intentions though, they took their movement underground and lived by the thought that the bigger the damage caused the better, because there were no innocent Americans. An individual’s passive ignorance made them guilty in their eyes.
When their actions became those with intents of murder, they were wanted by the F.B.I and became known as The Weather Underground. This group was using violence as a means to social reform. It is important to note, out of all the bombings done by the Weather Underground, the only people killed were three of their own group by a bomb that accidentally went off while being created. The roll of violence in American society was not to kill people, but to bomb for attention. This was an alternative form of media: using explosions to get issues onto the airwaves.
There must be something wrong with society when acts of violence need to be committed in order to get the media’s attention.
There are several situations where culture not only supports but also encourages the idea of revolution. By definition, culture is the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. In the United States alone, several historical movements have occurred where groups of people used their culture as reason to change society. The civil rights movement of the 1960‘s, the fight for women’s rights that has been ongoing since the early 1900’s, and even the gay rights movement that most recently is fighting for marriage equality are all examples where social institutions and customs and basic characteristics of a people were reason and motivation enough to demand change and set off a revolution.
In the 21st century, this third rail of cultural motivation for change is fading away. Culture today is technology and media based. Youth today have access to worldwide information instantaneously, yet they fail to use it for any political movements. Technology is evolving and with the internet, it is possible for people to send messages to mass audiences without the need of financial resources. It is possible to use modern day social networking sights, like “Facebook” or “Twitter”, as a probable catalyst for change and even to kick start a revolution, but it is not going to happen. Yes, a small number of people post messages about rising up against the government and questioning authority, but that is all that is getting done. Posts are made and read and forgotten.
There is no place for revolution behind the screen of a computer. This instead works in favor of oppression. What can be more helpful to an authoritarian government than a constituency glued to television and computer screens in their homes? Only half a century ago, college campuses were filled with students ready to take on the streets and demand change. This literally pushed authority to the limits and often ended in violence. At this time, people used to technology and mass media in a productive way. Today, this is not the case at all. The average person is apathetic towards most if not all political issues. There is no motivation to stop governmental oppression when society as a whole is more interested in the next Hollywood hit and celebrity gossip.
One moment in history where culture can be seen making way towards revolution was through music in what became known as the Singing Revolution. After decades of Soviet oppression in Estonia, it was towards the end of the 1980’s that a selection of Estonian nationalist songs helped pave the way for a nonviolent, Singing Revolution.
Unlike the United States, when the need for revolution came, Estonia, one of the smallest countries in the world, used music as their weapon of choice. During the time of the Soviet occupation, crowds numbering in hundreds of thousands gathered and sang songs that had been strictly forbidden by this cruel, authoritarian government. An annual festival called Laulupidu that was held gained more and more popularity as the years passed, and with this strength in numbers came courage. After decades of living in oppression, it was Estonian folk songs that gave people hope and willpower to hold on to their Estonian identity. No matter the Soviet’s attempts in silencing the music, the Estonian people persisted loudly and proudly with songs like “Estonian I am, and Estonian I will be” and “Cherishing the Beauty of the Land of my Fathers”. The Estonian people continued to gather and sing and then eventually began displaying the colors of their country’s flags, until finally one day masses of people sang nationalist songs and flew their Estonian flag without fear of being trampled by the oppressor.
Around the same timeframe, Romania was about to experience a different type of revolution: a simulated one. Mass media played a front and center role here as it acted as a critical observer of social change. If film was possible, than history too is possible. This idea encouraged people to believe that they were victorious because television was on their side. Film caught a crowd turning their backs and walking away from Ceausescu, their tyrannical dictator, while he was giving a speech: this was a very significant symbol of revolt and rejection of government policies. As riots occurred, people became more aggressive as they noticed they were being recorded. They fed off of the belief that revolutions were meant to be violent. Even though this was all simulated, the virtual became reality. The Romanian revolution was made up of a week of violent, bloody riots between the people and what was at the time a communist dictatorship. It ended in the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife by a firing squad on Christmas day of 1989 after they had been caught attempting to escape the country. Romania became the first country of the Eastern Bloc to overthrow the government by force and execute its leaders.
Cultural identity is what gives an individual a sense of belonging to a specific group or community, and during the 1950’s this was what fueled those suffering from colonial oppression to fight back and regain self sovereignty. To the colonizer, he is teaching these savages by ripping them away from their barbaric lifestyle and introducing them to a “better”, metropolitan way of living. He suffers a superiority complex as he invades foreign, undeveloped lands in order to save its inhabitants from their backwards way of life when they never asked to be saved.
The worse mistake would be to follow in Europe’s footsteps and create nation-states, with a complete disregard of the cultural values of the inhabiting communities. The nation, after all, is a bourgeois phenomenon which did not exist until the 19th century. Colonized states haunted by violence are a product of colonization. Specifically when it is countries like France mapping out states like Algeria. Algerians did not think of themselves as Algerians until colonization began. It has become a country created by arbitrary borders with no regards to the cultures and lifestyles of those inhabiting it.
Nationalism plays a unique role in people’s lives and is almost literally two-faced. On one side, it can be a good trend. An example of this was the Singing Revolution of Estonia, where proud Estonians used folk songs of national pride to demand recognition of their state. On the other hand, it could also work as an alley for evil. This could be seen when the Germans under Hitler’s rule preached extreme nationalism and race superiority in order to justify the extermination of six million souls.
The youth of the 1960’s in the U.S. brought revolution to the streets of America and becoming a revolutionary peace movement wrapped in drugs, music, and flower power, also known as counter culture. Drug use today does not compare to hallucinogenic influences of the sixties. Today, people do drugs to get high. During the sixties, people did drugs to open up the world and create a spiritual connection. They were attempting to reach higher levels of consciousness. It was common to see groups of young adults gathering to listen to music of the times and really trying to break down and find meaning to the lyrics of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.
This counter culture movement was kicked off by the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam. A group known as the Weathermen had pushed the Students for a Democratic Society off center stage, when they made the movement a more violent one. Their theory equated standing idle in times of self-repressive violence to actual violence, and in order to change this they intended to bring the war home by making it visible in the U.S. In the summer of 1969, they moved off campus and integrated with working class youth in an attempt at applying human intimacy to political collectiveness. The Weathermen became more and more radical as they felt their work was going unnoticed, and they were eventually called a public threat by the F.B.I. This did not impede their intentions though, they took their movement underground and lived by the thought that the bigger the damage caused the better, because there were no innocent Americans. An individual’s passive ignorance made them guilty in their eyes.
When their actions became those with intents of murder, they were wanted by the F.B.I and became known as The Weather Underground. This group was using violence as a means to social reform. It is important to note, out of all the bombings done by the Weather Underground, the only people killed were three of their own group by a bomb that accidentally went off while being created. The roll of violence in American society was not to kill people, but to bomb for attention. This was an alternative form of media: using explosions to get issues onto the airwaves.
There must be something wrong with society when acts of violence need to be committed in order to get the media’s attention.
There are several situations where culture not only supports but also encourages the idea of revolution. By definition, culture is the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. In the United States alone, several historical movements have occurred where groups of people used their culture as reason to change society. The civil rights movement of the 1960‘s, the fight for women’s rights that has been ongoing since the early 1900’s, and even the gay rights movement that most recently is fighting for marriage equality are all examples where social institutions and customs and basic characteristics of a people were reason and motivation enough to demand change and set off a revolution.
In the 21st century, this third rail of cultural motivation for change is fading away. Culture today is technology and media based. Youth today have access to worldwide information instantaneously, yet they fail to use it for any political movements. Technology is evolving and with the internet, it is possible for people to send messages to mass audiences without the need of financial resources. It is possible to use modern day social networking sights, like “Facebook” or “Twitter”, as a probable catalyst for change and even to kick start a revolution, but it is not going to happen. Yes, a small number of people post messages about rising up against the government and questioning authority, but that is all that is getting done. Posts are made and read and forgotten.
There is no place for revolution behind the screen of a computer. This instead works in favor of oppression. What can be more helpful to an authoritarian government than a constituency glued to television and computer screens in their homes? Only half a century ago, college campuses were filled with students ready to take on the streets and demand change. This literally pushed authority to the limits and often ended in violence. At this time, people used to technology and mass media in a productive way. Today, this is not the case at all. The average person is apathetic towards most if not all political issues. There is no motivation to stop governmental oppression when society as a whole is more interested in the next Hollywood hit and celebrity gossip.
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