Sam Ben-Meir | New York
When John Lennon released “Give Peace a Chance” on the fourth of July 1969, he gave
to the world not only an anthem in protest of the conflict in Vietnam, but what is still
perhaps the most famous peace song of all time. Much of the lyrics during the verses is
hard to make out – it was recorded, after all, in a bustling hotel room in Montreal,
Quebec, during Lennon and Ono’s “Bed-in” honeymoon. But that does nothing to take
away from the sheer power and simplicity of the famous chorus: ‘All we are saying is
give peace a chance.’
In a world rife with military aggression, music seems to have the potential to contribute
to peace and conflict resolution. An extensive 2010 study exploring the attitudes and
beliefs of musician-activists regarding the role of music in community engagement,
found that ‘current approaches to conflict resolution will benefit from an increased
awareness of how music can be used to foster healthy relations between individuals and
within a community.’
Yet the question regarding the relation between music and peace is by no means a simple
one: it is fraught with difficulty. Certainly, as we know from the songs of Lennon, Bob
Dylan and many others, music is able to speak the language of peace. What allows music
to do this is its uncanny ability to communicate directly, immediately as it were with our
deepest longings, with the self at its most primordial and vulnerable. To appreciate the
relationship, the internal, even essential connection between music and social harmony
we need to understand something about music and the self more basically. If music has
the capacity to foster peace, to help overcome, or heal the pain associated with conflict, it
is because music is dialogical: a dialogue – an improvised dialogue within, among and
between selves as this radical openness.
But here is also where matters can become complicated, because the primordial self is
also characterized by aggressive strains, and music is well suited to express and even
perhaps sharpen such instinctual drives. If music can unite, it can also divide. There is a
diffuse and general tendency to suppose that music is especially adapted to peace and
non-violence. But such an assumption is simply unsustainable. Can we forget the scene in
Apocalypse Now, when the Americans led by Robert Duvall’s character descend on the
Vietnamese village to the strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie”? And certainly,
there is nothing fictional about this idea: US Army tanks in Iraq were equipped to play
compact discs for soldiers as they go into battle. As one put it, ‘It’s the ultimate rush’
when you have a good song playing in the background during a raid. Kosovo Albanians
employed music videos to get their message across, creating national identity while
preparing for war. In the Balkans, music was explicitly used to intimidate: ‘the Cetniks
would set up loudspeakers and play ‘turbofolk’ at a high volume, sometimes for extended
periods of time, before, during, or after shelling.’
Music speaks to the whole of man; and if the past is any guide, then we must admit that
man is a warring creature, as much as he is a creature that longs for peace and
reconciliation. It has been said that war is a drug – and indeed the same may be said for
music, and certain forms of musical experience. Music, it is well known, has an
intoxicating power. The rush of battle and the rush provided by certain kinds of music
can be and are used to enhance or augment one another. This capacity that music
possesses to effectively alter a person’s state of consciousness, to induce a kind of trance-
like state, is a phenomenon that needs to be more fully grasped.
It is often said, following Alfred North Whitehead, that all philosophy is a footnote to
Plato. When it comes to musical education this is certainly true. Plato famously stresses
the importance of music for the auxiliary class, that part of society which is charged with
protection and exemplifies the virtues of the warrior – namely courage, camaraderie, etc.
At the same time there were certain musical scales that Plato would not allow in his ideal
state because they were harmful, as far as their influence on the auxiliaries was
concerned. Too much and the wrong kind of music could ‘tear out the sinews of the soul’
and leave the warrior weak and effeminate. Plato does not want to safeguard music
because it will help generate peace but because it can instill the appropriate virtues in the
military class, whose job is ultimately fighting, defending, and protecting those who
cannot protect themselves.
We might also mention in passing the importance of music in the life of the so-called
prophetic guilds or bands during the earliest period of Hebrew prophecy. These bands of
prophets would roam the countryside and with timbrel, lyre, and flute, they would work
themselves up into a state of ecstasy. At that stage, when prophecy was a collective
endeavor, we might also add that there was also an interest in energizing a movement
towards political independence (from the Philistines). Music here is related to divinely
inspired, prophetic ecstasy. Its aim is not peace, either politically or spiritually, but
renewal, political rebirth perhaps. It is undoubtedly an expression of hope, confidence in
the power of and potential for transformation through religious revival.
What must we conclude from the above? Surely no other conclusion is possible than that
music is not inherently, or essentially peaceful: ‘groups or individuals who want to create
or maintain conflicts have often made good use of music to further their agenda.’
Music is a dialogical event, a kind of improvised conversation between selves that have
agreed to participate in a shared language, a shared world of meaning. Harmony is not
simply an aesthetic conjunction of tones, it is not only created – harmony is creative: it
does things, it is performative, it makes things happen; and it only comes into being
where someone is willing to engage in a dialogue, either with other selves that are
physically present, or with a tradition, a living language that is shared and understood by
some kind of community. Which is just to say that music is a social enterprise through
and through, which is not to deny that music is also intensely personal, the song that one
sings to God in one’s infinite solitude. Music is both, like man himself. Man is an “I” –
but the “I” is only possible in and through the “We”.
Music does not necessarily contribute to peace or the suspension of our aggressive drives.
But as the folk singer, Pete Seeger (played by Edward Norton) says in the new movie
about the early Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown (2024), ‘A good song can only do
good.’ There is no less a need today for songs that can do good, that can lead to conflict
transformation, and foster peace and justice – precisely because music can just as easily
be used for very different or even opposite ends.
This brings me to the new song, “Children of Abraham,” by YoBe (Yossef Ben-Meir and
Emilio Bench), which is part of a long tradition of peace songs (on Spotify and Youtube).
The lyrics of the energetic chorus, sung in Arabic, are ‘Salam alaikum’ – which translates
to ‘Peace be upon you.’ The title of the song is a reminder that that Judaism, Christianity
and Islam do not simply agree in worshipping one God, but that that they worship the
same one God: that is, the God that revealed Himself to Abraham as recorded in the Book
of Genesis. Jews, Christians and Muslims are indeed all children of Abraham. Sometimes
we need to be reminded of what all already know – that we are all brothers, and sisters –
and, to quote Matthew 25:40: “That which you do to the least of these you do to me.”
If it is true that a good song can only do good, then YoBe’s “Children of Abraham” can
only do good – and that is the most one can ask of any song.
Sam Ben-Meir is an assistant adjunct professor of philosophy at City University of New
York, College of Technology.