Since the dawn of time, music and politics have long held many things in common.
Both rely on harmony and disharmony to create tension.
In music, tension creates an atmosphere that yearns for resolution.
And when the tension is resolved, there is sweet harmony that fills the hearts and lifts the spirits of the listener.
In the political arena, tension is created to bring about division, in some cases, and to create an atmosphere conducive to exploitation. Therein lies the difference.
Both have the power to influence the masses, and to motivate people to do things they not ordinarily do.
In 1973, an Indo-Fijian boy from Toorak in Suva, composed, recorded and released an anti-nuclear song titled ‘Destruction of Humanity’.
Anil Valera, who was a member of the capital city’s premier band Ulysses at the time, said after reading about the then- French government’s indifference to the plight of Pacific people affected by nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll, he decided to do something about it.
He wrote ‘Destruction of Humanity’, a song which highlighted the negative impact of the tests on the French Polynesian people and the waters that they relied on for sustenance.
The song captured the sentiments of Pacific people at the time and hundreds took to the streets of Suva in protest against the French.
The song featured predominantly on Radio Fiji (now Fijian Broadcasting Corporation) and echoed through the streets of the capital city during an anti-nuclear march in 1973, which featured Fijian and Pacific Islanders decked out in their hippie best.
Almost 10 years later, New Zealand reggae band, Herbs, did the same with their anti-nuclear song ‘French Letter’ in 1982. The ditty became an anthem for Pacific protestors who used it to fan the flames of a movement that played a significant role in turning the tide against French nuclear tests on Mururoa.
The cleverly written tongue-in-cheek reggae song swept tsunami-like via radio stations across the Pacific.
Herbs protest anthems—French Letter, Rust in Dust and Nuclear Waste—were some of the most popular songs that reverberated at the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior Festival at Mount Smart Stadium in 1986, a year after the infamous sinking of the anti-nuclear protest vessel, Rainbow Warrior.
The world was in for a rude awakening.
Westerners who once thought Pacific people were a docile lot who spent their days relaxing in the shadows of coconut trees, sipping coconut juice, were very quickly made to realise that the islanders had an intrinsic link to the land and the seas that lapped at their shores.
Land and sea equalled life and livelihood, and they would not sit silent while developed nations used it as a dumping or testing ground.
And once prodded, they could and would fight back with one of the most powerful and influential weapons known to mankind, music.
Pacific people are pacifists to a large extent until the very fabric of things they hold dear is threatened.
And one band that encapsulated that sentiment would have to be Fiji’s pioneer reggae outfit, Rootstrata.
Forged out of the concrete jungle of Raiwai-Raiwaqa in the early ‘80s, the group’s first hit single, ‘Young Generation’, spoke about the lack of platforms for youth issues, oppression, poverty and, yes, you guessed it, nuclear waste.
From protesting nuclear fallout and pollution, Rootstrata ventured into political ideology with songs that some would suggest, championed ethno-nationalism.
The group composed the almost-prophetic ‘Noda Bula Dina Na iTaukei’ – a song that expressed the frustrations of the young indigenous community in the lead-up to and in the wake of the 1987 military coup, and their perception of non-indigenous communities benefitting off of their land. The song’s popularity was amplified by the feelings of disenfranchisement at the time and culminated with
Rootstrata joining the radical iTaukei Movement and preparing a lovo (earth oven) as a powerful symbol of their discontent.
Sadly, the group’s inner politics led its disbanding not long after that.
While music produced and performed by Pacific people is largely for entertainment purposes, it has been and continues to be used as a vehicle to make bold statements of protest, and is a way of channelling angst and rebellion against the ‘system’.
Pacific music has moved past the bread and butter issues affecting families across the region and is now bringing attention to global issues – like the Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza.
This year, Hawaiian reggae artist Kai Boy collaborated with The Steppas and Hawane to produce ‘No More War’, a song dedicated to the more than 10,000 Palestinian children allegedly killed by Israeli soldiers since October 7, 2023.
Pacific music has always had a conscience and just as Bob Marley did in Jamaica in the ‘70s and ‘80s, all it needed was a catalyst.
About three weeks ago, three young Fijian songwriters released a track titled ‘Pasifika Rising’, pushing for self- determination for West Papua, Ma’ohi Nui, Kanaky, Rapa Nui, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, Aotearoa, and Australia.
Led by one of Fiji’s emerging musicians in producer, songwriter and artist – Fransisco Bhagwan, along with guitarist extraordinaire Ben Masirewa and iTaukei rapper and Pacific Break winner, Ju Ben, the song is a powerful anthem driven by a loping reggae beat, interspersed with crunching guitar riffs courtesy of Masirewa. Music with a conscience, created with passion, unleashed in the hope of creating conversation that will lead to a change in mindsets and hopefully, coax policy change in the Pacific.
