Still from Ana Tijoux's Somos Sur ft. Shadia Mansour
Source: YouTube
Somos Sur or We are the South, Tijoux and Mansour chant, singing for ‘the silent, the subdued, the oppressed’. This song or -more aptly- anthem of resistance is worth analyzing for two primary reasons: their strategy of transnational solidarity and its underlining feminist messages.
Firstly, in Rebel Music, Aidi described the ways in which El Clon, a Brazilian soap, attempted to sanitize or clean the Muslim image in Brazil, post-9/11. The orientalist representations that did a lot to popularize features of Brazilians’ image of Muslims; however, translated differently in the Arab world, in which some Muslims decried the hypersexualized female bodies and exoticized representations of Islam. At the same time, Aidi explains the ways in which the soft power of the soap operas was used by Brazilian authorities to create more political and economic links with the states of the Global South to combat U.S. imperialism. He also notes that, Turkey felt threatened by Brazilian influence, and attempted to curb it by producing its own soap dramas. Thus, what was intended to create alliances between states in the Global South against U.S. imperialism transpired into a battle for soft power and spheres of influence amongst those very states.
However, Somos Sur provides us with an alternate blueprint for solidarity, specifically with respect to cultural production. Let’s take a step back. According to Aidi, El Clon’s good-spirited attempt to clear Muslim’s reputation was inspired by very little knowledge of Arab Muslims. The Lebanese-Syrian community in Brazil, was primarily Christian, and thus not representative of Muslims… This raises the question: Did El Clon’s producers conduct in-depth research or even speak to Arab Muslims?
This is where Somos Sur’s intervention is important. It depicts collaboration in every possible way: from the music to the languages to the representations of the video. Somos Sur reimagines collaboration between peoples rather than states of the Global South through Music and Celebration. Giving voice to ‘the silenced’ and literally naming nation-states throughout their lyrics ropes in more people into their transnational agenda of liberation from oppressors.
“Nigeria, Bolivia, Chile, Angola, Puerto Rico and Tunisia,
Costa Rica, Cameroon, Congo, Cuba, Somalia, Mexico,
Dominican Republic, Tanzania,
Get out Yankees from Latin America,
French, English and Dutch,
I love you Free Palestine.”
The lyrics mirror this attempt to create a sense of transnational solidarity to challenge the relentless forces of imperialism. But, Somos Sur’s not merely a form of transnational ‘allyship’, but ‘accompliceship’: It is not just intending on producing solidarity, but rather practices it by allowing Mansour and Tijoux to give voice to their ideas together, and not privileging one voice over another, and definitely not having one voice speak for the other.
Secondly, the representations depicted in the video shortcircuit images of women of the south and reclaim them in ways that in fact seem to shift the paradigm. Arab women are often seen as subservient and oppressed; latinas are often sexualized and objectified. However, in the video Mansour and Tijoux reclaim those images and representations in powerful ways.
No, Mansour doesn’t narrate herself as one oppressed by a Yankee or another Brown man. And, Tijoux doesn’t use her sexuality to escape one form of oppression or another. Instead, they stand tall surrounding by younger girls, rapping about political and cultural resistance and celebrating not only womanhood but each other.
This sort of representation punctures the normative ways of ‘reclaiming’ one’s status. As a person of color, I no longer need to prove that a more privileged group’s imagination of my people and I is unsophisticated. Rather, the representation is produced regardless of the history of representations. However, what both Mansour and Tijoux embed into their work is cultural symbols, such as the Palestinian kuffiyeh or thob (scarf or dress) and Chilean indigenous forms of dance.
As Tijoux states, her music is about strength and not anger. (Newsweek)
—
LYRICS:
You tell us we should sit down,
but ideas can only rise us,
walk, march, don’t surrender or retreat,
see, learn like a sponge absorbs
no one is surplus, all fall short, all add up
all for all, all for us.
We dream big that the empire may fall
we shout out loud, there is no other remedy left.
This is not utopia, this is a joyful dancing rebellion
of those who are overrun, this dance is yours and mine
let’s rise to say “enough is enough”
Neither Africa or Latin America are for auction,
With mud, with a helmet, with a pencil, drum the fiasco
to provoke a social earthquake in this puddle.
All the silenced (all)
All the neglected (all)
All the invisible (all)
All, All
All, All
x2
Nigeria, Bolivia, Chile, Angola, Puerto Rico and Tunisia,
Too long for a blog post Rand–and because no context about Tijoux and Mansoor is provided, and too much text devoted to full lyrics embedded in the post—the reader is confused! Theer is so much food stuff here, i urge you to edit and re-post so we can actually SEE your points re the complexity of a politics of solidarity that goes beyond the simplistic notions of /good/bad representations
February 27, 2017 at 6:45 am
Too long for a blog post Rand–and because no context about Tijoux and Mansoor is provided, and too much text devoted to full lyrics embedded in the post—the reader is confused! Theer is so much food stuff here, i urge you to edit and re-post so we can actually SEE your points re the complexity of a politics of solidarity that goes beyond the simplistic notions of /good/bad representations