When CMU announced “Singing Resistance” – an event to come on down to the chapel and sing protest songs together with music professors at the beginning of February – at the height of the terrible ICE raids happening in Minneapolis, I thought, yes! This is exactly right.
SINGING RESISTANCE
In solidarity with Minneapolis
Join us for an evening of singing old and new songs of protest and courage, in solidarity with Minneapolis, shaped by traditions of faithful voices choosing community over violence and hope over despair—part vigil, part community chorus.
This is not a concert. It is the community coming together to raise voices in the face of injustice, fear, and the uneasy times we are living through
Singing Resistance is an open invitation to remember that even when things feel out of control, our voices still matter. And so does being together.
But then I saw how popular it was. The news was racing through Facebook. This event is going to be packed, I realized.
My heart sank. This is exactly wrong.
As I expected, the event was so full that the vestibules of both the main floor and balcony of the hall were set with chairs and packed full of people.
We sang beautiful songs of protest together and went home feeling reassured.
And that's why it felt so wrong.
Coming together to sing is a good response to the fear and uncertainty we're feeling but must be the first not the last step.
Unless they include specific, doable calls to action, weekly singing gatherings (a possibility tentatively floated) would be missing the point. It would turn what should be powerful resistance into self-soothing.
Mennonites have a lot of social power; we need to do more than do something familiar (sing) in a safe place (CMU) in the most comfortable way (with skilled musicians and song leaders) to respond to this moment.
MPs will vote on a bill Feb 23 that will reduce Canada's ability to easily sell armaments to anyone (i.e., USA who sends them directly to Israel to help them commit genocide). But our politicians need serious pressure to do the right thing. Where are Mennonites speaking on that? (P.S. Mennonite Action Canada is. And where were those 100s of singing Mennonites for our 30 minute phone zap from the comfort of your own home during off hours when you know you'll get voicemail? We had 17 screens from across Canada.)
Carney is just going along with raising our NATO spending to 5% of the budget when every aspect of civil society from housing to universities to health care to mass transportation (buses, bikes and sidewalks, NOT highways) is starved for funds. He's gutting every federal department and then pouring money into the military.
Where are Mennonites speaking against that? This moment calls for a lot more from us than just a few feel-good songs.
After our first rally at Magellan (at -25C), one person emailed me: "Somehow our prayers felt more powerful with our bodies standing out in front of the place where tools of war are being created."
You won't get that at a comfortable sing-along at CMU.
A few days after the CMU event, at a peace activists workshop, someone heard I was "with the Mennonites" and came over to ask if I could find him a choir for an upcoming protest. I passed it along to the leaders of the CMU event, but they said it fell during reading week, so they weren't available.
Singing resistance?
When I first got the message about the CMU event, in my initial blush of excitement, I sent off a quick response to the sender. But it was a mass mailer and set for nonresponse.
After the event, they offered a feedback form and I gave them a piece of my mind. The same person I'd tried to email responded fairly quickly, asking for a meeting to hear how I would propose to do better. Oh! Well, now *I* need to step up and do more than just throw complaints and instead make a real plan!
*They* made a plan too, so my critiques were missing one part (I left the room early to scout out a place to catch folks to sign up for Mennonite Action alerts). The experienced peace activist prof for the conflict management faculty is offering several nights of nonviolent training for free to anyone who wants to come. I'll join in a few weeks to learn.
Our meeting was scheduled after the second singing event, so in some ways the pressure is off.
The venue had changed to a different room with more capacity but it wasn't quite as full this time. We aren't hearing about ICE so much on the news, and despite World War III erupting in the Middle East for absolutely no reason, I guess folks have returned to complacency.
The opening remarks the second time touched on Iran instead of Minneapolis. The presenter spoke of the 100+ girls in the school who died in the first day of bombing -- but oddly, no mention of the up to civilian protestors cruelly murdered by police in the days of protests in the days and weeks earlier. Singing resistance? Do these folks know what protest is about?
Side rant: One of the songs -- supposedly written after someone had attended a protest where no one knew how to sing any of the 1970s classics anymore -- has a massive rest in the middle of the chorus. Imagine trying to navigate that with a motley crew of unskilled singers, peering at rain-stained song sheets, straining to hear above passing traffic.
But how to do better? What will I tell the organizers tomorrow when they ask?
We have to tell different stories. About the million different creative ways effect resistance can look. About how it truly can work and also about how it works when it doesn't. About Dirk Willems. About the Danes in WWII who let the Nazis take over without a military struggle and then were as ungovernable as possible with every subtle act of noncompliance imaginable. About the date no one remembers because violence *did not* break out in an Indonesian city because a pastor called up his friend, a local Muslim militia leader, and together they talked down the extremist groups ready to riot. About the village outside of Zaporozhzhye who held off Russian invaders for three days because the whole town just came out and blocked the road. These amazing stories exist but we don't share them enough.
We need to share the opportunities to plug in with resistance efforts of various kinds. We need to get connected: excahnge phone numbers and emails; get on mailing lists; join other groups doing valuable work. Write letters. Show up.
And we have to put in our bodies in place. Where's the rapid response choir we can call on when there's a protest at Portage & Main? Let's take these songs into the streets where they are needed.
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