Instant Karma: Save Darfur Listening to Music at Home
Hey you Mido, this is no post on New Age Music. So dont look for any new age thingy for now. On my usual vagabond listening to other Ages, I listened to Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur yesterday. Though I hardly spend a penny outside my new age world, this album very quickly convinced my heart and had me spend few dollars (I dont regret, rather feel, good).
If you are already aware of the Darfur issue, you probably know what appealed to my heart. If you aren’t, you can know that in detail from here and here. For a quick say, this is it: Darfur is a region in Sudan, its people a victim of the ALL POWERFUL (Mido!, I am not referring to any mute God here, nor am I intoxicating with any religiousness.) Darfur people, men, women and poor innocent children, suffer and die with the least dignity of being born human or even worse, die without any dignity being a living thingy. And the culprits (whatever nicer name, they name themselves) who play gods are the ALL POWERFUL. I know, Mido, that I am going astry from my blog…. but it’s no fault of mine: I made it clear in the beginning. You say keep on track (with some pun intended)…. Yes, I am back on track, a track by Big&Rich. I like the lyric and the voice that accompany these lines:
Nobody told me there’d be days like these,
Nobody told me there’d be days like these,
Nobody told me there’d be days like these ,
Strange days, indeed, strange days, indeed.
This lyric appealed very much to me. My friend Relic has written a wonderful post on the album with some sarcastic punch and thoughts most needed for our times. A sample follows, read the full version here.
Y’see, there are thousands of decent souls bein’ tortured, murdered and starved every day in the senseless fighting (is there any sensible war?) goin’ on between the Janjaweed and SLM in the Sudanese province of Darfur.
Reading about Darfur reminds me of Arundhati Roy’s writing on Nuclear Weapon in her essay The End of Imagination:
Who the hell is the Prime Minister to decide whose finger will be on the nuclear button that could turn everything we love – our earth, our skies, our mountains, our plains, our rivers, our cities and villages – to ash in an instant? Who the hell is he to reassure us that there will be no accidents? How does he know? Why should we trust him? What has he ever done to make us trust him? What have any of them ever done to make us trust them?….
If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man’s challenge to God.
It’s worded quite simply: We have the power to destroy everything that You have created.
If you’re not (religious), then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old.
It could end in an afternoon.
Sure enough, Darfur conflict needs many-fold daring voice of Roy-like people.
3 Comments
hi shankar I’m continuously reading your newagevibe blog. i got to say something special on this post. I was wondering a music blogger comment on social issues like Darfur and also citing few lines from Arundhati Roy’s works, quite strange to me. Yet nice thought driving post.
can u tel me where i can get that album other than amazon?
Stephen, hope you enjoy my post. A couple of social thought is also necessary, I feel, among other posts. And when it is related to music, as in this case, I never want to miss the chance. I hope you have read the other post of Darfur by the Relic. If not you can find it here.
You the album can be purchased at Rhapsody, itunes, Napster and Yahoo Music.
Its a very heart moving article. Very well written and it makes me wonder and be bewildered that there are people like this (sadist to the core) – I am mentioning about the ALL POWERFUL culprits.
Its a very agonising moments for anybody who knows “whats Love, humanity and Care”.
You have indeed written the article really with a personal touch.