The Role of Music in Global Conflict
While some musicians question the significance of their craft in the face of global conflict, others insist on its necessity. Within the current aesthetic turn in international relations, academics and politicians acknowledge how a strict description of events cannot fully capture global politics’ emotional, experiential, and performative dynamics. They consequently argue that aesthetic engagement, such as through music, remains a legitimate mode of political understanding and influence. Whether or not music is recognized as a formal means of diplomacy and political influence, it pulses on the tensest of international borderlines. Its current role within the Middle East, eastern Europe, and the Korean peninsula demonstrates music’s value as a medium of engagement, mode of expression, and reminder of significance within conflict.
Music is no stranger to war. Trumpets made from animal horns have been used to lead the earliest armies into battle, and Tchaikovsky composed his 1812 Overture to commemorate Napoleon’s defeated invasion of Russia. Prior to the Great Wars, many had expected cultural advancements, such as music, to parallel wider humanitarian progress. And so, many cultural optimists were confused when, throughout the second World War, jazz became a mode of propaganda and resistance for both the Axis and Allied forces. Others became cynical of art’s social value when some Axis nations, known for their 19th and 20th-century musical geniuses, began demonstrating grotesque displays of power. It quickly became evident that a nation waving a conductor’s wand in one hand would not necessarily loosen its remaining grip on military aggression. The modern-day militia group operating under the name of composer Richard Wagner may prompt some music-enthusiasts to question the role of art in a troubled world in the same way that the 20th century German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno so famously did. Art in the face of global conflict seems to verge on gratuitous if not superfluous.
However, there are other views. Jewish composer David Barenboim suggests that while politics may resolve some conflict, the ongoing strife in the region is, at the root, an issue beyond political stances and has to do with the complications of being human. As such, he has publicly acknowledged Wagner’s antisemitism while also cautiously defending the 19th-century composer’s musical brilliance. Edward Said, renowned Palestinian scholar and a friend of Barenboim’s, similarly suggests that political ideologies are embedded in cultural texts (Said, Orientalism). A full understanding of a region’s political climate will necessarily include an evaluation of its culture, such as its literature and, evidently, its music.
Both Barenboim and Said have demonstrated, in their scholarship, cooperation, and craft, that music is much more than just a power pawn or a gratuitous salve for those ignorant of war’s complications. In 1999, Barenboim and Said founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, that brings together musicians representing both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has performed in settings such as the United Nations. After Said’s passing, and even after the ongoing events of October 7th, 2023, the orchestra has continued to perform across Europe and Asia, with Barenboim insisting that their “message must be stronger than ever.” The orchestra remains a visible and audible reminder that music still echoes in the most fraught corners of the world, often at the fingertips of those caught in the cultural crossfire.
A continent away, South Korea is also enjoying the global influence of its mass export of K-pop, a growing movement now known as Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. At the 2021 UN Conference, South Korea’s leading K-pop bands, Black-Pink and BTS, stepped onto the stage performing their latest releases. But before stepping down, the band members presented on climate change and sustainable development – a stance their South Korean fans have readily taken up as their own. As the musicians publicise their military service or accept invitations to diplomatic dinners, their global influence becomes a formidable symbol of expressivity and freedom for the South Korean government. As the world tries to keep up with the stream of episodes and EP releases, North Korea works to keep the infectious K-media outside their borders.
Fully appreciating music does not require a return to a 20th-century Western assumption that cultural advancement signals ethical progress, nor does it require a masking of music’s diplomatic, coping, and culturally constructive qualities. Least of all, should these tensions erase music as an end in itself; music is not just something people fight to, but something some fight for. As is evident in the musical traditions of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, music, through its medium of dissonant and resolving patterns, alerts its audience to their own heritage of existing in an interdependent and complicated world. Some music offers answers. Some music simply prompts good questions, such as, “is harmony possible between cultures tuned to different ideals?” While some musicians express this question in the dissonance of their own music, others avoid unifying attempts altogether for the purity of what they think their own culture preserves. Nevertheless, all music requires the act of listening, the necessary beginning for any humanizing conversation, and something politicians think global diplomacy lacks.
Image courtesy of Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele (public domain) ©2013. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
