Music has always been a medium to stir up controversy — from glass harmonicas being banned briefly in the 18th century for driving people mad, to the censoring of Elvis Presley’s wiggling hips on the US-based Ed Sullivan show in 1957. Censorship in the music industry is no relic of the past. Only this month, Egyptian authorities announced a bar on “romantic music”. Here are our favourite modern examples of banned music:
Taming the rave
Authorities in England and Wales attempted to curb the fun in 1994, introducing the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. This defined raves as “illegal gatherings,” putting a stop to any electronic music one might to listen to at an outdoor party. The Act defines banned music as including “sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” 18 years after the act was introduced, the parties still appear in their masses — as do the police. Here’s Norfolk Police bashing away at some rave equipment following an order for destruction by request of the court:
Sensuality censored
In a bid to halt “vulgarity and bad taste”, music lovers in Cuba were hit with a tough sanction in December: a complete ban of the sexually-charged reggaeton music in the media. Other music genres with aggressive or sexually explicit lyrics will also be curbed, preventing the songs from being played on television or radio. Under legislation passed under President Raul Castro, music can be enjoyed privately, but will also be banned in public spaces — anyone discovered to be breaking the law could be subject to severe fines and suspensions. According to Cuban Music Institute boss Orlando Vistel Columbié, the music genre violates the “inherent sensuality” of Cuban women. One of the most well-known reggaeton artists is the Puerto Rican born artist Daddy Yankee. Here’s his 2004 hit, Gasolina, which probably wasn’t an anthem for rising petrol prices:
Singing a song of silence
On 23 October 2012, Islamist militants took control of a country steeped in musical history, imposing a total ban of all genres of music in northern Mali. The rebel group jammed radio airwaves and confiscated mobile phones, replacing ringtones with verses from the Quran. Three Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda have taken control of the northern Malian cities of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao, banning everything they deemed to breach the religious law of Islam, Sharia. Dozens of musicians have fled the area, and many have been threatened with violence should they practice music again. Mali is famed for its rich cultural heritage and many residing there consider music akin to material wealth. Musician Khaira Arby has fled south since the crisis. Here she is with her band Sourgou:
Careless whispers from Iranian government
Iran had a pop at western music in 2005, decreeing it illegal, along with other “offensive” music. The Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council banned the music from state-run radio and TV broadcasts. The sounds of Eric Clapton, The Eagles and George Michael were often used as television background music until the ban was imposed. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left no 80s hallmark unscathed — banning western haircuts like the mullet two years later. George Michael’s 1984 single, Careless Whisper, breaks Iranian law with both music and hairstyles:
Romancing the state
On 13 December, Egyptian authorities banned the broadcast of “romantic” music, insisting that only songs enamoured with the state would be permitted for playing on TV stations. Only nationalistic numbers can now be played on the 23 state-owned channels, and songs mocking public figures will be banned to adhere to the “sensitivity” of the political situation in Egypt. President Mohammed Morsi fervently denied that a decree granting him sweeping powers was permanent recently. Complaints have begun to surface surrounding the musical censorship, with some speculating that it was a move to mask the development of the decree. Egyptian megastar Amr Diab’s most well-known hit, Habibi Ya Nour Al Ain (Darling, You Are The Light of My Eyes), is just one of the many tunes that won’t be heard on the country’s airwaves:
A pipe bomb was defused early this morning after it was planted outside of the home of Northern Ireland press photographer Mark Pearce. While no one has taken responsibility for the attack, Pearce believes he was targeted for his work, but does not remember a recent photograph that could have angered of one of the country’s banned paramilitary groups.
Northern Ireland has recently seen a rise in tensions after Belfast officials last week decided to fly the Union flag on certain days, rather than displaying it year round, sparking protests from loyalists.
A village council in Northern India last week banned women from using mobile phones. The leaders of Sunderbari village, population 8000, hope that fining unmarried women (Rs 10,000, or 114 GBP) and married women (Rs 2000, or 23 GBP) will stop premarital and extramarital affairs.
The men’s logic is simple: these affairs that have led to elopements — at least six in the past year — and humiliate the village. Manuwar Alam, council member, explains: “We had to hide our faces out of shame.” Local government officials took a serious view of this “unlawful diktat” and questioned the village council. In an about turn, the council now denies it announced fines.
While India has made efforts to work towards gender equality, ridiculous restrictions placed on women in the name of curbing chances of shame are still a problem. National debate focuses on how to empower women, be it through reserving 33 per cent of seats for women in parliament or the use of mobile phones. Yet on the ground in much of India, men are clearly threatened by any move toward’s increasing women’s independence.
This isn’t the first time a village council has tried to ban women from using mobile phones. In July, a village in Uttar Pradesh banned women from using them on the streets, mainly to stem the tide of “love marriages” in a culture that believes marriages should be arranged between families. The next month, a similar diktat in a village in Rajasthan ordered all girls below the age of 18 to stop using mobile phones, so that they would not get “distracted”.
This repressive instinct travels beyond village councils and right up to members of Parliament. In October, a former minister from Uttar Pradesh, Rajpal Singh Saini, cautioned his audience against giving girls mobile phones, saying: “What are the girls missing without mobiles? Did our mothers, sisters, did they die without mobiles during their time?”
The problem goes well beyond mobiles. Local khap panchayats (village councils) in India’s north regularly indulge in honour killings to send a message to young lovers who elope that inter-caste marriages are not allowed. So regressive is the thinking that a former chief minister of Haryana went as far as to suggest that the marriage age of girls be lowered to prevent the rising number of rapes in his state.
Beyond the joy of simple conversation, the mobile phone has become a powerful instrument to empower women in India. In Bihar itself, health workers have been given mobile phones so that they can connect with the local public health officers while out on their field, and also to facilitate mobile money transfers. In Uttar Pradesh, women have used them to learn the alphabet through the use of mobile phones. UN Women Singapore recently gave a grant to a Rajasthan-based project that helps women sell feminine hygiene products to others via mobile.
Even the government of India is moving forward to connect all 250,000 village councils with broadband connections to bridge the digital divide. Osama Manzar, director of the Digital Empowerment Foundation which is helping the government train village officials to become digitally proficient, told Index that for a village council to ban mobile usage is uncalled for. “I see this more as an issue of cultural change which the older generation is not used to and not aware of much and does not know how to comprehend. The sooner we make our society digitally literate, such issues will be a non-happening.”
Yet it seems that the by-product of having a phone — that women’s personal choices and confidence are increasing — is what has threatened the chauvinist Indian man. Manuwar Alam, of Bihar’s Sunderbari village has said:
[The] mobile phone is the cause of all evils in our society, including increasing love affairs and the incidents of elopement.
But mobiles do not cause these problems. Repression does.
