Every movement that has ever won has had its music. Not as decoration, but as infrastructure.
Songs do things speeches and strategy documents can’t. They help strangers feel connected, carry messages past censorship, transform fear into courage, and remind people they are not alone. That’s why authoritarian regimes so often target musicians, concerts, and the arts early: they understand that shared meaning and shared hope are threats to authoritarian power.
The article “Songs of Resistance: Music as the Infrastructure of Freedom” by Scot Nakagawa, author of the substack The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, traces resistance songs across history and around the world. Great examples he shares include:
- In Hawaii after the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, “Kaulana Nā Pua” became a collective refusal to surrender.
- In Portugal, José Afonso literally signaled the start of the Carnation Revolution with songs like “Bella Ciao, Which Side Are You On?”
- “We Shall Overcome” has unified workers, anti-fascists, and civil rights activists through some of the hardest moments of struggle.
- The Black freedom movement has especially understood that singing isn’t optional — it is how people have endured jail, violence, exhaustion, and fear. Modern movements continue the tradition, from anti-apartheid songs in South Africa to Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye” during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Iran.
The central idea is simple: music helps people discover that their courage is shared. Movements survive not just on strategy, but on the ability to keep hope, memory, and solidarity alive together.
Summarized from “Songs of Resistance: Music as the Infrastructure of Freedom” by Scot Nakagawa, The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, April 30, 2026.
Photo: Organizers from Dunes City and Florence join local band Box Rat to lead a singalong of “American Pie” at a No Kings sign making party in 2025.
Thank you for your timely information for the Bandon Protects Democracy/ indivisible newsletter. Good to stand together and SING!
Merle