MUSIC
Nostalgic for Social Change: North African Songs of Exile and Dissent
Music that was written to support uprisings or call out the pain of exile continues to echo across North Africa, even when speaking out against oppression becomes increasingly difficult.
Algeria’s Rachid TAHA playing at the Royal Festival in the UK.
by James Emmett/Redferns
In 2019, the Sudanese people took to the streets and toppled the three-decade-long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. The grassroots organizing behind what became known as the December Revolution was hailed as a model for civilian dissent worldwide, and international media covered the arts cultivated during, or inspired by, Khartoum’s sit-in.
To support the revolution, Berlin-based COLORS x STUDIOS hosted three Sudanese artists as part of a wider campaign called “Blue for Sudan.” Qatar-based Sudanese musician Sammany performed his song “Matalib” (Demands), which millions of protesters were singing at the time.
Seven years later, the Sudanese military and one of its militias are waging a counter-revolutionary war against their citizens and have plunged the country into the world’s worst humanitarian and displacement crisis. Protesters have fallen from the highs of the revolution to the depths of war, but they still remember a time when they had hopes for a better future. “Matalib” remains the soundtrack of that era, played in taxis and hangouts.
Nostalgia is often associated with romance, melancholy, and a vague idea of “better times,” but in North Africa, people also feel a different kind of longing for when they stood together against oppression and took control over their own fate.
Human and civil rights have been rolled back in Tunisia in recent years, but in 2011, it was the birthplace of what became known as the Arab Spring. On December 17, 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolated after being harassed by the police. His desperate act went viral and ignited a protest movement among Tunisians suffering from unemployment, inflation, and a lack of political freedoms under longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Ben Ali’s government censored the music of young protest musician Emel Mathlouthi, who lived in exile in France because of the ban. When the protests erupted, she returned to Tunisia and sang her song “Kelmti Horra” (My words are free) in a crowd of thousands, giving the Arab Spring its official anthem. “We are free peoples who are not afraid/ We are secrets that never die/ And for those who resist we are the voice/ In their chaos we shine.”
“Kelmti Horra” is as poignant today as it was in 2011. However, the most universally played ballad about resistance and exile by a North African in France is Rachid Taha’s rendition of “Ya Rayeh” (You, the one leaving). Written by chaabi legend Dahmane El Harrachi, this anti-colonial exile song became nostalgic pop culture when Taha covered it in 1998.
He sings “Oh traveler, where are you traveling to? Haven’t you noticed how the poor people have regretted this decision before you and I did? Why is your heart so sad? Why is that? Or is it because this is the only choice for the poor?” and speaks to ever new generations of people who migrate for political or financial reasons, warning them of the hardship that comes with leaving your home country.
Meanwhile in Morocco, songs of the folk band Nass El Ghiwane live on in the chants and adaptations that Ultras sing in football stadiums. Released in the 1970s, a decade marked by protests against intense political repression and state crackdowns under King Hassan II, “Fine Radi Biya” indirectly calls out Moroccan state corruption and explains the poverty that forces many Moroccans into economic migration. The lyric “where are you taking me brother?” indirectly addresses the Moroccan government and its failed policies.
With their focus on Moroccan culture, Darija lyrics, and sonic inspirations from traditional Sufi, Andalusi, and Gnawa music, Nass El Ghiwane gave voice to the national identity of the Moroccan working class and disenfranchised diaspora, two groups that continue to find solace in their music to this day.
Babylone’s “Zina” (Beautiful) is perhaps the best-known political nostalgic song among younger generations, even though it is often understood only as a love song for a person, not a country. One of the most streamed North African songs of the 21st century, “Zina” is the modern Algerian counterpart to the themes in “Rine Radi Biya” and “Ya Rayah.”
On the surface, it laments a beautiful lost lover called Zina, but she is often interpreted as being Algeria herself. The lines "Me and my heart, we've been looking for you, but we haven't found you" evoke a generation that is searching for a prosperous, free, and stable homeland that feels increasingly out of reach. Ghorba, the melancholy of displacement and nostalgia for home, is a common theme in North African music; even if you do not understand the Algerian Arabic dialect derja, you will feel ghorba when listening to “Zina.”
In a region where silence is often necessary to preserve one’s livelihood, music reminds us of, and continues, the dissent practiced for over a century. People might not debate politics in the street as they used to, but they can communicate their yearning and melancholy for a past reality through song.
