Burning Contention

The link above shows a video of the Midnight Oil's song "Beds are Burning." Relevant? We'll see...

Tilly and Tarrow describe contentious politics as involving interactions in which actors make claims bearing on someone elses interests or programmes, in which governments are involved as targets, initiators or claims or third parties.

Parties involved in such contentious politics use well known and established forms of protest such as: Formations of committees, Newspaper ads, Petitions, Boycotts, Mass street protests. Of course these are only the tip of the iceberg and with new technologies protest is becoming more and more creative.

The Midnight Oil are an Australian band of the 1980s whose frontman is now coincidently Australia's Minister for the environment. Their song 'Beds are Burning' relates to the need for reconciliation towards the indigenous people of Australia who suffered greatly at the hands of colonisers. This song shows a unique and highly effective take on political protest. Their song was named as one of Australia's top songs of all time which shows the huge audience their messages reached.

Midnight Oil again brought the politics of Reconcilliation to the fore during their performance at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. Then Prime Minister John Howard had triggered controversy that year with his refusal to embrace symbolic reconciliation and apologise to Indigenous Australians and members of the stolen generations. Midnight Oil performed their reconciliation-themed single "Beds Are Burning" at the ceremony with the word SORRY conspicuously printed on their clothes as a form of apology to indigenous people for their suffering under white settlement, and to highlight the issue to Howard, who was in the audience at the Olympic stadium. Midnight Oil had consulted with tour mates Yothu Yindi and other indigenous activists, so that their performance brought popular protest to the world arena.

To me this is an awesome example of contentious politics. The Midnight Oil had a message to give to the government and the resources to do so to possibly the largest audience ever (the Olympics is the most view sporting event in the world according to the 5 minute quiz in the Dominion this morning :P)

This example shows that with the right resources and exposure contentious politics can infiltrate the most prestigeous occasions and promote their message worldwide. The action is even more effective as the opening ceremony was Australia's chance to show how wonderful it is but this was marred by their grisly history appearing in a form of contentious politics.

This creates a highly creative and effective form of contentious politics. Plus it's a really great song! :)