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Happy May Day!

  • May. 1st, 2003 at 4:03 PM
Evolve!
The Internationale
Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all

Chorus:
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We'll live together or we'll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We've but one Earth on which to live

And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by like and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above

Words: Billy Bragg Music: Pierre Degeyter

The Internationale, as rewritten by Billy Bragg.

The original was written in French by Eugene Pottier, a woodworker from Lille, after the fall of the Paris Commune of 1871, and set to music by P. Degeyter. The "Internationale" referred to is the International Working Men's Association, the so-called First International (1864­76), part of which had supported the Commune. It hac been used across the world as a song of resistence to oppression. Perhaps its most dramatic use in recent years was its repeated singing by the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - although, curiously, the western press did not comment on this.

The Internationale in 20+ languages (including the Billy Bragg version).

Comments

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[info]2fargon wrote:
May. 1st, 2003 09:29 pm (UTC)
May day or Loyalty Day? , or both?

Could he not have picked another day, say june 1st, for God's sake!!
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[info]eve_l_incarnata wrote:
May. 2nd, 2003 11:38 pm (UTC)
Oh geez. I didn't know about that. The doublespeak is really starting to hurt my head.
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[info]2fargon wrote:
May. 2nd, 2003 11:55 pm (UTC)
Re:
talk about george orwell being a really intelligent man who could see through all of them, and see whats coming
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[info]eve_l_incarnata wrote:
May. 8th, 2003 07:44 pm (UTC)
I thought Orwell was writing about the rise of Fascism?
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[info]2fargon wrote:
May. 10th, 2003 08:25 pm (UTC)
Re:
I was referring to Orwell's 1984 , and the kind of government it has, you know, brainwashing and the twisted tongues, and the big brother - well nothing specific, really.

when i read that article "orwellian" came to my mind, for some reason...
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[info]eve_l_incarnata wrote:
May. 15th, 2003 07:42 pm (UTC)
Yes, I know you were referring to 1984. I thought that book was about the rise of fascism... basically the symptoms you just wrote here. I'm not an Orwell scholar and haven't read the book in ages, but I thought that's what he was writing about, considering when he wrote the book.

Just did a search and found that I am partially right.

"George Orwell's novel 1984 is recognized as a work of communist satire, influenced by a contemporary of Orwell's, Stalin, and his actions in regard to the Soviet Union. Orwell himself was a socialist, and extremely pessimistic about the future of world society. Socialists before him "had not despaired because they had their Socialism. Orwell's despair was based on the knowledge that much of this 'Socialism' had in practice become debased and corrupted." (Atkins, 37) 1984 was Orwell's response to the corruption of Socialism by the Soviet Union, and made clear his own anti-Totalitarianism, which is a term encompassing both Communism and Fascism. (Atkins, 31) The influence of Stalin's Soviet Union upon 1984 is clear in the similarities present between Stalin and Big Brother, the society of Oceania's clear connections to that of Russia at the time, and the hierarchical and family conceptions in both Oceania and the Soviet Union. "

Big Brother of the Communist Party

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[info]opus119 wrote:
May. 2nd, 2004 08:10 pm (UTC)
Speaking of Stalin, the Internationale was used as the national anthem of the USSR from 1921 to 1944. Can't say I like the tune very much; the later national anthem, which I heard a lot when I was there in 1971, was much more stirring.
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[info]eve_l_incarnata wrote:
Jun. 10th, 2004 07:27 pm (UTC)
Speaking of Stalin, the Internationale was used as the national anthem of the USSR from 1921 to 1944.

No! Really?!

When I don't allow comments in a post and link to a previous post, I'm not looking for comments in the previous post. I have to limit my obligations.
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