Gimme Hope! ~ Forgotten Song Remembered

Music and songs have the almost unworldly power to arouse old memories.  
Sometimes it happens the other way around - the "man bites dog" effect. For some inexplicable reason a memory from the early 1990s surfaced from the depths the other day, and set me on a search for the related song.

We (late partner and I), sometime in the early 1990s, on an annual jaunt to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, were walking along the sea front area one evening on our way somewhere. We spied a colourfully dressed African guy singing and playing guitar in an open-fronted bar. The music was infectious. We sat down, ate, drank and listened for hours. The evening ended with the singer encouraging (actually forcing) us all onto our feet to form a chain and dance around the bar to a song I'd never heard before. That song was the one bugging my memory. I had to be a bit creative on the Google, I couldn't remember any detail, only the feeling, but after many attempts I eventually found the song on YouTube, with lyrics.



Eddy Grant, it turns out, was the composer and original vocalist. He was born 5 March 1948, in Guyana but as a child he emigrated to London, England with his parents. He had hits in the 1980s with I Don't Wanna Dance in the UK, and with Electric Avenue in the UK and USA. Many of his songs were politically slanted, especially against the apartheid regime then existing in South Africa.
The song bugging my memory: Gimme Hope Jo'anna was one of these ("Jo'anna" = Johannesburg, South Africa). It was a song about apartheid, and banned in South Africa. The line: "The Archbishop who's a peaceful man" is a reference to Desmond Tutu, first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town who received the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against apartheid.

All of that was unknown to me as we danced and enjoyed the infectious rhythm. Why this song should surface from the depths of memory just now I don't know - except that the message, minus names and places, remains relevant:
"Gimme hope!"

More wise words on HOPE:

"HOPE has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes.
Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face." ~~~ Chris Hedges.

"Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost."
― Margaret George, "Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles".

Accentuate the Positive

Pundits and many mundane astrologers have little to offer us but an ever-darkening road into the future. After some news and events of the past week another dose of audio-visual positive thinking has been needed to prevent me from slipping into the Slough of Despond, or becoming confrontational and obnoxious. Although the second option is tempting, neither would be wise. Like a star suddenly twinkling through the gloom of a cloudy night, there was one rather surprising but positive piece of news, in an article by Tom Hayden - "Northern Irish, South Africa Leaders in Secret Peace Discussion with Iraqi Parties"

Extract:
"Sunni and Shi'a leaders began a potential peace process at secret meetings with leaders of the new Northern Ireland and South Africa one month, signing draft set of principles which resemble the protocols that guided the peace settlements in those two countries.

Chairing the closed meetings near Helsinki were Martin McGuinness, the former Irish Republican Army commander, lead negotiator with the British, and now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Roelf Meyer, former leader of the pro-apartheid National Party in South Africa's peace negotiations. The Irish delegation also included former IRA hunger striker Leo Green, minister Jeffrey Donaldson, former Stormont speaker Lord Alderdice, and former loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Hutchison. South African participants included ANC leaders Mac Maharaj and Rashid Ismail, key participants in the military and political negotiations in South Africa.
The Iraq delegations' names have not been released but reportedly included six Sunni and nine Shi'a who signed a statement of principles."

Martin McGuinness was, as is mentioned later in the article, looked on as "evil incarnate" by Protestants and many other British folk during the Irish troubles. I remember it well! He was born on 23 May 1950 in Derry, Northern Ireland. An early Gemini Sun with a surprisingly well-balanced chart, whose second Saturn return will occur in a year's time - perhaps this new direction of his could bring yet another new career. At present transiting Mars in Cancer is about to conjoin his natal Uranus at 3 Cancer. Let's hope this is not a bad sign - even if so, it won't last too long.

This news story clearly shows that positive can come, eventually, from negative - albeit very slowly. There are no better advisors than these men. It may take longer than we can afford to arrive at any peaceful settlement, but there is at least hope, and willingness there. Perhaps, underneath the superficial gloom of these times, hidden brightness lies, just waiting to emerge.

This week's antidote to the negative comes via a composition of Harold Arlen, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, sung by Buddy Rich (who is better known as a drummer). All are long-gone, of course, but their work lives on and is still widely and internationally appreciated. Following the advice of Johnny Mercer back in 1944, let's try, in 2007 to "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive"