music and song to Papuans are the voice and the language of long term memory of the hardships. These forms of artistic resistance provide the opportunity for
discourse about alternative political realities, as well as to give emotive articulation to them, and the importance of such expression cannot be
overstated.
15
3. Bob Marley and The Black Black Brothers’ Songs as the Language of Resistance
Resistance is a broad and general concept, therefore it needs to be narrowed down to avoid misconception in contemporary theories of resistance.
This can facilitate an understanding of the specific forms of resistance found in Bob Marley and The Black Brothers actions, music, and specifically lyrics. Based
on Oxford English Dictionary resistance is defined as the act, on the part of persons, of resisting, opposing, or withstanding. It is said that from 1417 to 1874,
usage of the term begins with resistance to enemies and Rights of Sovereignty and later shifts to national resistance. The emphasis of the term has moved from
individual acts to collective processes, and so has the meaning. It is then defined as organized covert opposition to an occupying or ruling power. Since then, the
definitions are increasingly associated with political struggle and against political institutions.
16
Despites of this contemporary definition more upcoming problems keep coming. Therefore one needs to position himherself to a certain position to
see this phenomenon. One can understand these concerns more through the post-colonial lense.
15
Jacobs, Steven. Rebel Music from Trenchtown to Oaktown: The Lyrics of Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur as Counter-hegemonic Culture,
p. 16.
16
Nordine, Manisha. Jammin with Resistant Music and Popular Culture in Bob Marleys Jah-Public, p. 17.
Here resistance action belongs to the context of struggles for independence from colonial and imperial governmental, in addition to ideological and cultural
forces.
17
To this we can add more specific forms of resistance ranging from struggles for human rights to civil rights, labor rights and equal gender rights,
environmental sustainability and anti-war movements. It is through this point of view that the writer sees Bob Marley and The Black Brothers works.
As what has been explained previously that in the contemporary use, resistance seems quite likely to be associated with politic. This general nuance of
political resistance can be narrowed down to three major modes of inquiry: cultural resistance, structural resistance, and ideological resistance.
18
Cultural resistance is distinguished by a sense of action, movement, creation and
demonstrative challenge that proactively seeks alternative forms of being, living, and critiquing. In this particular study, cultural resistance includes manipulation of
language and aesthetic. Structural resistance is distinguished by the challenge to dominant and institutionalized networks of political and media processes. It
highlights alternative forms of political mobilization and information distribution that is not readily recognized in formal structures. In this particular study it points
to how Bob Marley and The Black Brothers music and songs are disseminated and used as a tool of socio-political mobilization and information distribution.
Ideological resistance is defined as challenge to a system of beliefs and assertion derived from colonial and neo-colonial constructs that organize social existence. It
is a direct challenge to the colonial discourse that functions as an instrument of power articulated through assumptions and characteristics of modern society. The
17
Nordine, Manisha. Jammin with Resistant Music and Popular Culture in Bob Marleys Jah-Public, p. 18.
18
Ibid, p. 20.
clear example in this study is Bob Marleys message of unity, love and resistance as opposed to colonial discourses that uphold racial, and national divisions, street
violence, and oppression, and Black Brothers message of gender and labor equality as opposed to common discourses that uphold labor and gender
discrimination and inequality to the subordinate groups by the government. This particular section elaborates the function of language both verbal and
aesthetic as a form of cultural resistance. It explores the elements constructing an aesthetic appeal that Bob Marley and The Black Brothers use in their lyrics. The
realm of their language of resistance can be understood in the context of Jamaican and Papuan social and political history.
Based on the history of the oppressed or subordinate groups, the use of artistic resistance always seems to be the option. The oppressed or subordinate
groups tend to use language, dance, and music to mock those in power, express rage, and produce fantasies of subversion. Dances, languages, and music provide
communal bases of knowledge about social conditions, communal interpretations of them, and quite often serve as the cultural glue that fosters communal
resistance.
19
These forms of artistic resistance to the writers consideration can be viewed to be filled with hidden transcript as what is suggested by James Scott.
The voice of the oppressed or subordinate groups tends to penetrate the public sphere within the public transcript through artistic and cultural production such as
music, jokes, rumors, and folklores. In avoiding frontal confrontation with the ruling power the oppressed or subordinate groups manifold strategies to disguise
their resistance into the public transcript where it is accepted to be something
19
Jacobs, Steven. Rebel Music from Trenchtown to Oaktown: The Lyrics of Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur as Counter-hegemonic Culture,
p. 16.
which is not harmful. This ideological resistance is disguised, muted, and veiled for safetys sake.
20
Their vulnerability has caused them to avoid direct confrontation. This gives them a typical reputation to be cunning and deceptive in
disguising their criticism and protest.
21
When associated with social and political phenomenon, the music and song are usually accompanied by socially, politically, and religiously critical lyrics
and function as a form of protest or resistance music. Emerging from racially, economically, culturally, and politically marginalized society, the writer assumes
that Bob Marley and The Black Brothers as popular music artists would likely to use their song lyrics to facilitate consciousness of resistance among the members
of their respective social groups. However, under social and especially political conditions the frontal attacks on powerful groups can be strategically unwise or
even unsafe. These conditions affect the method Bob Marley and The Black Brothers would use in resisting the power domination.
This research conceptualizes the music and songs of Bob Marley and The Black Brothers to be contained with hidden transcript that manifested through
public sphere as a form of counter-power domination alternative and analyzes the selective lyrics of each artist as a critique of each artists respective social and
political order. The writer takes hidden and public transcript as the basic theory and emphasizes song lyrics to allow the artists voice to speak as their songs are
examined for critical messages of their social and political contexts during the time when their music emerged.
Hidden transcript is manifested within public sphere for safetys sake
20
Scott, J.C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p. 137.
21
Ibid, p. 136.
through rumor, gossip, disguises, linguistic tricks, metaphors, euphemisms, folktales, ritual gestures, and anonymity.
22
It is through them that the writer assumes song lyrics experience its affinity to literary realm.
The music and songs of Bob Marley and The Black Brothers were selected as the focus in this study because of the abounding similarities and engagement
between the social and political contexts. Both of them emerged from Black society who racially, economically, culturally and politically marginalized. The
parallel link between the two does exist in the acceptance of their context to be analogous. Each of them explicitly and implicitly speaks against the hegemonic
and oppressive colonial power domination. Despite it happened apart in different countries, both of them represent the social and political conflict in around the
same periods of time 1960s to 1970s. It was also the time of their musical career. They represent Black power movement which employs popular music as a form
of social and political critique.
4. The Analysis of Hidden Transcript in Bob Marley and The Black Brothers Songs
