Introduction:

Although farmers of Asia, Africa, and Latin America produced over half of the grain harvested worldwide during 1989-90, Patricia L. Kutzner in her 1991 work Contemporary World Issues: World Hunger points out that at least a billion people within those continents during that harvest period suffered from hunger. Today, nineteen years after institutional responses and media coverage on the world hunger crisis, this paradox, in which food exists in abundance amidst intensifying world hunger, still plagues the most vulnerable parts of the world. Download the attachment to read the full article.

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The Hungry and the Powerless

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 By Demitu Argo

Abstract

Music has been used across the world to express political discourse, social segregation, basic human rights, and conventional rules. Music's role in conveying the will to freedom and justice is widespread in the world in general and in Africa in particular. For instance, South Africa's freedom song Nkosi Sikele'l Africa (God bless Africa) played an important role in the struggle against apartheid. Similarly, music has played a pivotal role in the Oromo political resistance against successive Habasha tyrant governments. Music in the Oromo political struggle can be seen as a liberating force, which uplifts, inspires, and shows the way for people to take part in the struggle against injustice and inequality. Oromo musicians and songwriters used their lyrical messages to serve social causes, to make political statements, and to voice the plight of oppressed peoples. Oromo artists have been basing their messages on their unique style of music, with fiery sounds and traditional Oromo sounds to call for an end to violence and inequality in their own country, Oromia, where the Oromo have been brutalized and denied their basic human rights.

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Across this planet, people have used music in diverse ways. For many, music is not only an expression of merely one's culture; it is also a vehicle for vocalizing social and political outcries. Music has been used to artistically protest against unacceptable conditions and treatment, such as oppression and state repression, to communicate, to relieve psychological or physical stress and strain, and to relay significant political messages to the general masses. From the "We Shall Overcome" musical outcry of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. to the music of anti-Apartheid movements in South Africa, music has become a vital mode of social relief and political expression.