Post #3586445

Activist jingles like MARCOS MARCOS MAGNANAKAW can trace their roots to an ode to John Brown, abolitionist and and the greatest adventurist of all time who sparked the US civil war through a failed insurrection that accelerated the crisis. Its a song sung to liberate and conquer. JOHN BROWN'S BODY https://youtu.be/Q93V9pp10F0 Today is July 4, marking the day the Philippines got its independence from the United States of America. Because the song JOHN BROWN'S BODY was too radical, its lyrics were changed to valorize the USA as BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. https://youtu.be/sfuLrny00t4 While still a song sung against slavery (“While Christ died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”), it was this same song that soldiers would sing as they conquered the Philippines as they pillaged, murdered, tortured and raped. Mark Twain wrote a lampoon update to protest the conquest of the Philippines, particularly the brutal conquest of Mindanao. (“Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the coming of the sword”) https://youtu.be/U9C6fw9q1fo The song BATTLE HYMN was taught as a church song by preachers to Filipinos. Likely this is how the tune reached public conscious. https://youtu.be/nPAxL8GhsYY?t=406 Presumably the song was in the Philippines for a while and popular enough to be used as a jingle. For example BOYKOTIN ANG HALANAN and GLORIA GLORIA LABANDERA https://youtu.be/nPAxL8GhsYY?t=611 (GLORIA GLORIA LABANDERA has a dual meaning, first referring to the former president's corruption and accused money laundering, and also misogynistic classism similar to how “villain” used to mean the lowest and most wretched peasant caste.) So while John Brown's body does lie a mouldering in his grave, his soul do be marching on even in the Philippines, even as his memorial was recuperated as a song of conquest, it was detourned back by working people. https://youtu.be/KtKdsoozgZE