Today there were sadly very few of us at the Book Club ( 5 only)

Yet, we had a very nice time listening to a few famous protest songs :

1. Bloody Sunday sang by U2 lead singer Bono, referring to a very sad event which happened on January 30th 1972 in Londonderry , Northern Ireland where English soldiers shot unarmed Irish protesters and killed 14 of them.

2. Zombie sang by the lead singer of The Irish group The Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan, protesting against all the killings in Ireland since 1916. We also evoked the situations in Indian, Palestine, Israel….

3. Asimbonanga , by South African singer Jhonny Clegg (the white zulu) in honour of Nelson Mandela. We also watched the video of a concert when Mandela comes on stage with Clegg and dances on this very famous song. That inevitably led us to speak about Nelson Mandela and South Africa. We mentioned the film Invictus

4. Another Day in Paradise, sang by British singer Phil Collins provided us with another type of protest: the ordinary man’s indifference towards the homeless.

5. Beds are Burning, by Australian band Midnight Oil (released in 1987) and raising awareness on climate destruction by men. The song protests against the asbestos mines in Australia which destroyed completely thousands of acres of land and killed many miners.

We have to say thank you to Michel who allowed us to sing along as he projected the lyrics on the screen and organised the music and videos.

Agnès