IT’S MUSIC TO THEIR FEARS
PLAY EXPOSES HOW SONGS ARE USED TO TORTURE From the Nazi death camps to Guantanamo Bay, prisoners have been subjected to one of the cruellest forms of punishment
THE singer Bob Marley once said: ”One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
But Marley hadn’t considered the capacity of humans to cruelly exploit music and use it as torture.
A new and darkly comic play Music is Torture explores how music has been weaponised in war, deployed by torturers, from the Nazis to African rebels to the CIA in Guantanamo Bay.
The play draws on the expertise of renowned Scottish musicologist Dr Morag Grant. It tells the story of a struggling producer who faces a Faustian dilemma when he discovers that his music is being used to torture political prisoners.
The play was written by acclaimed Scots singer Louise Quinn and is essentially about selling out. But it also looks at how people respond to global conflict and the politics of fear in the wake of terrorism.
Louise, whose group A Band Called Quinn appear in the show as the band Dawnings, said: “When Morag told me about her research, I found it hard to comprehend music being used in such a way.
“And when I researched artists’ responses to their music being used to torture political prisoners, I got an idea for a script.
“Some artists were shocked and horrified, while others weren’t bothered and there were those who were delighted their music was being used for this purpose.”
Under the Bush administration, music torture was commonplace in Guantanamo and at US secret prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The music used was American, anything from rock and metal to country and the official playlist issued to guards included Bruce Springstein’s Born in the USA, Babylon by David Gray and I Love You with Barney the kids’ purple dinosaur.
Some artists including Gray and Christopher Cerf, who wrote the music for Sesame Street, expressed outrage.
Rock band Rage Against the Machine sued the US government for royalties, in a show of protest.
Morag said: “It can be difficult to get the message out about the reality of torture, especially when it comes to forms such as music torture that to the uninitiated, might seem like a joke.
“We need to draw attention to this phenomenon. The enemy of torture is publicity and the more people know about these means of abuse, the less likely it will be used in the future.”
The damage caused by music torture cannot be overstated. Detainees often say it is worse than physical abuse.
Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in Guantanamo Bay, had his penis cut by a razor during interrogation but he knew the pain would end.
He feared more than anything the mental scramble of music torture, which he and others were subjected to round the clock for weeks on end.
Haj Ali, the hooded man in the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs, told of being stripped, handcuffed and forced to listen to a looped sample of Babylon at an ear-splitting volume.
Members of the IRA interned in Northern Ireland in the 1970s said loud noise, piped into their cells, was the worst aspect of imprisonment.
Detainees have spoken of music being imposed on them continuously but also intermittently to enforce sleep deprivation.
In many cases, prisoners were unable to tell how long they were subjected to music because they could no longer gauge time.
The music is not always chosen for its tone or harmony but its political connotations and ability to humiliate, such as when the Nazis forced communist prisoners to sing the Internationale as they dug their own graves.
Morag said: “I spoke to a man whose uncle had been forced to sing the songs of the political opponents who had imprisoned him.
“When released, he continued to sing the songs in private.
“He was terrified in case he was rearrested and had forgotten how to sing them.” Morag has studied music and its use in war.
Military music which we now associate with pomp and ceremony, was until World War I used in the battlefields. Scottish regiments played the bagpipes to rouse the troops.
In the civil war in Sierra Leone, rebel movement the Revolutionary United Front played loud music to instil terror as they advanced to pillage villages.
In Nazi concentration camps, prisoners, already weak and exhausted, were forced to sing while marching or in punishment exercises.
Morag said: “Singing is very physical and if you are being forced to sing for hours on end, it is physical abuse.”
In 2014, there were reports of Ukrainian POWs being ordered to sing Russian songs.
Another method of torture is playing music while a prisoner is being physically abused so it becomes a trauma trigger whenever it is played again.
Another technique is to use very loud music to drown out all other sound while a detainee is blindfolded and bound.
Morag said such sensory deprivation or overload can inflict horrendous psychological damage.
She added: “Those methods were used by the US security forces in the war against terror. They were also used in a number of dictatorships going back to the 60s.”
The UK was key in developing the barbaric techniques during experiments in the 1950s.
While the torturers may see such cruelty as a means to an end, it is an ineffective tool in the search for information.
Morag said: “If you think the purpose of torture is to get information or a confession, it really doesn’t work. If you accept that the real reason torture is used is cruelty, then yes, it is an extremely cruel thing to do.
“We know from a lot of people who have experienced it, that the use of music is one of the worst tortures. It is very damaging.” ●Music is Torture is at the Tron in Glasgow from May. Other venues follow. For tickets and info, see www. tromoloproductions.com/MusicIsTorture
The use of music is one of the worst tortures. It is very damaging MORAG GRANT