In 1982, acclaimed musician Peter Gabriel founded the World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival in the UK. WOMAD’s unique nomadic indentity evolved gradually during the eighties, and in 1988 began to be presented internationally with initial events held in Denmark and Canada. Since then, WOMAD’s worldwide profile has grown quickly with festivals now held in North America, South Africa, Japan, Australia and several European countries each year. In 1982, Peter Gabriel did not just create a world music festival – he created a worldwide phenomena.
For WOMAD, music is a universal language that allows audiences to gain an insight into cultures other than their own – something that today’s traveling masses can not get enough of. Building respect and understanding between people of different backgrounds, it is art and music’s ability to do such things that has allowed WOMAD to be seen as not just a festival of music, but as a way to help unite people of different cultures. Like a moth to a flame, this ability has drawn WOMAD together with major human rights organisation Amnesty International over the years in different ways.
Amnesty International has run many campaigns at WOMAD Reading over the years. In 2002, it collected over 10,000 signatures for its Respect Refugees campaign. But like two kindred spirits, WOMAD and Amnesty International’s connection goes way back.
Amnesty International, together with WOMAD founder Peter Gabriel helped organise the famous Human Rights Now World Tour in 1988. It featured Bruce Springstein, Tracy Chapman and Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour along with other famous performers from all over the world.
As with WOMAD, Amnesty International’s history is rich with interesting detail. Amnesty International was founded in Britain in 1961 when London lawyer Peter Benenson read about a group of students in Portugal who were arrested and jailed for raising a toast to ‘freedom’ in a public restaurant. The incident prompted him to launch a one-year campaign called ‘Appeal for Amnesty 1961’ which called for the release of all people imprisoned because of peaceful expression of their beliefs, politics, race, religion, or national origin. Benenson called these people ‘prisoners of conscience’. His plan was to encourage people to write letters to government officials in countries which held ‘prisoners of conscience’, calling for their release.
Where it originally fought for political and civil rights, Amnesty International has now grown to also defend cultural, social and economic rights. It is a worldwide movement of over 1.7 million people made up of supporters and subscribers from 150 countries in every region of the world.
Amnesty International was founded on the principle that people have fundamental rights that transcend national, cultural, religious, and ideological boundaries, and is based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Within time, the two Peters’ creations were drawn together, with each helping to further the humanitarian cause of the other. Amnesty’s presence at WOMAD festivals helps bring further awareness to the tales of exile, discrimination and violations of human rights experienced by the festival’s participating musicians and in countries around the world.
Like the success story of WOMAD itself, the special partnership between Amnesty International and WOMAD, both founded in the UK, has extended beyond its place of origin. In Australia, Amnesty International was the principal sponsor for WOMAD for the first time this year. Rob Brookman, Artistic Advisor of WOMAD Australia told Arts Hub recently: ‘With Amnesty there are just so many alignments in terms of the philosophy of that organisation and what we’re about. We’ve proudly worn our hearts on our sleeves right from the start of this festival, and now we’ve joined with someone else who does the same.’
‘In those kinds of cases it’s not just about money changing hands – it’s about jointly expressing a view of the kind of world that we would like to live in,’ said Brookman.
Mara Moustafine, National Director of Amnesty International Australia said the organisation’s link with the arts is a very important one. ‘It tends to be that the same sort of people who are interested in art are also interested in diversity and human rights issues,’ she says. ‘We looked at WOMAD in particular as such a natural fit.’
Moustafine hopes that the partnership will act as a model for other WOMAD festivals and Amnesty International organisations around the world, just as the continuing relationship between the two UK organisations helped inspire them.
‘We hope that WOMAD helps us draw attention to the fight for global human rights and inspires people to make a lasting commitment by becoming members, activists and human rights defenders,’ said Moustafine. She was joined at this year’s WOMAD Australia festival, which wrapped over the weekend, by Kate Gilmore, International Executive Deputy Secretary General for Amnesty International based in London.
Amnesty International will be campaigning for its Stop Violence Against Women campaign at WOMAD in the UK this year, led by Gilmore who oversaw the Australian operation. Artists involved in WOMAD will also tell their personal stories as human rights advocates, and the power of music to guide them. Such artists who did so in Australia included Inti Illimani who fled Chile after the Pinochet regime cut off the hands of their close friend, guitar player Victor Jara, in a stadium where 5,000 other dissidents were also murdered at the time. Or African music icon Abdullah Ibrahim who was exiled during the South African apartheid and now uses his music to empower people to take action. Or Youssou N’Dour who was involved in organising concerts for the liberation of Nelson Mandela, or the UK’s very own Eliza Carthy who works with refugee musicians.
WOMAD Reading will return to the banks of the River Thames from July 23-25. Line-up details will be available soon, and tickets are on sale from March 15.
More information on WOMAD Reading is available at www.womad.org/uk. To find out more about Amnesty International, go to www.amnesty.org.
