With My Hammer I Break the Chains
This week's song is With My Hammer I Break the Chains, by Seize the Day.
If you’d like to hear the song before you read the background, please do:
Below, you'll find my interpretation of the lyrics. I've written the lyrics in italics. As with most everything, there are many ways to interpret things. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to join my Substack newsletter and join the discussion! For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.
No prison can contain
The freedom that we gain
When we move through fear
(627 words)
Background
East Timor had been a Portuguese colony. During WWII, Japan occupied East Timor but ended its occupation at the end of the war. Portugal resumed the control it had had until 1974. There was fighting among East Timorese political groups, and Indonesia invaded the country in 1975, saying that the land was now part of Indonesia.
The Indonesian occupation was extremely violent, with some estimates reaching 200,000 deaths.
The song
The song begins with the voice of a woman in East Timor who is asking for help from people around the world. There are not enough of us prepared / To put our lives at risk time and again refers to the people of East Timor who resisted Indonesian occupation. But there is a limit to how many lives they would be able to sacrifice.
And then comes a drop of rain / To the parched lips of a world that needs to feel hope again could mean that, because there were people in other countries - in the UK in particular - who were willing to take action, the East Timorese felt a little sense of hope.
The woman explains how they are dying as a people and a nation / A third of our people have been killed in 21 years / Of illegal occupation, but that Indonesia refused to comply with UN requests for withdrawal.
Again, she pleads, "If you are really human / You'll stop them sending these weapons to our shore!" The weapons she refers to are, for example, Hawk jet fighters that were sold by the UK to Indonesia for use in East Timor during the occupation."
The chorus of the song is told by the four women who refused to be silent about what was happening in East Timor. They planned and took action to damage the jets.
The songwriter explains that under British law, weapons cannot be sold abroad for the purpose of supporting murder, rape, stoning, or torture. The British government knew, though, that selling weapons made a lot of money and provided jobs for many British workers, All the people that you paid to make the jet fighters.
The four women, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, Lotta Kronlid and Angie Zeltner, formed a ploughshares (1) group called Seeds of Hope. They worked together for a year before putting their plan into action.
As the lyrics describe the event, one early morning in January, they went to the BAE (British Aerospace) manufacturing plant in Wharton. Once they managed to get through the fence and into the building, the only sounds they heard were the sound of singing hammers / The hanging of banners, the scattering of seeds and ashes / On its wings (of the Hawk jet).
The women were arrested for the damages and sent to prison for six months. However, the jury's verdict was "not guilty". Under British law, it is permissible to use reasonable force to prevent a crime. The women argued that they were preventing a crime against the East Timorese people.
And so, there was cause for celebration: Dancing laughing praying weeping crying.
They were celebrating in East Timor as well.
The last lines of the song express the pride that these women felt about the actions they had taken to help the people of East Timor:
With my hammer I broke the chain I did not remain in silence
After the occupation
In 1991, the Indonesian military massacred 200 people. International outcry resulted in UN involvement. A multinational peacekeeping group was sent to East Timor to help refugees return.
Since 2002, East Timor has been recognized as an independent country and is a member of the United Nations.
Andrea Needham has written a book, The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed a War Plane . You can read more about their actions at:
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2015/10/seeds-of-hope-east-timor-ploughares-book/
VOCABULARY
occupy 占拠
resume 続行中
extremely 最も
violent 激しい
parched 涸れ涸れ
comply 従う
withdrawal 撤退
plead 申し立てる
rape 強姦
stoning 石打ち刑
torture 拷問
jet fighters 戦闘機
scatter 散乱
ashes 灰
jury 陪審員団
verdict 評決
permissible 許容
pray 祈る
weep 泣く
massacre 屠殺
outcry 非難
refugee 難民
Sources
Meaden, Bernadette. A farewell to the arms trade. 1997. Wild Goose Publishers, Glasgow.
(Pages found on Google Books at: https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=n7BLUjvwHwUC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=what+was+the+reaction+of+the+people+in+east+timor+upon+hearing+the+verdict+of+the+ploughshares+4&source=bl&ots=BzzQAg7UYB&sig=ACfU3U0P9qBp2j_aOVqIFH2yFmx8qhDGlw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj75Iyn4s39AhULN94KHaHOD60Q6AF6BAg_EAM#v=onepage&q&f=false)
(1) The Ploughshares movement is a peace movement that takes action to damage weapons and military property. It encourages active resistance to war and nuclear weapons in particular.
