Stand Up and Be a Real Man: Patriarchal Patriotism in Songs About the USA’s War in Vietnam and South Africa’s Apartheid Border War

Yıl 2018, Sayı: 2, 137 - 162, 30.09.2018

Michael Drewett

Öz

This paper focuses on popular music and gender constructs in relation to two wars on different sides of the Atlantic, both of which began in the 1960s: The USA’s war in Vietnam which was fought in the 1960s and 1970s and South Africa’s border war which spanned three decades, from the 1960s to the 1980s. The fierce contest over the legitimacy of these two wars has been well documented. Both wars were justified primarily in terms of cold war logic according to which citizens were expected to fight to protect the way of life of their country. In the South African context the threat was much closer to home, and the cold war argument for the most part obscured the fact that it was a civil war, contesting white minority rule. In both instances men were expected to demonstrate their patriotism by fighting for their countries (in the Vietnam War only men who were drafted were expected to fight, whereas in South Africa all white men were conscripted). However, a secondary form of persuasion was the argument that real men went to war, only cowards stayed behind. In other words, war was a test of men’s patriar- chal patriotism.

Anahtar Kelimeler

müzik, politika

Kaynakça

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