This is a rebel song: an obituary of Sinead O'Connor
Cover picture: Shuhada’ Sadaqat by Ellius Grace for the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/arts/music/sinead-oconnor-rememberings.html
By Carli Jacobsen
Sinead O’Connor authentically uses her music to encapsulate Irish, personal, and international struggle. Nothing can get past the lyrics of her music: she is always so sudden to express an often-taboo truth of controversies, but nonetheless is still held as the moral compass of Ireland, even after her death in late July. Her ruthlessness is best known from the moment she tore up a photograph of Pope Jean Paul II on a Saturday night live in 1992 to address child abuse in the catholic church. The outcries from the public for her provocative conversations never stood in the way of using her position as an artist to create and remind the world of resistance in Ireland. She boycotted the Grammy’s, refused to participate in the US national anthem, and whole heartedly used her screen-time to express her devotion for the refugees of Ireland.
She embodied Irish struggle and resistance, encouraging other Irish people to never turn a cheek to the injustices under Irish leadership, particularly in relation to the Catholic church, to which she was known as in Irish icon of resistance. She became a priest in Belfast, despite the Vatican’s rejection of women in such positions, but continued to bless and perform her duties to God and the people of Ireland as a religious activist that advocated for transparency and inclusivity in the Irish Catholic church, sharing her own experiences of queerness, bi-polar disorder, and abuse from her mother. Her experiences were shared as a reminder of the genocide against Ireland, and its long-term effects on mental health that she addresses in her songs.
From her album Universal Mother, Famine exposes the harsh treatment of the Irish people, addressing propaganda and the false narrative of the death of 1 million Irish people. Through listening to her albums in order of their creation, you embark on a journey of Sinead’s spiritual growth and become embraced in the inconsistencies of her identity through her music in parallel with her struggles of healing and of emotional peace. These inconsistencies are the utmost human cultivations of the self as written through song, but these inconsistencies are constantly made sense of through her ongoing radical critique of colonial and capitalist establishments. Her music tells a story of personal growth from a young and remaking Sinead, to a vengeful and will powered Shuhada’ Sadaqat, her name after converting to Islam in 2018, when she reclaims craziness and revitalises her musical talents that have only ever exacerbated love for the marginalised and shame for those in power that attempt to crumble resistance and revolution.
Sinead O’Connor at the Grotto in Lourdes, France, a Christian pilgrimage site (Michael Crabtree/PA):
We think of both Shuhada’ and Sinead as entangled identities that show unity in resistance, particularly between Ireland and Palestine. Ireland, as one of the few member states supporting a ceasefire regarding the Palestinian genocide, and as one of the only long-standing advocates for the liberation of Palestine since the Nakba in 1948. Both Ireland and Palestine have experienced genocide, oppression, censorship, and the stripping of resources as a human right, and these struggles see unity between both groups. Their flags are used interchangeably as symbols of resistance against struggle.
Shahuda, even before her conversion to Islam, stood up for the Palestinian liberation. In 1997, she wrote a letter to Israeli defence minister Ben Gvir to condemn the Palestinian occupation and condemn his actions as a leader, after he sent death threats to her and her band. More profoundly, her songs rewrite the Irish occupation. Through music, she has curated a new Irish history that expresses emotions of mourning, anger and hope, like the power of Palestinian music by musicians like Khamal Khalil, who plays with dawla to negotiate the violent power of occupation and complicity of both Israel and nearby Arab states and was arrested after his songs were played in the streets amongst activists and shabab, and curators such as Mo’min Swaitat’s Majazz Project, who has compiled tapes and vinyl's of revolutionary resistance music and cinema, mostly from Jenin in the West Bank.
The 11/11 March for Palestine in London, where over 800,000 people protested, making it one of the largest demonstrations in British History. Photo taken by author.
Through the contemporary work of Mo’min’s project, we can learn together about the importance of music to navigate violence and exile across political context, from Palestine to Sudan to Kashmir to the Congo. While Sinead’s music was not around to actively resist the Irish occupation, it tells a story today of a reclaiming of narrative that has previously written a famine ridden, barren, terrorist Ireland. Listening to resistance music today reminds us of ongoing political violence where revolution is simmering, using the poetics of national and cultural pride to challenge the dominant narratives that mislead us away from the streets on which we protest.
Extracted from my favourite song of hers, Famine, I share these lyrics, but recommend listening to her music remembering her influence both in Ireland, and in Palestine, especially in the context of the current political crisis that we all should be attentive to learn and understand.
And if there is ever gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding.