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| Rumors of War by Kehinde Wiley Photo: LSE |
I've listened to Bob Marley's song "War" many times, but I never paid particular attention to the phrase "rumors of war" until today, when I went to Richmond, Virginia, to see Kehinde Wiley's Rumors of War. It stands in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, on Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
The statue has been described as a response to the many Confederate war monuments that still stand in Richmond and other places around the U.S. (An equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general, stands just a few blocks away.)
Wiley's gorgeous and imposing statue portrays a contemporary African-American man riding a horse in this same European/American equestrian tradition. The artist's website says that the statue, along with a series of paintings also called Rumors of War, reflects "Wiley's interest in the aestheticization of power and masculinity."
According to Wikipedia, Wiley took the title "Rumors of War," from a bible verse. But I know the phrase from Bob Marley's classic song, and I wonder whether Marley took it from that same verse.
The lyrics of "War" consist almost entirely of a near-quote from Haile Selassie I's 1963 speech before the United Nations, in which he advocates for an end to international exploitation (particularly of Africa), equality for all, and nuclear disarmament. From what I can tell, the phrase "rumors of war" wasn't in his speech; Marley added it to the song.
Taken together, the phrase "rumors of war," its (possible) biblical source (Matthew 24:6-13), and the song's initial strident, minor riff create an air of prophetic doom -- but also some of the same militancy that I see in the statue.
"War" by Bob Marley
Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war
Me say war.
And until there's no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
Me say war
Until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race
Dis a war
Until that day
The dream of lasting peace
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued
But never attained
Now everywhere is war
War
And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola
In Mozambique, South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled
Totally destroyed
Everywhere is war
Me say war
War in the east
War in the west
War up north
War down south
War, war
Rumors of war
And until that day the African continent shall not know peace
We Africans will fight we find it necessary
And we know we will win
As we have confidence in the victory
Of good over evil...
War, war. Rumors of war.
I'm afraid that the growing disregard for human rights during the last few years has brought the possibility of war closer in this country.
Justice will not be put off forever. I begin to understand the power and the dread of the phrase "rumors of war."
But I also get chills whenever I hear that last verse.
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| Back view of Rumors of War by Kehinde Wiley. Photo: LSE |
