Farewell and thanks for the conscience

News this week of the death of Pete Seeger, American activist and singer-song writer, left me in a place of introspection. Seeger (“We Shall Overcome”, “Turn, Turn, Turn” and innumerable more songs) was, more or less, the last of the generation of prophets that inspired the generation of prophets that inspired my generation. Okay: that’s a long daisy chain, and in any case, I’m hardly in the same prophetic league as the singer-songwriters, but we all live in our own shoes, and I guess as a stormy adolescent these were the voices that spoke to my angst, and I hope a spark or two remains in my belly.

Seeger never ceased to prick the conscience of the West. As my generation marched against the Springbok Tour we sang Seeger. Some years later, as we joined massive (but toothless) peace marches in Australia, we sang Seeger. Student protests since Seeger’s heyday have become more and more self-centred and obscure, a sort of devaluation of his remarkable and tenacious vision, but his songs will continue to be sung wherever human hearts long for a more just and equitable world in the face of human corruption and evil.

Seeger’s commitment to justice never failed. His belief in the labour movement in the 1940s, and ’50s, the anti-war movements of the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s and ’90s and … the  fight to clean up the Hudson River in recent decades, his battles against the corrupt and Neanderthal House Un-American Activities Committee … these were courageous battles against popularism, corruption, inhumanity and the dominant paradigm of selfishness. These were fights that put most of us to shame. Where most of us have stayed frozen like a possum in the headlights, Seeger actually had an impact on the world’s thought. His performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Obama’s inauguration may not have ushered in the Reign of God, but it was a symbolic reminder that we’ve come a long way since the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover.

So we farewell a prophetic voice—like that of Mandela not so very long ago. I personally thank God that there are still around us those prepared to stand in the line of the great Prophets, the Isaiahs and Jeremiahs and Hoseas and Amoses—and Jesus—who dare to speak with a voice akin to the voice of God. Seeger was 94, and that’s probably time to sing somewhere else. But thanks, big buddy, for singing, and for pricking the conscience of three generations.