UN Day 2026 Songs of Freedom and Resistance

Christiaan Morssink, President UNAGP,  with support of David Gibson and edited by Audrey Park

AN INTERACTIVE BLOG of communal contributions.

The “Art” of Resistance in the (inter)national “Redress of Grievances”

Putting songs of struggle into the fabric of what makes the United Nations.

When the commission of five included 27 grievances in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776, they laid the groundwork for the first amendment that covers freedom of speech and the processes for redress of grievances. In 1572, the Dutch mostly used one grievance, the “tyranny” of the Spanish King and the Catholic Church (see Wilhelmus) and written in the style of a “psalmic song.” And in France the “Cahier de doléances” played a major role in the revolution that led to the establishment of the First French Republic. Recently, in 2002, Timor-Este became an independent nation after international intervention that broke the Indonesian ‘occupation’. An occupation that came about after the expression of grievances as in the referendum to seek independence. Maubere Timor expressed that in song.

Read the full blog, which includes links to songs of freedom and resistance from around the world here.