During the 1932 Outdoor Relief protests in Northern Ireland, wherein striking workers clashed with police over inhumane standards of unemployment relief and welfare accessibility, both Protestants and Catholics, who have a long history of violence and tension in the region, came together as workers to oppose unfair standards from a government catering to capital.
The issue was… radio and recorded music itself was fairly new - most people learned songs locally, from their communities. And the communities in Northern Ireland were very much divided by religious sect. There were few songs that the majority of Catholics and Protestants knew well enough to sing together - most songs would have an implicit or explicit religious or national bias, and both of those were fighting words in Northern Ireland. Yet singing together, in our strange human way, brings us strength and solidarity. What were the protesters to do?
Luckily, a simple, silly, and catchy American song had become popular in Europe the past decade - “Yes! We Have No Bananas!” - so wildly popular that both the Catholics and Protestants knew it.
So a silly song became part of workers’ solidarity. True praxis from our comrade fruit seller!
As I noted in a meme earlier today:
This song is really catchy! :) Makes sense that it was popular. Now I wanna hum it while throwing rocks at police for better wages.
They’re a lot cheaper than soup for the family. But still plenty effective.