Are we ready to make nice?

"I'm not ready to make nice

I'm not ready to back down

I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time

To go 'round and 'round and 'round

It's too late to make it right

I probably wouldn't if I could

'Cause I'm mad as hell, can't bring myself

To do what it is you think I should

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby

With no regrets and I don't mind sayin'

It's a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her

Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger

And how in the world can the words that I said

Send somebody so over the edge

That they'd write me a letter, sayin' that I better

Shut up and sing or my life will be over..."

On 10 March 2003—days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq—the Dixie Chicks’s lead singer and Texas native Natalie Maines said onstage in London: “We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”

Supporters of Republican President George W. Bush erupted in outrage. The Chicks had been at the top of the country music world at the time. Country radio stations stopped playing their music after thousands of people called in to complain about the group. They were not only financially impacted. There were attempts to stifle their creativity. Worst of all their physical safety and safety of their families was threatened. There were death threats. Yet, the Chicks literally said no, we’re not gonna say sorry, we did nothing wrong.

What is interesting is that this song was hijacked or misappropriated in summer 2024 by American conservatives who lashed out against Democrat supporters for the following reasons:

“Female rage is seeing women say they’re voting for Kamala because ‘she’s a woman and for my daughter’s future.’ But what about the women who’s [sic] lives and future were taken by illegal immigrants because of Kamala’s failure to be the Border Czar?”

“Using this song because this is exactly how the liberal party is treating conservatives…”

And this is telling. The song resonated and still resonates deeply.

In 2003 I was a 26 year-old, naïve peacenik, looking or a career, curious about the world but working from the comfortable Palais des Nations, as the war on Iraq began to unfold. The spin being developed in the run up to the invasion was fascinating to observe. David Kelly’s accusations on BBC of the whole weapons of mass destruction being “sexed up”, his subsequent suicide, scenes of Kofi Annan desperately trying to broker something other than war, Tony Blair, Bush, Colin Powell… men with toys along with Condoleeza Rice in the background cheering them on. My young academic brain which had written a Masters thesis on sanctions, with Iraq as a case study, was very tuned in to the impending disaster. Yet, being young, the observations still felt distant, remote, compartmentalised into an academic “professional” world.

I remember feeling torn about it, instinctively being very against it, feeling it was wrong, that we were being sold smokescreens and a Western moral glory over the barbarism of others. And yet friends from the transition states of central and eastern Europe were all for “taking down a dictator” based on their own experiences of growing up under authoritarianism. Young colleagues from mainly western countries went out to demonstrate against the war. I held back due to personal difficulties then and also by convincing myself that it wasn’t up to me or my business even if I knew what the medium and long term consequences of the war would be. I prioritised my personal commitments then and felt an international civil servant had to be “neutral”. My own little country had given me good training on that.

As we watched events unfold, the capture of Saddam Hussein, his execution, and how all this played out at the UN alongside other wars and attacks, my then partner turned to me and said, “The UN will pay the ultimate price.”  The UN did pay heavily in the short term too—several personnel, including the top official, did so with their lives.

When The Dixie Chicks released this song in 2006, I went out and got the album. I was 30, in my stable home country in Asia and still angry that this war happened and that another one was being waged in Lebanon. I bought a t-shirt from the US that said “We will not be silent” in Arabic and English to protest against the racial profiling, dehumanisation and paranoia that had become pervasive in the Western “war on terror”.

Fast forward almost two decades later and that song was still ringing in my head when I quit my corporate job, joined the peace movement in Munich and learned that MAGA supporters were using it.

Now almost 50, I see the multifaceted struggle and how this song encapsulates the spirit of women feeling gaslighted and misunderstood. It is also a song of saying “khallas, enough”. It is empowering and a good old “fighting bitch” feeling. It’s a few days to the US elections and even the female Democrat candidate doesn’t represent the women she says she does. But neither does Trump. There is actually a woman running who would represent hope and real change but she is already discredited only for being an outsider who does not play ball. So, for me, the song represents all of us, who like Jill Stein, struggle against the machinery and system that is propped up by good people who eventually join the zombies and unthinkingly drive the systems that perpetuate injustice and oppression, not just for women but everyone else. It resonates for me as I listen to long time feminists in this country express anger or reservations about loud angry women, who are watching the livestreamed genocide of their folk back home, because those loud angry women will not denounce a terrorist group. It's like expecting my distraught Russian friends to denounce their government. But I do the same. I expect my confused German friends and family to denounce their government's policies, loudly.

Remember, nothing is black and white. It’s not just the patriarchy but the kyriarchy (thanks @Kirthi). You can stand up for civil liberties, human rights, women and girls affected by violence, and still respect the angry feelings of those who say “khallas, I'm not ready to make nice I'm not ready to back down I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time To go 'round and 'round and 'round. It's a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger…”

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