Rage Against the Machine - Township Rebellion Meaning
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Township Rebellion Lyrics
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At first it appears that ZDLR is raging against religion that is so focused on the cross, and its moral principles, that innocent non believers or nonconforming outsiders are therefore punished, ostracized, or killed. A reality throughout human history.
But here is a double meaning here. Those who persecuted Jesus were themselves too narrow minded to realize that he was their own messiah, so they killed him. They were focused on punishments, rules, their own righteousness, symbolized by the cross, a torture device, and therefore killed Jesus and all those purporting to be followers of Jesus for centuries.
So then the final refrain changes the pronoun from "their" and now says "shackle YOUR mind when YOU'RE left on the cross" so now your own mental shackles, your unconscious biases, your deeply unconscious prejudices, your blindness results in your own self destruction.
So it is not a critique of one particular instance of narrowmindedness, be it the harsh judgements of Christians, nor the destructive antireligiosity of Nazi nihilism, but of all forms of mental shackles which are used to justify persecution of others.
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