ABBA
In her 1994 collection, Finitude’s Score: Essays for the End of the Millennium, Avital Ronell reflects on the Iraq War. “Activist Supplement: Papers on the Gulf War” inscribes Ronell’s analysis on Lyotard’s “war pornography” in what “of course you know,” namely “that before they went up, fighter pilots were fed attack doses of pornography, which, together with drugs, helped them to drop on the feminized body of Iraq while protecting Kuwait from rape.”[1] “The fighter pilots,” she recalls in a different context, “amped up on drugs, watched pornographic videos, and listened to rock music as they headed out to bomb a highly symbolized ‘Mother Earth,’ feminized and rendered rapable.”[2] “In English,” Ronell concludes, “we heard an amalgam between Saddam, Saddamization, and sodomy.”
We are reminded of this military euphoria also by watching the White House’s ICE raids with their musical garnish,[3] and, most recently, by the jamming of the radio frequencies on board the Global Sumud Flotilla. It seems that someone — according to script, most likely the Israeli military — sent a love letter to Greta Thunberg last night. “Our boats were repeatedly attacked by military drones,” wrote Maria Elena Delia, the GSF’s Italian spokesperson, on Instagram. “They struck us with unknown but irritating substances, with sound bombs, and even with drones that deliberately damaged the masts of several vessels,” we read in Politico.[4] In a video posted by Yasemin Acar from the vessel Alma of the Flotilla, we can hear a song by the pop music band ABBA: “They’re jamming our radio… We do not know where this is coming from, the sound, but other vessels are experiencing the same thing.”[5] What might seem a mere coincidence leaves a rather sour aftertaste: many have noted that both Thunberg and the members of ABBA are Swedish. The song at issue is their 1980 hit, “Lay All Your Love on Me.”
While many relevant aspects of the attack might still be investigated, we can assert with a good degree of probability that, from “The Ride of the Valkyries” in Apocalypse Now, through the hard rock of the Gulf War, to ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me,” international war politics has turned pop, humorous, and rather tasteless at that. All in all, when we heard that “grab’em by the pussy” was just locker room talk, rather than dismissing the gravity of the statements because it was just “locker room,” in hindsight we should all have heard the alarms go off: we are directed into the locker room now.
Like a novel Antigone, heading to bury the dead and end the genocide, Thunberg seemed neither flattered nor intimidated by the (military) proposal. The Global Sumud Flotilla comprises about 50 vessels and a crew of over 500 outstanding people from more than 40 countries, carrying humanitarian aid for the population of Gaza. Twenty-two-year-old Greta Thunberg has been on the organizing committee until recently and is certainly the most visible figure worldwide taking part in the expedition. Needless to say, she is the symbol of climate activism, having quickly risen from sidewalks and chalk (“School Strike for the Climate”) to the UN. We also all know that her mother must have taken a ton of Tylenol — this Earth and its inhabitants thank you for that.[6] The minuscule Swedish target crossing the seas carries the memory of Greek tragedies with her — accordingly, she remains unscathed by anything that isn’t radical, and — as Arendt taught us — evil is, on the contrary, rather banal — sort of locker room talk.
We shouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t convinced by the ABBA’s love letter addressed to her, amid fireworks of drones and explosions. Let’s imagine the dialogue: >>“I wasn’t jealous before we met / Now every woman I see is a potential threat.”[7] Although I am personally all into Tasso’s love wrestling between Tancredi and Clorinda, the Gerusalemme Liberata in Thunberg’s mind surely looks different. >>“Don’t go wasting your emotion / Lay all your love on me.” The issue isn’t about passion and picking the right (Israeli or Palestinian) suitor so much as a matter of justice — that funny thing that doesn’t really relate to drones, bombs, or starvation. >>“It was like shooting a sitting duck.” This isn’t pretty. >>“A grown-up woman should never fall so easily.” So far, only drones and bombs fell — and perhaps your duck. >>“I feel a kind of fear / When I don’t have you near.” Amusing as this might be, let’s come to the key note: >>“And all I’ve learned has overturned / What can I do?” ABBA, as a palindrome, does not suggest significant overturning, but might remind the sender of the sense of cohabitation.[8]
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[1] Finitude’s Score, 302.
[2] Fighting Theory, 48.
[3] See for example the White House’s hit “Closing Time” remixed, as it were.
[4] Ketrin Jochecová, “Greta Thunberg’s Gaza aid flotilla swarmed by Israeli drones, crew says” in Politico, September 24, 2025. https://www.politico.eu/article/palestine-gaza-aid-flotilla-crew-drones-greta-thunberg/.
[5] Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vgBPd511ZXc. See also The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/24/greta-thunbergs-gaza-flotilla-attacked-by-abba-music/.
[6] By the way — surprise, surprise: Marina Dunbar, “WHO rejects Trump’s claims of link between Tylenol and autism,” in The Guardian, September 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/24/world-health-organization-trump-autism-tylenol.
[7] These are the lyrics to ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me.”
[8] Reference to Gen 34:16. See palindrome H5414 in the Blue Letter Bible. “Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.” https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=%D7%95%D6%B0%D7%A0%D6%B8%D7%AA%D6%B0%D7%A0%D7%95%D6%BC&t=WLC#s=s_primary_0_1.
