We are the youth -- we'll take your fascism away! The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, April 14th, 1999. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian Subscription rates on request. ****************************** By Bob Briton "We are the youth -- we'll take your fascism away!" So goes the opening line of alternative rock band "silverchair's" latest single "Anthem for the Year 2000" which is a protest at the growth of authoritarian politics and a commitment to fight back. The associated video clip, showing urban decay, riot police and screens filled with a hard faced female political figure leave little doubt what the band is referring to. Recently, another alternative rock band "Pearl Jam" released another single from their "Yield" album entitled "Do the Evolution". Its clip, done in something like the Japanese Manga style of animation, shows the history of human on human violence. The ultimate development is the super-exploitation of people in the workplace of the future, with cables running from the workers' bodies to computers which draw the life directly out of them. For some time now hip hop metal band "Rage Against the Machine" ("RATM") has been riding a crest of a wave of popularity for its explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-US imperialist music. Titles include "Vietnow" and "No Shelter". Guitarist Tom Morello has a hammer and sickle proudly emblazoned on his instrument and the foldout cover of the "Evil Empire" has a display of preferred reading material, Lenin and Guevarra included. These three instances are indicative of something which has been stirring in contemporary music that has finally become a major part of the scene. Overtly anti-capitalist and revolutionary song is back and while the bands referred to above are called, for convenience, "alternative", they are mainstream acts most popular in the 15-25 year bracket. For some time the right-wing backlash had its debilitating effect on contemporary lyrics. With a few exceptions, political sentiments were out. The occasional identification with a particular human rights or environmental issue was considered OK but in general labouring such efforts was met with disdain. Will anyone ever forget the hammering former "Police" lead singer Sting took for his championing of the cause of the Amazon rainforests? Finally, it would appear, disgust at the extent and severity of the social problems gripping the planet is finding its response in the music of the youth and this time young people are going to the root of the problems. So how serious is development? Is it a gimmick being used by bands to tap into growing youth radicalism? To some extent it's not very worthwhile pursuing the motivations for this political activity but there are indications that some groups have radical cred. Take the aforementioned "Pearl Jam", for example. Lead singer Eddie Vedder has for some time been the target of the misnamed "Pro-Life" movement in the US. In 1994, when supporting causes was considered unfashionable, he staged a benefit in memory of the surgeon Dr David Gunn who was murdered by anti-abortionists on March 10, 1993. His response to the attention he got from the right wing? "The left has a lot to learn from these guys. They need to get organised", he said.* Eddie also suffered for his stand against the US ticket monopoly Ticketmaster which had succeeded in putting the price of tickets beyond the band's mainly working class fans. The difficulty the band faced in organising tours without Ticketmaster and participating venues cost the band dearly in financial terms but increased their reputation for integrity and loyalty to their fans. Aside from the numerous benefits that "Rage Against the Machine" play for the various revolutionary causes they support (follow the links on the Complete RATM Website to the home pages of the Zapatistas and the Peruvian Communist Party!), band members frequently appear in the media in the course of their political activity. Tom Morello turned up in the pages of "Rolling Stone" magazine in March 1998 after his arrest along with 32 members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees when they blockaded a department store stocking Guess? apparel. Guess? stands accused of employing sweatshop methods. Morello bought into the issue because "the people who listen to Rage are the same people that Guess? is trying to sell their clothes to... [Guess?] is counting on the fact that people are too stupid to figure out the exploitation that goes on." Indeed, of the current batch of radical bands "Rage Against the Machine" is the most challenging lyrically. Some regular themes in the songs are police brutality; the unequal relationship between centres of developed capitalism and poor nations of the third world, the US and Mexico for example; the marginalisation of youth and minorities; and the mind control used to perpetuate this state of affairs. De La Rocha's songs demonstrate a deep knowledge of the history of the US and Latin America. This is not a band of the throw away slogan type. Have a look at their assessment of the consumer society and mass manipulation in the song "Bullet In The Head": No escape from the mass mind rape Play it again jack and then rewind the tape And then play it again and again and again Until ya mind is locked in Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say how high Ya brain-dead Ya gotta xxxxin' bullet in ya head How about the regional history described in "Zapata's Blood": On January 1st, 1994 The indigenous farmers of Southern Mexico Declared war on an unjust and illegitimate government Of the debt of the most wild, the most poor Came a just arm struggle for democracy, justice, and liberty And it won't stop until that 65 year old dictatorship, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional [Institutional Revolutionary Party] is buried in the ground and the people's voice is heard once again The band doesn't fall into the "bleeding hearts for the poor of the underdeveloped countries" category, either. The "Machine" that "RATM" describes is based and active within the borders of the USA. Typical of the anger at this state of affairs is "Know Your Enemy": Now I got no patience So sick of complacence With the D the E the F the I the A the N the C the E Mind of a revolutionary So clear the lane The finger to the land of the chains What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy? Yes I know my enemies They're the teachers who taught me to fight me Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite All of which are American dreams (8 times) And in "Memory of the Dead" we find a convergence of these objects of protest, i.e. the relationship between the US's military aggressiveness and mass misery on a world wide scale: wealthy vampires with the cold hands of executioners execute executive decisions determined to destroy what 1 million women, children, and men..... and with the ghost of Nixon present in their eyes they smiled. and pronounced the omnipotence of the free market the profits of profit extending the scourge of Columbus and Pizarro the freedom to buy things you can never afford the freedom for indians to buy corn that once flourished overgrown in their backyards the freedom to die of curable disease the freedom to watch their children's stomachs swell and burst the freedom to starve and die without land or liberty It really is hard to limit the selection of examples of RATM lyrics to convey the radical nature of their work. Maybe one more example from the song "No Shelter" should be the last word.: The main attraction - distraction got ya number than number than numb Empty ya pockets son; they got you thinkin that What ya need is what they sellin Make you think that buyin is rebellin >From the theaters to malls on every shore Tha thin line between entertainment and war The frontline is everywhere, there be no shelter here Speilberg the nightmare works so push it far Cinema, simulated life, ill drama Fourth Reich culture - Americana Keep in mind, too, that large numbers of young people are studying these lyrics, casting large slabs of them to memory and I think you'll agree what an important development these bands are, especially considering the long lean time we've just been through in this area of the arts. One more exciting aspect of this new generation of protest is that it is putting forward a radical alternative and is thinking about how to get there. An interview between "RATM" band member Tom Morello and well known anarchist media commentator Noam Chomsky is instructive in this regard. Morello asks a perfectly reasonable question of the 'seventies icon, namely: "What sort of society do you envision as one that would not be based on exploitation or domination and how would we get there from here?" To which Noam Chomsky gives the puzzling, uncomradely and none- too-credible reply: "I don't really understand the question. It's kind of interesting. I'm asked that question constantly in sort of privileged circles. I'm never asked it when I go to talk to poor people. Or say either here or abroad. They tell me what they're doing. Maybe they ask for a comment, but they don't ask how they do it. How you do it is very straightforward: you go out and do it. If you want a more free and democratic society, you go out and do it.''** I don't think another generation should be asked to buy the "blind activism" line all over again. It looks as though this generation is starting to demand straight answers. *Clark, Martin Pearl Jam & Eddie Vedder, None Too Fragile Plexus, London 1998 **From the text of an interview given on Radio Free LA available on the Complete RATM Website. "Peal Jam, silverchair" and "Rage Against the Machine" music available at all major stockists. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
