March for the Alternative in London

Some reflections on last Saturday's anti-cuts March for the Alternative in London (March 26th)... I knew it really was going to be a big one from the moment I left home. The fact of the demonstration was everywhere, graffiti, stickers, a bus full of people talking about the demo. I knew it was going to be bigger still when I got to Kennington Park to join the South London feeder demonstration (see pictures here). This was organised independently of the main demonstration, and the police had contacted the organisers in the week to urge them to cancel it, claiming it would be a tiny failure. In fact by the time we reached Westminster Bridge there were at least two thousand people on it, and I was already noticing that it wasn't just the usual political and union activists - there was my daughter's music teacher, some random people from work, even the guy who sits drinking at the corner of my road.

We crossed Westminster Bridge to the sounds of Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley version) on a bicycle sound system. I assumed we must have been near the start of the march because the crowd stretched as far back along the Embankment as I could see. But then I heard that the front of the demonstration had already reached Hyde Park.

The size of the crowd has been estimated as half a million, significant for a number of reasons not least of which is that this big a demonstration is almost beyond the need for representation. A small protest is to an extent dependent on the media to communicate its intent to the wider public, but in this case a good proportion of the public were actually there or would know somebody else who was. Half a million is more than one per cent of the adult population of Britain, and everyone who was there can probably think of 4 or 5 people who said they intended to go but couldn't because of family commitments, illness or other reasons.

The core fact of the demonstration - that a huge number of people are opposed to the cuts and are beginning to take action against them - was viscerally felt by everybody who was there, not to mention the many other people in central London who saw it. And many other people who weren't there would have heard about if first hand from somebody who was. In this context the fact that some of the press and TV coverage may not have accurately reported what happened is arguably less significant.

'Millionaire Boys Club' - 'Tax is for the little people':

Trafalgar Square - 'Strike like an Egyptian':

Much of the commentary since the march has focused on a supposed distinction between the peaceful main demonstration, the non-violent direct action of UK Uncut (including the occupation of posh food store, Fortnum and Masons in Piccadilly) and riotous 'Black Bloc' anarchists. Of course a great diversity of tactics was in evidence and not everybody agreed with everything that was going on , but things were much more fluid than a categorisation of the crowd into three distinct blocs would suggest.

There were thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people, who headed off the main march route into the West End with a sense of wanting to take things a stage further than just a rally in Hyde Park. All round Mayfair, Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square there were people in the streets. This crowd was much more diverse than just young people in black, all kinds of folk were hanging around caught up in the excitement. A sense too that while not everybody was up for it, many were glad that people younger, fitter and with less to lose than them were acting out the rage they felt.

The actual violence was fairly sporadic and limited, as was the window breaking - what was much more widespread was a diffuse sense of wanting to go beyond business as usual.

Sound Systems

Lots of sound system action - ranging in sophistication from back packs, via speakers in bike baskets to sophisticated bike trailers. Thought I saw Rinky Dink Sound System, one of the original cycle powered rigs from Reclaim the Streets in the 1990s.

There was a sound system next to the line of riot police outside the occupied Fortnum and Mason's (above), and while I was there another one cycled past seemingly called the Tolpuddle 6 sound system, complete with pictures of the Dorset agricultural workers transported to Australia for starting a union in the 1830s. They were playing Got to be Real by Cheryl Lynn, great 70s disco classic and indicative of the diverse music being played on the day. I heard drum & bass, dancehall, reggae, punk, techno and dubstep - including this guy doing human beatbox wobbly bass dubstep in Trafalgar Square:

Back pack sound system:

Sound system in a push chair:

Tolpuddle 6 Sound System:

Also heard reports that at Oxford Circus the crowd chanted the Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers theme at police - as widely used on the student protests before Christmas.

Justice for Smiley Public Meeting

An electrifying event at Lambeth Town Hall tonight, the first public meeting of the Campaign for Justice for Smiley Culture. By 7 o'clock, when the meeting started, the hall was packed. The 300+ seats were all filled, and the sides and back full of people standing. Many more people were outside the hall unable to get in - no idea of the crowd size but it was more than 500. As it was only last week that the great reggae MC died during a police search of his house, the turn out was particularly impressive. The meeting was chaired by Lee Jasper, joined on the platform by the speakers and members of Smiley Culture/David Emmanuel's family, including his brother, son and daughter. After a minute's silence Bishop John Francis of Ruach Ministries launched the proceedings with the statement that 'Smiley's blood is crying out for justice' (incidentally Francis is a man with a musical history himself, as a member of the Inspirational Choir which sang on Madness's Wings of a Dove among many other things). Mike Franklin of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who is overseeing the investigation, outlined the current state of play. He confirmed that the only witnesses were four Metropolitan Police Officers with no independent witnesses at all. His claim that the most sophisticated resources would be available for the investigation was met with a cry of 'Lie detector' from the floor, which got a huge cheer. Franklin has some local credibility as a former black community activist, so was received politely if not with enthusiasm. Later a speaker from the United Friends and Families Campaign, which has supported other families of people who have died in custody, denounced the IPCC for helping the police cover up. Merlin Emmanuel, Smiley Culture's nephew, gave a powerful speech. Without speculating on exactly what happened last week, he was clear that David Emmanuel would be alive today if police hadn't searched his house, and if, having raided the house they had followed their own guidelines of keeping the person secure while they carried out the search. Like most of the speakers, he was clear that this wasn't an isolated incident but formed part of a pattern of racism and injustice. He mentioned the Brixton uprising and the New Cross Fire of thirty years ago, and described his own family's experience of moving from Brixton to Thamesmead at the time of the murders in that part of London of Rolan Adams (in 1991) and Stephen Lawrence. He offered his condolences to the family of Iain Tomlinson, killed by police on the G20 protest in 2009 - 'The people of South London and the wider community stand with you in solidarity' - and mentioned that around 400 people have died in police custody in last 10 years. He confirmed that a demonstration was planned on April 16th from Wandsworth Rd (where David Emmanuel grew up in Stockwell) to Scotland Yard police headquarters and proclaimed that 'Unity is free and by far the most potent weapon we have at our disposal'. Asher Senator, Smiley Culture's orginal lyrics partner and like him a Saxon Sound System MC, recalled that their first photo interview, with Black Echoes magazine, had actually taken place in the very building where the meeting was held tonight. He mentioned that a couple of Smiley Culture tribute tracks were already being recorded, one a song written by Maxi Priest with possible guest singers, the other a track called Smiley Culture's Character Reference which he recorded last night at Commander B's studio. He performed some of that tonight and it was amazing, weaving his own lyrics and memories around some of Smiley Culture's lyrics from tracks like Cockney Translation, Police Officer and Slam Bam. It got a desrvedly good response, with people banging the wooden panels of the meeting room. There was an emotional speech from the mother of Wayne Hamilton, found dead in a canal in Sheffield last year after being chased by police. Many other families have suffered like David Emmanuel's family are suffering now, the difference is this time the dead man is known throughout the world. This is one death the police and the IPCC aren't going to be able to sweep under the carpet.

Loleatta Holloway (1946-2011)

Disco legend Loleatta Holloway died last night at the age of 64. For me, her best tracks were on the great Salsoul label in the 1970s, including Hit and Run, Catch me on the Rebound and my personal favourite Runaway (put out under the name Salsoul Orchestra featuring Loleatta Holloway)



Ironically her voice is probably best known to UK listeners via a track she wasn't even credited with singing on. In 1989, Ride on Time was a massive number one hit for italian piano-house producers Black Box. The track was built around vocal samples from Loleatta Holloway's Love Sensation, but Holloway was unaware of this until she heard it. She took legal action and managed to secure a share of the income.

It has been suggested that Black Box themselves were unaware of the origin of the vocal:

'It is also worth noting that Black Box were just as surprized as Holloway was to find out who actually sang the vocal. The vocal track was in all likelihood lifted from an unlabelled bootleg of a capella mixes on the album 'DJ Essentials Inc. Acappella Anonymous Volume 1' which included more than a dozen instrument-free vocals, among them Loleatta Holloway's 'Love Sensation'. A careful listen to a number of songs around the same period - including German-based duo Snap's UK Number One 'The Power' which features an ad lib from Jocelyn Brown's 1986 single 'Love's Gonna Get You', and Manchester's Happy Mondays' 'Hallelujah', which uses samples from The Southroad Connection's 'In the Mornin' - reveals that the vocals were all taken from this very same album' (Tony Bennett, Rock and popular music: politics, policies, institutions, 1993).

I do find it hard to believe that discophile producers could have been totally unaware of Loleatta Holloway, and to add insult to injury they used a model to mime the vocals in the video. But notwithstanding that, the affair raised some interesting questions in those early days of sampling. On the one hand, sampling seemed to offer a limitless horizon in which the whole of recorded culture was up for grabs. I defended the right of KLF to rip off samples from Abba and others in the same period on the basis that they were subversively detourning popular culture. On the other hand it was notable that sampling was reproducing the earlier pattern of popular musics, whereby mainly white record companies, producers and artists got rich on the backs of the unrewarded and unrecognised creativity and labour of black singers and musicians. In this respect, sampling was just the new face in the ongoing plunder of black musical cultures.

Still Loleatta Holloway made sure she (belatedly) got her dues, and did ultimately benefit from the exposure. As Matthew Collin recalls in his book Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House, she was paid to perform at some of the massive acid house raves of the late 1980s, notably in October 1989 at a Helter Skelter party attended by 4,000 people in 'a muddy, ploughed field in Oxfordshire. The incongruity was sweet, seeing these dance music icons climbing up a rickety ladder onto the back of a flat-bed lorry - in open farmland! - to sing and play. There was Loleatta Holloway, the lead singer on scores of classic Salsoul disco anthems, who seemed almost scared of the mob of brightly-coloured lunatics thrashing in front of the stage'. Ce Ce Rogers and KLF also played.



See also Ben Beaumont Thomas in The Guardian: 'Holloway's voice, however, full of strident indignation and volcanic sexuality, is always the dominant force in her songs, going toe to toe with even the most pounding pianos and lushest orchestras. But the key to her appeal is that she doesn't push herself too far to the front. The pleasure of listening to divas like Whitney or Rihanna is that it's an aspirational experience – women want to be them, men want to be with them. Holloway is a different proposition: a collective experience, of mutual understanding and shared joy. She takes the utopian ideals of clubland – sex, community, abandon – and massively amplifies them back at the dancers, singing to each one of them and the club as a whole. As her voice surges onto and fills the dancefloor, it really does feel like we're all getting stronger'.

South London Street Art

Skateboarding park on the South Bank, pictures taken September 2010

Smiley Culture RIP

Shocking news of the death of Smiley Culture (real name David Emmanuel) in a police raid today. According to the Voice: 'The Police Office singer, real name David Emmanuel, is believed to have stabbed himself after officers raided his home in Warlingham, Surrey, earlier today. He was due to face trial after being charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine in September last year alongside four others. A spokesman for the Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed they were now investigating a “death following police contact”. The 47-year-old, born and raised in south London, rose to fame as a DJ with the Saxon Studio sound system'.

He will always be remembered for his two great hits of 1984/5:

Police Officer

''Police Officer' described a street confrontation between Smiley and police who stopped and searched him. The song's chorus referred to the pattern of petty harrassment in which officers carrying out a stop would arrange for black drivers to have to produce their driving documents at a police station even if nothing appeared to be amiss with their vehicle'

Cockney Translation



'The implicit joke beneath the surface of the record was that though many of London's working class blacks were Cockney by birth and experience (technical Cockney) their 'race' denied them access to the social category established by the language which real (i.e. white) Cockneys spoke. 'Cockney Translation' transcended the 'schizophrenic' elements which composed the contradictory unity that provided the basic framework for a potential black Britishness. The record suggested that these elements could be reconciled without jeapordising affiliation to the history of the black diaspora... The record contains a veiled but none the less visible statement that the rising generation of blacks, gathering in the darkened dance-halls, were gradually finding a means to acknowledge their relationship to England and Englishness. They were beginning to discover a means to position themselves relative to this society and to create a sense of belonging which could transcend 'racial'/ethnic, local and class-based particularities and redefine England/Britain as a truly plural community. They were able to express their reluctant affiliation to it in the same breath as their ties to the African diaspora'

(quotes from Paul Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, 1987)

'Cockney say Old Bill we say dutty babylon'

Updated 16 March, see also:

- Future Next Level: 'he was the grandfather British MC. He started a lineage that can be followed through the Hip House MCs of the late 80s and early 90s, through jungle MCs, UK Hip Hop and to acts today such as The Streets and the grime-gone-pop acts that dominate today’s charts. Indeed, without Smiley, the very idea that it might be possible to be successful with lyrics about the black urban experience may never have been planted. Today the pop charts are littered with these voices'.

- Lee Jasper asks critical questions about his mysterious death.

- Dotun Adebayo in the The Guardian: If Smiley hadn't made it cool for black Brits to chat "British" on record UK rappers would probably still be chatting "yankee" and there would have been no UK vocal flava to drum and bass, two step, dub step or grime. There would be no Dizzie or Tinie Tempah'.

- John Eden at Uncarved.

- Transpontine on his South London roots.

Jackie Wilson's Melisma - 20 notes for the word 'for'

'The extent to which the music is integrated with the literal meaning in soul is apparent in some of its basic stylistic conventions, the call and response structure, for instance, where a phrase from the lead vocalist - which may not even take a verbal shape - is as often echoed by the band as by other singers. Or the distinctive use of melisma - the concentration of several notes into one syllable - by soul performers. The effect of this technique is often to give the impression that the singer is none too sure that the words exist which could adequately convey the power of what he is feeling. When Jackie Wilson packs more than twenty notes into the word "for" in his version "Danny Boy", the literal meaning of the song is virtually superseded' (Ian Hoare, Mighty mights spade and whitey: soul lyrics and black-white crosscurrents, in The Soul Book, edited by Ian Hoare, London: 1975)

Check out the closing bars of this song for the example given - 20 notes for the word 'for':

Birmingham 6

Twenty years ago today - Thursday 14 March 1991 - I was standing in a crowd outside the Old Bailey in London waiting for the release of the Birmingham 6. It was very moving to see the six finally released from prison after 16 years, three months and 21 days in prison for crimes they hadn't committed, but also sad to see these grey haired men who had spent so much of their lives behind bars.

'The news took a minute or two to reach the street - but when it did there was an explosion of noise that sent the pigeons fluttering away in a panic. Some 500 campaigners and friends were wild with joy; there was dancing in the street. They quickly pushed police barriers aside to swarm the Old Bailey's entrance, hugging any relative of the Six they could spot' (Independent, 15 March 1991).

Their's was just one of a number of high profile 'miscarriage of justice' cases from that era in which Irish (Birmingham 6, Guildford 4, Maguire 7) and black people (Tottenham 3) were framed by police and courts. Sure those were different times - with the Irish conflict leading to terrible events on all sides, not least the IRA bombings of the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs in Birmingham in November 1974, in which 21 people died (for which the B6 were wrongly convicted). But in the last couple of years we have seen a man killed by the police and nobody charged (Ian Tomlinson on the G20 protests) and today comes news that 'The policing watchdog is investigating claims that officers colluded in the false arrest of a protester during last year's student demonstrations in London. The Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed today that it is looking into the circumstances in which a man, who has not been named, suffered a facial injury and was arrested last December'. So keep on your guard.

The Pogues famously released a song Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham 6 that was banned from the airwaves in 1988 under the Conservative government's recently introduced Broadcasting Ban. Home secretary Douglas Hurd used powers under the BBC's Licence and Agreement and the 1981 Broadcasting Act which governs ITV companies, to forbid TV and radio from carrying interviews or direct statements from the IRA, Sinn Féin, and those who 'support or invite support for these organisations'. The Pogues were judged to fall into the latter category and the 'Independent Broadcasting Authority' ruled that the song alleged that "convicted terrorists are not guilty, the Irish people were put at a disadvantage in the courts of the United Kingdom and that it may have invited support for a terrorist organisation such as the IRA".



There were six men in Birmingham
In Guildford there's four
That were picked up and tortured
And framed by the law
And the filth got promotion
But they're still doing time
For being Irish in the wrong place
And at the wrong time
In Ireland they'll put you away in the Maze
In England they'll keep you for seven long days
God help you if ever you're caught on these shores
The coppers need someone
And they walk through that door

You'll be counting years
First five, then ten
Growing old in a lonely hell
Round the yard and the stinking cell
From wall to wall, and back again

A curse on the judges, the coppers and screws
Who tortured the innocent, wrongly accused
For the price of promotion
And justice to sell
May the judged by their judges when they rot down in hell

May the whores of the empire lie awake in their beds
And sweat as they count out the sins on their heads
While over in Ireland eight more men lie dead
Kicked down and shot in the back of the head

(the final two lines refer to the Loughall ambush of 1987 in which seven IRA members and a civilian were executed by the SAS)

Gaddafi Occupations 1986 and 2011

Great to hear tonight of the occupation of the mansion in Hampstead, north London, belonging to Saif Gaddafi - son of the hopefully soon to be late Colonel. 'Topple the Tyrants' have squatted the place and put up banners including one with a picture of Gaddafi saying 'Out of London, Out of Libya'.

Put me in mind of an earlier occupation, the squatting of the abandoned Libyan People's Bureau(an Embassy building), initiated by people around anarcho-punk prankster band God Told Me To Do It in 1986. There's a nice account of the squatting of the place - and expropriation of its contents - by Anna Marrian at Animal Farm:

'We secure the door and explore the building, staying away from the windows. It’s four floors of 30-foot ceilings, ballroom sized rooms with plush carpeting and heavy velvet curtains, mahogany desks, button-backed leather sofas and office equipment stacked up in the end of each room. A shroud of dust everywhere... I get everyone from the St. John’s Street squat and drive back to the Libyan People’s Bureau intact. It’s dark and the side street is deserted. Andy and the others disappear inside and reappear thirty minutes later carrying one of the green leather sofas out the back door. This is followed by several photocopiers, curtains, fax machines, telex machines, leather executive office chairs, handfuls of books written in Arabic. The van is stuffed to the ceiling'.

Also came across this account: 'It had been vacant after someone inside the embassy fired on a group of demonstrators and killed a policewoman. After that, the whole staff refused to cooperate in any investigation and returned to Libya, leaving the building vacant. Enter squatters. I went to one of their parties. I remember one skinhead girl trying to balance as many copies as possible of Quadaffi's Little Green Book on her head'.

Of course in those days, Libya was a pariah state following the shooting dead of PC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984, as Embassy staff opened fire on anti-Gaddafi demonstrators in London. Since then, without any change in regime, Gaddafi has acquired quite a fan club - shaking hands with Tony Blair and his son Saif feted at the London School of Economics and by the British Royal Family. Everybody from Anthony Giddens (social democratic theorist of the Third Way), the National Front (current BNP leader Nick Griffin travelled to Tripoli in 1986), the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Nation of Islam have sung his praises. Was there ever a dictator with such a disparate group of supporters from far right to far left via every shade of mainstream governmental opinion?

No part of the political spectrum seems to have been immune from this nonsense. In the early 1990s I took part in the International Infoshop gathering in London, bringing together people involved in radical social centres and book shops from across Europe. The event was hosted by two London infoshops, the 56a Infoshop at Elephant and Castle (which still exists) and the 121 Centre in Brixton's Railton Road (which was evicited in 1999).

Those of us at the London end were mostly from a broadly anarchist background of hostility to all states. We seemed to have plenty in common with the comrades from Germany and Scandinavia with their focus on housing struggles (squatting), militant anti-fascism and autonomous movements. However when it came to talking about stuff outside of Europe it was a different story. We were horrified when the proposal was put forward that we should take part in an 'anti-imperialist solidarity camp' in Libya to show our support for the Gadaffi regime's stand against the US and Europe!

Amongst parts of the 'anti-impi' autonomist left this kind of support for all kinds of dubious regimes and stalinist 'liberation movement' rackets was commonplace - seemingly in Europe, autonomy and new forms of emancipatory politics was on the agenda, the rest of the world could make do with personality cults and militarist dictatorships.

Manchester Street Art

All pictures taken last month, mostly around the 'Northern Quarter' area of Manchester.

Foucault on Tunisia

Negri and Hardt are quite right that the current wave of revolts are 'sweeping away the racist conceptions of a clash of civilisations that consign Arab politics to the past. The multitudes in Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi shatter the political stereotypes that Arabs are constrained to the choice between secular dictatorships and fanatical theocracies' (Guardian, 11 February 2011).

But of course this image of 'Arab' politics could only ever have been sustained by a wilful ignorance of history. The radical, secular movements of the past in that part of the world have been airbrushed away, not only from mainstream narratives but from some leftist accounts in which recent North African and Middle Eastern history begins and ends with Israel/Palestine and the Gulf Wars. Everyone knows about Paris '68 but what about Tunisia?

Tunisia too had its 1968, and among those involved was Michel Foucault, who was teaching at the University of Tunis and living in Sidi Bou Said. Shortly after his arrival in Tunis in 1966 there had been a student strike and clashes with the authorities, sparked initially by a student's refusal to pay a bus fare. Student agitation reached a peak between March and June 1968, with a visit from the US Secretary of State Hubert Humphrey prompting riots with attacks on the British and US Embassies. The president levied a tax on every household in Tunis to pay for the riot damage.

Foucault recalled: 'there were student agitations of an incredible violence there... Strikes, boycotting of classes and arrests were to take place one after another for the entire year. The police entered the university and attacked many students, injuring them and throwing them into jail'. Foucault's support for the rebels included hiding a printing machine used for anti-government leaflets in his garden. At one point he was badly beaten up in an attack presumed to have been launched by plain-clothes cops. The whole experience had a radicalising effect on Foucault who said that he 'was profoundly struck and amazed by those young men and women who exposed themselves to serious risks for the simple fact of having written or distributed a leaflet, or for having incited others to go on strike. Such actions were enough to place at risk one's life, one's freedom and one's body'.

Foucault saw the global cycle of late 1960s struggles through the lens of his Tunisian experience, from which he drew wider conclusions:

'What was the meaning of that outburst of radical revolt that the Tunisian students had attempted? What was it that was being questioned everywhere? I think my answer is that the dissatisfaction came from the way in which a kind of permanent oppression in daily life was being put into effect by the state and by other institutions and oppressive groups. That which was ill-tolerated and continually questioned, which produced that sort of discomfort, was "power". And not only state power but also that which was exercised within the social body through extremely different channels, forms and institutions. It was no longer acceptable to be "governed" in a certain way. I mean "governed" in an extended sense; I'm not just referring to the government of the state and the men who represent it, but also to those men who organize our daily lives by means of rules, by way of direct or indirect influences, as for instance the mass media'.

The refusal to be 'governed in a certain way' has certainly been a feature of the current movements in Tunisia and elsewhere, just as it was forty years ago. Of course underneath there has also been the ongoing reality of poverty and dispossession, but the indignity of living under dictatorship and the attendant petty humiliations of daily life has been a key driver of rebellion. It is notable that the spark that lit the Tunisian revolt was the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17 2010 in protest at the confiscation of his wares and harassment by officials.

So as in 1968 there has been a desire for freedom from oppressive regulations at a micro and macro level. But there has also been a desire, as Hardt and Negri put it, for 'a different life in which they can put their capacities to use', for freedom to realize human potential. As H&N put in Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (2004): 'When we propose the poor as the paradigmatic subjective figure of labour today, it is not because the poor are empty and excluded from wealth but because they are included in the circuits of production and full of potential, which always exceeds what capital and the global political body can expropriate and control. This common surplus is the first pillar on which are built struggles against the global political body and for the multitude'. Today this 'surplus' and 'potential' are increasingly concrete as millions worldwide are consigned to the scrap heap by economic crisis, but 'power' is still what confronts those pushing for a better life.

A voice from today's Tunisia

Here's Head of State by Hamada Ben Amor (aka El General), a track that played a part in recent events in Tunisia. It directly addresses (now-ex) President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, with lyrics like:

Mr President, you told me to speak without fear
But I know that eventually I will take just slaps
I see too much injustice and so I decided to send this message even though the people told me that my end is death
But until when the Tunisian will leave in dreams, where is the right of expression?
They are just words ..
Tunis was defined the “green”, but there is only desert divided into 2,
it is a direct robbery by force that dominated a country
without naming already everybody knows who they are
much money was pledged for projects and infrastructure
schools, hospitals, buildings, houses
But the sons of dogs have already fattened
They stole, robbed, kidnapped and were unwilling to leave the chair.

He was arrested for his troubles in the early days of the rebellion, but is now out of jail and performing again (more background information and full lyrics at Hip Hop Diplomacy).



All Foucault quotes from Remarks on Marx: conversations with Duccio Trombadori (1991); additional information from David Macey, The Many Lives of Michel Foucault
(1994).

Gadhafi, Dancing and the Communism of Movement

'A moderate revolution is a contradiction in terms, though a moderate putsch, coup or pronunciamento is not. However limited the ostensible aims of the revolution, the light of the New Jerusalem must shine through the cracks in the masonry of the eternal Establishment which it opens. When the Bastille falls, the normal criteria of what is possible on earth are suspended, and men and women naturally dance in the streets in anticipation of utopia' (Eric Hobsbawn, 'Thomas Paine', New Statesman, 1961)

'Do as you please. You are free to dance, sing, and celebrate in all squares throughout the night. Muammar Gadhafi is one of you. Dance, sing, rejoice' (Gadhafi, February 2011)

The festive character of the uprisings sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East has been widely noted (see previous post on Egypt). Just as Hobsbawn wrote of earlier revolutions, everything seems possible as the old regimes crumble and people have literally been dancing, as well as fighting, in the streets. In Libya at the moment it is the fighting that is dominant, hopefully victory and further celebrations won't be too far behind.

Strangely it was Gadhafi last week who called for dancing in the streets, just as his death squads were going into action across Libya. A desparate atempt to redirect the youthful energy of the uprising into a party for a murderous regime.

The festivities in Benghazi (Libya's second city, taken by the rebels), Cairo and elsewhere have had an entirely different character: not just dancing and singing together, but creating new social relations - what Alain Badiou has called 'a communism of movement':

“Communism” here means: a common creation of a collective destiny. This “common” has two specific traits. First, it is generic, representing, in a place, humanity as a whole. There we find all sorts of people who make up a People, every word is heard, every suggestion examined, any difficulty treated for what it is. Next, it overcomes all the substantial contradictions that the state claims to be its exclusive province since it alone is able to manage them, without ever surpassing them: between intellectuals and manual workers, between men and women, between poor and rich, between Muslims and Copts, between peasants and Cairo residents. Thousands of new possibilities, concerning these contradictions, arise at any given moment, to which the state — any state— remains completely blind.

One witnesses young female doctors from the provinces taking care of the injured, sleeping in the middle of a circle of fierce young men, and they are calmer than they have ever been, knowing that no one will dare to touch a single hair of their heads. One witnesses, just as well, a group of engineers entreating young suburbanites to hold the place and protect the movement with their energy in battle. One witnesses a row of Christians doing the watch, standing, guarding over bent Muslims in prayer. One witnesses merchants of every kind nourishing the unemployed and the poor. One witnesses anonymous bystanders chatting with each other. One can read thousands of signs where individual lives mix without hiatus in the big cauldron of history. All these situations, these inventions, constitute the communism of movement. For two centuries the only political problem has been how to set up in the long run the inventions of the communism of movement? (Tunisia, Egypt - The Universal Reach of Popular Uprisings) .

Badiou's article also includes a great quote from Jean-Marie Gleize: “The dissemination of a revolutionary movement is not carried by contamination. But by resonance. Something that surfaces here resounds with the shock wave emitted by something that happened over there.” I like the notion of revolution as a sonic event, something that is heard and felt and sets bodies in motion, dancing and fighting.

All images of celebrations in Benghazi following the overthrow of Gadhafi's rule there.

Laura Knight

Le Carnival

Tamara Karsavina of the Ballet Russes as the Firebird

Laura Knight (1887-1970) was a prolific painter of dancers and other performers in the ballet, circus and theatre. Lots more of her work here and here. Before the First World War, Knight was part of the artists' 'colony' that gathered in Lamorna, Cornwall - others included Samuel John "Lamorna" Birch, Alfred Munnings and Aleister Crowley.

William Gibson on the end of the record industry

A rejoinder from William Gibson to the claim that the 20th century music industry was a natural state of affairs:

'In the early 1920s... there were still some people in this country who hadn't yet heard recorded music. Not many, but a few. That's less than a hundred years ago. Your career as a "recording artist"... took place towards the end of a technological window that lasted less than a hundred years, a window during which consumers of recorded music lacked the means of producing that which they consumed. They could buy recordings, but they couldn't reproduce them. The Curfew [fictional band in the novel] came in as the monopoly on the means of production was starting to erode. Prior to that monopoly, musicians were paid for performing, published and sold sheet music, or had patrons. The pop star, as we knew her... was actually an artifact of preubiquitous media... Of a state in which "mass" media existed, if you will, within the world'. 'As opposed to?' 'Comprising it'.' (Spook Country, 2007).

In remembrance of Ali Höhler

At this time of year it is customary to raise a glass to one of Germany's finest music critics: Albrecht (Ali) Höhler (1898-1933).

His exemplary practical critique was directed againt Horst Wessel, a musician, song writer and founder of a Nazi stormtrooper Schalmeienkapelle (shawm band - the shawn being a kind of oboe). Wessel was a leading Nazi party organiser in Berlin. Among other things he organised an attack on the local headquarters of the Communist Party in Friedrichshain, Berlin, during which four workers sustained serious injuries.

In January 1930 Wessel was shot in the head by Ali Höhler, seemingly at the instigation of members of the communist Roter Frontkämpferbund (Red Front Fighters League). Wessel died from his injuries a few weeks later and was buried on 23 February 1930 in a public funeral stage managed by Goebbels. Unfortunately one of his songs survived and became known as the "Horst Wessel Lied" and the official anthem of the Nazi Party.

When the Nazis came to power they killed Höhler and elevated Wessel to the rank of a holy martyr (one magazine wrote: 'How high Horst Wessel towers over that Jesus of Nazareth').

So here's to Ali Höhler - he had some fine tattoos too:

There's a Hamburg based punk band called Kommando Ali Höhler.

Berlin street art

Some pictures taken in Berlin earlier this month - mostly in Friedrichshain, but I think the last image of the astronaut was in Kreuzberg:

Night stirs the trees

Night stirs the trees
With breathings of such music that they sway,
Skirts, sleeves, tiaras, in the humming dark,
Their highborn heads tossing in disarray.

A floating owl
Unreels his silence, winding in and out
Of different darknesses. The wind takes up
And scatters a sound of water all about.

No moon need slide
Into the sky to make that water bright;
It ties its swelling self with glassy ropes;
It jumps from stones in smithereens of light.

The mosses on the wall
Plump their fat cushions up. They smell of wells,
Of under bridges and of spoons. They move
More quiveringly than the dazed rims of bells.

A broad cloud drops
A darker darkness. Turning up his stare,
Letting the world pour under him, owl goes off,
His small soft foghorn quavering through the air.

'By Achmelvich Bridge' Norman MacCaig (1910-96)

Image: The Sleeping Shepherd, Samuel Palmer (1805-1881)

The poem also put in my mind of a song title by Of Montreal - At Night Trees Aren't Sleeping

Datacide #11 Launch in Berlin

I went to Berlin recently for the launch of the new issue (number 11) of Datacide - 'the magazine for noise and politics'.


There were a couple of events. First up was a series of talks at Cagliostro, a bar in Friedrichshain which also houses the Praxis record shop (plenty of breakcore, noise and hard drum and bass vinyl with some radical literature too - funny seeing Aufheben, the German-titled English communist magazine on sale in Germany). Praxis is the label started by Christoph Fringeli who also initiated Datacide. Note the extremely rare Association of Autonomous Astronauts slipmat in the shop:

I gave a talk based on my article in the magazine, Dance Before the Police Come, looking at the different ways the state tries to regulate clubs, raves and parties. I also reflected on the role of sound systems in the recent student demonstrations in the UK.

Nemeton spoke about the Tea Party movement and the radical right in the US, also based around her article in Datacide#11 . She dismissed claims that it simply represents a grass roots popular movement, highlighting the role of Fox media and established right wing politicians in launching and promoting it.

Riccardo Balli missed his flight from Italy but gave a reading of his short fiction piece ' 333 bpm' the next day.

Then on the Friday night there was a launch party at Subversiv, a housing project with a bar and brick basement. Berlin nightlife gets going late, the music started about one and the dancefloor peaked around four. Hard breaks and beats were supplied by DJs from Berlin, Bologna, Los Angeles and Essex including Christoph Fringeli, Balli (Sonic Belligeranza), Kovert, Baseck (Dark Matter), Nemeton (Dark Matter), LT, Cannibal Brother. I missed the last couple as I had to leave to get to the airport. But it was a good party and the notion of praxis as the unity of theory and action was certainly embedded in the event with at least four of the DJs also writing articles for the new Datacide.

[In the basemenet of Subversiv - the red poster sets out the venue's rules: 'Diese Party ist ein Freiraum in dem Sexismus, Transphobe, Homophobe, Mackertum, Antisemitismus and Rassismus KEINEN PLATZ haben' ( approximately 'this party is a free space in which sexism, transphobia, homophobia, macho behaviour, anti-semitism and racism have no place')]

Subversiv is one of the few squatted projects left in Berlin from the period after the fall of the wall when vacant properties were occupied en masse. Many of these were subsequently licensed in deals with the local government, but as the buildings have been sold off to developers and private landlords most have been evicted.

The day before I arrived another high profile squat was evicted in Friedrichshain, with 25 residents cleared from the Liebig 14 tenement block. The eviction was a big deal, the day was announced in advance and thousands of cops swamped the streets to make sure it went ahead.

On Wednesday night (2nd February) a march of a couple of thousand people in the area was stopped by the police short of its destination, and there were clashes followed by cat and mouse chasing through the streets with groups heading off causing mischief. I saw smashed bank windows and lots of graffiti, and apparently windows were broken at the O2 centre (big corporate entertainment centre similar to its London counterpart).

The full contents of Datacide #11 are as follows:

Datacide events - page 3
Political news compiled by Nemeton - page 4-5

Features:

“Hedonism and Revolution: The Barricade and the Dancefloor” by Christoph Fringeli, page 6
“Dope smuggling, LSD manufacture, organized crime & the law in 1960s London”
by Stewart Home, page 8
“Shaking the Foundations: Reggae soundsystem meets ‘Big Ben British values’ downtown” by John Eden, page 12
“Tortugan tower blocks? Pirate signals from the margins” by Alexis Wolton, page 16
“Dancing before the police come” by Neil Transpontine, page 21
“From Subculture to Hegemony: Transversal Strategies of the New Right in Neofolk and Industrial” by Christoph Fringeli, page 24
“From Conspiracy Theories to Attempted Assassinations: The American Radical Right and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement” by Nemeton, page 28
“How to start with the subject. Notes on Burroughs and the ‘combination of all forms of struggle’” by R. C., page 37

Fiction
“Sonic Fictions” by Riccardo Balli, page 40
“Digital Disease” by Dan Hekate, page 45
“Infra-Noir. 23 Untitled Poems” by Howard Slater, page 46
“Office Work” by Matthew Fuller, page 48

Record Reviews, page 52

“Beat Blasted Planet. An interview with Steve Goodman on ‘Sonic Warfare’” by Matthew Fuller and Steve Goodman, page 58
“Free Parties” by Terra Audio, page 60
“This is the end… the official ending” by Gorki Plubakter, page 61

The Lives and Times of Bloor Schleppy (11), page 62
Charts, page 63

Available now for EUR 4.00 incl. postage – order now by sending this amount via paypal to praxis(at)c8.com, or send EUR 10 for 3 issues (note that currently only issues 5, 7 and 10 are still available, but you can also pre-order future issues.) Also from the Praxis Webshop.

The zine is now available in London, currently exclusively at the 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton Street, SE17.

See also Datacide in Rome 2009, Datacide in Berlin 2008.

Dancing in the Dark - Bert Williams

'These were bright new monied times in which society people were encouraged to enjoy the primitive theatrics of those who appeared to be finally understanding that their principal role was now to entertain. Listen. The wail of a trumpet as it screeches crazily towards heaven and then shudders and breaks and falls back to earth where its lament is replaced by the anxious syncopated tap tap tapping of clumsily shod feet beating out their joyous black misery in a tattoo of sweating servitude. Performative bondage'

Dancing in the Dark (2005) by Caryl Phillips is a fictionalised account of the life of Bert Williams (1874-1922), a Bahamas-born performer who became famous on the American stage in the era when black actors were expected to wear 'blackface' to conform to white audience's expectations.

As such it is a beautifully-written reflection on the role of the black performer in a racist context, whose very achievements come at high personal and collective cost. Williams was in some ways a groundbreaking figure - co-writer of the first black production on Broadway (In Dahomey, 1903); the only black performer in Ziegfeld's follies before the First World War; helping to spread the cakewalk dance craze across the USA and then to England on a visit here; and a singer in the early days of the record industry. But his success was predicated on him continuing to play the stereotypical role of the dim-witted 'darky' and when he attempted to step beyond this the response was hostile. Williams was one of the first black film actors in the now lost Darktown Jubilee (1914), but the sight of a zoot suit wearing black leading man provoked near riots among white audiences.

'Others will come after me to entertain you, and they will happily change their name and put on whatever clownish costume you wish them to wear, and dance, and sing, and perform in a manner that will amuse you, and you will mimic them, and you will make your money, but know that at the darkest point of the night, when no eyes are upon them, these people's souls will be heavy, and eventually some among them will say no, and you will see their sadness, and then you will turn from them and choose somebody else to place in the empty room, or nudge onto your empty stage'

Georgina Cook exhibition

Looking forward to this on Thursday, the launch of an exhibition of photographs by Georgina Cook (Drumz of the South) at the LAVA Gallery 1.11 Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, London, W1B 5PW.

The opening on Thursday, 17th February runs from 6- 9.30pm with music from Martelo and Skipple. The exhibition is open daily from 17th- 23rd February, 11am-7pm, Sunday: 12pm-6pm.

Georgina is second to none in evoking the sense of being out dancing through photography, as well as documenting nightlife (and much else) in London and elsewhere. See her History is Made at Night Dancing Questionnaire here.

Check out her Flickr photostream for lots of her work.

Chris Wood - Hollow Point (a song for Jean Charles de Menezes)

A while ago, I did a post on songs about people being killed by the police (Blair Peach, Liddle Towers etc.) At tonight's Radio 2 Folk Awards, the best song award was given to another: Chris Wood's 'Hollow Point' is about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by police at Stockwell underground station in 2005.

Egypt: Singing for Revolution in Tahrir Square

The unfolding revolution in Egypt has seen an explosion of new forms of social life and mutual aid as people organise to live as the regime totters. The collective occupation of urban space in Tahrir Square and elsewhere; the establishing of autonomous field hospitals to treat the injured; the formation of street committees to maintain security and hygiene; all this alongside the attacks on the institutions of the state (police stations, prisons, ruling party HQs). According to one eye wtiness account:

'Though the regime continues to struggle, practically little government exists. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28... During the ensuing week and a half, millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal responsibility for everyone - emerge precisely out of the disappearance of government' (The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field - Mohammed A. Bamyeh).

Naturally music and dancing has been part of this explosion: 'Between protesters roaming around shouting sarcastic anti-government slogans into handheld microphones, others attracting the crowd with original poetry, and young bands playing music, the sit-in in Tahrir Square has turned into a street festival' (The Politics of Persistence at almasryalyoum.com).

A number of commentators have mentioned the popularity in the protests of the songs of Ahmad Fu’ad Nigm and the late al-Shaykh Imam. There's an excellent article at Jadaliyya on Singing for the Revolution, which includes the lyrics to their very apt song I Am The People. In this article, Sinan Antoon offers a critique of the notion that events in Egypt can be understood as inspired by 'Western' ideas and technologies:

'Yes, new technologies and social media definitely played a role and provided a new space and mode, but this discourse eliminates and erases the real agents of these revolutions: the women and men who are making history before our eyes. Members of our species have done that before, you know... As if the inhabitants of the region didn’t have a long history of struggles and revolts against all kinds of oppressors, indigenous, but mostly foreign colonizers (white men, by the way). As if liberationist inspiration has only one boring trajectory always emanating from the west and then heading east. As if the uprising in Iran wasn’t an inspiration as well. But why do I even have to expect the citizens of the civilized world to know about the strikes, riots, uprisings, intifadas and protests of previous decades. As if there wasn’t a proud and potent revolutionary tradition and a collective memory crowded with symbols, martyrs, moments, poems, and songs about freedom and justice. One of the rallying chants in Tunisia was a line from the Tunisian poet Abu ‘l-Qasim al-Shabbi (1909-1934) “ If, one day, the people want life, fate must yield"...'

Here's some singing on Friday's Day of Departure demonstration in Cairo with a guitarist leading a chorus (rough translation: 'Down Down Hosni Mubarak, Down Down Hosni Mubarak ... The people want to dismantle the regime .... He is to go, we are not going ... He is to go, we won't leave ... We all, one hand, ask one thing, leave leave'



One final thought...

Why do people keep going on about the 'Arab revolution' and the 'Arab Street' as if people there are fundamentally different from the rest of the world? Even in the Middle East, the notion of the 'Arab revolution' excludes millions of people who don't define themselves as Arabs - most people who live in Iran and Israel for starters.

What's going on in Egypt and Tunisia is linked to movements against austerity, unemployment and rising prices across the globe. I know Trafalgar Square isn't Tahrir Square, but there are even parallels with the recent demonstrations in the UK - see for instance the prominent role of school students in the Tunisian events as in London (and in France and Greece in the last couple of years). Of course, in Egypt and Tunisia they have been confronting repressive dictatorships as well as economic misery, but here too there are parallels with other parts of the world - Chinese bureaucrats must be shaking in their boots as well as Egyptian, Syrian and Iranian ones. The scenes in Tahrir Square resemble nothing so much as Tiananmen Square in the days before the suppression of protests in Beijing in 1989 - hopefully this time with a happier ending.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin works on two levels -above ground the 'Field of Stelae' conveys a sense of scale, like a vast expanse of anonymous tombs.


In the exhibition below ground the focus is on named individuals. A small sample of life stories from the Shoah puts it on a human scale - real people shown going about their lives before they were cut short - musicians whose music was silenced, murdered dancers, lovers, mothers, sisters.

Alice Dreifuss (born 1910) in a Fasching (carnival costume) in Altdorf in 1927; she was murdered in January 1943 in Auschwitz-Birkenau

'Belgrade, 1924: members of the Demajo, Arueti and Elkalay families at a picnic. A friend of the Demajo family hid the photos in a box dug in the ground in Belgrade. Rafael Pijada saved the rest of the photos under Bulgarian occupation in Macedonia'. Chaim Demajo, the accordionist on the left, was shot in October 1941 near Belgrade.

Langston Hughes - Dream Variations (1926)

Langston Hughes was born on this day (1 February) in 1902. Here's his great poem Dream Variations (1926):

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.