Akala's Blog
June 22, 2016
My thoughts on the EU referendum
Hey people i'll be on Channel 4 tonight debating the EU referendum with Paxman and all the rest... here are my basic thoughts ahead of time...
Some thoughts on the EU
Before I get into my own opinions on the
subject I would first like to note the astoundingly banal and generally poor
standard of debate from both sides in this campaign. Ranging from complete lies
and scaremongering to disregard for experts and their pesky little ‘facts’ to
half truths and outright racism and in the past few days some from both sides
attempting to marshal the murder of Jo Cox by a right wing terrorist (of course
our ‘free’ - read Murdoch - press refuses to call him that) to support their
respective positions before her body is even cold in the ground. Really
generally gutter stuff. When did we become this anti-intellectual, this
unconcerned with knowing actual facts and this easily duped by a political
class who will almost certainly still be rich a powerful on June the 24th
either way? Or were we always made of such stuff?
I also think the public should be deeply
suspicious as to why we are being asked our opinions on this particular issue
when we were not asked regarding austerity, the bankers bailout or Iraq, Libya,
Syria in fact clear and massive public opposition was actually actively ignored
as with countless other issues.
So whilst I am pro-remain, just about and
with great reservations and no illusions about what that actually means; it’s a
vote for the current neo-liberal status quo –I admit that this is a coke and
pepsi style choice, organic non-gmo orange juice is not an option. The British
Nation State is not some anti neo-liberal social alternative to the EU; in fact
the UK was the pioneer of neo-liberal economics in Europe and the city of
London remains the center of European finance.
There is of course a progressive people led
anti-austerity, anti corporatist, anti-imperialist case for leaving the EU and
if that strain of argument were even close to an audible voice in the campaign
and if our current political trajectory was not one of the most regressive in
the Union I may have well been swayed to join the leavers. But as it has played
out the leave lot have appealed to good old fashion fear of the ‘other’ to rile
up support for their cause at a time when the ‘others’ are being left to drown
in the sea in droves, sensitive humane stuff.
Some of the people of this island do have a
great tradition of pro people radical internationalist politics (anti apartheid
struggle, the suffragettes, chartists abolitionist movement etc.) but this
tradition has always been marginalized and oft persecuted by the state and it’s
certainly not that tradition that has been empowered in this ‘debate’.
And whilst I can recognize the political
achievement in bringing a continent that had constantly been at war with itself
to relative peace and stability the EU is indeed a corporatist, neo-colonial
entity, a subject to which we will return later. However legitimate criticisms
do not legitimise lies…
We have been told constantly by the leave
lot that the EU is undemocratic and that poor little bullied Britain is subject
to the random whims of Brussels. This is simply bullshit and anyone who can be
bothered to do an internet search on the structure of and relationship between
the European Council, The European Commission and the European Parliament would
realize that the EU is probably as ‘democratic’ in its decision making process
as the UK, with our House of Lords, our Monarchy and our City Of London
Corporation – to say nothing of the oil/arms industry lobbies - arguably more
so. In addition there are whole sectors of the EU arrangement that the British
Nation state has opted out of in a way no other member nation has been able to
such as the single currency, the Schengen no border zone and EU law on
migration and asylum. The British government has also repeatedly shown its
frustration with the EU rights for workers.
Which brings us on to one of the elephants
in the room that no one in this mess of a debate seems to have brought up.
Iraq. The Brexiters keep telling us that Britain’s ‘sovereignty’ is compromised
by being in the EU (this is just legally untrue by the way) and that Britain is
not free to make its own decisions blah, blah, blah. Perhaps these people were
in a coma during 2003 when several EU member states, much of the UN and of
course British public opinion (there was also that small matter of lack of
evidence for the very thing that the war was justified upon) were all against
invasion and yet the British elite and their US cronies went ahead anyway and
more recently the UK Government decided to drop bombs in Syria without so much
as parliamentary approval.
Does any of this sound like a small bullied
little victim of the dictates of Brussels?
Not really, it sounds more like one of the
most regressive states in the EU (yes us, the UK) by many factual indicators
(arms exports, prison population, child poverty, basic educational attainment etc.)
want to be ‘free’ to be even more regressive. ‘We’ – a certain section of
Britain - want our country back. I can almost hear them singing Britannia rules
the waves, bless them they think it’s 1851, when in the real world India has
just put a rocket on Mars for 10% of the cost NASA can with a whole bunch of
women scientists and while still technically a ‘third world’ country. The world
is complex and for people brought up to believe they are great simply because
they came out of their mothers womb on a particular patch of the earth it can
be hard to adjust to the reality that ‘greatness’ takes actual work.
Back to the EU it is not the liberal,
harmless, beacon of human rights that its most ardent supporters purport it to
be. It is an imperialist behemoth that collectively imposes grossly
asymmetrical trade relationships on Europe’s former colonies and it has immense
collective amnesia about how it came to be so wealthy. This neo-colonial
economic relationship with the Global South massively contributes to the
poverty, instability, conflict (and of course resultant migration) of large
parts of the globe, whilst the EU poses as the worlds shining light for
spreading democratic ideals. Interestingly I have not seen any of the main
voices for Brexit raise this continued economic exploitation of the South as an
issue, much less as a reason for leaving. It does not seem to even be on their
radar.
Back to how it seems Brexit under the
current circumstances would affect everyday people. Lets just deal with the facts;
most economists of many school of economic thought are against Brexit. Legal
experts, (I am being told that UK law firms are already re-registering as Irish
in case of Brexit) the majority of scientists all seem to think it a bad idea
and I would agree with Mr. Gove that we should ignore the well paid experts if
we had a great national moral conviction that we were leaving for moral, humane
reasons that would genuinely better the planet, but that’s not what we have.
Even far from the political mainstream
prominent activist/lawyer/reparationists like Esther Stanford-Xosei are clear
that the EU for all its imperialist unity and actually partly because of that
unity (Berlin 1884 anyone?) is a better structure within which national
minority groups can wage their respective human and peoples (group) rights
struggles than an isolated British nation state at this point in time.
So where does this leave us? With the big I
world, immigration, immigration, immigration. We can try and deconstruct all of
the other arguments as intellectually as we like but this debate has been so
visibly dominated by this omnipotent fear of the other coming over here ‘stealing
our jobs and taking our women’ that we must address it. People are to be heard
claiming that 500 million people now have a British passport as if the red book
was inherently superior to its Swedish, Italian and German counterparts which
we as British Citizens also - by the same logic - have.
The Brexit lot is so desperate they are
even claiming that being free of the EU will leave ‘us’ to look toward parts of
the world Britain has long neglected like the Commonwealth! I mean really. This
is post empire melancholia at its finest. Can you imagine a group of people so
intellectually bereft of ideas that they expect us to believe that British
multinationals are suddenly going to start dealing with the non white parts of
the Commonwealth as business partners rather than as pools of cheap labor and
un-processed resources the moment we leave the EU? You’ll pardon me while I
laugh…
Britain and or private ‘British’ entities like
the East India Company ruled most of the Commonwealth for a couple centuries
before the EU existed and decided not to build any significant infrastructure
and or industrial development other than in those parts of the empire where
they thought white people would settle and live - under apartheid - forever
more. So when I hear members of the same class, who have never show any signs
of global south solidarity before invoke the well being of our homelands as a
reason for leaving the EU, I am very suspicious. No in fact I just plain don’t
trust a word they say.
The experts are telling us that there will
be at least a decade of re-negotiating trade deals, very serious economic
downturn and loss of business, the potential for the UK to adopt regressive
human rights legislation (many of the right have made it clear they’d like to
bring back the death penalty for instance) loss of our own free movement across
Europe and all of the retired gangsters from the ends having to return from
Spain but this is all worth it to regain some outdated imperial notion of sovereignty
(a sovereignty which Britain still legally has) and just in case the Turks join
the EU in 20 years, essentially. Of course its highly unlikely that Turkey will
ever join, given that all EU member states get a veto on new members but the
mere threat is enough for some people.
I can imagine some of the critics ‘from the
left’ reading this thus far screaming but but but. I hear you and whilst
rallying against TTIP or for workers rights or any of the other left leaning
reasons that have been stated (and I acknowledge in principle) for leaving the
EU sounds really cool, I think this position is naïve. Britain is already by
many indices as pointed out above one of and in some cases the most Neo-Liberal
state in Europe - we imprison our population at roughly double the rate the
Germans do, despite them taking a much more politically progressive approach to
migrants and refuges, for example. The City of London after all is the center
of European finance, to think Westminster will stop governing in favor of big
banks post Brexit just because the big banks are in favor of remain seems an
odd conclusion to me but happy to hear more about how that would actually work?
I am going to make a very crude, imperfect
but philosophically interesting (in my opinion at least) historical parallel.
America. I think nobody will doubt (at least I hope) that the US is ‘the’
imperial power in the world today and that it was founded on racist
exploitation, slavery and genocide. Would the south leaving America after the
civil war have been positive for history? We’ll never know and whilst America
is 10,000 miles south of perfect I am still glad the North won and that the
racist imperial union was preserved, why? Because the realistic alternative at
the time was far worse; a Southern US where race based slavery and terrorism,
eugenics and serfdom for poor whites would in all likelihood have continued
until today. And whilst 2016 Britain is obviously not 1850’s Alabama I think
the principle remains the same, sometimes a shit version of power is better
than a shittier one. I am glad the allies won World War II despite their mass
murdering colonial rampages around the globe, because the Nazi’s were obviously
a worse alternative at the time for example. Any how I digress
I am not mystic meg I do not have a crystal
ball but I think if we leave the EU it’s the ‘hard right’ that have dominated
the narrative that will be empowered and the narrow nationalism (that both
leave and remain have invoked when it suits them) will again come to the fore
and push us further right. This is of course conjecture, but in a land where a
few million people do not think the current status quo is far right enough and
with a little knowledge of British history I’d like to think its an educated
guess.
I must stress though I could be wrong and
we genuinely might transform into Norway on the 24th June 2016
except I am not convinced that shape shifting is real.
But hey you might save your great grandkids
from having a Turk for a neighbor, but you’ll still have Bangladeshi and
Ghanaian born nurses cleaning your dying grandmothers shit and all in all it is
they, the poor and the ones not in power and definitely not the political class
that are the cause of all Britain’s problems isn’t it? It’s they who ushered in
austerity and bailed out the banks and it is they that used to hang poor people
at Tyburn too; it’s always (on this ISLAND) been the fault of the immigrants.
One of the last things Shakespeare ever
wrote was a soliloquy he put into the mouth of Thomas Moore telling the English
people to be kinder to those fleeing persecution and poverty in other lands (in
this case from northern Italy) apart from the archaic language it could have
been written last week. Sad really.
Which brings us onto Scotland. The SNP
despite all their many shortcomings and blind spots are easily the most
progressive of Britain’s mainstream parties on big issues like austerity, war
and immigration. They have also made it clear that if the UK leaves the EU that
would trigger a second referendum that the SNP would almost certainly win.
Where would this leave us in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? With a far
right Tory government, a few million UKIP supporters and the most politically
progressive part of the nation gone forever. To think that the Labor and Tory warmongers
will have any real opposition in an SNP-less Westminster seems fanciful to me.
But hey maybe Corbyn will be the next PM and large sections of the English
working class will rediscover that Polish plasterers are not their enemy, who
knows? I doubt it though.
So, strangely I find myself telling you
that I think a vote for the status quo – understanding what they actually means
- in this instance is actually the more sensible option because the realistic
alternative does, to me at least, seem that bleak.
Social justice groups will still have to
fight, things will still be shit, austerity will continue, the banks will still
run the world and be able to steal 500bn from the national economy after
fucking it up, the EU Plutocracy will still do its best to keep poor countries
of the south underdeveloped, all of that is true. But I honestly think that a
post Brexit Britain will be even more neo-liberal and nationalist than today
and for that reason with no illusions about what the status quo is, if you feel
to vote I would vote remain, just.
References
Professor
Michael Dougan on the EU
Brexit
as nostalgia for empire
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/06/19/brexit-nostalgia-empire/
What
would Brexit mean for Human rights
http://rightsinfo.org/brexit-mean-human-rights/
Employment
rights
http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/comment/employment-rights-unseen-iceberg-brexit-debate
The
EU is exporting UK Neo-Liberalism to the rest of Europe
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/eu-exporting-uk-neoliberalism-rest-europe
The
EU and other Neo-Liberal nightmares
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/enrico-tortolano/eu-and-other-neoliberal-nightmares
Goves
appeals to Anti-Intellectualism
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/michael-goves-appeals-to-anti.html
MBC
EU Debate
Why
African Caribbean’s should vote for a left exit from the EU
How
the EU works – a video guide
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23488006
Blog
about Shakespeare and Medieval migration
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2015/09/shakespeare-sir-thomas-more-and-the-immigrants/
MBC
EU position
TTIP
is a very bad excuse to vote for Brexit
Institute
for criminal policy research
http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_population_rate?field_region_taxonomy_tid=14
The UK Is
Exporting Neo-Liberalism to Europe
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/eu-exporting-uk-neoliberalism-rest-europe
Gove appeals to
anti-intellectualism
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/michael-goves-appeals-to-anti.html
Some
books for wider context
The
Shock Doctrine By Naomi Klein
Captive
State by George Monbiot
From
The Ruins Of Empire by Pankaj Mishra
Black
People In The British Empire by Peter Fryer
Bad
Samaritans or Kicking Away the Ladder by Ha Joon Chang
November 30, 2015
Oxford Union Address & Bibliography
Hey people I recently addressed the Oxford Union regarding African history as the 'lost' (distorted may be a more appropriate term) pages of human history. Unfortunately the slides are not ver clear in the video but you can view most them in my teacher Robin Walker's book 'Before The Slave Trade'.
Please also see below an extended bibliography regarding this talk and the subject in general.
Unesco General Histories Of Africa Vol 1-15 - Multiple authors
When We Ruled - Robin Walker
Before The Slave Trade - Robin Walker
The African Origin Of Civilsation: Myth or Reality - Cheikh Anta Diop
The Came Before Columbus - Ivan Van Sertima
Early America Revisited - Ivan Van Sertima
Black Athena - Martin Bernal
Black Genesis - Bauval & Brophy
Imhotep The African - Bauval & Brophy
African Towns & Cities Before European Conquest - Richard Hull
The Ruins Of Empires - C.F Volney
Ancient Egypt The Light Of The World - Gerald Massey
The Signs and Symbols Of Primordial Man - Albert Churchward
Africa and Africans As Seen By The Classical writers - William Leo Hansberry
Life In Ancient Egypt - Adolf Erman
Ancient Egyptian Literature Vol 1-3 - Mariam Lichtheim
African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period - Theophile Obenga
Timbuctoo The Mysterious - Felix Dubois
The Black Jacobins - C.L.R James
The Irritated Genie - Jacob Carruthers
Africa In History - Basil Davidson
Ta'rikh al Fattash - Al Hajj Mahmud Kati
The Pale Fox - Griaule & Dierterlen
A Tropical Dependency - Flora S Lugard
Big Ups
Akala
December 16, 2014
Another Piece of artwork and writing from The Ruins Of Empires - Get your copy here http://akala.tmstor.es/
Chapter 1 – The Search
KNOWLEDGE SEEKER:
These ancient ruins,
do you have the authority?
To teach plainly
freedom and equality
You show us ancient
states, let us peer at their mistakes
Through the windows of
these crumbling bricks, that once were palace gates
Where once were grand galleries, now just silent death
kings and slaves alike
both are buried flesh.
Gold and spices were
traded here, for the finest silks known to man
And learned men traded ideas through books written hand
Here, grand galleries
and sculptures used to stand
All easily washed
away, like footprints in the sand.
This is ugly to my
eyes, but stimulating to my meditation
I wonder, is this the
fate of our Nation?
I wonder what is wrong
with us? Why do we blame creation?
How
could a god that only creates be the source of devastation?
The stars have not changed their course, nor the earth its motion
And pride always predates a fall and the worst commotion
The universe was
governed by laws, before the pens of men
These crumbling ruins stand as testimony defending them
Does fate author
destruction? Or that our law is corruption?
That causes the cities
of men, to be turned to nothing
As I sit in these
crumbling bricks, pondering crumbling wits
Filled
with a sudden mix of questions, needing another fix
Here appears the
genius that I’ve seen in my mind
Like a guiding spirit
or intuition personified
Oh dear genius, please
tell me the source
What is the wellspring
from which fortune and misfortune are born?
Why is it that war famine and death visit people in turns?
But still we never
learn. It seems we’ll forever burn.
Then the genius spoke
to me and said
GENIUS:
Dear disciple of
truth. Wisdom is the fruit
You can only know
what's true if you examine the root
Peace and happiness
visit the home built from the bricks of justice
And the throne that is built from the same, is never ever rusted
So rise above your senses young one it’s a must
KNOWLEDGE SEEKER:
Then the genius
reached out and the top of my head, touched
In an instant my perception changed, no longer imprisoned
Within my flesh, I had
some kind of out of body experience
A bright red flame
severed the ties holding me to the ground
I floated up above the
earth and I was looking down
But to me earth appeared to me a barren
object, grey and smooth
If I did not know better, I would have
thought it was the moon
The
genius touched my head once more and transformed my vision
I
could see as clear as a hawk now, with the same precision
I could see the great mass that we call the ocean
So strange that
we call I the earth, when it is water mostly.
November 10, 2014
Forgetting
To forget, to lose
To be lost, to
confuse
Origin is map
Compass and guide
Excise the root
The fruit will
comply
For, the branch
that is blind to the source of the soil
Dances with death
and begets nothing less
At the behest of
story
Memory attends
A tale told by a
tyrant
In the tone of a
friend
In the war between
nations
Between women and
men
The wickedest of
weapons
Of course, is the
pen
It depends on
nothing more
Than the flick of
a wrist
But the damage it
inflicts
Breaks generations
Yet we don’t
condemn
As the bomb or the
bullet
Though the pen
does kill
Way more than the
regiment
What is the death
of mere skeletons
To the death of
intelligence?
The death of the
body
To the death of
the mind?
We can find more
soldiers
But murdered
memory
Must be re-membered
By a people
Blind
Osiris is
scattered
Isis must come
But Horus the
young
Rejects his own
mother
As we reject
darkness
Especially when
feminine
If you wish to see
sickness
Then this is your
evidence
Memory, memory
Where for art thou
memory
To our shame, our
dead
Mere stones in the
cemetery
But the dead are
the living
And the yet to be
born
So it’s not death
that we mourn but the changing of form
And we scorn our
past it’s the mask that we wear
On our masters behalf,
and we ask in our prayers
To be made over,
by Jehovah
White as the
cliffs down in Dover
Cos you know you
believe what they told ya
And the truth that
we hold is a boulder
So you beg to
forget your exposure
Bury your head in
the sand to the shoulders
And hope someone
else is gonna solve it, but
You are Peter
Jackson
They wont fight
you squarely
Those that claim
they’re superior
Believe the
contrary
Forgetting is
begetting
A self
Amputated
And the part you’ve
negated can’t be replaced with
All of the stars
and the stripes they emblazon
On blazers and
faces and races inferior
The narrative the
story that causes hysteria
The savage, the
baggage, the marriage to myth
We must divorce
from the source of the sick
Severed from
centuries
Cut from
continents
Hidden in view
Who is
responsible?
What is this omen?
That sings of a
time
When stories of
mine
Have the gall not
to hide
But to scream
their solution
In picture, in
rhyme
Remember
Remember
Remember
Re-member
October 17, 2014
THE RUINS OF EMPIRES - PROLOGUE
A
young knowledge seeker walks toward the pyramids at Giza. Facing south, with
the thoughtful Nile to his east and the vast, angry, Sahara to his west he is
engulfed by the desolate surroundings. Not another living thing in sight.
Squinting is the best defence he can muster against relentless seas of sand,
driven by a reckless wind, irritated at a life condemned to the desert. He
stares into the face of the Sphinx, instantly taken aback by the uncanny
resemblance it bears to his grandfather, a man whom he had seen countless times
in old family photographs; that wise but tormented face that had visited his
dreams so often, yet he had never actually seen in the flesh.
His grandfather -
like so many of the worlds brighter souls - was killed early in life, fighting
against the forces of unjust power, but his example and sacrifice continued to
provide inspiration and insight for all those interested in freedom who heard
his story or read his ideas. Arriving at the foot of the great Pyramid the
young knowledge seeker looks up, almost breaking his neck to see the top of
this millennia old structure. Placing his weathered palm on the sandstone, he
elevates his tired body onto the first enormous step and begins climbing this
human made Everest.
Eventually he arrives, sweating profusely, at the summit.
Looking southward he can see the four thousand mile Nile valley pulsing like a
giants vein way down into the heart of Africa, lined by pyramids and temples,
decayed, destroyed, silent. Terrified by the sight before him and all it has to
tell, his enquiring mind craves to know what weakness in the soul of humanity
brings about the ruin of such opulence. Sitting atop the great pyramid he
envisions countless similarly destroyed epochs, sacrificed at the altar of
history. Deeply absorbed by the question, in a state akin to meditation, he
pleads with the crumbled stone for answers.
‘The Ruins Of Empires’ -- an epic poem. This graphic novel features illustrations by Tokio Aoyama (who also produced artwork for my latest album "The Thieves Banquet"). A story that follows 'The Knowledge Seeker' through the course of human history, via astral travel and multiple re-incarnations, in an attempt to discover the causes of the rise and fall of empires. Inspired by the French author C.F. Volney's book of the same name. Pre-order the signed limited edition NOW for £25.00 (shipping: 15/12/14) http://akala.tmstor.es/
October 15, 2014
THE RUINS OF EMPIRES GRAPHIC NOVEL COVER ART
‘The Ruins Of Empires’ -- an epic poem. This graphic novel features illustrations by Tokio Aoyama (who also produced artwork for my latest album "The Thieves Banquet"). A story that follows 'The Knowledge Seeker' through the course of human history, via astral travel and multiple re-incarnations, in an attempt to discover the causes of the rise and fall of empires. Inspired by the French author C.F. Volney's book of the same name. Pre-order the signed limited edition NOW for £25.00 (shipping: 15/12/14) http://akala.tmstor.es/
September 9, 2014
New Book List
The last time I did a book list was 2011 people been getting on to me for a new one!
So here are some other great bits that will keep you busy for at least a year. What you lot been reading?
The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
Damning The Flood - Peter Hallward
Death by Black hole - Neil De Grasse Tyson
Millennium - Felipe Fernandez Armesto
When China Rules The World - Martin Jacques
Assata - Assata Shakur
Revolutionary Suicide - Huey Newton
Ready For Revolution - Kwame Ture
Moses and Monotheism - Sigmund Freud
Black People In The British Empire - Peter Fryer
KMT - Ayi Kwei Armah
The Devil On The Cross - Ngugi Wa Thiongo
The London Hanged - Peter Linbaugh
From The Ruins Of Empires - Pankaj Mishra
An Ordinary Person Guide To Empire - Arundhati Roy
Black Genesis - Buaval and Brophy
World Poetry (anthology) - Cliffton Fadiman (general editor)
Taoist Secrets Of Love - Mantak Chia
The Eastern Origins Of Western Civilisation - M. Hobson
Breath Eyes Memory - Edwidge Danticat
The Sea And Civilisation - Lincoln Paine
African Philosophy Of The Pharaonic Period - Theophile Obenga
September 5, 2014
The human zoo and the masturbation of white guilt.
So as you have probably heard. An ‘artist’
named Brett Bailey thinks it is creative and innovative to showcase black
humans in a mock zoo for the entertainment of white ‘liberals’ at the Barbican
centre. Some people, including the poet Lemn Sissay, have mustered all kinds of
defenses for the forthcoming exhibition: free speech, artistic expression,
promotion of dialogue about serious subjects, blah blah blah. Some of these reasonings
may even appear sound at first glance, until we examine them in the context of
the actual world we live in, not the fairy world of a certain kind of white
liberal - and their black and brown servants - the same world inhabited by humanitarian
imperialisms and post racial posturing.
For those who are unaware, black humans
were indeed literally exhibited in zoos, yes zoos, next to chimpanzees and
other primates in Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. This is partly the origin of the monkey chants and banana skins that
are still all to often aimed at black sport figures today. These zoos formed
part of the western propaganda that justified bringing civilization to Africa -
that is, killing 10 million plus in the Congo, practically exterminating the
Herero and Nama peoples and installing apartheid regimes in much of southern
Africa, which is to say nothing of the countless millions shipped across the Atlantic,
or the induced Irish and Indian famines.
This 21st century recreation of
the very real human zoos is disgusting, deplorable and aims to do none of the
things its supporters claim it does. I’ll explain why.
This exhibition, is of course, aimed at the
Barbicans primary audience: a certain kind of white people with disposable
income. If its aim is to promote dialogue, with whom are these people going to
be dialoging in the privileged space of the Barbican so rarely accessed by the
wider community? More importantly, what is the psychological profile of the
kind of person that would pay £20 a pop to see black humans exhibited in cages?
What is the make-up and behaviour of such
individuals? If you are a person of color who is remotely aware of yourself,
you have encountered them before and will know their kind well. The kind of
‘liberal’ that likes to tell us how we should feel about our history, like the
woman who arrogantly messaged me on twitter - not to ask my reasons - but to
let me know that she (the important person) was ‘disappointed’ that I was
supporting the petition (below), the kind of person like my year 4 primary
school teacher who informed me that William Wilberforce ‘stopped slavery all by
himself’ (white men are that omnipotent you know). The kind of mind that will
leave this exhibition (presuming it still goes ahead) congratulating themselves
on ‘how far we’ve come’. The question is who is their ‘we’?
Do the proponents of this kind of ‘art’
have a history of making common cause with the very real struggles against racist
Euro-American imperialism that the south is still fighting (not least of all in
Baileys native South Africa) or would they prefer to engage in masturbating
their guilt by seeing black bodies tied, bondaged, broken, powerless? It is
that last word, Power that brings us squarely to crux of the matter. Many will actually
get a sadistic kick from inert black bodies so pornographically disempowered.
This is a common theme; I can’t help but be reminded of the Swedish minister of
culture eating the clitoris of a coon cake made by another ‘artist’, this too
was meant to provoke discussion, or so our liberal friends told us.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/apr/17/swedish-minister-racism-cake-video
Mr. Bailey’s piece of racist propaganda is
cut from that same shitty cloth. As for the minds of the black people allowing
their bodies to be used in this way, we could write whole a book and many
indeed have, try Fanon for starters.
Yes art is supposed to be about free expression,
but in reality that free expression is always bounded by the political
realities of the day. To offer an analogy, would a German artist ever be given
a platform as large as the Barbican to make money from displaying real live
Jewish bodies piled on one another in a mock gas chamber, would this be
considered art? Those who think that comparison is an exaggerated one are
either ignorant of historical facts or think African lives are worth less. If
this is about promoting a discussion of colonial history why not include
‘strung out on opium’ Chinese people? Why? Because contemporary Chinese power
would render any attempt to display Chinese people as lifeless victims quite
laughable and thus would not offer the same cheap kicks.
Just to confirm his complete lack of
understanding of the issues at hand Mr. Bailey offered the following liberal
hodgepodge to explain his thinking
‘Exhibit B is not apiece
about black histories made for white audiences. It is a piece about humanity;
about a system of dehumanisation that affects everybody within society,
regardless of skin colour, ethnic or cultural background, that scours the
humanity from the 'looker' and the 'looked at' "
You see, it’s not about
black/white relations at all its about the looker and the looked at. Please,
ever so kindly, fuck off.
If ‘artists’ like Mr. Bailey really want to
be provocative and create discussion around the subjects of European
colonialism and genocidal white supremacy I can think of a million more
interesting places they could choose to start. Perhaps the Barbican would
consider an exhibition with live white people used as dummies to pose as the
many thousands of slave masters and overseers our ancestors majestically hacked
to death during the Haitian Revolution? Or perhaps they would consider revising
the myth of Gandhi’s uncontested pre-eminence in the Indian independence
struggle and instead erect monuments to Bhagat Singh, Queen Rani and others who
used the coloniser’s favorite tool -violence of course - against him in their
search for freedom? Or to bring the point back to Mr. Bailey - a white South
African - directly, why not make art of the dead and mutilated white bodies that
Africans killed in the anti-colonial struggles that gained the limited modicums
of independence that former ‘settler colonial’ African states have today?
How liberating would it be (especially for
white people) to be forced to so viscerally engage with the reality that the
freedoms black and brown people enjoy today did not come as a result of Abraham
Lincoln, William Wilberforce, or World War 2 but rather from the blood that our
own ancestors courageously shed, fighting Europeans with significantly greater
military might, as well as their own domestic oppressors and collaborators. We
did not, contrary to Hollywood, sit around waiting for white saviors.
Or perhaps, images that do not re-enforce
white power do not float the boat of the aforementioned ‘liberal’ types. Perhaps
they are not content with the still dominant, international image of Africa; as
a disease-ridden, war torn wasteland inhabited by lifeless black skins? Perhaps
they are not content with the mass incarceration that serves to privilege them
or the black bodies being gunned down by police on a weekly basis in the US and
elsewhere? They just need to take it one step further and have niggers back where
they really belong, in cages and chains?
The bottom line is this.
The Barbican like almost all other major
arts institutions in this country receives public money and thus has a remit to
serve the ‘public good’. So if you agree that this proposed exhibition
oversteps that remit of ‘public good’ and delves into the realm of orientalist
white guilt/power masturbation that will have absolutely no useful outcomes and
will certainly not empower the millions of descendants of victims of European
colonization living here in London, then please sign this petition and let Mr.
Bailey take his foolishness back to where he came from.
https://www.change.org/p/withdraw-the-racist-exhibition-exhibition-b-the-human-zoo
August 3, 2013
Hip Hop History Selected Bibliography & Discography
Thanks for all the support yesterday, you all made it a great event. See below for all those interested.
Bibliography
Chapter 1: Africa In History
Africa In History by Basil Davidson The Destruction Of Black Civilisation by Chancellor Williams Egypt Revisited By Ivan Van Sertima Before The Slave Trade by Robin Walker
Chapter 2: Maangamizi
The African Slave Trade by Basil Davidson The Black Jacobins by C.L.R James Slaves That Abolished Slavery by Hart After Abolition by Sherwood
Chapter 3: African Cultures In The New World
The Flash Of The Spirit by Thompson The Africanist Aesthetic In Global Hip-Hop by Osumare Brazil Mixture Of Massacre by Nascimiento Blues People by Amiri Baraka
Chapter 4: The Golden Age Of Hip-Hop
Black Noise by Tricia Rose Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang
Chapter 5: Art & The Politics of Power
It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop by M.K Asante The Hip Hop Wars by Tricia Rose We Real Cool by Bell Hooks Rhythm and Business edited by Norman Kelly
Discography
Early Rappers The Ancestors Of Rap (compilation)/Rakim The 18th Letter/The Fugees The Score /Wu Tang Clan 36 Chambers & Wu Tang Forever/Nas Illmatic/Public Enemy Fear Of A Black Planet/Klashnekkof The Sagas Of Klashnekkof/Ice Cube Death Certificate/Dead Prez Lets Get Free/GZA Liquid Swords/KRS ONE Edutainment/Sticky Fingaz The Autobiography Of Kirk Jones/Jay-Z Reasonable Doubt/Skinnyman Council Estate Of Mind/Akala The Thieves Banquet/Lauryn Hill The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill/Slick Rick The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick Tupac Makavelli/Biggie Ready To Die/Outkast Aquemini/Saul Williams Saul Williams/UNKLE Psyence Fiction/NWA Straight Out Of Compton The Last Poets/The Very Best Of The Last Poets/Gil Scott Heron The Revolution Will Not Be Televised/The Disposable Heroes Of Hip Hoprisy Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
May 29, 2013
Hip-Hop Shakespeare Tour
Due to unforeseen circumstances, The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company have been forced to postpone their forthcoming Richard II Live tour until the Autumn. New dates have been announced & all tickets for the original dates will be valid for the new dates, with a new date for the Newcastle show to be announced in due course. Those ticket holders who wish to obtain refunds, should seek a refund from point of purchase by 5th June 2013.
New Tour dates:
Oct 1 - Bristol / Thekla
Oct 2 – Manchester / Academy 3
Oct 4 – Norwich / Open
Oct 5 – Birmingham / The Drum
Oct 6 – London / Islington Academy 2
Newcastle (new date/venue TBC)
Ticket link http://bit.ly/thsc-tickets
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