Soldiers at the door for Spearhead
go to article

Godspeed You! Black Emperor questioned as suspected terrorists
go to article

Bombs rain where civilization grew

By Hilmi Toros

Istanbul, Turkey, Mar. 25 (IPS)— In aiming to disarm Iraq and bring a regime change, The Mother of All Battles II is also ravaging the cradle of Western civilization.

A bomb from a Tornado jet fighter may fall on Adam and Eve’s Garden of Eden. Or the birthplace of Abraham.

It was in the very place where thousands of “sorties” now rain “smart bombs” that the world probably found its first form of writing (cuneiform).

Cultivated crops, canals, dams, irrigation, and animal husbandry originated in what was known as the Fertile Crescent between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. The rivers the coalition forces are heading to cross on the way to Baghdad.

Greek thinkers drew inspiration from the mathematicians, astronomers, and philosophers of Mesopotamia, the land that is now Iraq.

Night becomes day in Baghdad in the flashes of bombs, day feels like night under the thick black smoke over Baghdad. But it was there that day was divided into 24 hours, the hour into 60 minutes and a circle into 360 degrees. And it was here that algebra and geometry were developed.

Armored personnel carriers now roam the area. It was in Mesopotamia that the idea of a vehicle on four wheels originated.

Smart bombs are the product of current precision technology, but the first measuring and surveying instruments date back to Mesopotamia.

But so does the principle of “an eye for an eye.” The death penalty was decreed for contractors whose buildings collapsed and killed anyone in the thriving city-state of Babylon around 700 BC. No one in Iraq will be punished now when buildings collapse like a deck of cards under American bombs.

If surgeons are forgiven now for failure to take proper care in a war situation, in Babylon they were held responsible for what could be considered the origin of “malpractice.”

Mesopotamia gave us the first metal working, architecture, city building, urban planning, legal system, medical writings, cobblestone streets, pottery, and even beer, about 6,000 years ago.

“It is an ironic twist of fate to stand on the remains of a city where the civilized world began and realize it could all end right there as well,” says US historian Bradley Parker. “Iraq is the cradle of Western civilization. It is how we came to be what we are.”

It is from here that civilization spread to Greece, to Rome, and then on to the rest of Europe and the Orient.

All of Iraq is considered an archaeological site. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon remain among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The Mother of All Battles I and II are far from the first to shake the cradle, though none matched this one perhaps in spreading “shock and awe” this fast.

“Violent ‘regime change,’ invasions, wars, revolts and massacres have been a way of life for 6,000 years in Mesopotamia,” says Kit Miniclier, a US observer of the Middle East.

Ever since Ur became the Western world’s first city 5,500 years ago, the area has seen war and peace under the Sumerians, the Babylonian King Hammurabi, Hittites, Assyrians, King Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, the Greek Seleucid dynasty, the Mongols, Turks, Persians, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, and down to Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath (“Renaissance” or “Revival”) Party.

The Mongols are said to have slaughtered 800,000 people in this region in 1258 AD, but only Alexander the Great accomplished a feat that others, including the current “coalition of the willing” would have wished -- breezing in unchallenged.

Over the centuries Baghdad became a special place in what is now Iraq. Founded in the year 762 AD, it had its share of turbulence, but it became also the spiritual, political, intellectual, and cultural hub of the Islamic world. It was once the world’s largest city west of China. It was the “Paris of the Orient” long before Beirut, and for far longer than Beirut.

When Europe was in the Dark Ages in the ninth century, the Caliph of Baghdad built a “House of Wisdom” which became a magnet for students and scholars for free exchange of ideas. Literature from afar was brought by camel caravans to be studied, translated, and preserved.

It was in Baghdad that the Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid, who ruled between 786 and 809, listened to Sheherezade’s fairy tales for “A Thousand and One Nights.” Baghdad now counts its nights of bombings.

The hip-hop Aunt Jemima of the Year

By Wiley A. Hall, 3rd

Mar. 22— Early reviews described Queen Latifah’s new comedy Bringing Down the House as so stereotypical, offensive, and anti-Black that I had to see the movie for myself before I could believe it.

The Orlando Sentinel said the movie “left an unpleasant aftertaste, like a lot of Disney movies featuring Black actors.” The Boston Globe described it as “the ‘House’ that clichés built.” The LA Times, after noting that too often we were encouraged to laugh at Latifah’s character rather than with her, concluded that she inadvertently had made herself the butt of her own movie.
And the Washington Post described Bringing Down the House as “witless,” “offensive,” and “an embarrassment for all concerned.”

“And what to make of Latifah’s involvement in this sorry debacle?” wondered the Post’s Rita Kempley in her Mar. 7 review. “Since [Latifah] has acknowledged cleaning up the crude script, she clearly read the thing and agreed to play a hip-hop Aunt Jemima anyway.”

It was Kempley’s review that sent me flying to the theater. I also wanted to know what to make of Latifah’s involvement.

Here’s a handsome, statuesque woman who calls herself a “queen,” fresh off her Oscar-nominated performance in Chicago, and seemingly able to write her own ticket in Hollywood. And what does she do? Could it be? Does she really and truly take a role as a “hip-hop Aunt Jemima?”

Yeah, she does.

Latifah plays an escaped convict who elbows her way into the life of an affluent tax attorney (played by Steve Martin) and tries to force him to reopen her case and prove her innocence. This is a classic tale of a clash of cultures, in which we’re supposed to laugh as Latifah brings her funky, urban crudities into the quiet, urbane world of White suburbia. White man can’t dance. Black girl don’t talk good. Ha, ha.

I saw Bringing Down the House way back on Mar. 8 and my eyeballs are still bleeding. The movie made me cringe so much my shoulders ached. It played on so many negative Black stereotypes that if anyone had asked me if I was Black in those first few moments after the lights came on, I might have denied it, denied it, and denied it, three times until the cock crowed.

Latifah has catapulted herself to the top of the list for cartoonist Aaron McGruder’s annual “Most embarrassing Black person” award. The NAACP, which seems to have an affinity for embarrassing Black people, is sure to applaud this performance during next year’s Image Awards.

What are we to make of this?

Bringing Down the House demonstrates one of two things: either Black stars such as Queen Latifah remain powerless to fight Hollywood’s stereotypes, or Black stars such as Queen Latifah honestly and sincerely don’t know any better.

“You obviously have pockets of intelligence,” cries Steve Martin’s character, exasperated beyond all endurance by Latifah’s flamboyant ignorance, “so why do you walk and talk the way you do?”

“Because that’s the way I am,” replies Latifah.

That’s as deep as she gets and she’s proud of it.

All that being said, I confess that I laughed almost as often as I cringed -- the old Amos and Andy show was funny too. And it may be that the young folk are right when they insist that comedy is comedy, a joke is a joke, and we ought to stop fretting about whether other people take those images too seriously.

“Oh, get a life!” bark the whippersnappers. To which I guess I’m supposed to reply, humbly and meekly, “OK.”

Finally, Bringing Down the House belongs to a genre of film that I’m beginning to find more and more appealing as I start to accumulate years. In it, an outsider (usually a Black woman) enters the universe of a successful, but world-weary professional (almost always a White man), cuts through the confusion of his relationships and knits the tattered shreds of his life back together again.

This is a universal story of redemption, forgiveness, and renewal; of getting a second chance and this time getting it right.

In Bringing Down the House, Latifah barges into Steve Martin’s life and rescues his career, his family, and even his love life. She does this without judging him or even inconveniencing him much beyond scaring him a little with her street ways.

And even though Martin’s character is wealthy and White, and I’m, well, not wealthy and not White, I could relate to his weariness. I found myself yearning for a human bulldozer to steamroll into my life and turn things inside out and upside down.

“You’ve certainly been shaking things up around here,” says Martin during a rare quiet moment during the movie.

“Well honey,” replies Latifah with a sassy smile, “shaking is what I do best.”

And that’s when it struck me: what I want and most urgently need is a hip-hop Aunt Jemima of my very own. How come White guys get all the fun? Heaven knows I need rescuing as much, if not more, than affluent tax attorneys.

Source: The Afro American Newspaper Movie

back to top

Soldiers at the door for Spearhead

By Amy Goodman

Mar. 27— For nearly a decade, hip-hop artist and activist Michael Franti has been a leading progressive voice in music. He grew out of the Bay Area music and political scene of the 90s. In 1986 he founded the drum and bass duo the Beatnigs, paving the way for his next musical endeavor, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. His most recent musical project is the musical collective Spearhead, begun in 1994. Franti has used his music to push social boundaries, speaks out against sexual violence, encourages his community to prevent the spread of HIV and has been very vocal in his opposition to war. And now it maybe the reason why the government is looking at him and his group Spearhead.

Goodman: It’s good to have you with us. Can you talk about what’s been happening as you’ve been touring the country with songs like “Bomb da World”?

Franti: Well, we’ve been touring for the last year and a half performing that song and everywhere we go it gets standing ovations, people begin to cry. People are just very grateful to hear any voice out there right now who are speaking in support of peace and human rights.

Goodman: What’s happened as you’ve been on this tour?

Franti: Well, what’s happened most recently is that we performed at a rally on Mar. 15 in San Francisco and the next day on the 16th — that rally was out here — and on the 16th on the East Coast, a band member of mine who prefers to go unnamed, his mother received a visit from two plainclothes men from the military — and this band member of mine has a sibling who is in the Gulf.

And they came in and talked to her and said, you have a child who’s in the Gulf and you have a child who’s in this band Spearhead who’s part of the “resistance”(in their words).

They had pictures of us performing the day before at the rally, they had pictures of us performing at some of our annual concerts that we put on that are in support of peace and human rights. They had his flight records for the past several months, they had the names of everybody who works in my office, our management office Guerilla Management. They had his checking account records. They asked his mother a lot of questions about where he was, what he was doing in this place, why he was going here. They confiscated his sibling’s CD collection that they had brought over to listen to while they were in the Gulf, and basically were intimidating — told her which members of the press she could talk to and which members of the press she should not speak to.

And basically what this signals to me is that — I don’t feel like we’re being particularly singled out or under any investigation for any activity because all the activity that we do is very much above board and all the events where photos were taken were all public things we were at. But what it does signal to me is that there’s a lot of us who are now making a blip on the radar, you know, whether we’re organizers at rallies, whether we’re musicians, whether we’re people who are speaking out, authors, writers, actors. And we’re beginning to make little blips on the radar. They’re starting to pay attention and collect information about what’s going on. You know, more important to me or more important than me you know, being a part of that is the fact that our civil rights are being eroded across the board for every person.

And for musicians in particular it’s a really hard time. Last week our label received a letter, a mass email from MTV instructing the fact that no videos could be shown that mentioned the words “bombing” or “war.”

No videos could be shown that had protesters in it. Any footage from military — they gave a list of prior videos that could not be shown, yet MTV has aired videos that show troops saying goodbye to their loved ones and going off to war in a very heroic fashion and troops which are gonna be coming home traumatized, wounded, and dead and then be treated and thrown onto the scrap heap of veterans, as we’ve seen veterans treated in this country.

And at the Academy Awards, there were also letters and talk that went around saying not to speak out. Radio — mainstream radio, Clear Channel in particular, of course — has put the word out not to air songs that are in opposition to the war and in support of peace. Meanwhile, our song “Bomb Da World” which we just put out is now in heavy rotation on a top youth radio station in Australia and in Denmark and it’s expected to get added to a lot of stations in other countries.

Goodman: A few days ago, Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill and I were at the Ani DiFranco concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center to talk about Democracy Now and the importance of independent media in a time of war, just before she went on. And Clear Channel, which owns New Jersey Performing Arts Center, runs that venue, told her no political information could be given out and threatened — it seemed the venue threatened to close down the concert if there was any political speech.

Franti: It’s incredible, it’s outrageous, and I think it’s something that we all need to be aware of and need to support the arts, you know, whether it’s music, whether it’s films, whether it’s dance performances or whatever, this is the last place, apart from Pacifica and a few other stations around the country, where these voices are being heard.

Goodman: And Clear Channel that runs 1,200 radio stations now, runs many of the big venues in this country for musicians.

Franti: So it’s important that we call these stations and demand that these voices be heard.

Source: Democracy Now!

back to top

Godspeed You! Black Emperor questioned as suspected terrorists

By Ryan Schreiber

Mar. 24— Renowned Canadian “non-tet” Godspeed You! Black Emperor were held for questioning as possible terrorists at an Oklahoma gas station on Saturday, while driving from a concert they’d played at Fort Worth, TX’s Ridglea Theatre to a show to be held the following Monday at the Blue Note in Columbia, MO. According to Tom Windish, a representative for the band at The Billions Corporation, the band pulled their two vans and white-panel truck, which they use for toting equipment, into an area gas station to refuel. Upon seeing the motley crew of nine musicians, the station’s attendant passed a note to a female customer which said that the band were terrorists. It asked her to call the police.

Before even having a chance to leave the station, the group was reportedly approached by police. FBI agents arrived soon after. Some members of the band were held for questioning for roughly three hours before finally being released as innocents.

“They get hassled by The Man regularly,” said Bruce Adams, co-founder of the Chicago-based label Kranky. “Police pulling them over, anything you can imagine. It’s just the feeling in the country right now.”

“I just feel very lucky that we weren’t Pakistani or Korean,” Godspeed You! Black Emperor frontman Efrim Menuck told Pitchfork at the band’s Chicago performance on Friday night. “They detained 1,000 people in California, no one knows what happened to them. We’re just lucky we’re nice white kids from Canada. That’s what I feel lucky about.” Menuck was reluctant to further discuss the incident, citing that they had already told the story at a performance earlier in the week. Constellation Records, which the band presently records for, had no comment.

Source: Pitchfork

back to top