Category Archives: politics

r.i.p. ntozake shange (1948 – 2018)

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One thing I don’t need
is any more apologies
I got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yours.
I don’t know what to do wit em
they don’t open doors
or bring the sun back.
They dont make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars.
Cuz a sorry
I am simply tired
of collectin
I didn’t know
I was so important to you
I’m gonna haveta throw some away
I can’t get to the clothes in my closet
for alla the sorries.
I’m gonna tack a sign to my door
leave a message by the phone
‘if you called
to say your sorry
call somebody
else!
I don’t use em anymore’
I let sorry/ didn’t meanta/ & how could I know about that?
Take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn!
I’m gonna do exactly what I want to
& I won’t be sorry for none of it!
Letta sorry soothe your soul/ I’m gonna soothe mine!
You were always inconsistent
doin somethin & then bein sorry
beatin my heart to death!
Talkin bout you sorry well,
I will not call,
I’m not goin to be nice,
I will raise my voice,
& scream & holler
& break things & race the engine
& tell all your secrets bout yourself to your face
& I will list in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers
& their ways I will play oliver lake loud!
& I wont be sorry for none of it
I LOVED YOU ON PURPOSE, I WAS OPEN ON PURPOSE!
I still crave vulnerability & close talk
& I’m not even sorry bout you bein sorry!
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me!
I cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you’re mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein YOURSELF

Business As Usual After Marikana – edited volume (2018)

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The mining industry has always been the backbone of the South African economy, and it still is. A healthy and sustainable mining sector should accordingly form part of the focus of our efforts to heal this country and its people. Nevertheless, the history of mining in South Africa has been and continues to be characterised by the oppression and exploitation of workers under the policy of the migratory system. The new dispensation of 1994, rule under the African National Congress, did not assist much in changing the conditions at the mines. It continues to turn a blind eye to the unjust wages and living and working conditions of miners.

Six years after the Marikana massacre we have still seen minimal change for mineworkers and mining communities. Although much has been written about the days leading up to 16 August 2012 and how little has been done, few have analysed the policies and system that make such a tragedy possible. Lonmin Platinum Mine and the events of 16 August are a microcosm of the mining sector and how things can go wrong when society leaves everything to government and “big business”.

Business as Usual after Marikana is a comprehensive analysis of mining in South Africa. Written by respected academics and practitioners in the field, it looks into the history, policies and business practices that brought us to this point. It also examines how bigger global companies like BASF were directly or indirectly responsible, and yet nothing is done to keep them accountable.

“This publication, which starts by examining the long-term business relations between BASF and Lonmin, goes on to drill deeper into the hard rock of the persistent structures of inequality. By doing so we will understand that Marikana is not the tragic failure of an otherwise improving economic system but rather a calculated form of collateral damage.” – Bishop Jo Seoka, former president of the South African Council of Churches

#WeWillNeverForget

I have an essay in this book – if you’re interested, you can get hold of a copy via Jacana. The book also appears in German as Zum Beispiel BASF. Über Konzernmacht und Menschenrechte, published by Mandelbaum.

thabang tabane – nyanda yeni (2017)

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We are proud to present the official music video for Nyanda Yeni, the first single of Thabang Tabane’s upcoming debut solo album, Matjale.

The music video, directed and edited by StraitJacket Tailor, is composed primarily of archival footage taken from apartheid-era cinema from South Africa. The images are borrowed from 1950s films and variety shows with some footage for 1970s propaganda films endorsing the notion of ‘separate development’. By taking apart old apartheid-era films and their fallacies of coonish fantasy, it slices and splices them in order to re-order their meanings. In other words, it subverts. Taking us for a loop. Also included in the film are short video clips of the legendary, late Dr. Philip Tabane performing, creating an arch that links father and son in life, love and malombo.
The archival clips are choreographed in a loop emulating the spinning of a record on a turntable, but also the vertiginous séance-like spin of a dance or chant for rain.

StraitJacket Tailor is a record collector, archivist, and award winning documentary film director/producer.

Nyanda Yeni is now available on most digital platforms.

The album, Matjale, drops digitally, on CD and on vinyl on Friday, the 14th of September, 2018.

Credits for Music Video:
Produced by Sifiso Khanyile and Boxcutter Studio
Directed and edited by #StraitJacket Tailor

Credits for Track:
Nyanda Yeni by Thabang Tabane
Music composed and arranged by Thabang Tabane
Lyrics from Traditional Song
Performed by Thabang Tabane (malombo drums, hlwahlwadi, toys & vocals), Dennis Moanganei Magagula (djembe, hlwahlwadi & toys), Sibusile Xaba (guitar & sounds) and Thulani Ntuli (electric bass guitar)
Produced by Thabang Tabane, Andrew Curnow & Dion Monti
Recorded by Andrew Curnow & Nhlanhla Mngadi
Mixed by Dion Monti & João Orecchia
Mastered by Norman Nitzsche at Calyx Mastering
Recorded live at the Tabane household, Mamelodi on 28 August 2016.
Executive Producers and A&R – Lindokuhle Nkosi, Chumisa Ndakisa & Andrew Curnow

Lovingly presented to you by Mushroom Hour Half Hour
http://www.mushroomhour.com

johanna hedva – my body is a prison of pain so i want to leave it like a mystic but i also love it & want it to matter politically (2015)

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Event presented by the Women’s Center for Creative Work at Human Resources on October 7, 2015

Go here for a version of this speech adapted for Mask Magazine.

Johanna Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory proposes that sick bodies are the 21st century’s sites of resistance: chronic, pathologized, and historically feminized illnesses ought to be read as modes of protest against the unlivable conditions of neoliberal, imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist cis-hetero-patriarchy. Sick Woman Theory insists that the definition of “wellness” is a capitalist one — to be well enough to go work — that needs to be rejected. SWT redefines the body with its vulnerability as the default, so therefore, we are constantly (not only sometimes) in need of care and support. Because society has eradicated such infrastructures, what are we going to do now?

From here, Hedva (herself a spoonie) has wound up at mystical anarchism, which proposes a communal politics of love, where the “self” has been obliterated in favor of the Many. This talk will try to converge the feminist mystical tradition of Marguerite Porete, Simone Weil, etc., who proposed rejecting the body for the sake of love, with an intersectional-feminist, anti-white-supremacist, queer, and crip politics, which foregrounds the body as primary matter.

A question for the audience: Are these two positions irreconcilable?

bio:
Johanna Hedva is currently a Research Fellow with “at land’s edge,” under the mentorship of Fred Moten.
#JohannaHedva (vimeo.com/user1845185)

Johanna Hedva. Photo: Mask Magazine

 

victor jara – canto libre (1970)

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A verse is like a dove seeking a place to lay her eggs
It bursts out and spreads its wings, getting ready to fly away

My song is a song of freedom that I want to give away
(My song is a song of freedom)
To those who like shaking hands and to those willing to open fire
(My song is a song of freedom)

My song is like an endless chain
(My song is like an endless chain)
My song is like an endless chain without beginning and without end
In each one of its links you find the song of every man
Yes the song of every man

Let’s keep on singing together
Let’s sing to everyone on earth
(Let’s keep on singing together)
Since singing is like a dove who has yet a place to find,
It bursts out and spreads its wings to fly away

My song is a song of freedom…

guan xiao – david (2013)

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Beijing-based Guan Xiao tries to steer away from the label “post-internet artist,” but, looking at her work, it’s obvious the tool—and the advancement that comes with it—is a big part of her creative endeavours. Both her sculptural and video pieces, which are often interconnected, draw on imagery found on the net, treating it both as a source and a platform.

joni mitchell – the wolf that lives in lindsey (1979)

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Of the darkness in men’s minds
What can you say
That wasn’t marked by history
Or the TV news today

He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

His grandpa loved an empire
His sister loved a thief
And Lindsey loved the ways of darkness
Beyond belief

Girls in chilly blouses
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

The cops don’t seem to care
For derelicts or ladies of the night
They’re weeds for yanking out of sight
If you’re smart or rich or lucky

Maybe you’ll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can
No no man can

There lives a wolf in Lindsey
That raids and runs
Through the hills of Hollywood
And the downtown slums

He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

© 1978-1979; Crazy Crow Music

ani difranco – your next bold move (2001)

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coming of age during the plague
of reagan and bush
watching capitalism gun down democracy
it had this funny effect on me
i guess

i am cancer
i am HIV
and i’m down at the blue jesus
blue cross hospital
just lookin’ up from my pillow
feeling blessed

and the mighty multinationals
have monopolized the oxygen
so it’s as easy as breathing
for us all to participate

yes they’re buying and selling
off shares of air
and you know it’s all around you
but it’s hard to point and say “there”
so you just sit on your hands
and quietly contemplate

your next bold move
the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable
and sell them to seagulls flying in circles
around one big right wing

yes, the left wing was broken long ago
by the slingshot of cointelpro
and now it’s so hard to have faith in
anything

especially your next bold move
or the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

you want to track each trickle
back to its source
and then scream up the faucet
’til your face is hoarse
cuz you’re surrounded by a world’s worth
of things you just can’t excuse

but you’ve got the hard cough of a chain smoker
and you’re at the arctic circle playing strip poker
and it’s getting colder and colder
everytime you lose

so go ahead
make your next bold move
tell us
what’s the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

mccarthy – red sleeping beauty (1986)

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McCarthy were a British indie pop band, formed in Barking, Essex, England in 1984 by schoolmates Malcolm Eden (voice and guitar) and Tim Gane (lead guitar) with John Williamson (bass guitar) and Gary Baker (drums). Lætitia Sadier would later join the band on vocals on their third studio album Banking, Violence and the Inner Life Today.

They mixed a sweetly melodic style, dominated by Gane’s 12-string guitar playing, with Eden’s overtly political lyrics, often satirical in tone, which reflected the band’s far left leanings.

Eden, Gane and Williamson met at Barking Abbey Comprehensive School. Gane was originally a drummer, but was initially taught to play guitar by Eden, who also taught Williamson the basics of bass. Eden and Gane were fans of punk groups such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Buzzcocks, and they covered their songs in small gigs as teenagers. Baker joined in 1984, and with the new line-up deciding on the name McCarthy (a tongue-in-cheek reference to American politician Joe McCarthy), they released a self-financed first single, “In Purgatory” in 1985. The band were signed by the Pink Label, releasing two further singles “Red Sleeping Beauty” and “Frans Hals”. The band had a track included on the NME C86 album (“Celestial City”).

Their debut album I Am a Wallet was released in 1987. The album was virtually ignored by UK radio programmers, except for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Because of Eden’s Marxist political views, the band were, to their dismay, often lumped in with other left-wing acts like Billy Bragg and The Redskins. I Am a Wallet has since been described by Nicky Wire as “the most perfect record, a Communist manifesto with tunes”, and was rated by James Dean Bradfield as his top British album of all time.

Two further singles appeared in early 1988 and were followed by a second album, The Enraged Will Inherit the Earth, which was considerably less well received.

A year later, they released a third album Banking, Violence and the Inner Life Today, on which they were joined by Gane’s girlfriend Lætitia Sadier on vocals. The album suggested a new willingness to experiment musically, and was seen by critics as something of a return to form, but it in fact proved to be their swansong and they split soon afterwards. Eden felt there was no need to continue with the band, believing that their creativity peaked with that LP. The band’s final gig was at the London School of Economics in 1990.

The band twice had songs in John Peel’s Festive Fifty: “Frans Hals” in 1987 (#35), and “Should the Bible Be Banned” in 1988 (#38).

Gane and Sadier went on to form Stereolab, while Eden formed the short-lived Herzfeld.  Baker went on to a career in radiography, before going on to work for The Guardian.  Williamson went on to work for music publisher BMG and Domino Records.

http://cherryred.co.uk/

james baldwin and margaret mead – a rap on race (1971)

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“In honor of the release of James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro documentary, we’ve decided to share the rare audio version of the classic conversation between Margaret Mead and James Baldwin from 1971. Long out of print, original LP sells for 3 figures. Courtesy The Charles Woods Collection. For educational purposes. No rights given or implied. Feel free to comment/share/subscribe. Share original link whenever possible.”

laurie penny – cybersexism: sex, gender and power on the internet (2013)

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‘In ye olden tymes of 1987, the rhetoric was that we would change genders the way we change underwear,’ says Clay Shirky, media theorist and author of Here Comes Everybody.‘[But] a lot of it assumed that everyone would be happy passing as people like me – white, straight, male, middle-class and at least culturally Christian.’ Shirky calls this ‘the gender closet’: ‘people like me saying to people like you, “You can be treated just like a regular normal person and not like a woman at all, as long as we don’t know you’re a woman.”’

The Internet was supposed to be for everyone… Millions found their voices in this brave new online world; it gave unheard masses the space to speak to each other without limits, across borders, both physical and social. It was supposed to liberate us from gender. But as more and more of our daily lives migrated on line, it seemed it did matter if you were a boy or a girl.’

It’s a tough time to be a woman on the internet. Over the past two generations, the political map of human relations has been redrawn by feminism and by changes in technology. Together they pose questions about the nature and organisation of society that are deeply challenging to those in power, and in both cases, the backlash is on. In this brave new world, old-style sexism is making itself felt in new and frightening ways.

In Cybersexism, Laurie Penny goes to the dark heart of the matter and asks why threats of rape and violence are being used to try to silence female voices, analyses the structure of online misogyny, and makes a case for real freedom of speech – for everyone.

Laurie Penny. Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). PDF here.

shilpa ray – posted by anonymous (live, 2013)

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From the Deeper Down studio session (2013).

I’m pressed against a window
Flat
With a broken nose
Rhinoplasts and the bombs blastin’
Who’s scalping tickets for this show?

Lines round the block in
circles
A Human Centipede
I wanna be the victim
who gets the most sympathy

Don’t reward my participation
Or teach me about masturbation
I could fake your newest sensation
Steal someone else’s imagination
Microdermabrasion

Oh I’ve gotta feeling
I don’t have to be real
No I’m not real

I’M NOT EVEN HERE

Headlines talkin’ and your
Picture’s Squawkin’
You haven’t said a word
Hysterical Historical
How did you get your foot in the door?

Mass killin’s thrillin’
Public’s appealin’ on TV
And when you have your say
Starlings
What are you gonna say to me?

Don’t reward my participation
Or teach me about masturbation
I could fake your newest sensation
Steal someone else’s imagination
Crystal Blue Persuasion

What is the meaning?
I don’t wanna hear?
No I can’t hear.
No I can’t hear
I’M NOT EVEN HERE

animation explaining giorgio agamben’s “homo sacer” (2014)

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Clear explanation of this important concept.

The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy’s most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it.

In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault’s fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle’s notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty (whether of the king or the state), a notion of sovereignty as power over “life” is implicit.

The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt’s idea of the sovereign’s status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective “naked life” of all individuals.

__

The blurb of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life by Giorgio Agamben. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. (Stanford University Press, 1998).