Are you a traitor?

Adrian Grima's brilliant interview in the Independent has caused quite a stir with Malta's Radical Right. For those of you who are unaware the Radical Right's job is to call anybody who does not agree with their vision of things a traitor. Do you have a different opinion? TRAITOR!!!! YOU'RE BETRAYING YOUR PATRIA!!!! YOU'RE THE ENEMY!!!!

It kind of reminds me of that scene from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the people are desperately trying to prove that one woman is a witch. Yes folks. It's that ridiculous. Yet its comic effect can become serious. God forbid these Radical Right would ever have access to power. The witch hunt would be truly on then. And that's not funny. Shunning discussion and resorting to attacking people, using 'Traitor' as the all-time buzzword is not only not funny, it's a threat to democracy. Kind of the same thing the government is up to in the abortion/constitution business.

Witch hunts should be left for the history books. Those that cherish democratic values please take not. Better still, take action.

Adrian Grima on Racism

Check out Adrian Grima's comments on racism in an interview published on The Independent on Sunday. Click here. A very interesting read.

Imposed Break

Just to let you lot know that I won't be posting much for the coming weeks. I'm buried in work. As you can probably imagine there is no smile gracing my face as I type this. I'll just turn myself into a zombie and just eat, sleep and work.

When you mention the word overtime most people's eyes transform toLM symbols. Not me. Even though I need money to release a CD, I still see more work as waste of more time. It irks me badly that I have to sell a third of my day so that I can live the rest. My guess is that I'm not the only one. Yet we tend to find individual solutions ( or adaptations) to a collective problem.

Anyone up for a revolution?

Xtruppaw (2)

Xtruppaw website is now online. Take a look at it here.

The Market

The invisible hand of the market will control everything. Or so they say. The market does magic and it gives us bliss. It regulates itself and the less interference, the better it will function. We're meant to believe that the market acts independently of any decisions taken by conscious human beings. Yet what is the result?

We have excess of food and hungry people. Clothes in the shops and people in rags. There's a scarcity of water and drunken binges. Books on sale and illiterate people. There are obese people in a world of malnutrition. Shops full of products and empty pockets. Smiles on adverts and miserable lives. We're led by lifestyles instead of leading lives. We have cool ACs and global warming. We have poison smoke coming out of hospital chimneys. We have free movement of capital but not of humans. We have homeless people and empty houses. We build stations in space and destroy forests on earth. We have limited resources and unlimited weapons. We have colour TVs but black and white visions. We talk of liberty but live in chains. We speak of democracy in authoritarian lives. We live in dreams and dream of lives. We satisfy wants not unfulfilled needs.

The market rules! Our world that is. Three cheers for the jolly sod. Hip hype, hooray! Hip hype, hooray! Hip hype, hooray!

Julian

I was watching Bondi+ last night when, at the end of the programme, Lou shocked Malta with the news that activist and journalist Julian Manduca has passed away. It was just shocking. The last time I felt something similar was when a friend of mine died in 2000. No other way to describe it. It was a truly shocking experience. My body frooze and I suddenly found my heart beat increasing. For a few seconds, possibly verging on minutes I kept staring at the TV screen in total disbelief. The sad news kept bouncing in my head. Did I hear right? How could this have happened? There must be some mistake.

From what I found out this morning many people felt this way. I can understand why. I did not know Julian too well. He was an acquaintance that I got to know through my involvement on environmental issues. Yet although I never got to know him as close as I probably should have, he always struck me as a humble and genuine charming man. He was one of the most inspiring activists I have had the privilege to meet. His non-stop work on environmental issues is nothing short of a great thunderbolt of inspiration that serves as an example of what committed citizens should be all about. No amount of words can ever do justice to the tireless work carried out by Julian. His memory will keep on living in every action taken by us in our attempts to carry on Julian's work. It is our duty to take the torch from Julian's hand and carry it forward. That is how he would have wanted it to be.

Condolences to Julian's wife, Irene and all his family and friends.

Rest in peace Julian.

Xtruppaw

Just heard a couple of songs by a new local band called Xtruppaw. Now I may be biased in my perception and opinion of the band because the guy behind the lyrics and the music is my cousin. Not only that but the band members are all great people who used to give me whiskey when I used to hang around them (Cheers guys).

Having declared my bias I will now start raving about them.

They're just great. Lyrics in Maltese, ironic and hilarious. Xtruppaw are a middle finger to straight moralistic Malta. It's not that there haven't been bands that tried to do this sort of thing before but the difference between Xtruppaw and others is that Xtruppaw do it with so much style that they're bound to be remembered in the history of local underground culture. I'm convinced their songs will become cult classics. I also heard that their website, which isn't up yet, will be something to look out for. More about that in the coming weeks...

In the meantime, here are the lyrics to the song 'Malta'. You can download the song from the Reciprocal Records website. Xtruppaw will be making their debut live appearance in the upcoming Festahwid. More info here.

MALTA

Kemm ahna tan-nejk f’dan il-pajjiz

Kulhadd dejjaq, vergni u qaddis

Festi ta’ ipokrizija

L-ewwel jien u l-partit

L-aqwa li b’zaqqna mimlija

Imma jekk tibkilna xi naqra ngibuk

Fuq Tista Tkun Int!

Inkantaw

Malta - gbejniet u bigilla

Malta - fazola u bizzilla

Malta - fuq Xarabank

Malta - pastizz tal-pizelli

Malta - suf bit-tarzanelli

Malta - u qassatat

U Kinnie kiesah… oh oh …inkantaw

Dil-gzira z-zibga tal-Meditterran

Dhalna fl-Ewropa u kulhadd ferhan

Nghidu viva il-ministri

Il-qhab tas-socjeta

Ftakar li gejt habbatlek

U sahansitra tajtek keychain

U issa anke qed nibnulek sptar

Nivvotaw

Malta - min blu u min ahmar

Malta - u daqsxejn zghira ahdar

Malta - jew nifflowtjaw?

Malta - kunsilli lokali

Malta - elezzjoni generali

Malta - niccelebraw

U l-Eurovision… oh oh …nivvotaw

Naqra xita u ngherqu f’dik l-injoranza

Nimlew il-hofor bic-citazzjonijiet

Trabi bil-mobile ta’ l-gholi tal-hajja

Ha nnaqsu dak id-defisit…li writt

Malta - gwardjani lokali

Malta - emmigranti illegali

Malta - u traffic lights

Malta - demokrazija

Malta - tghidx erezija

Malta - iddejquli l-bajd

Malta - gbejniet u bigilla

Malta - fazola u bizzilla

Malta - fuq Xarabank

Malta - pastizz tal-pizelli

Malta - suf bit-tarzanelli

Malta - u qassatat

U Kinnie kiesah… oh oh …inkantaw

World Fest 2005

Yesterday I popped by to the Upper Barrakka to take a look around at the World Fest organised by the Third World Group and Koperattiva Kummerc Gust. Three Cheers for the organisers. It's such a great initiative and an enjoyable experience too. I admire all the activist who spent their day lending a hand so that this activity would be possible. Their actions are appreciated. Keep up the good work folks and keep the Fair Trade banner up high.

Urged

In the last couple of days I went back to listen to Norm Rejection's first album: Deconform. I've been familiar with this album since 1997 or 1998, when soon after it was recorded, I got a tape copy of the album from the band's drummer Mike. How the tape is still in one piece is quite a mystery. It's one of those tapes that I used to listen to over and over, and over and over. It's a great album, although it may sound a bit dated today. Still some tracks are classics. 6479, Caged and Urged were, in my opinion the stand out tracks of the album.

The reason I'm writing today is to pay tribute to one of the said songs: Urged. As I was listening to it again yesterday it hit me once more why Norm Rejection were one of the most important bands ever to be part of the local scene. The musicianship on the song is nothing but great. The mood is haunting, moving and emotional. It makes you feel the misery of oppression yet simultaneously fills one with hope. A hope of a different world order. Not to mention those Che Guevera samples that fit in the song just perfectly (kudos to David Vella). The song is so captivating that it was only yesterday that I realised that the song is actually close to the 7 min mark. My ignorance probably stems from the fact that the song never gets boring and every note within it serves a definite purpose. Every note is like a sonic unreported bit of news that just found a release from the bondage of corporate media.

Listening to Norm Rejection brought back some nostalgia. Norm, as they were known by their followers, are sorely missed. They were a very influential band in the 90's local scene, not least on yours truly who was a dedicated fan. They were revolutionary in all senses of the word. Lyric-wise they were a fist in the face of structural oppression and musically they stretched the boundaries of local music, paving the way for many acts that sprung out in the new millennium.

Today most of the members of what was Norm Rejection are busy with their other projects. Mike has Dripht who will be releasing a 5 track ep in the coming months; Jo Kerr is busy touring Europe with Slit and Sean is full of activity with his various musical endeavors (Forsaken, Stonefall and others). I wish good luck to all of them. But still, maybe a one-off Norm Rejection reunion concert wouldn't be such a bad idea. In fact, it's a pretty good one methinks. What say you Norm?

The trilogy

As all of you know, the real Star Wars comprises three movies. So this Stagno banter will end here. I am now off to do some reading. Probably Xemx Wisq Sabiha or Inbid ta Kuljum. It will help me remind myself why the guy is such an important writer in Maltese literature. Waiting for your next one Guz...

Return of the Jedi

Blame it on boredom or whatever but I thought some points in Joseph's reply should be mentioned.

"Like every self-respectig liberal, Patrick is in favour of free speech.
So much so that he gets terribly annoyed every time I happen to mention
immigrants."

Lesson 1 in freedom of speech. It is not absolute, as the libel laws aptly demonstrate. Secondly, it is funny how freedom of speech seems to merely exist only for Guze to dish out his I-look-cool-by-being-racist rants. He gets terribly annoyed when others are terribly annoyed at what he writes terribly to annoy. Guzi, I have all the rights in the world to be annoyed and you can't complain in the same instance when championing freedom of speech. Once again a little degree of consistency would do wonders. Unfortunately the only consistency you're displaying involves a tiny village next to Lija and Attard and technological communication instruments, which I hate to mention again but am compelled to out of a lack of other examples.

"No one is perfect. Malta is full of racist people; most of them keep their
mouth shut to avoid being labeled racist fucks. Me, I don't care of course...
it doesn't make me less of a human being."

What does the above mean? Is Guze actually admitting that being racist is a fault? Where has all the justifications gone? This is a let down. Of course Guze, you're not less of a human. But the same applies to your other buddies, the junkies, the single mothers and the bums. Not quoting the Nazarene today?

"Cos I am the cunt who has to pay so that single mothers keep getting their
allowance and maybe a government apartment to boot [...]The one who pays is the one who tries to do something constructive with his life. And the ones who are
careless with their birth control, the lazy bums, the junkies... they get all
the benefits."

Yes you are a cunt. But not for the reason you mentioned. You're a cunt because you can't decide what you want. If you don't want the government to pay for irregular immigrant's deportation, campaign to let them stay. If you don't want the government to pay for detention centres, campaign to let them free. Simple. And if you're so sick and tired of paying for other people's problems, stop working. Go on. If life as a bum is so attractive, easy and peachy I wonder what's stopping you from adopting it. Is it really the loan? Or is it a deep understanding that such life is not as easy as you say it is?

"If you happen to be someone like me and my partner, who hold steady jobs and
who don't have any way of not declaring our income... bad luck eh... someone has
to pay the taxes..."

Guz, this may come as news to you: most of us pay taxes too. It's not a big deal either. Stop making an event out of the whole thing. What's next a Monty Pythonesque press conference? I can see the headlines: Guze Stagno pays taxes! Wooooooo. Big deal aqqanna (to quote LasPalmas). Why not concentrate on tax evaders instead of welfare recipients. Strong with the weak eh? Bully.

Till Guze's next blog entry...

Disclaimer

The writer of this blog reserves the right to like Guze Stagno and his work (as indeed he does).

Guzempire strikes back

Here is Joseph Stagno's reply to the previous blog entry. It's here. He's struck me down (With a white [power] saber and all).

Political Pop

"I don't like when you mix music with politics" says Ray Gange to Joe Strummer in Rude Boy, the documentary about the Clash's roadie.

Mixing radical and rebellious issues with music seems to irritate some people. It raises questions of 'why?' and makes people uncomfortable that music is used as a weapon of resistance.

Yet do these people object when music is used to reinforce the dominant values and ideas in our society? I, personally have found few people that do. It's normal, so it must be ok. Singing about the bling bling, money, the American dream and constant consumption is acceptable. Who will question that? Seeing Madonna and Missy Elliot promote sweatshops through their endorsements is not really mixing music with politics. It's just the way things are, right? Wrong. Such actions are as political as any song by Rage Against the Machine. Like Bob Dylan sang "you've got to serve somebody". Madonna, Elliot etc are serving a different master. But serving they are. Like RATM they are highly political, albeit in a disguised way. Whether it's the Game & 50 cent promoting the myth of social mobility through "the underdog's on top" phrase or hip-hop's general misogynistic and materialistic messages, music, as part of culture either promotes or rejects particular values. MTV is like a global shopping catalogue selling cool. How much more political can you get?

Further reading:

Banks, J. (1996). Monopoly Television, MTV's Quest to Control the Music. Oxford: Westview Press

Pinn, A. B. (1999). "How Ya Livin'?": Notes on Rap Music and Social Transformation [Electronic version]. The Western Journal of Black Studies, 23(1), 10

Vandalism?

So some folks with vested interests attempted to lead us to believe that the Portes De Bombes vandalism and writing on billboards are somewhat similar, if not one and the same thing. Ha! Stupid fuckin parrot dropping gits.

It's oh so opportunistic. The Bombi thing and spraying on billboards have as much to do with each other as Maggie soddin' Thatchter (or Twatcher) and worker's rights. This spraying on billboards thingy isn't even vandalism. It's merely a part of the democratic process.

Did anybody ever ask to see billboards. Did anybody ever ask to have a rectangle like area invade our view? Did anybody ever ask to have political (or otherwise) slogans shoved down our throat every 100 meters or so? I don't think that they have. At least, I don't remember ever filling applications and giving approval to seeing such messages. Unlike election time, I don't remember people knocking on my door asking for my opinion on the whole thing.

So these eye-sores are put there without citizen's permission. I don't ask to see burgers the size of the Mosta dome, happy people smiling with products in their hands or messages attempting to convince me that the government is up to something. Do you?

We didn't ask to see them, yet see them we must. It's very difficult to avoid them, so it's only logical that people should be able to answer them. Now as you're aware, generally speaking, people don't afford to have their own billboards so the only way to question, counter and reject these methods is through guerilla-type strategy. Spray cans are convenient. They're easily available and effective. So if questioning what is imposed on us is vandalism we're as democratic as Stalin with PMS.

Besides, why does the government feel the need to make an event out of what is obviously their job? Why do they want to let us know through billboards that they're doing things? Isn't it like their job? Shouldn't we kind of know about these things through experiencing them? Once again, the mind boggles.

Idiocy Personified

Somebody threw burnt engine oil on Portes De Bombes (il-Bombi). -insert expression of disbelief with hand scratching head here-

This country has its fair share of idiots. Granted. But this type of idiocy is absurd. It never fails to amaze me how backward some people can get. Remember Imnajdra a couple of years ago? Whatever happened to that case? Is it still pending or what? If any people were arraigned and found guilty I don't remember reading about it (not surprising: my memory is crap).

What motive could anybody have to vandalise a restored Portes De Bombes? Really. What could inspire such action? Did the culprit(s) have some argument with the arches? Where the arches mischievously narrowing themselves when the culprit tried to pass through them? Did they do something to piss him/her off? What exactly? If that was the case it would be somewhat understandable. You know, people get angry when provoked. They may also resort to the 'do- stupid-things tactic'.

That would be kind of understandable, if only it could in any way possible be true. I, like most of the people, have no reason to doubt Mr. De Bombes' good behaviour. He has quite a good reputation. In fact the only thing he's famous for is for sitting there doing fuck all, minding his own damn business, passively inhaling exhaust and welcoming people to Floriana. What could cause a bully to pick on such a nice guy? The mind boggles.

Peklectrick

What's with this Peklectrick thing anyway?

I have had this blog for a while now but I have never bothered to explain what this kleptic thing is all about.

Nothing complex. It's just the name I use in my musical endeavors. It's basically a combination of Patrick (my name) and Eclectic (what I hope to be). The name came about when, after leaving dripht, I was forced to think of a name under which I would release material. A friend of mine (Chico) used to call me Paaktrick, so Peklectrick kinda evolved from there. Nothing to it. I love the fact that few people manage to spell it though. Hell, sometimes I find myself struggling.

At the moment I'm still working on my demos. Hopefully I will record some in a year's time...

Anyway, this is just the fruit of boredom. So I'll stop here.

Celebrity Consciousness

A while ago I wrote about the lack of campaigns on MTV about issues that are not safe. Well what do you know, a couple of days ago I saw an endless list of celebrities calling for an end to poverty. Interesting. Very interesting.

I went on their website. Surprise, surprise. They're calling for a 1% increase in aid. Aid. For fuck's sake aid. Aid. Aid. Aid. What good has aid done in the last 40 years or so? Fuck all. Why? Aid perpetuates dependency. Of course these celebrities would never want to challenge the structures that cause poverty. They're part of it. It benefits them. Will they bite the hand that feeds them all their luxuries?

Check out these facts:

20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the worlds goods.

The combined wealth of the world's 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.

A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people.

The richest 50 million people in Europe and North America have the same income as 2.7 billion poor people. The slice of the cake taken by 1% is the same size as that handed to the poorest 57%.

A mere 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.

for more facts click here.

Poverty does not exist because their is not enough aid. Poverty exist because of uneven distribution of wealth, unjust economic systems and undemocratic international structures. These do-gooding celebrities want you to think that they care. They do a 1 minute advert and then go chill in their multi-million dollar Hollywood villages, drive one of their scores of cars and consume as much resources as possible in the shortest time possible. After which they'll go do a commercial for sweatshop commissioning multinational brands. Hollywood is revolutionary. Yeah right.