And so, in that spirit, we’d like to welcome the newest member artists of PAA: All Torn Up and Huasipungo out of NYC and Action Sedition from Montreal! If you haven’t listened to these bands but are a fan of good, tight, streetwise punk rock that seeks to tear down borders, then do yourself a favor and go do it right now.

There’s definitely something symbolic in announcing all three of these excellent bands at the same time. Two cities are represented here, both with their own particular and solid contribution to the history of hardcore and street punk. But these bands are also burrowing from within not one but two countries — Canada and the United States — each with their own particular histories of racial genocide and imperialism. Three languages are represented among them: English for All Torn Up, Spanish for Huasipungo, and French for Action Sedition.

There’s a trite and tired saying that music breaks down borders, but when it’s punk rock, a sound that has been animated by resistance to alienation and exploitation from its very beginnings, then it’s hard to deny the wisdom of such a saying. And so it’s only fitting that these three bands be welcomed into the fold of punk rock solidarity with the Palestinian resistance to colonialism and apartheid. Welcome friends!

Viva le punk! Viva Palestina!

Rock Against Racism MTL #3

Une soirée pour célébrer et bâtir la solidarité entre le punk et la Palestine // An evening to celebrate and build punk rock solidarity with Palestine

*********
jeudi, le 14 mars
Katacombes, 1635 St-Laurent
$6-10 (selon vos moyens/sliding scale)
**********

Une soirée bénéfice pour la Semaine contre l’apartheid israélien

Portes//Doors 20h

Bands//20h30

Autosuciciencia – Paralisis Permanente covers
LOUDbagSilent Bones
May Day

DJs// 23h30
Aaron Maiden + invités

If the recent bombardment of Gaza by Israel in the ominously named Operation Pillar of Cloud has confirmed anything, it’s that solidarity is sorely needed, perhaps now more than ever. In the wake of these attacks and the World Social Forum-Free Palestine, recently held in Porto Alegre from November 28th-December 1st, Punks Against Apartheid wishes to answer the call to intensify BDS campaigns worldwide and redouble its commitment to solidarity with the people of Palestine.

As always, we heard the same tired and offensive script about a “two-sided conflict” as the fourth largest military on the planet did their best to lay waste to the world’s largest open-air prison. We heard so much empty twaddle about the Palestinians’ need to “renounce violence” while little pressure was placed on Israel to do anything of the sort. And even now, when the final count of deaths is shamefully lopsided (160 Palestinians, 6 Israelis) we hear close to nothing about holding Israel’s system of apartheid and occupation accountable.

We’re also aware that in the weeks since the declaration of this recent cease-fire (a cease-fire Israel has already broken several times) there have been some significant developments in the Palestinian struggle, and in particular the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel, beyond Abbas’s last-ditch effort to regain legitimacy with his contentious statehood bid.

From the endorsement of BDS by the world’s largest body of public sector unions to Stevie Wonder’s announcement that he would not play the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces gala in Los Angeles, to the University of Oslo’s canceling of its contract with Israeli prison security firm G4S, BDS is continuing to gain ground and generalise the Palestinian struggle worldwide. In the coming months, we will be answering the call to intensify boycott activities by setting up fundraisers featuring local and regional punk bands for the people of Palestine, building even more links between punk groups and the Palestine solidarity movement. But even more importantly, in the true rebel music spirit, we’d like to announce Punks Against Apartheid’s newest and most exciting adventure: releasing our very first music compilation for digital download!

For the price of a beer, or maybe a few, you’ll be able to purchase an online album featuring songs from punk, hardcore and ska groups who are supportive of the Palestinian struggle and the cultural boycott of Israel. All proceeds will go to benefit to-be-determined Palestinian groups fighting for a free Palestine.

If you are interested in contributing to our comp, send us a line. We want to take the cultural boycott beyond the big names, forge links and build bridges too freaky and too militant for their tastes! And our message: decolonize everything, end all apartheids, and free Palestine!

And let’s not forget that the momentum the worldwide solidarity movement is gaining becomes especially poignant as winter closes in, and announcements about summer festival seasons soon start poking their head out. As much as the big names don’t really tickle our fancy, we will not stop TP-ing their reputation and egging their proverbial status until they join the side of justice. What makes this coming music fest season particularly terrifying is that Lollapalooza, one of North America’s largest musical shit-shows, will also be holding a version in Tel Aviv! Perry Farrell, a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist who has raised large sums of the money for the IDF himself, is positively over the moon about delivering Lolla’s cultural cache to the world’s last legal apartheid state.

Rubbing salt in the open wound is the fact that the Tel Aviv Lolla will be held in Yarkon Park, which is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Jarisha. We must ensure that the campaigns to pressure bands not to play at Lollapalooza are impossible to ignore. We at PAA will do everything we can to be a part of that. We’re not going away anytime soon–that’s for damned sure.

There’s much work to be done, and the stakes are arguably as high as they’ve ever been. And so, for that matter, are the opportunities to bring Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian front-and-center. We write to you all with loving rage to say that we intend to dive in head first. And we intend to get it done in the only way that we know how: loud and brash and shameless!

Fuck the haters, fuck the state, up the punx and viva Palestina!

We would like to say a few words about why we are coming out supporting the local scene like this, as well as why you should get off your ass and go if you can!

We understand the intimate connections between struggles and the need to work at the intersections between global solidarity and concrete, local organising to support communities being targeted by the state. In this sense, Punks Against Apartheid would like to express our full support and endorsement of the show. We share with the organisers the understanding that survival is about creating the spaces we lack or that were stolen from us to work towards a more just future. No one will give us these spaces; they have to be made, taken, and defended.

In the best of the radical punk tradition, the work being done by the organizers of the 3rd Annual Black & Brown Punk Show has shown an understanding that we cannot simply be passive in the face of racist, sexist, homophobic/transphobic society, but that we must create safe spaces—spaces of liberation—within it. The same week that three Palestinian youths were nearly lynched in Jerusalem, Donta Gooden, a transgender woman, was found stabbed to death in an abandoned building in a West Side Chicago neighborhhood—this only a few months after Paige Clay met a similar fate, not to mention the now well-known nearby case of CeCe McDonald. The same month that undocumented youth discovered over a hundred low-priority or DREAM-eligible cases in a single detention center they infiltrated, word also got out that the Zionist brother of Rahm “Slashy McSlash-Slash” Emmanuel (who himself served in the Israeli Occupation Forces) was pushing for Lollapalooza 2013 to be held on the ruins of a Palestinian village ethnically cleansed in 1948, and a known neo-Nazi who managed to entered into a Sikh temple killed 7. This not long last month’s revelation that police have executed over 100 black people around the country (including Chicagoland’s Stephon Watts and Rekia Boyd) since the beginning of 2012 alone.

The list of indignities, brutalisations, outrages—from Palestine to Chicago—are unfortunately endless. But the common threads are clear: erasure, ethnic cleansing, slow-death of occupied communities. These acts of violence are neither isolated nor individual: they are connected to broader systems of power, white supremacy, and capitalist/colonial domination which enable and sanction them. We are left, then, with two options: defend our communities or go on the attack. We here at PAA are thrilled to support the grassroots gathering on the 24th & 25th, because we’re certain it will be a little bit of both!

Anyone who has bummed around the punk scene for more than a minute can tell the difference between the (literally) whitewashed, apolitical testosterone-pumping parties that pass for ‘shows’ and the kind of principled, grassroots music that serves as a form of movement building and community empowerment. This year, money raised for the show will go to three community organizations: an inner city youth organization, Connect Force, “that teaches (predominately) black and brown youth about true hip hop, graffiti and breakdance”, the Dream Gala Committee, which provides undocumented youth with funds for college, and the Justice for Rekia Boyd Campaign, fighting for an unarmed Black womyn who was killed by off duty police officer in April in the Lawndale neighborhood.

We will be there selling zines & patches (hot off the presses!) and trying to help raise as much money as we can for these organisations (1/3rd of our proceeds). We will also be letting people in on some exciting actions happening down the line in Chitown. And of course we will be there, fists raised and feet swinging with loving rage.

Viva Palestina! Up the punx!
~PAA

Urdustan is a series of short stories featuring South Asian characters who lead different lives in different countries around the world. Sabina writes:

Urdustan is a book for my people: punks, outcasts, rejects, Desi punks, Taqx peeps, Deafies, misfits, losers, geeks, whores, and for the unpopular kids in school that everyone hate and pick on and beat up at the playground. Especially for the brown ones.

Urdustan contains seven stories, each from different perspectives but unified under the themes of identity & living in the margins. As Jean Marc of the Kollector blog writes, hers is a kind of insurgent writing that bucks expectations of her from either side of the cultural divides she straddles:

…she doesn’t play the game right: as a Desi…some might expect a docile woman, waiting to fill in the shoes that have been carved for her by traditions, centuries of ways of doing/being. No way, no way, she’s a strong opiniated woman with ideas, dreams and behaviors that will set your world and hers in fire if you don’t look twice and see all the superb humanity, the warm Understanding and the Love behind it all.

When we first got to know Sabina, it was during our campaign to get Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine to cancel their show in Israel, for which she made a very powerful video. Since then, we have collaborated frequently, and we are super excited to get our hands on this and read it to pieces, and hope you all can support her work and check it out too!

Sabina’s new book is only available from Lulu.com. You can follow some of Sabina’s own thoughts on the novel on her The American Dream is Dead blog. Purchasing Urdustan from the link above supports both Sabina and Punks Against Apartheid.

Up the punx,

Punks Against Apartheid

We, Punks Against Apartheid, are writing you to urge that you cancel your show in Tel Aviv in September. We do so as artists, activists, musicians, and people who place themselves in the strong anti-racist tradition that formed punk and which keeps it relevant today.

This is a legacy you yourselves should be completely aware of. When you first formed in Los Angeles in the ’80s, it was the experimental, fluid moment that the punk scene was going through at the time that gave you the space you needed to take on a new sound, mixing elements of funk and other styles into your music. This was a scene noted for being uniquely multiracial, the scene that gave rise to Fishbone and Suicidal Tendencies; not to mention Fear, so important to the early formation of hardcore punk, a band that you, Flea, played the bass for! You even had Gang of Four’s Andy Gill produce one of your albums, and DH Peligro–originally of Dead Kennedys fame–ended up replacing Jack Irons on the drums.

So what’s the rub? Well, while some in the mainstream may have forgotten this history–scratching their heads at why a bunch of no-good punks would  bother with a band as commercial as RHCP–we have not, and we intend to remind you and your fans of these roots. Because your proximity to punk as a band should have put you in touch with the best tendencies of rebel music, of music as a form of resistant community–and that is something to be cherished, not to be rejected by playing in Israel. By doing so, you would be, in the words of the Israeli group Boycott from Within, serving “the government’s agenda of whitewashing its war crimes and creating an image of Israel as a “modern state”.

It is for this reason that we were saddened and disappointed to hear of your announced show in Israel. We would have thought that RHCP would be aware of the pressing issues of racism and war in today’s world, something no one–especially punks–could miss. We would have thought that your experience in the scene that catapulted you to fame, a scene known for its strong principles and solidarity with struggles worldwide, would have been aware that Israel’s intention in making such a big deal about your gig is part of a cool, calculating game to cover up its crimes against Palestinians.¹

We would have thought that you would have done your homework, and found out that, after their forced removal from the majority of Palestine in 1948, Palestinians have been living under occupation by the Israeli military for over 40 years now. We would have thought that you would have wanted to learn, before playing right into the Israeli state’s hands, that Palestinians live in segregated spaces all across the West Bank and in the open-air prison of the Gaza Strip, and that the apartheid-like laws of the Israeli state make it so that even a Palestinian fan who *wanted* to come to your show would be almost guaranteed to be turned down, as some were very recently on their way to Madonna’s concert in Ramat Gan. We would have expected you to be appalled and disgusted, as artists but more importantly as human beings, by the shallow exploitation of art and entertainment such as yours to somehow justify some of the most despicable acts of inhumanity against a people in resistance for their basic civil rights and for liberation.

Maybe you never had the same political leanings as your fellow punks–but make no mistake, your decision to play is political, just as much as your decision not to play would be. We are asking you to honor the global boycott launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005 as a non-violent means to achieve their basic human rights. Refuse to play in Israel, like many other musicians from Roger Waters, to Devendra Banhart, Macy Gray, and Elvis Costello (to name a few), and join a growing movement of artists who, like in the era of South African apartheid, say “I Ain’t Gonna Play!”. It will show whether you wish to stand on the right side of history and refuse to be used to put a “good face” on ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and occupation, or if you wish to be shills for a political circus much larger than any one of us.

It will remain to be seen whether or not the fame and commercialization RHCP has goten over the years has completely wiped out any integrity you ever had, or if there are still punks beneath the flashy lacquer.

We ask you this as fellow punks, from a scene that, rather than being dead, is becoming a threat again! Maybe not on the national scene, but in our small communities we are building–and what is more true to punk’s origins than local, vibrant DIY-scenes, everywhere from Chicago to Indonesia? Take a second to honor these scenes and the grassroots, political resistance they represent and say no to playing in September.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: join us!

No support for criminal occupation, ethnic cleansing, and racial apartheid!
Vive le Palestina! Vive le punk!

Up the punx,
Punks Against Apartheid

1. Indeed, as BfW has pointed out in the same letter, the production company hosting your performance, Shuki Weiss Promotion and Production LTD., has close ties to the Israeli government and absolutely intends to use your act as a shallow political theater to distract from the oppression of Palestinians.

If you’re one of the people reading this and asking “wait, which one is Simple Plan?” then you’re surely not alone. It’s pretty hard to tell them apart from Avril Lavigne, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, Reliant K or any of the other poppy Blink-182 soundalikes that seem to be the Big Four record labels’ idea of punk rock. In fact, calling such groups “pop punk” might run the risk of discrediting Screeching Weasel, Pansy Division or others who, in originally forging the sub-genre, brought some actual substance to the table.

A more appropriate term for Simple Plan and their ilk might be “faux punk” or “mall punk.” True, it’s a bit derisory, but that doesn’t make it any less apt. This is music that has been made to be sold more than listened to. It’s music that has had any prior connection to the grassroots severed, anything that might be considered controversial sucked out of it. It’s had its rough edges filed off, it’s been debated on focus panels before finally being shrink-wrapped, shipped out and shelved like any other commodity.

Any vestige of what makes punk vital and relevant is missing in this milieu. It’s not even worth mentioning Simple Plan in the same short story as DIY culture, ‘zines, community organizing or anything else that has made punk necessary in the first place. They are, like many of their counterparts, one cog in the music industry’s willful depoliticization of punk rock.

To be sure, punk is not alone in having this process exacted upon it. Any frank look at country, hip-hop, metal or R&B will reveal that this is simply what the music industry does. And when art has been twisted into commodity, it’s a lot easier to turn it into propaganda.

Simple Plan are likely well aware that this is their role; this will be their third concert in Israel. Furthermore, news of their booking was re-tweeted via the State of Israel’s official Twitter account. As the Refrain Playing Israel website has pointed out, this squares perfectly with the words of Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, when he said: “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”

This is, in a nutshell, why we think that an effort like Punks Against Apartheid–modest though it might be–is important in this day and age. Rallying punks behind the international call for boycott, divestment and sanctions isn’t only justified in its own right. It’s a crucial dimension in fighting against forces who have never had the best interests of a vital, rebellious sub-culture at heart–be they fundamentalist police departments, apartheid regimes looking for political cover, or the undeniably soulless drive of the free market.

The past few years have made clear just how un-free this “free market” is. In fact, its reliance on racism and empire has been made unbelievably stark as mega conglomerates like Halliburton, DynCorps and even Burger King have been permitted to run amok in Iraq. Today, it’s sweetheart deals between the Israeli government and utility companies like Veolia Environment. Punk, even at its messy inception, was an instinctive wail against all of this and the stifling dehumanization that accompanied it.

Simple Plan, however, have decided to be a part of that dehumanization. And so we urge all readers, punk or not, to bring the heat to Simple Plan’s front door. Send them emails protesting their decision to play in Israel. Post public statements on their Facebook page calling them out for the poseurs they are. Vomit-inducing though it might be to “like” their page, the fact that the international BDS campaign may gain greater exposure will make it all worth it (you can always “unlike” them later).

Ultimately, though, it is not bands like Simple Plan that drive us to do what we do. The strength, resistance, and vitality of local DIY punk culture will always be what carries us in the work and art we do. So if any band is going to be such willing and public participants in selling punk’s most treasured principles up the river, then they should expect no safe quarter in return.

The plan to provide a soundtrack for apartheid may be “simple,” but that doesn’t make it any less repulsive.

Zdob si Zdub playing at Queerfest

Dear Zdob si Zdub,

We are an international group of punks from the Punks Against Apartheid network who support the human rights-based Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and we are writing you because we strongly believe in music’s potential to transform peoples’ lives. The concert you have scheduled in Israel, however, will not be able to transform the lives of Palestinians living under Occupation and apartheid. In fact, it will play right into the hands of a deliberate strategy by the state of Israel to play up international acts like yours to portray an image of “business as usual” in the apartheid state. Therefore, we urge you to cancel your show and join the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

The “business as usual” attitude that Israel wants you to support means lending your voice to a military occupation and siege of an entire people, racial apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and mass banishment of refugees. An Israeli group called Boycott from Within, which supports cultural boycott, writes

Many artists and public figures who have come to this realization are now publicly supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, which is backed by almost the entire community [3] of Palestinian cultural workers. Among those supporters are Roger Waters, David R Randall and Maxi Jazz of Faithless, Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack [7], filmmakers Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, 500 Montreal artists, over 200 Irish artists, prominent Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South-African Artists Against Apartheid, The Creative Workers Union of South Africa, and the international alliance Artists Against Apartheid. Other artists cancelled their performances in Israel in response to growing appeals, including Elvis Costello, the Pixies, actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman, UK band Tindersticks, American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, and Mexican American rock guitarist Carlos Santana.

Furthermore, as musicians who played the final concert for Queerfest 2011’s “Stop Homophobia!” concert, you should know that Israel has also exploited struggles for LGBTQ liberation and has hidden its oppression of Palestinian queers by portraying Israel as a “safe haven” for Arab queers. Palestinian LGBTQ activists have called this “pinkwashing”. Palestinian Queers for BDS (PQBDS) writes, “The Israeli foreign affairs ministry, Israeli academic institutions, international Zionist and pro Israel groups, and some Israeli LGBTQ organizations/groups [have] worked to capitalize on the modest successes of the Israeli LGBTQ community and pander to anti-Arab, Islamophobic biases by painting Palestinian society as maliciously homophobic.” Not only is this racist in and of itself, but more importantly, Israel simply cannot be a safe haven for any Arab, Palestinian, queer, or otherwise, when a system of racial exclusivity and military separation and occupation is in place. In the words of Haneen Maikey, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is.”

It is our intention that no group in the international punk community should be able to feign innocence or ignorance about Palestinian resistance to Israeli domination. You see, as punks, we were raised in a counter-culture that taught us that racism, militarism, sexism, and all forms of oppression were not welcome in our spaces.

In an interview with SUNETE magazine, one of your own members, Roman Iagupov, spoke about how “it’s…hard to cross the borders. To take part in events abroad you have to struggle to get a visa, which is not much fun for an artist”. We ask you to imagine what it is like for a Palestinian artist or fan who would have a very difficult time even getting into Tel Aviv to come to your show, much less any other part of Israel. Palestinians’ lives are governed by the constant presence of borders big and small in the form of Israeli military check points, meaning that most Palestinians don’t even have the luxury of visiting family members only a few towns away without being harassed by Israeli soldiers, whether they have the right “visa” or not. In the case of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are literally enclosed and under siege and are bombed with impunity by Israeli aircraft when it is politically expedient. Under these conditions, border crossing is not only “not fun”, but nightmarish and inhumane.

Out of respect for and solidarity with Palestinians who must resist these realities on a daily basis, we implore you to cancel your show and refuse to cross the international picket line that has been formed against the state of Israel until it fulfills the three basic tenets of the BDS call: ending the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, dismantling racial apartheid inside of Israel, and to respect the right of return for refugees.

We took notice that you rescheduled your concert date–after some pressure from activists–to March 2012, but that the show still hasn’t made its way onto your March schedule. So now is your chance to come out and say it, to make a commitment to supporting Palestinian liberation! And we want to give you the benefit of the doubt, here: if this was indeed to give yourselves time to learn about the situation and make the ethical choice, then we respect your decision to hold off with the show and offer an open invitation to speak with you and share with you the experience of Palestinians resisting Israel occupation so that you can get a better sense of what we are asking you to do. We are always open to dialogue, so please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions, concerns, or doubts, and we will do our best to respond with respect and care.

On the other hand, if the delay was meant to quietly put the ‘issue’ down and avoid undue attention, then we are sorry to say that you are sorely mistaken–we are here to bring it back up again and make sure you don’t forget!

No support for criminal occupation, ethnic cleansing, and racial apartheid!
Vive le Palestina! Vive le punk!

Up the punx,
Punks Against Apartheid

A group of Indonesian punks are imprisoned in Bandah Aceh police station for 'moral rehabilitation'. Photo Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin

One doesn’t have to sport a mohawk and listen to the Exploited to find this story utterly revolting. Still, since it was picked up two weeks ago, the millions of people who have had their lives touched by punk rock have found themselves not only moved but outraged. Rightfully so.

On December 10th, police in Banda Aceh, capital city of Indonesia’s Aceh territory, raided a local concert. Featuring several local punk groups, the show was held as a fundraiser for the area’s orphans; punks from all over Indonesia had reportedly travelled to attend. None of this apparently mattered to the police, who stormed into the venue with batons swinging. Of the 100 people in attendance, 64 were arrested and taken to a detention center 30 miles outside the city.

There, the 59 men and 5 women had their clothes confiscated: dog collars and chains, spiked belts and tight jeans. They were all given toothbrushes and ordered “use it!” by prison guards. After being taken outside, guards forcibly shaved off their mohawks and long hair; women were given a short bob. They were then bathed in a nearby lake before being subjected to “moral re-education” classes.

The Associated Press quoted one young punk, identified as 20-year-old Fauzan: “Why? Why my hair?” he said, pointing to his head. “We didn’t hurt anyone. This is how we’ve chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?”

Banda Aceh’s Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, remained unapologetic, claiming the detainees were in violation of the region’s interpretation of Islamic law: “The presence of the punk community is disturbing, and disrupts the life of the Banda Aceh public. This is a new social disease affecting Banda Aceh. If it is allowed to continue, the government will have to spend more money to handle them. Their morals are wrong… This training will be an example in Indonesia of the reeducation of the punks.

Meanwhile, perhaps feeling the pressure of international scrutiny, Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf claimed the punks’ reeducation wasn’t so much for sake of Islam as it was for their own good. Speaking at Indonesia’s presidential palace, he told reporters that “the government needs to think of their future.” Insisting that most don’t have jobs or go to school, he asked “if they don’t work, what will they be?”

This flies in the face of what some of the detainees have told reporters. One anonymous punk from the Medan area of North Sumatra said he worked as a contractor at a bank. “I’ll probably be sacked for not coming into work for a week.” Nonetheless, Djamal has promised the raids will continue until all punks have been caught and reeducated — personal consequences be damned.

At the time of this writing, the Banda Aceh 64 are scheduled to be released on Friday, December 23rd. For their own part, the detained punks have remained defiant

Aceh is somewhat unique in Indonesia. After the 2004 tsunami, newly-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono brokered a peace deal with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) that allowed for a relative amount of autonomy from the central government in Jakarta. Since then, the region has become Indonesia’s most conservative, embracing what governing politicians call “key elements of Sharia.” Adultery in Aceh is punishable by stoning to death, and residents fingered as gay or lesbian have been caned in public.

Persecution of music, however, isn’t as singular for Indonesian authorities. The 32-year rule of dictator Suharto (backed till the end by the US, of course) maintained a stranglehold on mainstream culture, including disappearances of dissident artists and musicians. When East Timor was occupied by the Indonesian military in 1976, traditional Timorese songs were banned. Bella Gahlos, a Timorese activist who fled the country in the early ‘90s, estimates that “thousands of people have been killed for singing these songs.

By the early ‘90s, not even MTV was allowed to broadcast in Indonesia (Suharto’s censors were notoriously paranoid of what they deemed culturally seditious). Nonetheless, songs from America’s “punk revival” began to seep through the nation’s archipelagic borders. It wasn’t too long until a growing number of bands began to spring out of an already vibrant underground rock community, armed with little more than a righteous sense of rage that had been pent up for way too long. Though still restricted to the extreme fringes of society, the burgeoning punk scene was an enthusiastic part of the revolutionary upsurge that overthrew Suharto in 1998. Says ethnomusicologist Jeremy Wallach:

Almost from the beginning, musicians in the Indonesian underground movement performed songs attacking the corruption of the Suharto government, even when it was dangerous to do so. Thus, although Indonesian punk is as politically divided as its western counterparts, it is not surprising that many Indonesian punks place their movement and their allegiance in the context of the struggle against Suharto.

Punks’ support for that struggle could indeed be dangerous. Rumor has it that during these uprisings there was an unofficial order for army and police to “shoot anyone with a tattoo,” so widespread was the counter-culture’s involvement.

Now, almost fifteen years after the end of Suharto’s rule, the Indonesian punk scene is the most vibrant in Asia and, according to some, among the largest in the world. Its beginnings might have sprouted initially from the import of America’s most mainstream groups (Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid). But since then its roots have deepened, and the movement has blossomed into one both uniquely Indonesian and organically interwoven with a global sub-culture motivated by a strong DIY ethic and profound distrust of authority.

A small handful of bands, like Bali’s Superman Is Dead, have gone on to a measure of international acclaim and signed to Sony Records (even while encouraging their fans to “steal” their albums). Others, like Jakarta-based Marjinal, have made a name for themselves playing entirely in Indonesia’s kampung (poor urban neighborhoods), giving their tapes away for free and teaching street kids how to busk on trains and corners.

Homeless youth are among the most neglected and abused in Indonesian society. Since 2001, Jakarta’s government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “anti-poverty” initiatives that consist of nothing but hiring out local thugs to round up homeless youth and turn them into the police. Naturally, these types of programs have accelerated with the economic crisis. Given the popularity of the sub-culture among poor and working class youth, punks have found themselves frequently in the cross-hairs of such initiatives.

Mike, lead-singer of Marjinal,told a journalist for Time magazine in 2007 “Music gives these kids a way to survive, to make some kind of living… Punk, to me, is addressing the things that are rotten in society. It tells us that we have the ability to be independent and take care of each other.” It’s a spirit of camaraderie familiar to anyone who’s been in attendance at a local gig, be it in Milwaukee, Prague, Johannesburg or Tokyo.

Little wonder that the global punk community has rallied so fiercely around the Banda Aceh 64. When the Guardian and other major outlets picked up on the story, punk websites blew up in protest and solidarity. Propagandhi, well-known as a fiercely anarchist group for almost two decades (who also paid tribute to Bella Gahlos in 2001) was one of the first to release a statement:

In the past Propagandhi has received letters from people in Banda Aceh and all over Indonesia so any one of these people could be the same people who have contacted us… In the off chance that they might see this post I’d like to say to all the Punks who’ve been victimized by authorities in Indonesia that we, the members of Propagandhi, are supporting you and admire that you have expressed yourselves even at your own expense.

They weren’t alone.A petition supporting the kids and released on Change.org gained over 8,500 signatures in five days. Seattle-based Aborted Society Records has announced a “mix tapes for Aceh” initiative, asking people to donate homemade mix CDs to eventually be sent to Aceh. German band Red Tape Parade have launched a similar campaign, urging their fans to send them not just CDs but ‘zines, records, shirts, pins and anything else for support.

Already, demonstrations and actions by local scenesters have taken place at Indonesian embassies and consulates in London, Moscow and Los Angeles. And in Jakarta, the Bendera Hitam punk collective protested outside the Aceh representative’s office.

Almost as troubling as the events in Banda Aceh has been the reactions of some here in the western world–specifically the anti-Muslim bigotry that they’ve attempted to promote. Mainstream media, including the AP and Guardian, have emphasized the religious fundamentalism of Aceh’s government, meanwhile failing to provide a wider context.

For the most part, there’s been little mention of the vibrancy of Indonesia’s punk scene, its class characteristics, or the long history of harassment its endured, even in more moderate regions. And while questions are asked of Aceh’s governor, there don’t seem to be any questions asked about why the US continues to give support to a government guilty of such flagrant violations of cultural rights.

Instead, the problem is made out to be one of Sharia law, and, in turn, Islam. This has suited the “stop Islamization” crowd just fine, most of whom couldn’t care less about punk rock. Unfortunately, while many of these professional Islamophobes may be on the extreme right of the political spectrum, their ideas have become common currency, even in parts of the punk community.

PunkNews.org, an otherwise apolitical site who have nonetheless done an excellent job reporting in solidarity with the kids in Aceh, have been the most obvious example, albeit briefly. The site’s initial post on December 13th made the assertion that not just Aceh but all of Indonesia was under Sharia — a factual error. The editors were quickly called on it, and two days later they retracted that portion of the post. Even more disheartening, though, was that they linked to Robert Spencer’s reprehensible “Jihad Watch” blog.

Spencer, who many will surely remember from his role in the hate campaign against the “Ground Zero mosque” earlier this year, never misses a chance to smear Islam as a religion of hate. Though he obviously cares not an inkling for the right to cultural expression, he inevitably released a story on Jihad Watch entitled “In Aceh, Sheena is not a punk rocker.

Spencer may be smiling at the supposed cleverness of such a title (I happen to think it’s a bit cheap and obvious). His editorializing, however, is nothing but pure bigoted vitriol:

Aceh is a case study in how creeping Sharia works. It gets a foot in the door with promises of moderation, tolerance, and limited applications… As its proponents gain confidence, enforcement of Sharia becomes more aggressive and intrusive on private behavior, because, in truth, Sharia is a comprehensive system of governance for every aspect of human life, and knows no compartmentalization of public and private behavior… Muhammad’s well-known antipathy toward musical instruments can’t help.

One might wonder which part of his own ass Spencer pulled this argument out of, but it’s hard to tell with his head still up there. He is willfully oblivious to the similarity his description holds with any form of religious fundamentalism, and to how such extreme ideas are more a tool of state repression rather than the root. Look, for example, at how the Christian fundamentalism of John Ashcroft and George W Bush ran perfect cover for the crimes at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

Spencer also deliberately ignores that what we have come to refer to as “Sharia” was, for most of its history, a set of clerical guidelines for living and governing rather than a political dogma. Deepa Kumar, in a recent article on political Islam, distinguishes: “While the clergy insisted that the potent rule society in a way that conformed to Sharia law, they viewed their role as censures of a bad ruler rather than rulers themselves.”

In other words, religious ideologies are bent to political agendas; not the other way round. As for the assertion that Muhammad hated musical instruments, it’s groundless. While zealous sects have interpreted it as such over the past hundred or so years, most mainstream Islamic scholars are in agreement that it was only vulgar songs that were proscribed; what counts as vulgar is open to interpretation. Muhammad was known to have musicians play and sing at his wedding.

The editors of PunkNews.org never responded to an email calling them on the inclusion of the link to Robert Spencer’s blog. They did, however, sever the link the next day. Once again, this is to their credit. However, if a reputable punk site can link to a blog like this without thinking twice, it reveals just how deep Islamophobia runs through post-9/11 America.

What makes this so especially tragic is that there is a brilliant history within punk of fighting bigotry. The very existence of a thriving Indonesian punk scene proves that it long ago ceased being a “white boy thing.” Back here on this side of the pond, there are punkers of every race and creed — from the Afro-punk movement to Chicano and Latino communities to yes, even Muslim punks.

Tanzila Ahmed, a Los Angeles activist and writer, lays it out straight up. “In America, being Muslim is an act of defiance,” says Ahmed. “That’s punk.” Ahmed, or “Taz” as she prefers to be called, runs the Taqwacore Webzine.

For the uninitiated, “Taqwacore” is the name for the movement of openly Muslim punk rockers that has taken hold over the past decade in North America. Since writer Michael Muhammad Knight’s 2002 novel The Taqwacores, the scene has coalesced around bands like Al Thawra and the Kominas. In 2010, director Omar Majeed released the documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, currently making the rounds at festivals around the world.

In a commentary on the site, Ahmed puts her identity, her faith, and the idiocy of both the Aceh “Sharia police” and American Islamophobia, all in perspective:

My baptism wasn’t by lake water but by fire, avoiding the glares of Christian fundamentalists with their barking dogs on the street corner protesting outside my American mosque, or being pulled out by TSA in airport security lines. My Islamic baptism happens when I watch my back for hate-crimes when walking down the street defiantly brown in a white America or when I get told by drunk bigots at parties to go back to where I came from. My boycott these days is of a hardware supply store for not supporting a reality show. That is the American Muslim punk baptism right there.

Taz’s experience — absorbing the sneers of a repressive society bent on shoving you into a box — isn’t unique among punks. And it’s certainly not unique among Muslims. It could justifiably be said that Taqwacore kids bear a double burden. One of the most poignant and enraging scenes in Majeed’s doc is when a Detroit club cancels a Taqwa gig, claiming they’re wary of “the Muslim thing”.

It goes without saying that the righteous indignation that Spencer spewed out against the raid in Banda Aceh doesn’t extend to the kids who have their shows shut down thanks to anti-Muslim bigotry. Neither for the punks thrown in prison in Indonesia’s more “moderate” provinces, squatters evicted from viable homes in London’s St. Agnes Place in 2005 or the countless gigs shut down by cops every year in Europe and America.

For the most part, the response to the arrests in Aceh among punks in the west has dodged this kind of blatant anti-Muslim bigotry. Even before PunkNews.org severed the link to Jihad Watch, people who left comments like “Fuck Islam. If I could put a picture of Muhammed [sic] here I would” were quickly rebuked by several other visitors to the site. Perhaps that’s because the instinct among punks — that repression is repression is repression — continues to ring true. And with it the time-honored suspicion of well-dressed people with cowardly ideas.

In the midst of all this, it’s worth stepping back and asking why, thirty-five years after the Sex Pistols first called Bill Grundy a “dirty fucker” on national television, despite so many attempts to sanitize and market it, punk can still be a threat. Indeed, how is it that this culture hasn’t only refused to fade into oblivion, but found its niche in almost every nation on the planet?

Ultimately, it’s because amidst the crumbling economic casualties of corporate globalization there continues to be a vast, pulsing mass of human beings sick of being pushed to the margins. The flip-side of that coin, then, must be that these indignant many deserve to run the world for themselves — be they black, brown or white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist. It’s a dream that throughout history has been called a utopian pipe dream. But then, is there anything more punk than making the impossible possible?

One of the most common arguments trotted against boycott is “well, there’s bad policies everywhere, why are you just singling out Israel?” I think that’s a valid question in some ways. But really it comes down to solidarity – straight up. This movement is really rooted in the 2005 call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions that came out of any civil society group of note within Palestine and from Arab communities within the ’48 borders.

…

This [cultural boycott] is not about silencing voices. As a matter of fact, it’s about the voices of Palestinians being heard much more than they currently are.

You can find the entire show from Wednesday night archived here (or here – just in case). The interview itself starts around the 36-minute mark, but it’s worth listening to the whole show if you have the time, especially if you need your daily dose of ska-punk.

Roots Rock Rebel airs every Wednesday night from 10pm-midnight on CKUT 90.3 FM in Montreal. It also streams live at www.ckut.ca. Roots Rock Rebel host & DJ, Aaron Lakoff, is a PAA member.

In other news, thanks to the efforts of a couple of generous community members, our points of unity have already been translated into Arabic and Korean. We’re expecting translations into Hebrew, French, and Turkish shortly. If you can help out by translating the points of unity into any other language please get in touch!