Biko

Biko

September '77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

When I try and sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

-Peter Gabriel

I'm not sure of the sentiment behind your posting this, but this is exactly what I needed to be reminded of.

We will win.

over American Idol, blithely ignoraing the musicians who actually do something relevant and interesting.

Sad.

and the sentiments it expressed appeared to have had some impact on the real apartheid situation. So it is comforting to know that "real" music is effective!

cf. the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslavakia, with lots of Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa music. :-)

that Havel was a playwright and someone who took culture seriously. The Eastern Europeans seem to have a wonderful respect for culture, philosophy, art, and the intellect, that appears to be sadly lacking here in our own political culture. Although the Romanian bureaucrats who are serious about the philosopher Jacques Lacan raise another interesting aspect to that predilection -in terms of actual usefulness of Lacan to politics, who knows?

Clinton was very well read, as was Gore, but both were mostly life-long politicians - they had culture, yes, certainly far more than Reagan or either of the BFEE members, but it would be great to have politicians who wrote serious books, or plays, or were a composer.

Imagine Saul Bellow or Philip Glass or Robert Wilson or Jasper Johns or Godfrey Reggio in the senate, congress, or even white house.