International Socialists

In the latest instalment of Red Words, a regular feature offering original contributions along with classic socialist poems and excerpts, we reprint poetry by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Nellie Wong, while Dougal McNeill gets up close and personal with Eminem.

We encourage all readers to send their own contributions to Red Words.

 

 

 

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Misunderstood rebel or stupid dickhead? - Eminem

Rap star Eminem - dubbed "controversial" by the Philistines of the mainstream media - was nominated for a Grammy Award for his album Marshall Mathers LP. This album, 75 minutes of bile that starts with Eminem threatening to rape and murder his mother and end with a hysterical gay-bashing rant, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy. Is Eminem a symbol of youthful rebellion or is he just - as I suspect - another homophobic dickhead?

 

For starters, anyone who claims Eminem is a rebel or an anti-authority figure is just plain wrong. You know about him thanks to a very slick media campaign. MTV in America pushed his music relentlessly, playing his videos an average of three times a day in an attempt to stir up both his image and attention in him.

 

Eminem only turned to his latest "rebel" image after his 1997 debut album described as "filled with tracks about love, unity and trying to get on in spite of hard times" - flopped miserably. That's when he and his producer decided to restyle him into the "Marilyn Manson of rap" and Dr Dre - one of the premier producers in the "gangsta" scene - recognised the money making potential of having a white protege to spread rap to a wider audience. The record companies loved it! Their hype machine got into gear, and now the rest is history.

 

Eminem himself has never pretended to have any integrity - he was prepared to do a duet with Elton John for god's sake! But what is worrying is the way that liberal music critics have decided to praise his lyrics, apologising for the excesses as "ironic" or "cartoonish" or "the product of a troubled past."

 

In an album where he raps about killing his wife, arranging the gang rape of his sister, spews misogyny and raves against gay people, Eminem is being anything but ironic. He's spewing filth.

 

That's why the protests outside the Grammy awards by gay and women's groups were so important. There's no point in banning music, like some right wing critics want. What we need to do is to expose this sham "rebelliousness" for the media industry scam it is. It's an indictment on this society where youth are so aliented by the hypocrisy of official morality that they can be drawn to a pop star whose anti-authority pose is a cover for vile anti-woman and anti-gay ideas.

 

We need to recognise and build real rebellion. Because Eminem raps in the same language as the people we all need to rebel against: and that is the language of cold, hard cash.

Dougal McNeill

 

 

 

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Linton Kwesi Johnson

 

Linton Kwesi Johnson is probably best known to Socialist Review's readers through his reggae and dub recordings, and through his record label (LKJ). But Johnson is an accomplished poet as well as a musician. He was active in both the Black Panthers and the Race Today Collective in Britain in the 1970s, and is one of the most prolific revolutionary and political artists of the last 50 years.

We reprint one of his poems here.

 

 

"Youths of Hope"

 

I

common hurt that burns blood,

even in air, sharing shock

(souls leaking light, bones like

burnt out embers - not hard like stones),

has fused tight our flaming flesh.

 

bodies black shaping time,

heads tight height light,

eyes fury flaming hate;

we young lions, youths of hope;

we smoke weeds of wrath,

twist rhythms of riot,

explosive words,

from blazing blood

rooting up the stagnant air.

 

we young lions roaring rage

seeking age of time and rebellion

have come to know in our short while,

the razor route of wretchedness,

the alphabet of terror:

 

terror tearing our blood

to pieces of smoke;

terror piercing hollow fear;

terror, the brother of death;

death: the beginning and the end...

the end...the end...the end...

 

The ultimate danger destroying all

who hasten to fortune on our backs;

the ultimate threat to the pot-bellied millionares -

riding high above the electric shock;

 

the beginning of the end is what we are.

 

 

II

they came with fire blazing

death deep within our midst

desiring our destruction.

we were water extinguishing their fire;

rubber bullets bounced back to source,

batons were twisted round tyrants' necks -

bruised only frightened flies,

cs gas was smoke of incense

sweet scent lacking sting.

 

terror could not move us;

oppression cannot move us,

the volcanic strength of the earth

cannot move us: we are grounded.

we are black blood screaming flesh

seeking peace for our dead.we young lions, youths of hope.

 

 

 

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Nellie Wong

 

Nellie Wong is a Trotskyist feminist who became politically active in the United States. She was involved in immigrant workers' struggles, and in the socialist and feminist movements.

Her tribute-poem "Women Workers" is reprinted here.

 

 

Women workers started the Russian Revolution.

Women workers sparked the shipyard strikes in Poland.

Women workers and housewives marched by the thousands to protest the inhumane, antiwoman repression in Iran.

Women workers protested the sexist antiwoman conditions in the textile factories in Korea.

Women militants fought the Kisaeng tourism/prostitution in Korea.

Women workers formed a 100-year marraige resistance in Kwangtung, China.

Women fighters, young and old, fought in liberation struggles in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, South Africa, Lebanon.

Women workers are fighting to end nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands