Sold Out Premiere of Disturbing the Universe Impresses Chicago Crowd

This was originally posted on Gapers Block.

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On Jan. 22, William Kuntsler: Disturbing the Universe, a documentary about the legendary left-wing lawyer, premiered to a sold out crowd at the Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Directed by William Kuntsler's daughters Emily and Sarah Kuntsler, the film looks at the life and cases of one of America's most controversial lawyers.

William Kuntsler fathered Sarah and Emily late in life, and when he died, they were still young, so the movie became a way for them to know their father in a more adult way. It became a way for them to shed the simple childlike images of their father, and come to know him in a complex way.

The sold out Chicago premiere was hosted by the Next Gen, the young lawyers group of the Chicago chapter of the radical National Lawyers Guild. The theater was filled with activists, lawyers and law students. The amazing thing about the showing was how many people in the crowd had met or knew William Kuntsler.

National Lawyers Guild Next Gen members Sarah Gelsomino and Robert Luderman at the Chicago premiere of Disturbing the Universe.

Any movie dedicated to a leftist with as much courage as Kunstler is worth watching. It will introduce him and the cases he worked on to a whole new generation of activists, law students and lawyers. The number of important generation defining, culture shaping, legal precedent setting cases he took is astounding.

National Lawyers Guild member Elizabeth Fink with Directors Sarah and Emily Kuntsler.

Kuntsler's clients included: freedom riders, who broke Jim Crow Laws in an attempt to integrate interstate bus travel; the Berrigan brothers, Catholics who used homemade napalm to burn draft cards during the Vietnam war; the Chicago 8, the hippies and yippies who demonstrated against the war outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; the prisoners who revolted against inhumane conditions in Attica prison, the American Indian Movement supporters who occupied the town of Wounded Knee to protest against the treatment of first nation people; Gregory Johnson, who burned an American Flag as a protest outside the 1984 Republican Convention and led to a Supreme Court case legalizing flag desecration.

There have been many movies and books about the Chicago 8 conspiracy trial and the comedic antics of Abbie Hoffman, as well as the barbaric treatment of Bobby Seal, who was bound and gagged in the courtroom. However, the lack of attention paid to the AIM occupation of Wounded Knee and the prisoners revolt in Attica makes this movie's focus on those cases much more important.

The scenes of the Attica revolt were powerful. What was terrifying, though, was watching the massacre that occurred when Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered the state police to suppress the rebellion, leading to the deaths of 39 people, including the 10 prison guards held captive by the prisoners. Later reports proved that all the guards had been indiscriminately slaughtered -- not by the prisoners, as the state initially claimed, but by the state police. The scene ended by showing the state police shouting "white power" in a primal victory cry, unveiling the truth of the American penal system.

The movie showed Kuntsler's provocative style. At one point singer Harry Belafonte discussed the AIM trial. Kuntsler had Belafonte and the actor Marlon Brando sit behind the AIM defendants. When Brando asked Kuntsler if this might be perceived as jury tampering. Kuntsler replied, "everything is jury tampering."

The movie included footage of Kuntsler in court and audio of some of his arguments. His winning Supreme Court argument in defense of the first amendment right to burn or desecrate the flag was quite powerful. He discussed how the first amendment was there not for the ideas we like, those never needed the protection of the first amendment, rather it was there for the ideas we despise and find reprehensible.

I question the film's attempt to separate Kuntsler's '60s and '70s era radicalism from his later cases once he settled down and attempted to raise his family in the Bronx. The film tries to portray his earlier cases as absolute right vs. wrong, civil rights vs. tyranny, peace vs. war, social justice vs. injustice. The film asks how someone who took those cases could take some of the clients that Kuntsler took in his later years.

Among the disputed clients: Larry Davis, a black man who was accused of killing six New York Police in a shootout; Yusef Salaam, one of several black teens accused of beating and gang raping a Wall Street accountant in Central Park; Palestinian El-Sayyid Nosair, who was accused of assassinating right-wing rabbi Meir Kahane; and John Gotti, the head of the Gambino crime family.

A sold out crowd gathers in the lobby of the Siskel Center after the Chicago premiere of Disturbing the Universe.

I feel that many of the cases he took in the Bronx era could be defended from a leftist perspective anyway. In the cases of Larry Davis and Yusef Salaam, the media immediately painted both of them as heartless murderers. What was the difference between these cases and the lynchings in the south of another generation?

In the case of El-Sayyid Nosair, a Palestinian who stood trial for shooting a racist, anti-arab rabbi, the movie quotes a derider of the Palestinians, Alan Dershowitz, in wondering why a left wing Jew like Kuntsler would defend the man. The answer is obvious to those who are informed about the occupation of Palestine, and the racism hurled against Palestinians, but not so obvious to an apologist for torture like Dershowitz. Dershowitz actually produced boos and hisses at the Chicago premiere -- no doubt from Chicago activists who remember Dershowitz's role in denying tenure to Norman Finkelstein.

Besides, the movie details how Kuntsler was vindicated on many of those later cases. Yusef Salaam was acquitted based on DNA evidence, El Sayyid Nosair was found not guilty based on a lack of witnesses, and Larry Davis was found to be acting in self defense.

The one client who may seem hard to defend based on leftist ideals is mafia don John Gotti. Why would Kuntsler defend the head of a mob family? Was it just for a paycheck? Doubtful, Kuntsler only took cases he believed in. However, even if Kuntsler didn't find common ideological ground with Gotti, he could have found other reasons to defend Gotti. People remember Clarence Darrow for defending labor leaders and teaching evolution, but he became famous for defending the millionaire murderers Leopold and Loeb. Johnny Cochraine, might be remembered for defending millionaire celebrity wife beaters, but he worked on dozens of civil rights and police brutality cases; even some Black Panther members were his clients.

In the end, this separation shows how hindsight is 20/20. To the directors, seeing their father take controversial cases when they were little girls, they didn't understand how this was the same kind of case as civil rights cases from the '60s. However, if they had been living with their father in the '60s, maybe they would have felt the same fear that they felt as he defended Yusef Salaam.

The cases Kuntsler took often had personal impacts for him. Kuntsler spent time in prison based on contempt of court charges during the Chicago 8 trial, and after he defended the El Sayyid Nosair, Jewish activists would rally every day outside of his Bronx home, calling him a self-hating Jew and a traitor.

Many attorneys in the crowd testified to how Kuntsler inspired them to join the legal profession. DePaul University Law Professor Jim Cavise discussed the AIM trial in 1974 and how Kuntsler asked Cavise, straight out of law school, to find a case that would allow the elders and medicine men to hold a ceremonial drum session before court opened. Cavise found a case, and Kuntsler held a hearing where he argued the case like it was Supreme Court law. They were successful and for the rest of the trial, before every court appearance, a ceremony was held. Cavise also described some of the strategy sessions where a peace pipe would be passed, claimed that it was "a mind expanding experience for all of the lawyers."

Cavise told another story from the AIM trail. During opening statements AIM members started raising hell and were dragged out kicking and screaming, "as they were being dragged out Bill stood up and started calling the judge every single name in the book, and of course what happened was that Bill was dragged out of the courtroom too. Later on I said, not that it was the wrong thing to do, but what made you jump up?" Kuntsler told Cavise, "There's no way that someone's going to drag my clients out of the courtroom without dragging me with them."

Many of the law students in the audience were wondering how to become an
activist lawyer like Kuntsler. The movie showed how even Kuntsler did not start as a radical lawyer. He began as a run of the mill lawyer, and even authored a book, The Law of Accidents. Many students wanted to know how to go from that to representing radicals.

As NLG member Elizabeth Fink said, "You have to want to do it, have to not be afraid. Wake up every morning choosing it." The movie discussed Kuntsler's admiration of Michelangelo's David statue. It is one of the few art pieces that display David before he throws the stone at Goliath, before he made his entrance into history. It is the moment where David has to decide whether to throw the stone or not. Whether to take a risk or to disappear back into the crowd, with no one the wiser. Kuntsler believed in those David moments.

Loyola University law student Susie Bucharo said the movie and Kuntsler's life and work "was definitely inspiring. It's easy to feel in law school like you have to go with the flow and not challenge things." She continued, "The law only deserves that respect if it's worth that respect. What this movie teaches us is that some laws ought to be challenged. It's a different way of approaching this profession."

Chicago Education in Danger of Being Parking Metered

This was originally posted on Gapers Block.

"They never thought of the children first," Lillie Gonzalez exclaimed to several hundred people's applause at Malcolm X college. The small, but feisty, Latino community activist was speaking at the Democratic Alternatives to Renaissance 2010 conference organized by the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) and the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) on January 9, 2010. Gonzalez was "one of the lucky ones," who was able to stop the closure of Peabody Elementary School in 2009 in Chicago's Near West Side. The planned closure of the more than a century old school was a part of Renaissance 2010, Chicago's program to privatize its public schools.

"Renaissance 2010 and 15 years of mayoral control are 15 years of failure." Explained Kenwood Community Organization organizer Jitu Brown. Describing the conference, Brown stated, "we want to begin to project what we think should happen in our schools... Our vision, not a corporate vision."

President Obama's appointment of Arnie Duncan to the Secretary of Education made the conference particularly important. "The first thing that Arnie Duncan did as US Secretary of Education is fly to Detroit and promise Detroit Public Schools major federal funds if they were to adopt the Chicago model," Pauline Lipman, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, explained.

Lipman pointed out that, "Renaissance 2010 is a partnership between Mayor Daley and the most powerful financial and corporate leaders in the city. What is their goal?" she asked before answering "to train a low wage workforce and to support real estate development. That's their education agenda. Their strategy is to hand public school to private operators, undermine the teachers union, phase out local school councils, the only democratic community voice we have, and replace neighborhood schools with selective enrollment schools and gentrifying neighborhoods."

"They have a long term plan. If they don't kick you off this year, they will pick you off next year." Lipman explained.

The conference allowed organizers and activists from a number of schools to discuss the issues they face. Sarah Jefferia discussed the successful fight to keep Clemente from adopting staggered start times to the school day. Calena Mujica discussed the work that Chicago Youth Initiating Change was doing, while Mary Glass from the Milwaukee Professionals Association came down to learn from the Chicago activists who had been on the front lines of the struggle against privatization.

One student from Senn High School described fighting the closure of the school backed by Alderman Mary Ann Smith.

It was a presentation that interested Jim Madigan, a Democratic candidate for Illinois State Senate in the 7th district. Madigan attended the conference to learn about "the concerns parents have about the desire to privatize all the other public assets in Chicago. Folks here are raising some good questions." Madigan said, "this is a very grassroots anti-machine conference, and for that reason alone I thought it was a good thing to attend."

One of the highlights of the conference was the announcement of CORE's slate of candidates for the May elections in the Chicago Teachers Union. CORE is known for it's progressive positions and fighting spirit as well as being the only CTU caucus that elects its candidates. Karen Jennings Lewis, CORE's candidate for President of CTU, explained the perception of Chicago schools as failures. "We have been told for the past 30 years that the public schools in this country are abysmal. It is a lie. It was a lie then and it is a lie now." As for school closings Jennings explained that, "The closings have nothing to do with scores," but are a part of a plan to commodify the city's educational resources.

CORE's candidate for vice-president in the CTU elections is Jackson Potter. Potter is a CTU delegate at Social Justice High School in Little Village, was a writer for SUBSTANCE newspaper, and is active in a number of social justice struggles including the anti-war movement. Potter pointed out that Chicago has one of the most militarized public school systems in the country, and that instead of training students to be "cannon fodder" for "unethical wars" the government should be providing high quality education and good union jobs. Potter has helped students to organize against military recruiters on their campuses.

This willingness to speak out on important issues is one of the things that has made Potter a target for those in the teachers union that don't want to take such as activist role. Potter is fighting against a challenge to his eligibility to run for office in the CTU.

In 2005 Potter worked at Englewood High School, which was closed as a part of Renaissance 2010. While Jackson fought to keep the school open, ultimately it was not enough. Potter then took a study leave and continued to pay his member dues to the CTU and was told that there would be no break in service from the union.

However, after CORE gained steam, the leadership of CTU claimed that since he was not a regular teacher, he could not run for office in the union.

Potter sees this as an attempt to undermine internal union democracy and has recruited Tom Geoghegan and Mike Persoon of Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan in the legal battle that has followed. Potter explained that they had moved for discovery, and were going to put Marilyn Stewart, president of the union, on the stand. Potter believes that the evidence "will show clearly that they are playing games and that they have one standard and rule for their caucus and another for caucuses that they deem a threat."

Potter and CORE are aware that the CTU leadership might be seeking to delay resolution on the question of his eligibility to effectively keep him off the ballot. However CORE has a "plan B," in which Potter will step down and CORE will elect another VP candidate, if necessary.

The activists at the conference felt that what they did would have an impact. Lipman from Teachers for Social Justice explained, "What we do has national significance. The New York Times tied the death of Darien Albert at Fenger High School to spikes in violence, to school closings, and questioned the wisdom of the strategy. They used our language and analysis based on our five years of resistance."

Community organizer Brown told the activists at the conference, "people in this room have had the tenacity to say no to privatization, no to schools being closed, no to teachers having their rights taken away, no to children being trained for the prison industrial complex."

"The people that are closing your schools, the people that are pushing bad policy at our schools. They are working together all the time... we need to be working together after this conference."

Female Metal Vocalists Who Kick Ass

Heavy metal is a genre that invite testosterone filled lunatics. Who needs lyrics when you can bash your head into a cement wall? Who needs biting social commentary when you can beat up some sweaty car repair guys in a mosh pit?

Women have hardly been the target demographic for metal. Yet, more women are becoming fans of metal and performing in metal bands. While many female vocalists go for the 'I'm singing pretty to contrast with the heavy guitars' vibe, there are several female lead vocalists who fuckin' devastate. They growl, snarl, shout, scream and do some wicked cookie monster voices.

This shift from pretty feminine vocal stylings from female vocalists like Amy Lee from Evanesence, Lita Ford, Christina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil and Sarah Jezebel Deva of Cradle of Filth to growly more demonic vocals in the groups profile below, could be a sign that women in metal will not confine themselves to the role of stripper, or eye candy.

Many of this new breed of female metal vocalists have biting social, political and sometimes feminist commentary in their lyrics.

When Johan Liiva left the Swedish melodic death metal group Archenemy, few would have expected to be a defining moment for extreme music. Archenemy had been one of the major groups of the Gothenburg metal scene and their decision to hire Angela Gossow as their lead singer told the entire metal community that women can shatter eardrums just as good as men.

I played Archenemy for a friend once, she complained of Gossow, "That sounds like death." I think it sounds hella awesome.

Gossow, a vegetarian, has several songs to imply anti-war and liberal Existentialist themes. The song 'Rise of the Tyrant' criticizes war while the song "Revolution Begins" urges freedom,

"Who are they to tell you what to do?
The stage is not set, the road is not chosen
You fate not preordained"

Check out the video for "We Will Rise".

"Tear down the walls
Wake up the world
Ignorance is not Bliss"

Walls of Jericho singer Candace Kucsulain doesn't hide her feelings about the state of politics. "Fuck the American Dream!" she screams in the track American Dream. Maybe her distaste for Americana came from watching the groups home town of Detroit rot as a result of corporate America's policies. Kusculain rails against the female beauty industry in "All Hail the Dead",

"Struggle to fit the mold, as she makes her self sick, it should make us all sick.

With our brainwashed minds, as they die fighting beauty.
Because we're slaves to the system
We can't go on like this, let the dead be dead.
You corporate fuck, it's time to fight this.
The status quo, it's time to fight this.
Our broken families, it's time to fight this.
Your billboard barbie, it's time to fight this.
Let the dead be dead, all hail the dead."

Alissa White-Gluz of the Canadian metal band The Agonist mixes growls with actual singing, to great effect. "Does history guide you or do you set out to change it?" White-Gluz whispers before thrashing guitars and sweep picking pummel listeners and she begins to scream in "Business Suits and Combat Boots." The video features a business man pick pocketing a homeless person, and photos of caskets returning to the US from Iraq, while the lyrics condemn animal testing, racism and the beauty industry. Their video for "Thank you pain" actually premiered on the website for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The Los Angeles based Otep, founded by their singer Otep Shamaya, is more than just a band with some conscious lyrics, Shamaya is actually engaged in social change and politics. She actually spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention! In the song Confrontation she uses a grungy voice to speak out,

"Riot gear, the slaves are here
Piling corpses high

Its the rich man's war
But its the poor that fight

More capitalist crimes,
More enemies than allies

No WMD's - who gives a fuck
If they die"

While the video for Warhead mocks the paranoia of US militarism. Blast beats and palm muted riffing keeps the song chugging along while the video shows a picture of George W. Bush with the caption "The king of lies Is alive" Shamaya screams, "He lied, they died, keep the peasants terrified!"

In "Smash the Control Machine," Shamaya mocks right wing media with a catchy yet heavy song that easily lends itself to pogo dancing - or mixed martial arts against a yuppie.

"Then they outsourced my job
And gave a raise to my boss
Bailed out the banks but billed me for the loss

They say we must submit
And be one with the Machine
Because the Kingdom of Fear
Needs compliance to succeed

So waterboard the kids for fun
It's all the rage
And play born-again American"

What is the future for female metal singers? They need to have the media take them seriously as musicians, and not eye candy. Every year Revolver magazine, one of the most popular heavy metal magazines, prints it's list of 'hottest chicks in metal.' Where is there list of the 'hottest dudes in metal'? The misogyny of our society is unfortunately well represented in the taste makers for metal. Instead of seeing these singers as important artists or ass-kicking vocalists, they are seen as cheerleaders with tattoos and Slayer shirts. The metal world and music industry need to stop this and treat theses bands as more than metal with tits.

On Intergallactic Speciesism, Leftist Escapism, and Cinematic Messiah Complex's - What Avatar tells us about Cinema and its Relation to the Real World

Avatar, the most expensive movie ever made, has, before it even premiered in theaters, become a turning point for cinema. Critics, film producers and cinemaphiles have recognized that unless the movie was a complete plop, it would change movie making forever, and with the movie premiering at number 1, it seems their predictions were accurate. I saw the movie opening night, and it does look incredible. The 3-D added depth to the film without being a cheesy gimmick. The high definition motion capture set a new standard for realism in computer generated animation. The movie is sure to become a science-fiction/fantasy classic along with movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Terminator, and Batman.

However, what exactly are the repercussion Avatar's success will have on the film industry and American consciousness? What do the plot, the new movie making technology and America's obsession with being someone else mean for where we are and where we are going?

The world of Avatar is a science fiction version of Iraq. Humans occupy parts of the world of Pandorum, and seek to drill for a mineral called 'unobtonium.' We are never told what the mineral is used for, but it apparently sells for quite a bit of money back on earth. The Na'vi are the native people on Pandorum and these 10 foot tall blue warrior hippies are not friendly to the mining operation. Played by an ensemble of Black actors, the Na'vi represent a number of forces opposed to American imperialism.

The movie follows Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington as he is hired by a blackwater inspired corporate military operation to protect the mining operation. Worthington's character is paralyzed from the waist down and is hired to be a part of the “Avatar” program to place his mind in the body of a Na'vi in an attempt to convince the Na'vi to leave their home and allow the miners to drill it.

Through the course of the movie, Sully further identifies with the Na'vi and come to turn against the corporate operation. By the end of the movie he has switched sides and leads the Na'vi as they attack the mining operation in a high-tech vision of a jungle based Lawrence of Arabia, or Avatar – Dune in a jungle.

Avatar openly encourages anti-war and anti-corporate themes, it encourages armed rebellion and mutiny against the metaphorical US corporate powers. The metaphors in the movie have a left wing and progressive perspective.

Avatar explores racism between humans and the na'vi, who while an intelligent life form are certainly not human. It's a theme that's being explored in other movies, such as District 9 and the kids movie planet 51. While District 9 was disappointing in that for a movie that was a thinly disguised metaphor for apartheid in South Africa, it depicted Africans in a negative light, these movies raise interesting questions about a rapidly approaching post-human society. What rights would humanity extend to extra-terrestrials? In past film history, it is always the aliens who conquer humanity, but this string of films has been suggesting that perhaps we should fear humanity conquering the aliens? Is this a metaphor for how we should fear Western imperialist conquering the third world?

While some critics have chastised Avatar's plot for being predictable action movie fare, Annalee Newitz (http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar?skyline=true&s=x) has commented on a white messiah complex in the movie. The way the movie presents one of the white conquerors becoming the leader for the indigenous people and leading them to victory has raised shadows of Dances with Wolves, the Last Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia and others. She comments that a movie industry dominated by white directors will continue to assume that the audience is white and need a white character to bridge the gap in order to understand the non-white characters. Consider how many white journalists where in Ghandi, or the fact that the Indian pacifist leader was played by a British actor, or that the film being produced about Mao will be filtered through the lens of a white journalist (http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/16/robert-de-niro-making-mao-zedong-film/).

What aggravates me is the messiah complex in film period. How many times do we have to see this tired Christ parable play out? A chosen one, prophesied to lead the people to glorious new horizons, even if it costs his his life. In Avatar, Ewa, the goddess mother nature of Pandorum, picks Jack Sully by having it's seeds float around him, a prophesy that the Na'vi interpret as a sign that he will play an important role in their future.

I've seen this before, with Neo “the One” in the Matrix, Anakin Skywalker being prophesied to bring 'balance to the Force' in the Star Wars Prequels, John Conner leading humans to victory over the machines in the future of the Terminator, the fetus in Legion “the only hope humanity has of surviving' an onslaught of murderous angels and even Jebus himself in in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. There are probably a thousand other big budget movies with this same messianic plot.

Why is it that we look to fiction for heroes to save us instead of saving ourselves? Since these movies are myth, they are all vying for which messiah story will replace that aged myth of western civilization- Christianity. Most American's probably know less about Christianity than they do the pantheon of gods we have created from Superman and Wonder Woman to the Terminator and Rambo. There is a lot of money riding on such a paradigm shift in myth belief. The more money people spend on 'entertainment' the less they spend at Church. Capitalism's myths come to replace feudalism's myths.

Avatar does more than just comment on the real world through metaphor, it has a physical relationship with the material world. The movie cost close to ½ billion dollars. Funding from Fox Studios and James Cameron made Avatar a major business enterprise employing thousands including the actors, animators, and camera-crew.

We should consider what avatar means in a world where millions of people spend days living their fantasy's through avatars in games like World of Warcraft, movies like Harry Potter and tv shows in general. Why is it that entertainment for Americans amounts to escaping the real world and pretending to be someone else? We are living through the height of the worst economic crises since the 1930's and escaping into fantasy is easier than facing a life without guaranteed health care and possible foreclosure. What will it take for Americans to live their own lives instead of living vicariously through fiction?

The left has praised the film. On the Maoist blog Kasama, both Mike Ely and Eric Ribellarsi have praised the fact that a movie so militantly opposed to current US military operations is the number one film in the country at the moment. However are they living their own fantasies of rebellion and race traitorism through the movie? At what point does the American Left stop critiquing movies and start a true rebellion?

Consider the race this movie has already set off to go 3-D in theaters and soon home entertainment systems. When Microsoft released Windows Vista, it raised the bar on the basic computer hardware needed to operate the operating system, making it necessary for many consumers to buy newer computers, and creating more toxic digital waste.

This has a real impact in the places where all the toys Americans dispose of originate from. Many human rights groups have pointed out the horrific conditions in mining operations in the Congo, where Coltan is mined. Coltan is a mineral needed for liquid crystal displays used in laptops, cellphones, and flat screen tv's.

The irony of Avatar is that despite its metaphorical criticisms of imperialism, the movie may spark the need for the entertainment industry to have a higher demand for mineral mined in blood diamond type conditions.

While the Left may understand the message the movie is trying to send, to many Americans seek to ignore such messages. Whether it be the movie studio producers who don't care what message a movie has as long as it makes money, or regular people who seek any kind of opium to avoid facing the real world.

What I wonder is how long until US marines in Iraq or Afghanistan claim the Na'vi warriors for themselves? How long until US soldiers occupying a foreign country name their squads after the Na'vi, paint Na'vi icons on their bombs and boost each other before a battle by quoting from Avatar?

Taqwacore and the Real Threat: Interview With Marwan Kamel From Al Thawra

Marwan Kamel is full of contradictions. Opinionated yet relaxed, a punk rock puritan who experiments with the sacred cows of punk. His father is Algerian, but lived in Syria before coming to the US and his mother is Mexican. Growing up in the rust belt city of Waukegan north of Chicago, Kamel has been a strong voice in the 'Taqwacore' movement, a movement built by Arab and Muslim Punk Rockers.

I attended college with Marwan, where we would often discuss internationalizing anarchism and anarchist ideas. I remember one conversation we had about the international symbol of Anarchy, the cirlce A, being eurocentric, becuase it didn't exactly carry over into non-latin based languages.

On New Years Eve 2009, I met Marwan for Coffee and to discuss music, politics, and the band that he sings and plays guitar in: Al Thawra. As we see, Marwan is interested in more than a punk aesthetic, or touting mindless chaos as anarchism, or music that gives people a little chuckle. He is interested in music that goes beyond a quirky oddity, and becomes a a real threat to the dominant order

Marwan discusses Al Thawra.

Matt: A couple of our friends are on the Palestine freedom march.

Marwan: They're going to Gaza?

Matt: Trying to. They're stuck in Egypt.

Marwan: It's funny cause all that international crossing is so much more complicated. The one thing with the Middle East is that everything is more complicated. Something that should take like 20 minutes takes 4 fucking hours cause of all the complicated political situations and shit. A friend of mine came to the us from Palestine. He was 19 years old. Like 2 years ago. The visa to get the us was easier to get than the visa to Jordan. Going to Jordan is the hard part. Getting to the US is the easy part. They give visas to the Palestinians easier than anybody else cause they just want to get them out. Just leave.

Matt: I saw last night that Al Thawra posted a new song on Myspace about the Seige of Gaza.

Marwan: Yea and this morning I got hate mail.

Matt: What did it say?

Marwan: It said, 'Burn Gaza to the ground.'

Matt: Was it from someone who had been a fan of the band or just some random dude?

Marwan: Dude, I don't even know. Just some person sent em a message..... it was like.... I don't know man. The one thing I've noticed about our stuff vs... I hate to play this race to the bottom... like I'm more impressive than you or whatever, when it comes to, like, vs. the kominas or these other Taqwacore bands, or supposed Taqwacore bands, I've noticed with us, we always end up catching the heat from these other bands. Like the Komina's are lighthearted and funny about it. I look at it like the Sex Pistols vs. Crass, y'know? They're like the more fun pop aspect of it, being sarcastic.

I've noticed like, in some ways being South Asian is like daisy or whatever is like a little bit more politically friendly, cause their Pakistani. But when your Arab, everyone fucking hates you. It's like being the public enemy of this current, I don't know what to call it. Status quo in the US.

It seems like with us we're under a different paradigm. It's like, oh, they're being serious, their talking in Arabic. Fuck them.

Matt: I haven't listened to many of the other Taqwacore bands. I know you guy's cause I know you. I've read a few articles about the other groups cause you went on tour with them. A group like Vote Hezbollah, are they a little more jokey?

Marwan: Yea it's all a joke. I think that's the difference. When you want to be serious, it's more threatening to people. I'm not really sure. I kinda fell into the whole Taqwacore thing anyways. I didn't set out to create a Taqwacore band. It just happened. I put my music on Myspace and these dudes found me on there. And they sent me the book and the idea of a tour came up. So I wasn't sure where I fit in with the whole thing. I still really don't know where I fit in with it.

Matt: you wanted to create a Doom / Crust band and everyone says, 'oh, you're like this', and your like 'I am?'

Marwan: Yea exactly. It's kinda like you end up wanting to create something, and someone else labels it. Which is what ultimately happens with any group.

Matt: You mentioned earlier that your writing for a blog about Palestine?

Marwan: Oh yea. That's something I'm just starting up. So I'm not sure what my angle is. It's called palestinenote.com. I'm also writing for mideastyouth.com. The palestinenote.com one seems real serious.

Matt: Are these site you started yourself or....?

Marwan: No I'm contributing. So much of my writing is not that serious in a journalistic sense. I ended up interviewing a band in Syria because it interested me. I wanted to talk to them, so I was like, 'fuck it, lets do an interview.' But this site seems serious some of their writers are dudes who have written for the New York Times and shit.

I asked Marwan about the documentary movie about the Taqwacore scene, "Taqwacore: the Birth of Punk Islam." The movie featured Al Thawra.

Marwan: It's all bullshit. Documentaries are like half fiction. One of the things I noticed especially when we were working on that films: 'Ok, that was great, but can you guys do that again in the light?' 'What? I thought this was a documentary?'

Matt: All the great historic photos were posed. Iwa Jima, the Red flag over the Reichstag.

Matt: Tell me about when the film crews became interested in filming you guys. Have you seen it yet?

Marwan: Yea, I saw the documentary. It's interesting because .... I don't know if the film maker, Omar Majeed, set out to make a definitive piece on this movement. I don't know if it was supposed to be encyclopedic in some sort of way. I don't think so. In terms of being a narrative, it's a good narrative. But I don't think it does justice to the story of all the bands that were involved. I'm not saying that necessarily I want to see more of myself... but it seemed like... instead of the same 500 word article that they keep printing over and over and over again. It ended up being an hour and ½ article. Like one of those articles, like the Rolling Stone piece.

The camera crews started coming, in like 2007. I was talking to these dudes online and the idea of a tour came up. I bought a ticket to Boston, one way. I didn't fuckin' know these kids or nothing, I was just diving into it blindly. I had no idea who was even going to pick me up from the airport. The first thing that happens is we pull into Bossum's driveway, and we had to stage it again, like 4 times before we got it right. So that was my first experience with a camera crew. I was like 'what is going on?'

Matt: You mentioned some of the other articles and they are all sort of the same. They treat it as a novelty. “Oh look at all these Arab kids playing punk music.” I feel like they aren't digging any deeper than that. You told me on the phone that maybe there wasn't anything deeper than that. But... I feel like there is some sort of consciousness shift going on.

Marwan: In America?

Matt: Well, with this quote unquote Taqwacore. I remember I went to an United Muslims Moving Ahead event at DePaul once. I was playing my guitar in the quad, so I brought that with. And some guys were like you should go up there with the hand drum guy, do a little thing. I was like 'Ok, I wasn't planning on it, but sure.' We talk to the organizer of the event and – oh! apparently there's some prohibition in the...

Marwan: Dude that's fucking retarded.

Matt: against stringed instruments

Marwan: Dude, that's the biggest bullshit I ever fuckin' heard.

Marwan: It's weird that these innovations of theology and ideology from the 1700's have infiltrated so deep into the consciousness of Muslims that its like created this idea that it's always existed like that. Part of the reason why that coverage [of Taqwacore] always ends up being the same is cause that type of Islam is the monolithic Islam that the media in the US projects. In some sort of way, there is an Orientalist tinge in everything they write about us. It returns to the original exotification of the East. It treats us like clowns. Like, 'how weird.' What they don't understand is that there have always been critics like that.

There was one group in Arabia in the 8^th century the Najdiyah,they formed a commune-like society. Their theological position was that is there is no one able to become the Imam, then we can do away with the position completely. And they also said that the land belongs to everyone. It's sort of a forerunner to socialist ideas.

What they don't understand is that those type of criticisms have always existed. Out of that same movement was a group that supported women as imams.

Matt: You had mentioned to me a few years ago that you wanted to write a book on these Anthropological type things. Precursors, stuff embedded within Arab history and culture that could be the basis for a non-European socialism. Like how socialist and anarchist ideas have always been said to have come out of European struggles, but maybe not. Did you ever actually write that, did you do research, what's the status?

Marwan: I started. I lost touch with it. It's like that sometimes. You know you start something and lose your train of thought. What's interesting is that some kid started that. I forget his name though.

Matt: You ever think about going back to grad school to continue on a project like that?

Marwan: I don't know dude, but I need to go back to school for sure though.

It's interesting to juxtapose the paradigm of Western society. If you look at us on a different historical trajectory than the Middle East. So you have to make it relevant and indigenous to Mid-East culture. One reason why they don't work is that they are viewed as outside ideas. In some sort of way it needs to speak to people. If you think about it, a lot of the ideology, like anarcho-syndicalism, it's dealing with industrial society, but a lot of those societies in the Mid-East aren't even industrialized yet. It's totally different It's like Russia at the time of the revolution,

Matt: or like China, it was mostly peasants at the time of the revolution.

Marwan: but then there is the ultra fucking capitalism of the gulf.

Matt: Like the United Arab Emirates. Building man made islands in the shape of a globe so Brad Pitt can buy one.

Marwan discusses his music.

Marwan: Like when they talk about decadence, that's fucking decadence. That's just ridiculous. People don't identify with that. Everyone else in the Mid-East don't have any sort of cultural similarity with them. It's so different. 'everything is for sale.'

Matt: I saw you guys play a show at Boogie Not Bombs and one of the things I liked about your set was how in your last song you brought all those drums and gave them out to the audience. Is that something you do regularly, where you try to make it more interactive?

Marwan: Yea that was fun. The traditional concept of shows is that you go and watch someone perform. But you own it more if you get people involved. 'Oh, it's my show too.' It democratizes the show. It takes it off the stage and puts it in the hands of people. It's analogous with political concepts. One of the interesting things about how we fuse music is how Mid-East music is based a lot on improvisation. So that ties it with the democratization thing to. Leave the format open for people to put their own muse into. So we try to do that as often as we can but sometimes we don't have enough drums. It's a good way to end sets. Cause then you don't need to have an ending that lets people down, cause they will just have fun anyway. Ultimately that's what shows are about, having fun.

Matt: Most of the time,

Marwan: Unless it's about PC posturing. Making people feel bad about doing shit. 'It's your fault.'

The only time I did that was in New York. It wasn't even politically motivated, it was cause I hate New York. I was just trying to piss them off.

Matt: Would you say there is a rust belt twinge to the group?

Marwan: Post-modern post-industrial deal? Yea. That's the cool thing about Chicago. Even the punk hardcore in the 80's it tended to be more experimental cause it wasn't tied down to these things on the east coast.

We go outside for a smoke

Marwan: Going back to talking about Taqwacore being threatening. These articles love to see people shit on Islam, but not on the West as well. If your not being honest about everything, your not being honest. You have to be self-critical.

Matt: Al Thawra does criticize both. You don't fall into Christopher Hitchen's paradigm. The liberal hawk. "Oh Islam needs it's own enlightenment. They need to accept Western values. That's why we need to invade. Make them look like us. Give them McDonalds.” A group like Al Thawra is a counter argument to that. "We don't need you to bomb the Mid-East to give us your supposed freedom. We know how to make freedom ourselves."

Marwan: Absolutely. Like I said, those criticisms have always existed. There is nothing new about it. People don't know how big Islam is. They have this one monolithic image of it. It seems a lot of those bands play into that. It seems less threatening. It seems more of a marketing ploy than anything else.

Matt: What do you think of all these protesters in Iran? Or as I call them the twitteratti? Do you think they have a liberatory vision for Iran after they topple the theocracy or are they pro-western?

Marwan: I don't know how much of it is genuine democratic feelings or peoples uprising or how much is involvement of foreign organization.

Matt: It's kinda hard to tell.

Marwan: That's one of the things about those covert ops. It's all about hiding it. Make it look like a people's uprising but maybe its with the support of the CIA or MI5. Of course I support that movement of people but I don't know if I want to be outright supporting it. Cause, I don't know whats genuine about it. Is it a liberatory vision? I don't know. If it's a ploy to end up with a McDonalds in Teran they might as well stop right now. You'll just end up with a different tyrant.

One of the thing about the manipulation of public opinion here is that the people who supported the Shah are supporting the protesters. One of the Shahs relatives gave a press conference in Paris during the riots after the election where he was crying for that girl who died. I was like, 'yea right he doesn't care about that girl.' He was like, 'just put me back in power.'

Matt: This last decade there has been this big interest in ethnic punk. Gypsy punk. Recognition of Latino punk groups in Pilsen, movie Behind the Screams, the movie Afro-Punk, now this movie about Taqwacore. There has always been this non-white punk, but it's getting its own recognition and the mainstream is acknowledging that it exists in ways that it hasn't before. Any thoughts?

Marwan: It's about musical progression. Do you want it to be the same or move on. I hope it doesn't become a tokenizng thing. That's denigrating in a lot of ways. 'Hey man we're not racist we have a black friend.'

Matt: Punks not racist, we have Bad Brains.

Marwan: haha yea. That's what I'm saying. It goes back to making it indigenous to your cultural context in some way.

Matt: There are two ways to spin this question- why is punk rock so attractive to these marginalized communities? Or do you feel like picking up the western rock sound and prototype for a band and adapting it to these different communities... is this just a different kind of assimilation?

Marwan: Yea the assimilation aspect is always played into this in an interesting way for me. How do you negotiate assimilation and your identity? I found interesting in Taqwacore that we weren't coming form the same cultural context, but we identified with each other. Having this identity conflict out in the open. You feel neither here nor there. Our context might be different than Afro-punk but I think it has a lot in common with Latino punk. Your here but your not quite American. But when your there, your fucking American. If I'm here in the US, who is the first person picked at the airport for a special screening? Me. But when I'm there, their like, 'oh he's American.'

Matt: I remember you told me once about how when you visited Syria the secret police were following you.

Marwan: That;s a totally different topic man. The secret police in Syria... it's interesting. There was one journalist from France who covered us. A war photographer correspondent, he had been to North Korea and Cuba and he said, 'it's the only country I stayed in where there are police in front and behind you.' It's insane, the state security apparatus is on top of dissent. It think it's opening up some. When I was interviewing that band in Syria. They said they are more computers now but it hasn't improved much. I think it's being censored or their keeping tabs on people.

Matt: You always read reports about 'the great firewall of china' and how all these country have censorship blocking stuff. I go on youtube and watch newsclips, and some say 'this is not available in your region.' Not even from some 'terrorist state'. Stuff from England, but it's like copyright, trademark, what's the difference? It's a censorship based on profit.

Marwan: Yea it's a different type of censorship. That's one of the reasons I haven't been pissed off about how the media has been covering this Taqwacore thing. Because that sensationalism plays into that aspect of creating profit. They have to make it sensational. I understand it, I don't think it's right, but they're covering us in this way because their motivation is profit.

Marwan: Going back to identity punk thing... it's poignant now to have these identity punk movements because it has something to do with the faceless globalized world. Finding out who you are and maintaining your identity is important in that kind of thing. To break the homogeneity of that kind of world. Your either a soldier in their army or a faceless sweatshop worker. Just to be like 'no, I exist' is really important.

Matt: Al Thawra is the cultural and artistic face.

Marwan: One of the things were trying to do with Al Thawra is that our process, at first we took punk and put mid-east on top. This new album is the reverse. You get a different result.

Throughout this experience, there has been these magazine articles, but the one thing I have been going back to is how I originally started doing things in the 'Do It Yourself' fashion. I started getting in contact with these kids in the Mid-East. Their motivations for feeling different are different than mine. They can feel like outsiders and identify with that in some sense. There are always some people feeling marginalized or different everywhere. Rock music isn't that prevalent in the Mid-East yet, so it takes someone to do it, for it to take root.

Matt: There are two sides to rock music. On one hand they credit Levi jeans and rock music to toppling the Soviet Union. On the other hand this is a music that has its roots in the blues and the African American experience. It's a double edged sword maybe.

Marwan: Rock music is a cultural ambassador. It plays into that dialectics. It some ways it's Westernized, but in some it's trying to be Eastern. I hate to use those terms but just for the sake of understanding. It's bringing this music that foreign but it's gives people a space to empower themselves. So it's a dialectical process. Your using that kind of ascetic to empower yourself to do something.

Matt: Dialectics, contradictions, shades of gray...

Marwan: To say that we exist in the gray, and we're OK with it is one of the most important things about our music. We don't fit here or there but it's alright, we are who we are.

Cafeteria Workers Prepare for Union Contract Fight

DePaul Cafeteria Workers (left to right) Quiendolyn Wilkens, Alan Camacho, Nathan Arnold, and Chanteen Hardaway.

On November 7^th, over 100 cafeteria workers, students and activists gathered at the Stir It Up Conference held at DePaul University in Chicago to organize for a better contract. DePaul is the largest Catholic university in the United States and it has a contract for its cafeteria with Chartwells, a division of Compass group. Compass is the largest catering corporation in the world with an annual profit close to 7 billion British pounds. Compass group has food service operations in schools, corporate offices and major events throughout the world.

Even though Compass is a Fortune 500 company, with a CEO who makes more than 750 thousand dollars a year, Compass treats the cafeteria workers who make its wealth like the liver they often chop. Low pay, substandard health care, lack of proper training and poor management are some of the complaints of many of the workers at the DePaul cafeteria.

Represented by Service Workers United and Serviced by UNITE/HERE Local 1, the workers contract expires in March and they looked forward to changing DePaul's cafeteria and gaining a stronger contract.

Chanteen Hardaway has worked as a cashier at DePaul's cafeteria for six years, and was nervous before the conference because she had never spoken in public before. During her speech, she broke into tears describing how, “It really hurts me because I know I can't afford a lot of stuff for my kids. I just feel that it's really unfair.” She said, “We need better wages and free health care. I want to take my kids to the doctor without needing to use public aid.” Hardaway emphasized Chartwells' responsibility to its workers, “I shouldn't have to use the government when I work for a company that makes multi-billion dollars a year.”

Over 100 students and community members attended the conference.

Chartwells worker Alan Camacho pointed out that the average wage for Chartwells workers was half the living wage for one person and that many workers had families that they needed to support, “it really impacted me when DePaul was running coat drives and feed the homeless and hungry [food drives], and right there in the student center, in the cafeteria, people's kids are going hungry.”

Camacho explained, “there's someone working here for 20 years and they make the same amount of money I do, and I've been here 4 years.” Further, “the managers get bonuses based on how much money they spend, and if they spend less money [on workers] they get more money [for themselves].”

69 year old Nathan Arnold has been cooking for over 50 years and worked at DePaul's cafeteria for the last 10 years. Arnold explained, “My Academy Award is the smile on your face after you eat one of my meals.” However he was baffled by how Chartwells treated it's employees, “I just didn't understand how people were allowed to get away with certain things. How they treated the employees. I hadn't been here 2 weeks and I heard a supervisor cursing out a pastry chef and a sous chef.”

Arnold told the Conference attendees, “I made more money 30 years ago than I do now. It's sad how the corporate world can take and abuse when we supply their need. We place the caviar on their plate and they shove us crumbs.”

Changes in management cost Quiendolyn Wilkens $400 a week, as Chartwells cut her hours from 45 hours a week to 32 hours a week. She described how after requesting for more hours, management retaliated by cutting her hours more. With two children to raise, she became a “mad black woman on a mission” even though she initially knew little about the union, she was one of the first to become active in it. “It wasn't about me, it was about everybody else that was going through what I was going through.”

According to Wilkens, “My manager can not come down and make up quesadilla just like that., They can not do the work that I do.”

The Union has been able to help workers improve their shop. According to Hardaway, “when the mangers try to fire us for something stupid, we have the union behind us. They [the managers] try to come up with some pretty ironic stuff to fire us about. Some people have gotten their jobs back.”

Camacho described a fight the union had with the managers. Chartwells would hire temporary workers from temp agencies to prevent regular employees from becoming eligible for health and vacation benefits or from gaining overtime pay. When Camacho and other workers confronted management about it, they were threatened, even though the contract prohibited this temp worker practice. After confronting the manager over this issue, the company hired 4 new permanent employees. This is an example of the union fighting for the unemployed in the worst recession since the 1930's.

UNITE/HERE Local 1 researcher Kyle Schafer explains Compass groups wealth.

The cafeteria workers at DePaul have a union contract through Service Workers United. SWU was a joint organizing project through UNITE/HERE and SEIU to unionize food service and cafeteria workers. The different bargaining units are serviced by different SEIU or UNITE/HERE locals, in DePaul's case, the contract is serviced by UNITE/HERE local 1. The Chartwells workers may switch their bargaining agent from SWU to HERE Local 1, as frustrations mount over the weak contracts that SWU negotiated.

In a sign of solidarity, DePaul students who live at the social justice themed Vincent and Louis House cooked lunch for conference attendees, including cafeteria workers who usually cook food for the students.

Arnold was of the initial organizers for the union and stated that he did it “not for the benefit of me, but for the benefit of you the students who are going to need future jobs that your going to need, for my co-workers that are still going to be working in 10 20 years.” An excellent point considering that several baristas at Chartwells were former students at DePaul.

Arnold stated, “I am so proud to see that the students are coming forward with this union and doing something for themselves. We all are the union and together we'll make this world a better place.”

Coffee and Shifting the Political Paradigm

I used to work at a coffee shop. There are lots of stories I could tell about it - the sweatshop conditions, the harassment of union activists, the unsanitary workplace, the incompetent managers. However I want to talk about the size of coffee cups.

We had three sizes of coffee cups - in order of smallest to biggest - Tall, Grande, and Alto-Grande.

People often get confused about the names of the sizes. Why the funny Italian names? Why can't we call the cup sizes Small, Medium, and Large?

Have you ever had coffee in Europe or South America? They serve it in espresso sized cups. That's a regular size of coffee internationally. The fact is that the smallest size coffee you can order in the United States is still considered Tall compared to what an actual regular cup of coffee would be in the rest of the world.

This mirror's America's obsession with making everything bigger and eating greater proportions of food. It's not good enough to have a car that gets you around, you need a gas guzzling monster truck. These large coffee cups represent an aspect of American Affluenza and our domination of the world. Only America has the free trade deals and military might to import so much of an upper drug in order to keep it's work force artificially stimulated and artificially attentive.

There are different kinds of people who order coffee. Some only want a little, some want a big caffeine fix. Then there are the undecideds - those who want some coffee, but do not know how much they want.

As a cashier I would prompt those undecideds and ask them what size coffee they wanted. They would hesitate. They didn't want to be extreme and order a 'small' or a 'large' so they would gravitate towards the 'medium' size. However it isn't an actual medium. It's actually quite a large amount of coffee.

Likewise with politics in America. We have shifted so far to the right, that what counts as left wing is actually quite a bit to the right of the rest of the world's left-wing.

Those who don't think about what coffee size they want gravitate towards what they perceive to be the middle. Likewise those who don't think about politics much gravitate towards what they see as the middle - which is not a genuine political center.