For those of you who haven’t read the book, here’s a one-paragraph breakdown: Beginning in the 1970s, Klein observes, neo-liberals and neo-conservatives (those who believe that free markets and less government is the answer to everything) have exploited crises to advance their agenda of deep cuts to social spending, government deregulation and privatization. Cuts have been made to health care, welfare, public pensions, unemployment insurance, tuition subsidies and about every program or benefit you can think of that makes capitalism a little bit nicer a system to live under. Privatization of things like health care, roads, public housing, and libraries has meant windfall profits for big corporations as what were once public goods get bought and sold on the market like any other commodity. As Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman notes , this “agenda that has nothing to do with resolving crises, and everything to do with imposing their (the right’s) vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.”
Crises are essential to the shock doctrine because they create a climate in which the public supports, or just passively accepts, an agenda which is counter to their interests. As Klein puts it: the shock doctrine is about “using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy.” Starting with Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973 (the CIA assisted overthrow of the socialist government of Salvador Allende) and covering the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Klein documents how economic and social crises have become moments of opportunity for right-wingers to attack the welfare state, social programs, trade unions, and the social movements that have pushed for greater economic democracy.
Take the case of post-Katrina New Orleans. In the wake of the disaster, think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (Canada’s equivalent to the Fraser Institute) and Republican politicians descended on the city pushing the f*ckery of privatization of public housing and public education, dismantling what little of a welfare state New Orleanians had. This served their ‘free market’ ideology, most clearly articulated by American conservative Grover Norquist, who once said “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag in into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” But it also served the corporate interests close to the Bush administration who made millions from taking over what were once public assets. New Orleanians, displaced and distraught, or in a state of ‘shock’ as Klein puts it, had little say in the matter.
Canadian neocons have long-casted an envious eye at their US cousins. Harper, Mike Harris, and Rob Ford have sweated US Republicans like tweenage girls sweat Drake at Summer Jam. Now Toronto’s Mayor has surrounded himself with strategists and backroom players whose membership in the Conservative Party, the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation, and think-tanks like the Fraser Institute neatly overlap. The Common Sense Revolutionaries (if you’re too young to remember, they ran Ontario from 1995 to 2003 and brought us the Walkerton water crisis, the assassination of First Nations activist Dudley George and the death by heat exhaustion of Kimberley Rogers, a young single mom who was trapped in her sweltering apartment under house arrest for ‘defrauding’ welfare), many of whom cut their political teeth in the downloading and amalgamation years of the Mike Harris Tories have reappeared in urban guise, finally having won control over a much sought after prize: the left-leaning City of Toronto with its myriad social programs and ‘big government’.
Yet in adherence to the shock doctrine, Ford’s team needed a crisis to push through their agenda. With only 25% of eligible Torontonians voting for Ford, a full-scale assault on the City’s social services would not be popular. Ford’s rise to office happened within the context of the world economic crisis that left many Torontonians more economically insecure and wary of tax increases and ‘misspent’ tax dollars. From Europe to North America, governments are calling for ‘austerity’ in the name of debt reduction and fiscal balance. Ford won the election by articulating a simple narrative of what was wrong with the city: too much wasteful spending; city hall’s so-called ‘gravy train’. Ford named lavish retirement parties and councillor’s penchant for taxis, but cleverly avoided labelling the City’s social services ‘gravy’.
Why? Because most Torontonians do not see nutritional programs for low-income children or green energy initiatives as wasteful spending; many agree that such programs are the marks of a world-class city. And yet the public is rightly pissed off when councillors casually spend tax-payers dollars on crazy expenses or when a public agency is careless with its budget. But actual instances of this are few and far between; Ford’s strategy has hinged on reframing most if not all government spending as inherently wasteful. To his chagrin, potential allies on council like Mary-Margaret McMahon have discovered, “The gravy’s not flowing through city hall like originally expected.”
The second crisis opening the door for Ford’s agenda is the crisis of confidence in public institutions. The garbage strike, the media hammering of errant TTC employees and the events at Toronto Community Housing have all played into the Mayor’s hands.
In this context, the Mayor looks for scapegoats and it really doesn’t matter who fits the role; it could be graffiti artists, left-wing pinkos, the homeless, black youth, environmentalists, just fill in the blank. But with the economic crisis, TTC and garbage strike affairs, the city’s unions have become public enemy number one.
Union-busting is at the center of the shock doctrine as public-sector unions are the first line of defence against cuts, deregulation, and privatization. As Klein points out, in post-Katrina New Orleans the introduction of charter schools (effectively privatizing public education) broke the back of the teachers union. Facing a fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, the Republican governor has rolled back the collective bargaining rights of almost all public sector employees.
This is what lies behind Ford’s successful effort – with a complicit provincial government – to have the TTC deemed an ‘essential service’ and plans to privatize garbage collection, effectively firing the city’s unionized employees. The Toronto Community Housing ‘scandal’ has provided the Mayor with the necessary excuse to review the City’s roll in public housing, again with an eye to privatization. Look for Ford to shed the City’s unionized public child care centers in the next round of budget cuts, contracting care to non-union for-profit providers. Libraries and their unionized employees are also being considered for privatization.
For the Ford agenda has very little to do with resolving a ‘crisis’ real or perceived and everything to do with remaking Toronto in a right-wing image: A leaner, meaner city, where the market is to be free and the public sector and its unions are to be disciplined. If we don’t fight back, Toronto Inc., the city of corporate rule, will become a reality.
http://www.torontostopthecuts.com/
By M. Cook
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) held its Fourth International Assembly (in Manila, Philippines from July 7 to 9, 2011.
The theme of the assembly was “Build a Bright Future! Mobilize the People to Resist Exploitation and Oppression Amidst the Protracted Global Depression, State Terrorism and Wars of Aggression”!
Marking its ten years of existence, the fourth assembly was by far the biggest ILPS assembly to date. The assembly was attended by more than 430 delegates and observers from 200 organizations.
The recently formed ILPS-Canada chapter was able to send over 20 delegates to attend the historic assembly, with BASICS Community News Service sending 3 delegates.
The assembly was also the most represented with delegates and observers from 43 countries, territories and autonomous regions; namely, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong (SAR), India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Macau, Malaysia, Manipur, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Senegal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Venezuela, West Papua and Zimbabwe.
The Chairperson of the ILPS, Prof. Jose Maria Sison proposed the important tasks in Political Education, Organization and Mobilization.
The ILPS calls on its members to intensify political education among the individual members of all the member-organizations of the League on the need for a broad anti-imperialist and democratic united front and international people’s solidarity.
Malcolm Guy, of the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal and the General Secretary of the ILPS, called for the consolidation and strengthening of the League by doubling its forces within the next three years, paying particular attention to Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and the establishment of more ILPS chapters worldwide.
“This growth is a good start but we need to expand even more boldly and widen the anti-imperialist united from into a truly global force capable of organizing against imperialism on all fronts”, said Malcolm Guy.
The general declaration of the ILPS assembly states “we must further develop our capacity to hold globally coordinated actions on major global issues as well as specific regional or national issues that have global implications.“
“We have had a number of positive experiences where a local struggle initiated or participated in by our member-organizations was augmented or bolstered by supportive actions by our member-organizations in other countries, thereby visibly manifesting the breadth and strength of our League and attracting more organizations to join us.”
While the assembly ended on July 9, those present know that the bulk of the work lays ahead in the countless grass roots organizers working to build a worldwide anti-imperialist united front.
By Pragash Pio
On July 23rd thousands from the Tamil community of Toronto gathered in pouring rain at Queens Park to remember the 1983 anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka. In July of 1983 anti-Tamil Pogroms swept through the island of Sri Lanka killing thousands of Tamils while the Sri Lankan government stood idly by. The Black July riots, as they came to be known as, were the culmination of decades of growing persecution of the islands minority Tamil community by the majority Sinhalese community that controlled the Sri Lankan government. The riots stemmed from the denial of the Tamil communities’ rights to linguistic, cultural, and political freedoms.
Black July is especially poignant for the Toronto Tamil community because it was the event that sparked the mass exodus of Tamils from Sri Lanka to the West. The riots also marked the beginning of the Sri Lankan civil war and the ascendency of Tamil militant groups such as the Tamil Tigers. The violence was sparked off by an attack on Sri Lankan soldiers by Tamil militants, but the riots only managed to popularize Tamil militants such as the Tamil Tigers. The 27 year old civil war ended in 2009 with the complete destruction of the Tamil Tigers and deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians.
While the international community has begun to demand an investigation into to the deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians during the final months of the civil war, Black July is the reminder to the community that Tamil civilians were attacked in Sri Lanka since long before. Several speakers at an event put together by the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) and the Tamil Students Association (TSA) at University of Toronto recounted their own personal experiences of Black July.
Anton Philip, a speaker at the July 28 event, recounted surviving the massacre of Tamil political prisoners detained by Sri Lankan authorities during the riots. Mr Philip watched as a mob of Sinhalese prisoners were given access to the segregated cells of Tamil political prisoners while guards watched. Many of the Tamil prisoners had been detained under Sri Lanka’s draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The internationally condemned PTA allowed Sri Lankan authorities to jail Tamils for up to 18 months without trial or due process. As the mob of Sinhalese prisoners came for Mr Anton Phillip’s cell, he and the other men in his cell had to break a table into pieces to defend themselves while guards stood by and did nothing. In total 53 Tamil political prisoners were massacred and mutilated during Black July.
Another survivor recounted her experience as a Tamil child in Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka, during the Black July riots. The principal at her school let all the classes out early because of the rumors of possible violence. As a child she had been oblivious to the tense atmosphere before the riots, unaware anything was wrong until her Tamil neighbors grabbed her and hid her inside the house as mobs started roaming through their neighborhood. One of the most traumatic elements of the experience was seeing the very neighbors, store clerks, bus drivers that she saw everyday and lived beside roving in mobs attacking Tamil houses and businesses. Through government collusion the mobs received voter lists for neighborhoods and were able to identify each Tamil home and business. As one of these mobs approached the house, the family had to jump a fence in the backyard into a Sinhalese neighbors house. She and a young Tamil boy had to hide in their neighbors closet for 3 hours. After which she had to stay in a Police station which had been turned into a temporary refugee camp for Tamils. She spoke on the striking realization that all the families hiding in the police station were Tamils. It took her another month to be reunited with her family who had all been dispersed in the chaos of the violence. The haunting part of her remembrance was the realization that the continuing violence targeting the Tamil community taught her at a young age the Sri Lankan state’s intent to drive the Tamil community from the island.
All these first hand accounts of the Tamil experience during the riots made me return to my own family’s experience of Black July. My father still carries the police report he submitted when our family’s home was burnt down and looted by mobs like other Tamil families. No one was ever apprehended for that attack against our family. This is the same for the thousands of other Tamil families that lost loved ones, homes, and their livelihoods from the violence. This impunity with which perpetrators can commit violence against the Tamil community haunts Sri Lanka even 2 years after the end of the civil war. Perpetrators of violence, even those accused of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes sit in seats of power in Sri Lanka while Tamils flee and rebuild their lives in places like Toronto.
By Barrio Nuevo
Tomatoes are one of the most commonly consumed fruits in the world. However, when we buy them, do we consider how they get to our local market? This is the main question behind the Centre for Spanish Speaking People’s ‘El T.O.mate’ project.
The project works with a group of newcomer and marginalized youth examining the practices of agricultural production in Ontario and promoting local food production. Although tomatoes are grown within Ontario, Canada imports a considerable amount from places as far away as California and the Netherlands meaning that many tomatoes consumed have a considerable carbon footprint due to the transportation involved. The youth have not only been learning how to grow food in urban settings, but they have also assisted in facilitating gardening workshops and distributed over 100 tomato plants and seeds to tenants and others.
Moreover, the youth have also been learning about another important aspect of agriculture in Canada – migrant workers. Every year, hundreds of thousands of workers from
the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico come to Canada through temporary worker programs in order to pick the fruits and vegetables grown on farms in Canada. Aside from the low wages and hard labor that many of these workers are subjected to, many of these workers are subjected to inhumane work and living conditions and are deprived of many of the rights that Canadian workers have.
“While the main aspect of this program has involved learning about, teaching and promoting urban agriculture as a way that anyone can contribute to reducing carbon emissions, we felt that it was very important to also show how most food is actually grown in the province” said Santiago Escobar, Project Coordinator.
In conjuction with the United Food and Commercial Workers and Dignidad Obrera Agricola Migrant (DOAM), the project has brought youth to meet with migrant workers and see their working and living situations. The project received partial funds from the Livegreen Toronto fund, which is also one of the grants that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is looking to cut as part of their proposed cuts and privatization package.
For more information contact Santiago Escobar at green@spanishservices
By Derek Rosin
The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which for the last two decades has been leading the revolutionary movement of Nepal, is currently in a deep crisis. A struggle has recently erupted within their leadership over which direction to move. The differences are substantial enough that their resolution will essentially set the course for the future of the movement.
One faction, led by Mohan Baidya, aka Kiran, calls for a mass insurrection to institute a People’s Federal Republic and break the current political stalemate by completing the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revolution. The other faction believes it is now possible to forge a ‘historic compromise’ with the other major parties of the country in a way which will consolidate the gains of the revolution thus far and write a new, progressive, constitution. This latter faction is usually associated with Baburam Bhattarai and the Party’s chairman, Pushpa Dahal, aka Prachanda.
The differences of opinion within the leadership are based on real problems that confront the revolutionary movement in Nepal.
For example, there are currently no socialist countries in the world today, or at least none that Nepal’s Maoist movement considers genuinely socialist and revolutionary. In such a situation, could a newly-formed revolutionary state survive, or would it be quickly isolated and crushed?
Also, Nepal is extremely poor and uneducated, with relatively few skilled professionals like doctors and engineers. In order to develop and improve the country, they will need expertise, and there is concern that they are not sufficiently able to ‘go it alone.’ So here the very causes that sparked the rebellion become an impediment to its growth and success.
The ‘historic compromise’ faction points to difficulties such as these to argue for the need for consolidation. Kiran, however, says that this faction is essentially pessimistic and capitulationist, because they are only seeing the strengths of the revolution’s enemies, and not their weaknesses. To bolster his case, Kiran argues that “revolution is the principal trend in the world at present.”
For his part, Bhattarai argues that the Maoists are in an unfavourable military situation, with about twenty-thousand People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers compared to over over one-hundred-thousand better equipped soldiers in the National Army (NA) and Armed Police Force of the state. Others in the pro-revolt camp, however, point that despite this the Maoists were able to seize two-thirds of the country during the civil war. Moreover, they say that the NA is not a reliable force that the enemy can count on to fight for them, made up as it is of Nepal’s poor who have come to be the strongest supporters of the Maoist revolution.
These differences have recently come to a head on the subject of army integration. The Maoists have yet to disarm their PLA after the peace accords of 2006. Prachanda and Bhattarai have recently been pushing for the PLA to be integrated with the old National Army against whom they fought the civil war. Kiran however, has warned that the manner of integration they are proposing would amount to a liquidation of the PLA and would place it under the command of the NA. For Kiran, this amounts to disarming the people and the revolution, according to the Maoist dictum that “without a people’s army, the people have nothing.”
This line-struggle is ongoing, and both sides hope to avoid splitting the party. Kiran, for his part, says that he is willing to go and take his faction within the party and go for insurrection without Prachanda, while at the same time acknowledging that only with the unity of their party and its chairman will the revolution be able to succeed.
By Pragash Pio
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is symbolic of the failings of the current model of international politics. Even though the international community has called on Israel to respect and honor the basic rights of the Palestinian people, Israel has simply ignored the international outcry and gone on bombing, ethnically cleansing, and starving the Palestinian people with impunity.
As the inaction of countries like the United States and Canada to Israeli crimes has shown their complicity in the situation, ordinary people and activists have decided to bypass their governments altogether and directly confront the cruelty of Israel’s Apartheid state.
There already is a large body of research and analysis of the special relationship between Israel and the United States. Academics such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein have outlined how Israel, as a colonial base of American Imperialism, dominates the Middle East and its oil fields. Israel’s military and economy are heavily subsidized by America so that Israel can play the role of regional “guard dog” for American oil interests.
In return Israel is given free reign to attack, obliterate, and occupy Arab and Palestinian lands at will. Palestinians and their supporters have come to realize that they can’t depend on a fair resolution from the political negotiations controlled by the very powers that are funding Israel’s attack on the Palestinian people.
This realization has led to a shift to direct international solidarity actions such as the Boycott-Divestment-Sanction (BDS) campaign, Sea & Air Freedom Flotillas, and preparations for a unilateral declaration of Independence at the UN.
These actions directly confront the different facets of Israel’s illegal practices: BDS attempts to obstruct the illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land; the Freedom Flotillas attempt to break the illegal siege of Gaza; and the coming unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood hopes to finally readdress the dispossession and Apartheid faced by the Palestinian people.
All this has come at a high price though. 9 activists of the first Freedom Flotilla were killed by an Israeli commando raid last year. Rachel Corrie was killed trying to prevent the bulldozing of Palestinian homes in Gaza. Canadian members of the Freedom Flottila 2 have been arrested in Greece. Palestinian solidarity activist and radio host Jesse Zimmerman describes how “[Palestine is] the only humanitarian crisis in the world where people actively try to shut your freedom of speech down.
Whether it be University administrators canceling Israeli Apartheid Week, government “representatives” condemning pro-Palestinian activism, or hardcore Zionist activists harassing you and making threats against you or your family…” Krisna Saravanamuttu, President of York University’s Federation of Students (YFS), was attacked nationally and internationally when YFS passed a motion condemning Israel’s bombing of Gaza schools in the 2009. There was even a failed attempt at impeaching the popular YFS President. Saravanamuttu’s responds that the experience of oppression that Palestinians face is one that is shared by his own Tamil community and other oppressed minorities the world over. Palestine is a symbol of hope, and the growing solidarity movement represents a turning point in achieving justice the world over.
By Sara Falconer
Beginning July 1, several prisoners at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) began an indefinite hunger strike to protest and expose the brutal conditions in the solitary confinement unit, known also as the SHU (Security Housing Unit). First-hand reports came in indicating that there are aver 6000 participants, in at least 11 different prisons across California.
Although the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) originally claimed that fewer than two dozen prisoners were part of the strike, on June 5 a spokesperson reluctantly admitted, “There are inmates in at least a third of our prisons who are refusing state-issued meals.”
The Bay Area-based group Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity learned that prison officials had attempted to head off the strike by promoting a Fourth of July menu that included strawberry shortcake and ice cream. The wife of one SHU prisoner said her husband had never had ice cream there and “has never seen a strawberry.”
There are 3,500 prisoners in SHUs across the California. Although they are supposedly sent to security units for participating in “gang” behaviour or misconduct, it’s often a punishment used against any prisoners who dare to organize with others or to engage in civil disobedience. Prisoners are held in extreme isolation in windowless, soundproof, 6 by 10 foot cells, 23 hours a day, for years at a time. Human rights organizations have condemned torturous conditions, which often lead to mental illness.
“It’s been a difficult and uphill battle, a lot of brow-beating and direct debate, but as it stands all are participating on a limited basis,” writes hunger striker Chad Landrum from PBSP.
“Some, including myself, are going ‘indefinitely’… victory or death!” Landrum, who is known to friends as “Ghost,” has end-stage liver disease, was hospitalized almost immediately – which also means that he was isolated. “If the demands have been met in whole, [or] negotiated part, I will not take the cops’ word, for the pigs have proven their word to be hollow,” he explains.” I will need the word of you or your outside support.”
One of the strategies used for the strike the CDCR used was to announce that the strike was over in an attempt to confuse the already strained lines of communication between striking prisoners. This was minimally successful because or the well organised and co-ordinated nature of the strike and the outside solidarity group.
At a well-attended rally in Oakland on July 2, supporters chanted, “Pelican Bay brothers: we hear you, we’re with you!,” according to Revolution newspaper.
“I stand here with a mixture of excitement and horror.,” said Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee. “Horror at the conditions faced by 1,200 prisoners at Pelican Bay and over 3,500 prisoners insecurity housing units throughout California. Excitement that the prisoners have successfully organized across racial groups to take this action. This is a tremendously courageous action—to go on hunger strike, when people are virtually on starvation diets to begin with—to deprive themselves of food indefinitly. And it is extremely important that we be here to support them and show our solidarity.”
Unprecedented support is being shown around from around the world, with actions planned in dozens of cities including Toronto, Montreal, Kitchener, and Vancouver. Toronto Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) held a letter-writing night on July 1 and sent letters to the authorities as well as messages of solidarity to several of the hunger strikers. On July 9 we observed a 24-hour fast, and we are encouraging others, wherever they are, to participate to the extent that they are able. In Montreal, actions include a picket line in front of the American Consulate as well as letter-writing. Messages are also expected from as far as Ireland and the Basque regions. Most recently more than 150 religious communities of Roman Catholic nuns mailed in letters of support of the prisoners’ requests to the governor of California.
Finally on July 20th, after 4 grueling weeks, the leaders of the hunger strike at Pelican Bay confirmed that the strike was over. They confirmed that the CDCR has agreed to make immediate concessions as an act of good faith to address the longer term 5 core demands of the hunger strikers. This is why support is still needed: to keep the pressure on CDCR, who have made it clear that the demands of the prisoners will be adressed and implemented in a timely fashion. The leaders of Pelican Bay released a statement saying that the strike will resume if the CDCR does not fulfill it’s end of the agreement. This is in light of the new California legislation that requires prisons to eliminate overcrowding.
Todd Ashker, one of the hunger strike leaders, writes:
“It’s very important that our supporters know where we stand, and that CDCR knows that we’re not going to go for any B.S. We…mean what we said regarding an indefinite hunger strike peaceful protest until our demands are met. I repeat–we’re simply giving CDCR a brief grace period in response to their request for the opportunity to get [it] right in a timely fashion! We’ll see where things stand soon enough!”
There are still hunger strikes going on in Corcoran and Tehachapi Prisons, protesting their own horrific living conditions.
Landrum and thousands of other prisoners carried on their slow, painful act of resistance, waiting for their demands to be met at any cost. “Hopefully the situation doesn’t deteriorate,” he writes.” I end this letter with the words of Ulrike Meinhof [of Germany’s Red Army Faction], ‘Protest is when I say I don’t like this or that. Resistance is when I see to it that things I don’t like do not occur.’”
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
By Makaya Kelday
June 2nd, 2011, the legendary Riverside Church in Harlem.A few hundred of us solemnly make our way to the pews. The man we came to honor, the man whose voice was far from beautiful but never failed to reach the darkest depths of the listener’s soul, the man whose library of music is fifteen albums deep, the man who turned political subjects into dance floor jams, the Godfather of hip-hop, the legendary, the one and only, Gil Scott-Heron –who left us on May 27th.
Gil’s first album Small Talk at 125th & Lenox, was released in 1969, and his last, I’m New Here, in 2010. From “The Bottle” to “From South Carolina to South Africa”, “We Almost Lost Detroit” and the anthem, “The Revolution will not be Televised”, he created music that remained relevant 40 years after it was created and will remain relevant for long after. Before Kool Herc brought us the 1s and 2s, Gil gained the title “The Godfather of Hip-Hop”, from his rhythmic poetry spoken over beats. His music has been sampled and his name mentioned in songs by Kanye West, Common, Mos Def, De la Soul, Freeway, DJ Honda, the Game, Tupac, K’Naan and Grand Puba, to name a few. His influence cannot be debated.
But it was a disappointing day for hip-hop. The Godfather died and no one came to the funeral, except Kanye. Now, how can the biggest superstar from the above-mentioned list, with undoubtedly the busiest schedule find the time and heart to, not only attend but also to perform at the funeral but none of the other artists can?
Kanye’s honest performance of “Lost in the World” ended as he let Gil’s voice on “Who Will Survive in America” ring throughout the church. He hugged Gil’s family and disappeared somewhere in the church. This, along with the musical tribute by Astro, Vernon and Bilal, were the highlights of the celebration–as Gil would have wanted it.
The music that Gil gave us was “left here for us to learn,” as quoted in the Spirits liner notes. And the most amazing thing about music is that it outlives its creator and our children’s children will be able to know the man through his songs. Those of us fortunate enough to have seen him live, witnessed his genius first hand; half politician – half-comedian; all artist. His warm-hearted nature and genuine character, coupled with his long-time struggles are what made him human, one of us, fighting our struggles. We all thought he had more time, but there were greater forces at work. BASICS says thank you to Gil Scott-Heron, the Godfather of Hip-Hop. You will forever remain in our hearts and headphones. R.I.P. Brother Gil. The Revolution will be live!
