a follow up - LONDON CALLING

to something i originally posted: i wish i could say i was making this up

from the nation Joe Strummer, Terrorist?

by ANTONINO D'AMBROSIO
[posted online on April 20, 2006]
It really did feel like "London Calling" when I opened my e-mail April 5 to find an inbox clogged with a score of messages titled: "Man Held as Terrorism Suspect Over Punk Song." This was not spam but a news item from Reuters reporting that Harraj Mann had been detained for questioning by British anti-terrorism detectives after they received a phone call from a taxi driver who had taken Mann to the Durham Tees Valley Airport. The driver became alarmed after hearing Mann, a mobile phone salesman of Indian descent, sing along to the Clash's "London Calling." The lyric that triggered the cabbie's concern: "Now war is declared--and battle come down...a meltdown expected."
Released after questioning by British authorities, Mann fumed, "There's caution and then there's taking it to the point where it's absurd and ludicrous." Ludicrous indeed, and a chilling reminder that once again fear combined with the perversion of law has trumped rationality (not to mention democracy or basic civil liberties).
"London Calling" is a song about terrorism, but not the kind we have become so familiar with after 9/11. Written in 1979 by the late Joe Strummer, it describes the looming threat of nuclear catastrophe, environmental disaster, starvation and war. The threat or terror of nuclear destruction was something that deeply concerned Strummer because it seemed to him that some world leaders treated it as nothing more than a game. "You had Ronald Reagan campaigning on building up nuclear arms.... He said the West is losing the arms race to Russia, the 'evil empire'.... It was like toys to them or a movie where nothing bad would really happen," Strummer told me when I interviewed him in 2002. Sound familiar?
Today's reactionary political climate, built on a merciless patriotism that relies on historical ignorance, creates an atmosphere that cares little for the issues "London Calling" raises. Strummer understood the struggle to be heard over the politically hostile din emanating from a society that wraps itself in the flag of morality and virtue. "In the late 1970s, the National Front [a right-wing extremist hate group] was spreading across England," Strummer said. "They were a terrorist group if there ever was one, but bands like the Clash were deemed dangerous, evil even, by Thatcher and the like."
He understood how undemocratic democracies can become when they seek to solidify the dominant political order and maintain control under the guise of nationalism. He vividly captured that sentiment in "Whiteman in Hammersmith Palais": "If Adolph Hitler flew in today/They would send a limousine anyway."
That's why Strummer had declared early on that the Clash would be "antifascist, antiviolence, antiracist...we're pro-creative, against ignorance," while other groups (insert Sex Pistols here) were famously declaring that there was "no future." This made the Clash an anomaly in the 1970s counterculture scene, standing in direct opposition to the nihilism and alienation dominating punk. Even more, the group boldly linked itself historically to artists of every discipline who had fought against tyranny. In "Spanish Bombs," Strummer sings about the Spanish Civil War and the brutal murder of writer Federico Garcia Lorca. "Washington Bullets" illustrates Western imperialism and invokes the spirit of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara. And when Strummer learned that beat poet Allen Ginsberg was a fan, they collaborated on the haunting "Ghetto Defendant." .........

I MISS THE CLASH

rock the casbah

Now the king told the boogie men You have to let that raga drop The oil down the desert way Has been shakin' to the top The sheik he drove his Cadillac He went a-cruisin' down the ville The muezzin was a' standing On the radiator grille CHORUS:The shareef don't like it Rockin' the Casbah Rock the Casbah The shareef don't like it Rockin' the Casbah Rock the Casbah By order of the prophet We ban that boogie sound Degenerate the faithful With that crazy Casbah sound But the Bedouin they brought out The electric camel drum The local guitar picker Got his guitar picking thumb As soon as the shareef Had cleared the square They began to wail CHORUS Now over at the temple Oh! They really pack 'em in The in crowd say it's cool To dig this chanting thing But as the wind changed direction The temple band took five The crowd caught a whiff Of that crazy Casbah jive CHORUS The king called up his jet fighters He said you better earn your pay Drop your bombs between the minarets Down the Casbah way As soon as the shareef was Chauffeured outta there The jet pilots tuned to The cockpit radio blare As soon as the shareef was Outta their hair The jet pilots wailed CHORUS He thinks it's not kosher Fundamentally he can't take it You know he really hates it