Stalin’s killings created the first holocaust, destroying a whole generation of revolutionaries, the bloodiest counter-revolution so far in history. – Victor Serge (summary), in Susan Weissman: The course is set on hope,Verso, London, 2001
Serge was an independent Soviet revolutionary, a category closed to “official” history. Official history, often, says that the massive persecutions in Russia in the 1930s were caused by Stalin being mad and rid by paranoia, although recent research has attempted to calm down this picture (see e g Montefiore’s Stalin – The Court of the Red Tsar 2004). Stalin’s paranoia is not the best explanation angle, and Weissman’s excellent work on Serge helps to show the deeper sociological pattern involved, describing massive persecution, imprisonment and deaths.
Is it correct to classify this in a term like holocaust? This is my choice of word, using a later term, summing up Serge. I think, yes. Not only are the numbers possibly as massive as the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust – altogether, working over a longer period, Stalin’s camps killed more than Hitler’s, even if they used frost rather than gas, and were not as specialized towards killing as in the Nazi case (see e g Anne Appelbaum: Gulag – a history, 2004). It is also the case that the killing of independent revolutionaries, “a whole generation”, in Serge’s horrified words, was well-planned, systematic and in intent, on the same scale as the gas ovens in Auschwitz. Stalin’s murderers did not carry gas chambers around, but used pistols and other means – an ice axe, in the case of Trotsky – but the pattern was the same, the communists in Germany were the first inmates of the concentration camp system, “paving the way” in a negative sense for the Jews. The persecution of revolutionaries, across the Stalinist and Nazi regimes, was not “the” holocaust, but probably the main preparation for it, and in a sense, its overlooked sociological twin.
Babel Fish Depend on me did not make it to the final Norway Melody Grand Prix, but it should be said that it lost gracefully and indirectly perhaps helped pave the way, for a song like Stella Mwangi’s Haba haba to win. The winner can perhaps send out an even stronger signal about a new cultural message, a Kenyan face and a Norwegianized persona, as the media focus the event. The final, this year, was more than usually interesting, with quite different Norwegian traditions including variants of Norway (noway?) Americana. Some good independent Norwegians were squeezed out in the first round already, and subversive music was probably a bit downplayed in the final people’s choice round too, yet on the whole the MGP has emerged as a more democratic arrangement, no mistaking the team spirit as well as the competition in NRK’s handling. The people’s choice for the crosscultural message of Stella was, in one Norwegian newspaper’s words, a “knockout”.
Haba haba is an appeal about what to do, while the fathering in Babel Fish’s Depend on me is a more vague appeal what to be, what it consists of is less clear. True, in Haba haba, the doing is fairly basic, it is a about dancing, and social orientation and relations are far less pronounced, but everyone can do it, appealing to a basic element of pop music as a democratizing (and gender etc conflict resolving) force. Babel Fish has portrayed fathering as practice in other songs, eg. beautiful rendering of lullabyes – but not with the same dance and do it now factor. In the broader view, I agree with Blood Sweat and Tears, The Child is Father to the Man (or in modern words, children to their parents). The idea beyond the musical form is to capture a sense of a better society, a better future for young people, which is – in the sidelines – what the MGP and similar contests are all about.
Whatever the cause, the people’s judgement selecting Haba haba with several hundred thousand votes, is a calming note for “ethnic fear”. It is a slap in the face of racism in Norway and everywhere. It is perhaps a sign of people power, as in Egypt, so also in Norway, we shall see. Norwegians have some fire too.
One year in the early 1970s I helped create an alternative to the commercialization of MGP, an alternative and well visited music event in Oslo, arranged by the music organization Samspill. I was coeditor of the organization’s music magazine, that was critical of the MGP arrangement for failing to show what actually went on, advancing music, including new pop music. In later years, I must admit, I followed MGP at a more critical distance, with half-closed senses, sometimes just shutting off the TV in exasperation. This, also, is why it is interesting to notice the greater social dimensionality in 2011 and the more fair “doable” competition. Haba haba. All together now.
One way, harassing, persecuting, levelling law and order, keeping to a power regime, with the ultimate expression of dictatorship. Other way, demonstrating for their rights. Way one, well known. Way two, less well known, but seen now also in Egypt.
The problem with police work is that it is entangled in keeping power in the most strategical sense, and yet, has the greatest need for not being kept hostage, to keep a professional distance on its own. I am a policeman, a dictator orders me to torture once in a while, I wont give up my work, I see no possibility to protest, yet who do I select as victims. As science fiction author Gene Wolfe has examined, in one way or the other, we are all part of the torturer’s game.
Isn’t it plain that the practical sense of revolutionaries is basically different from that of the empirical politicians who represent other social formations?
– Victor Serge, 1936, in Susan Weissman: The Course is set on hope, 2001, p 106
Amazing news, after having seemingly lost the momentum, the opposition in Egypt gathered again, and has won, the dictator has resigned. A great message of hope for everyone. Egypt with democratic fire in her eyes has come through. Whatever happens next, the democratic greatness of this moment of history will always be remembered. People rose against dictatorship and filled the streets even if some were shot and tortured, they did not give in.
This is like a cure for cancer, for human society. It tells of medicine for the future. Egyptians followed Tunisians, but in a sense, also following the Americans two hundred years before, creating a revolution from the English, and more recently, trying to create a new change policy.
Basically Egypt has lived up to the lessons of World War II, the need for democracy to avoid slaughter and holocaust. Democracy is risky, everyone knows that, but I am ashamed of some “western” messages to Egypt over the last weeks, as if democracy counted for little, expedience for all. Turn your love lights on, recognize that even for “Western” interest, democracy is what works best, in the longer run, recognizing some typical short term costs. If a regime allows or creates violence, target this as criminal activity across honour and politics divides, don’t give in to stereotypes like “wars” or the abhorrent “zero tolerance” sloganeering, instead, be constructive and realistic. Forget tabloid macho language, focus on real solutions. Learn from the pioneers in Egypt 2011.
My heart is with Egypt today, the way is opened towards democracy and prosperity.
What about class analysis for the web? Click class: researchers could measure social class or ranking by the number of clicks or input needed to get the result that the user wants on the internet. Hypothesis, low class – many clicks, middle – some clicks, high – few clicks. The greater the wallet or the contact capital relative to IT, the fewer the clicks. Similar methods, minutes to wait for customer support, and the chance that it will actually be supportive, could be employed also, like programs functioning, partly functioning or vaporware. What is the total chance of lowering “information society annoyances factors”?
This could be a social class related measure (index) in its own right. The empirical core would tell of “activation” of information society power (via the internet and the pc), which is not necessarily bound to existing “pre-pc” class, status or rank, but can be. Perhaps lower clicks rates are associated with considerable individual capacity factors and even “nerdism” and “in-group” empathy factors. Perhaps your time in the queue is lessened if you manage to give a signal “Hello I have a problem representing a big techno mystery” beyond the usual “Hello it broke down once more”? Our click class analysis might be able to tell.
Does it rise with the “day memory” needing to be refined, before given over to dream work, like Freud thought? Is it caused not just by ordinary learning and generalisation processes, but by more specific impulses too? Could being in the other person’s position, be an important factor?
In this blog, I write about my sociological sense whatever the cause, with the aim to widen and deepen the field of inquiry, and improve the methods to get there. My blog posts are explorative mainly, but with an authoritative element also, trying to sum up existing research, and how to go on from there. Learning and democratization are two main themes.
The world’s first artificially created life form has accused God of ‘playing science’ and ‘meddling with things He cannot possibly understand.’
– Richard Dawkins
But still, it moves.
-Kim Stanley Robinson: Galileo’s Dream.
Re Fujiya and Miyagi: Ventriloquizzing LP
Sound is good, a bit bass heavy, bringing forth the electro momentum of the group. The vinyl does not disappoint.
The music? Sometimes very good, but also kept in a kind of boy-room atmosphere, with repetetive themes and lyrics. The best parts of the LP are certainly a step up from the last album (Lightbulb) but keeps some of the same mixed quality. I am left thinking how come no-one have told them to move on and deconstruct their message? It seems a bit hermetic, isolated, and the tendency to schematic lyrics doesn’t help. At their best, though, the band brings the legacy of krautrock and the group Can further, stepping forward in this tradition, which is a considerable accomplishment by itself.