Over here you will read interviews. The first few ones I put up here are the ones that some of us made back around ten years ago for the second issue of a fanzine called xresistancex we used to edit. The second issue never got printed, however i killed a lot of time with typing in the interviews we recorded on tapes. Hopefully, they will make a good read to those who were involved in the scene back then and also younger folk get to know with these bands and what they had to say....
CATHARSIS
The following interview with the North Carolina based band Catharsis was done the day after their Gödöllő show on their last European tour in dunno which year exactly...probably around 2001 or 2002. Obviously we knew much less about what happens in the world, simply because internet was not widely accessible and also this kind of hardcore/punk related radical politics was something like a totally new phenomenon to most of us eastern european kids...anyways, this way it not only reflects on what the band had to say, but what we knew about things and how we were thinking...Enjoy! (by rolling down to the end of the intie you may find printable version of it )
Here's an interview with Brian and Volvo (You may know Volvo from the pages of Inside Front) who visited our country with the musical project called Catharsis. To tell you the truth, we are all influenced by both by the music and lyrics/policy of this superb band and so I was really glad to have the possibility to make this interview. At the same time we were talking about them Afghan people were bombed by the USA, McDonald's restaurants were being built, poor people were being exploited by multinational companies and other harmful actions were worsening the state of planet earth.
R: My 1st question is about the line up changes that happened in catharsis. Why did people quit?
B: Well,, I guess in the last 3 or 4 years we had 3 significant changes. Ernie our bassist left to raise a child, and Stef our guitarist joined also which is gonna be a really good …what she is doing with us very seriously and of course a band like ours needs people who find their own thing that’s going to the band you know, and take responsibility for giving their own part of stuff… and just recently in the middle of this tour, because of some chaos in his own life , some confusion that he has gone through, Matt went home.
R: Is he still a part of Catharsis?
B: Well, right now, he is not. I mean, Matt has to do, what he has to do to solve his problems and get enough experience to know what is a good idea and what isn’t a good idea. Well, he is figuring that out, he is not in a place where he can be working with the rest of us.
R: So, maybe he will come back.
B: I don’t know. Really. Matt didn’t leave, because of any trouble inside of the band, but he left because of a lot of complicated terms that I must say I’ve gotten very tired of having to explain to people who don’t even know them.
R: When I was coming here and I was sitting on the bus, I was just thinking about questions and about your band. And suddenly a simile came into m mind. It’s a circus simile, which says that here’s the band Catharsis coming to our town play their set and the whole thing seems to me a bit like what people in the Circus do. I mean, you come here, bringing joy and happiness to the life of your audience and when you leave there’s nothing remained from those feelings people felt during your set. They just go back to their home and the next day they would do the same shit that they had done before. Do you agree with it?
B: Well, that’s a concern. In the United States it is different and in places.. …some places in Western Europe where we’ve been able to spend more time. But we’ve been to Hungary four times, so we know people here. It’s just.. it’s hard I guess. I mean in the U.S. we are part of the community where things are going on and we see our friends who are working on projects that we are working on with them. Maybe people we’ve organized demonstrations with or people who are working on projects that we can support. We can show up and be a part of that. But what we can do in Europe? It’s hard because we just are in any town for a very short time. You know, when we say that we don’t want to be entertainment and we don’t want to be a vacation either, a moment when everyone has feels good and feels like a lot is possible and then everyone goes back to their lives. I think it is a two sided sword. On the one hand, I think, we have the responsibility to not just being another rock band. I mean we come to play in a town that we don’t usually spend any time in. We try to offer alternative ideas about life and celebrate what people in that time are doing, you know… themselves. And then the other responsibility is the responsibility of anybody who feels good like about what we are doing or anybody who finds like pleasure or joy in a Catharsis show where we are talking about liberation or making amusement or whatever. I think, they have the responsibility to themselves, if they want those things to try to figure out how they can make that work in their lives all the time. Because we can’t do that for anybody else and we shouldn’t, we are anarchist we don’t lead anyone. I don’t want the efforts that I’ve made to deliberate myself to be a secret because when I was younger trying to figure out how to have a life that I want and it seemed that anybody else was doing that. It was hard, it was scary, you know. And the thing that did help me were that there were other people saying this is possible. So we do the same thing, we try to help other people who were doing difficult projects, we’re trying to help. We don’t know if it is possible in Hungary. People here have to figure that out themselves and we support everyone who is trying to do that however we can. But yeah… if a Catharsis show is just an hour where everything seems possible and then afterwards nothing seems possible again then it is not any use except maybe to make people angry that nothing is possible.
R: But isn’t this whole thing connected somehow to age? I mean, there are those who as young persons feel that they can change something, that they can be content with something for ever. But isn’t this kind of mentality narrow minded? How can somebody so confident?
B: Well, old people get used to the things the way they are and they can not imagine that they can be any different. I know a lot of very old people who are twenty or twenty-one years old. Maybe the nineteen and twenty years old can’t imagine anything ever being different, even though ten years later things will be different. One of the youngest people I know is fifty-three years old woman who is friend of mine, I’ve done a lot of projects with her. She is a part of our community where we live back home and she has changed her life very much in the last two years. And if you asked her, if changes are possible, than she would say of course it is. So, I think it really depends more on how old or young you’d like yourself to be. Younger people... well, we’re are young so we are all young people. And the young people that we meet a lot of them have a lot of them don’t. But there have been old people who did good things their whole lives. I mean, a lot of my heroes were people who lived eighty or ninety years and did good things all way through.
R: Is it true that most of your heroes are American heroes? Because as I see it, it is quite interesting that most of people- even outside from America- know much more about the revolutionary, liberal heroes of the United States than about the ones lived in their own country. So there are more who know who was Martin Luther King, Thoreau or Joe Hill than those who know about their local heroes.
B: People in the U.S. don’t know who Joe Hill is.
V: And Joe Hill is actually Swedish, he emigrated to the United States. (laughing) He has a different name, but that is just Americanized, like he left Sweden when he had hard times there so... Yeah, I think he is quite a well-known in Sweden and if you talk about mainstream big characters like Martin Luther King, of course they came out of the United States. Basically, they came from Africa like they were brought in as slaves like three-hundred years earlier, but if you’re talking about anarchist thinkers and stuff Europe has a very rich tradition. Like Rudolf Rocker is one of the few anarchists from the States I can think of, but most of the anarchists....
B: And I don’t know who he is. Ha-ha...
V: He-he... ... Well, I’m thinking about a lot of them are Russians like Bakunin, Kropotkin or French or..
B: Proudhonn.
V: Yeah. And lot of people came out of like this area too like that used to be like Austria, Germany, Hungary...
R: But you know, what I mean is that it seems to me that Globalization or Americanization happens with these heroes as well..
B: Everybody wants to free Mumia, but nobody thinks about the prisoners on strike in Turkey.
R: Yeah...
B: But what I said that about the heroes before, I was thinking mostly of Europeans like George Orwell or Mikhail Bakunin or... ....hmmm... ...Joan of ’Arc. You know, I’m not really educated about everything that is all around the world, but I think, I know much about the European history than the U.S. history. Because U.S. history is so short. People in the U.S. are not educated at all about the rest of the world or about the fucking U.S. anyway. I mean, to get back the subject we were talking about before. Really quick. The original question was, whether you can live free your whole life or it is something that you can do as a young person. I think, Europe has a much stronger tradition of people who were able to get their whole lives to like liberation than in the United States because the United States has this really bad tradition of the generation gap, you know. Every generation hustler about the last generation and then worst of this all is that everybody becomes all themselves and so nobody can learn from each other and it becomes really a problem. Anyway, I don’t think that the United States is the easiest place for people to be young, it’s not any easier than this area or else, but you started something about globalization and we should talk about that.
V: Yeah, I think what you were addressing to is a valid concern because globalization pretty much turns the whole world into one market and the ideas that rule a market is something that is propelled by power. And well, United States is like this super power, like an economic super power or whatever. Their ideas is gonna come in the fore front, so it is our duty to show that there are other ideas there are other things possible, you know. Like there is people, stuff, things, happening coming out of Hungary and like people sing in their native tongue. Without being like nationalistic or ignorant or something. So we have a diversity in culture, capitalism is a pose/pause to diversity, they wanna sell the same product all of the market from Hungary to the States with something like Coca-Cola. Or hamburgers, they don’t wanna sell gulash soup here, they wanna sell burger instead, they wanna sell the same thing all over. So they can make advertisement for the same thing all over the world.
B: Yes, and all the money from all over the world goes to the company. The one company. Like we were in the multi... (we met them in a big supermarket). One side-effect of this is that as U.S. culture becomes spread all over the world by these companies like Coca-Cola, who already have the money and power to spread their culture anywhere. And they spread the culture so the sales increase. The side-effect of that is that since everybody wants to seem cool and keeping up with the future, everybody becomes interested in U.S. culture themselves. And even the people who want to a rebel against capitalism or who wants to rebel what’s happening, sometimes do it in the u.s. culture... like it becomes more important to free Mumia. Do you know Mumia?
R: Yes.
B: Well, yes exactly. It becomes more important to free Mumia than to keep up with local struggles in Hungary. Or people who are in hunger strike in Turkey or the people going to prison because of the actions in Genoa. Like Christian said, if we hate capitalism and we hate the way that it makes the whole world the same, we have to support and create a diversity in our own struggles and in our own culture. The band that I was trying to tell you about... Do you have a pen? Because I can’t pronounce their name but I can spell it. (He writes down the name)
R: Ahh.. Kevés.
B: Kevés? Ok. They sing in Hungarian. Their singer said to me that before they played, two nights ago, he said it’s too bad that we can’t understand their lyrics. And I said: “No, it’s great. Because it means that everybody else here can.” When we come to Hungary we always speak with a translator which is something that I think some bands gonna do. I’ve been very impressed with how many people in Eastern Europe have learned English just from Hardcore records which is amazing. Nobody learns any other languages -in the U.S., of course. We are able to be as ignorant as we can be. Learning a language is like a metaphor for having an understanding of the world like different languages discovered the world in different ways. You know, a person who knows three languages sees the world from different viewpoints. IN the U.S. we see the world only from the capitalist viewpoint. Only in English.
R: Do you think, that cap...
B: Capitalism makes the winners stupid.
V: And rich.
B: Yeah, so the stupidest people get the most money.
R: Do you think that capitalism is the only thing we should blame for the economic problems, environmental pollution, the suffering of animals and all the social problems?
B: No, no. I mean, like I said just now that in order to have an understanding of the world you have to be able to speak different languages and the description of the world, that involves capitalism, is one language but there are other ways you can describe the world like feminism etc.. It can also reveal other problems as there were problems with the exploitation of women before capitalism existed. Or for example, communists made all sorts of fucking environmental destruction because they were also trying to compete with the capitalists and because they had crazy ideas about what human happiness is. So, capitalism isn’t the root of evil but talking about capitalism is a way to describe something bad that’s going on. And it’s not the only bad. The entire capitalist struggle is not the only struggle.
V: I think also that capitalism ... of like pitting one group against another. We have like workers hero, workers ... Like there are workers in Sweden, they are move .... to Hungary and instead of their cooperation on a gracious level they are pretty against each-other. Man and women are against each-other, blacks and whites. So maybe that’s creates like...yeah it’s like reinforce the power and also like capitalism is concentration of wealth and with wealth comes like access to information and stuff. Maybe if we lived in a world that is structured differently, we’d have to be able to have access to more information. People would be actually enlightened about what they are eating and when they go to the stores there would not only be the price-tags, but there would be an aware that there are animals taken to this stuff. That’s my interpretation of it.
B: Yeah. I mean, capitalism is a manifestation of larger problems like before we had capitalism we still had stupid competition, you know. Capitalism is just what happens when you take competition into the economic board, you know, and let it go. And then capitalism reinforces all these problems, it reinforces the conflict between woman and man or between us and ourselves. But when you say Catharsis is an anti-capitalist band that doesn’t sum up that doesn’t describe everything we’re trying to do. It’s just like one part of what we’re trying to do.
R: What’s is your utopia? What would you like to see after changing this system and what could substitute it? I know, that only better things could come, still what is that you believe in?
B: It’s funny for me that whenever someone criticizes the way the things are, people always say “What is your perfect world?”. For me that doesn’t necessarily follow from saying “This is bad.”. You can say “We have a problem here, let’s solve it.”, without saying “I know how everything should be.”. For me anarchism is not a vision of a world that we must serve. That’s not anarchist to serve an ideal but it’s a way to solve the problems right now. If we have a problem where some people have a lot of power and me have none then and those people are stupid and we are smart, then.... I’m just joking. Well, then the anarchist doesn’t say, or rather I don’t say- as anarchists are all different. It won’t do any good to make a system where we say “Ok, this is how it should be distributed blah-blah-blah..” instead I say we practice sharing power among ourselves. We practice treating each-other right and not exploiting each-other and at the same time we carry out a struggle against the people who have the power. The world that we want to live in, it develops as we act. I mean, to stand here and look at the horizon and say what should be on the other side of that horizon is crazy. I’m much more interested in the way that we live everyday because there is no perfect world, every world has problems, every world is always changing. I don’t want to live happily ever after. I want to just live... ..right now. When I talk about anarchism or when we criticize the way things are, it’s not because we’re trying to serve some other utopia like fucking Lenin or Stalin, it’s because we think that there are smarter ways that we could act right now.
R: Let’s change the topic a bit and let’s talk about some current political events. Concerning the foreign policy of the U.S. and other parts of the world. So, what do you think of this “war against terrorism”? Is it a common question?
B: Well, a little bit common, but it is OK. We need to talk about it. It’s funny that they couldn’t have found a better name for it. It’s like calling it the war on evil. If they called it the war on sheep farmers, it wouldn’t sound as impressive. If they called it the bombing of hospitals and every night the news came on television and everyone saw the news that “the bombing of hospitals continuous today, George Bush says America has to prepare for a long, hard bombing of hospitals”...
V: And civilians and people were already crippled by landmines.
B: Yeah. I mean, it would have less support. Being able to call out the world on terrorism when, to my knowledge, it hasn’t even been proved that we are bombing or fighting terrorists.
R: So, the media is responsible for this as well.
B: The media have blood all over there. The media have the blood of every single fucking person killed by those bombs all over there.
V: Yeah I mean, there’s no bombs in the world that are smart enough. This fight what CNN says that they can actually drop from the sky, like ten thousand feet. And then ... in a desert and differ one sheep farmer from a terrorist when they all dress the same. The Taliban wasn’t even a question until the war started. Basically these terrorist things raised that Afghanistan is a heartbreak which is impossible considering that in Afghanistan there is no working infrastructure. I don’t think people have an idea what it looks like, but it’s definitely like... ...it’s a devastated country, so it’s a tragedy.
B: And the fucking richest, like I said the richest stupidest people on the world are attacking some of the poorest people in the world. And again, it needs to be said over and over that the people in Afghanistan, that the United States is trying to attack, were originally hired and armed and trained by the U.S.. And the only reason that these poor people in this poor sheep farmer- country would maybe have had the technology to do something like this is because the U.S. puts money and weapons and training in the hands of fucking terrorists. I mean, the U.S. is the biggest terrorist in the world right now and terrorists like to work with other terrorists so...
R: And as the media support all these shit, I think, that’s why most of the people in the U.S. is becoming patriotic and raise the flags and put them on their houses. And I think it to be disgusting to do that while people are dying because of the bombings thousands of miles away.
B: Yeah, the media of course only shows the patriots of the United Sates. It doesn’t show the normal working person who has some doubts. It doesn’t show the fucking anarchists marching with signs. It only shows the fucking American flags and that means that when you walk down the street in the United States, the only people who are comfortable showing themselves are the ones with flags. The people who have seen themselves on television looking so beautiful. Because in the U.S. television is everywhere and if something is on television it is real and right and good and if it’s not on television it doesn’t exist like D.I.Y., hardcore it doesn’t exist. And that’s a fundamental question that goes a lot deeper than just this particular war, the question of media.
V: And thought control.
B: And thought control, exactly. If we’re going to be able to have our own thoughts about something like the war or about animal exploitation or anything else, we have to be able to stop believing the power and the importance of the television. And we have to not care with things like on TV, we have to care about what we’re doing in our lives. That’s again why I think the D.I.Y. punk world is really important because it is a place where people do come to talk each other about these things and it is not on television, it’s not something people watch, it’s something people participate in. More communities like that, bigger communities like that and CNN wouldn’t be able to tell the whole world that this was a war on terrorism. First of all because the world wouldn’t be listening, and second of all because when people interact they find out the truth from each other. Like during the bombing, the u.s. bombing of ahhh... in the former Yugoslavia, there was a kid, a punk kid who wrote me a letter from there and sent me a picture of the building that bombs were falling on and a hospital there, which wasn’t in the newspapers but because I was a punk-rocker I got a first hand picture mailed to me about that hospital. And I could show it to my friend’s parents and say: “Well, this is a hospital and my friend lives on the street-floor and it was bombed.” I’m not saying that there isn’t really enough like punk scene but if we had larger communities where people are interacted and it weren’t depending on the power of television for our information and for our ideas of what is right and wrong and what is good and what is beautiful and ugly, that would be better in every sense.
R: And what about independent/indymedia? Do you think it is a good initiative? Can we rely on that information that they have?
B: Well, it’s probably better than what is written on CNN’s website. I mean, the thing with us doing things ourselves is that we have to use our best judgement. If I look through the indymedia site Some things are like “oh that doesn’t really sound right”, but the other things I can trust. But if I watch the CNN I know somebody already did that for me. The important thing to remember with any media any way is that the tools affect you. You can spend your whole life sitting in front of the computer and be really well informed, but if you spend your whole life in front of the computer how much good you’re gonna do?
V: What one has to realize is that there is no objectivity. Objectivity is always that what is defined by the power. What CNN says objective or whatever which is bullshit so you have to get informed from a lot of different sources and then create your own picture of what really happen and then I think you get closer to what we term the truth or whatever.
R: It can be observed that most of the European states support the bombings and I think, that somehow that was the case in Kyoto as well. I mean, they didn’t support the standpoint of the United States, nevertheless they couldn’t do anything else just bow down and accept that the USA doesn’t sign the agreement. It’s like that without their participation not much good thing can be done since they are responsible for the current situation in the highest degree and so if they don’t take a hand in this program in the highest degree then it means that they are not interested in nonprofit, environmental actions at all. And it is sad because without their participation not much significant changes can be done. A small, poor state like the countries in Asia or even our country can not do so much as they are poor and have no voice in the worldwide decision making process and so we act the way that the USA wishes.
B: Yeah, that’s bad and the United States’ government has to be over... That’s again why, hopefully, it’s encouraging for people in a place like Hungary that suffers from the power of United States. Hopefully, it’s encouraging for them when a band like ours come through just to say that maybe we can’t solve your problems, but we can tell you that there are people in the U.S. who are trying to fight this too. So that, hopefully one day the United States won’t have this power to destroy everything and exploit the environment.
R: How could it be solved? Should people from all around the world help this change or only people in the united States should solve the problem on their own?
B: Well, that’s a good question. You can help... I mean everybody in the world makes the power of United States. Power isn’t something that one person takes, power is a system of relationships. Every time that somebody in Hungary buys Coca-Cola, the United States’ government gets more power. Every time that somebody in Hungary listens to Hip-Hop from the United States, and thinks that it is really cool, that’s more cultural power to the United States. As long as that atmosphere of coolness is there around in the United States, that atmosphere of coolness is a kind of capital, is a kind of power. So, the struggle for freedom and individuality everywhere is the same struggle against the system of power that makes those things possible. If people in Hungary want their own freedom and their own culture, and they make their own culture by even little things like Hardcore bands singing in Hungarian and don’t try to imitate Hardcore bands from the U.S.. That’s something like that. If you refuse to buy products from the U.S., the same what like I do in the U.S.. That takes a part of the power structure a little bit more if you find a way of life that doesn’t give your working power and your energy to the people who are turning bad against you that is the same thing as what we do in the U.S. And it’s hard, it’s a hard thing to do, but I think... I mean, being in Hungary you don't have to worry about Hungarian efforts, just like being in the united States we worry about our efforts, radical efforts against the U.S., but international solidarity is important too.
V: And also, now we live in a globalized world which means that the corporations that pressure the United States’ government into a sort of destroying the Kyoto agreement can be found everywhere. You have them in Hungary we have them all over Europe. They are the biggest oil corporations and things like that so they can be attacked anywhere. You can start local activism and boycott them for destroying our environment and stuff like that, which can have an effect.
B: If you are able to make people here in Hungary stop buying Shell oil, the Shell oil company would have less money to force the Unites States’ government to not sign the Kyoto program. You don’t need to free Mumia from Budapest, but Shell oil is here. I would say that you can blow up their fucking places too, if that’s effective, but I don’t know if it is…if you think a lot of Hungarian people would be really happy about that, but I don't know… But it’s no longer a question whether overthrowing the U.S.’ power is a question in the U.S. or everywhere, because the U.S., (the U.S.’ power) is everywhere. That’s the whole world and at the same time there are places inside of the U.S. that aren’t the U.S., little places.
V: And then again, the U.S. is no new evil empire as Reagen doubted in the former Soviet Union. But it also means that there is local problems everywhere, like there is problems with nationalist governments, you probably have some issues that needs to be addressed in Hungary. Like to increase human rights and deliberate people and animals. So, whatever it that goes on everywhere. It’s not if you crush a sort of epicentrical power in Washington, everything will be ok.
B: Something else would be in power, you know.
V: Yes. That’s the same thing we were talking about before that everything that is bad is not emanated from Washington.
B: Well, it’s like being against the power of the United States doesn’t mean being a Hungarian nationalist, of course, it means being against all nationalism. Believing in DIY culture and DIY life means believing in that everywhere. It doesn’t mean supporting smaller governments against bigger governments, it means supporting a fucking freedom against exploitation, no matter where it is going on. And I guess I am just saying that whenever you support fucking freedom and independence, whether it is in your neighborhood in Hungary or in Washington DC, you’re fighting power on every level. Because freedom and liberty is something that you can make in a moment somewhere and it is maybe fragiler and smaller but it can exist on its own. But power only exist because it is set up over the whole world. Shell oil couldn’t be one man in a fucking office by himself, it would be nothing, it would be a man in an office. Poetry, freedom, love, adventure, anarchy: those things can exist with one or two people in a room as soon as they get the fucking power out of their heads, you can have that anywhere. And that’s an attack on the fucking power system which has to be made out of everything. It’s like the old Public Enemy record “It takes a nation of millions to hold us back”.
V: But it is also like that there is the issue of activism and what one can do in a long term run, I think like breaking the isolation is to organize something. Like activist groups, radicals, unions whatever it is it’s really important. If one people in Hungary sitting in his apartment writing letters to the DA about free Mumia and stuff, when it could be with other Hungarians and like organize for like street lights in local communities so they would be able to walk home in safe. That’s so much more important. And when they start working on that, they would realize that there is strength in the individuals working together with other people to reach goals and then these different groups can interact in another level..
B: Yeah, once you taste how much power you can have just by working with a few other people, even. And you have that feeling of being able to help yourself then the question that you asked before about whether people feel that they can do things when they are young is irrelevant.
R: But then let’s see the question of Islam and Islamic countries. As you mentioned before it doesn’t solve the problem if we destroy Washington or the epicenter of the power, so you have to work against it in a local level. But in Islamic countries there is not that much of Americanized, globalized culture, so do you think it was only religional attack or it was an attack against globalization as well.
B: (To Volvo) Can I try first? I don’t know, war, the kind of war that we have had for the last many hundreds of years is different leaders trying to get power over more people. When you’ve got wars between religions you have religious leaders trying to get more power for their ideas. We have war between different terrorists, Osama Bin Laden vs. George W. Bush. It’s still war, you know. And even a religion that some people make for other people or some people tell other people what’s right and what’s wrong, I’m not in favor of that. I think the best way for people to live is to creating their own culture and their own ideas, because otherwise you are the mercy of your leaders. In the eighties Anarchist in the U.S. and Europe used to say: “Neither Washington, nor Moscow!” and today I would say neither Washington nor Teheran, neither Washington nor Kabul. I mean, being against the United States supported Israeli apartheid, the Israeli genocide of Palestinians doesn’t mean being in favor of the Holy War of Palestinian terrorist groups. It doesn’t mean that if Jesus is bad, Allah is good. It means being against any situation where people are being organized and controlled from above. I’m not saying that Islam is all bad. Just like there are kinds of Christianity that don’t really bother me. Whereas somebody is creating their own ideas about religion and what’s good and bad that’s at least a starting place for human life and freedom. But the power of holy men? I don’t know. I mean, of course powerful holy men want to fight powerful political men for power. That’s war as we know it and war isn’t good for any of us. Whoever wants? So just being against the U.S. doesn’t mean being a Hungarian nationalist, being against the U.S. doesn’t mean thinking Islam will save us.
V: My taken is like, I am an activist. I think that all religious fundamentalism is bad whether it’s Muslim or Christian. Like if in the United States for example Christian fundamentalism was blown up or pushed and kind of things, which would be terrorism too so then you would wait to the war on the Christian terrorists in the States.
B: The war on Terrorism and they are bombing Alabama. They’re bombing poor, fucking cotton farmers in Alabama. He-he.
V: Yeah. (with a smile on it’s face). But I mean, I know Muslims and I’ve traveled through a lot of Muslim countries and there is nothing inherently evil about Islam. But in many poor countries it is used as a tool for mobilizing masses like in any religion as it has been with the things like the crusades or whatever. And also there is a thinker, Noam Chomsky who says that there is probably more religious fundamentalist in the United Sates than in Iran. And I’ve been to both places and I feel that I kind of agree. My take is that religion is a sort of infringement on your individual freedom and that’s why it is rejected.
B: When you’re surrounded by fundamentalists, it is impossible to notice that they are fundamentalists because it seems normal. Once you get used to creating your own ideas, then you can measure other people’s ideas against something. I mean, the punk community has been able to do a decent job addressing religious fundamentalism, because in punk rock, we have a lot of people for themselves. So, if one person says: “Oh, praise Krishna.” , everybody else can say: “Well, I’m not really thought about that. That’s a dumb idea. You can praise Krishna if you want, but I’m not going to.” . Whereas in a place like the Southern United States, where there is this cultural standardization, where everything is made the same by the culture and religious power of Christianity can’t be challenged, because it stands alone. At the beginning of the interview, I was talking about how capitalism is not the only evil thing, it’s not the only way to describe the world. The problem of fundamentalism is that it is like speaking only one language. You can’t see through other people’s eyes, because you only accept one set of values and I think that is a problem, more than anything else. Being an Anarchist for me, or whatever you wanto to call it, means not being any kind of theist, it means believing in different perspectives and different possibilities. You can describe a lot of what’s going on in the world through economic theories, but you can’t describe what’s good about rock and roll music. If I was Jewish, I could use the Tora to explain.... hmmm... so I wouldn’t be able to use the Tora to explain why Rock Around the Clock makes me wanna dance. I would say, that’s evil and tempting to betray the laws of the Lord, but that doesn’t describe what’s going on when you dance to music at all. So being able to shift from one perspective to another in all questions, I think is really important.
V: I also think that religious fundamentalism thrives in our society ...or anything like you can say. You can go back in history and look in England or Ireland and stuff and people tend to have a more religious fi......
B: God will send you to heaven! So just hold on wait for heaven ... I wanna say something if you’ve finished.
V: Yeah!
B: I think it’s a sort of backwards to say that fundamentalism thrives in poor countries. I think poverty thrives in fundamentalist countries. I mean that the ancient Greeks who ever be thinks were so smart did all this great stuffs they didn’t have fucking television sets. I mean a lot of them fucking slept outside or whatever. But they were rich, they had rich lives or at least it is possible that they had. And they felt rich. Like us in the U.S. and the people of this band are pretty poor, they way we live. You know I haven't had a home for a long time, we eat thrash but we're not in poverty we are free and happy and we're doing what we want. Whereas, I think, people who are hmm… I mean… I think, it is that fundamentalism often appears as a way to deal with the resentment that you feel from being totally poor. But real property isn't just a question of materials, property is a social construction. When richness is described as being one thing and you know you are not that, you feel resentment. You can't be a poor man in the middle of a desert when you got no one to compare yourself to. I mean, you are a poor man, when there are rich people and that feeling of worthlessness and insecurity makes you vulnerable to fundamentalism.
V: Simple solutions.
B: Right. Anyone who is insecure needs something to make themselves feel better. Fundamentalism makes you feel better about being poor without doing anything about it. Fucking, revolutionary, goddamned punk-rock anarchism on the other hand. It is not good just because what it is, but maybe it is good because it is something that can help people to feel they can take responsibility for what's going on. I mean, I can not eat for a week and I don't feel like a poor man, I am a rich man, because I have my brain and my heart and my body and my life belonging to me.
R: Well, how was the Crimethinc book welcomed? What are the reactions in and outside of the hardcore scene? And what's your opinion on plagiarism?
B: First of all about the book. We do a lot outside of the punk scene in the U.S. and the book, I think at this point, the more people have got outside of the punk scene than inside of the punk scene. But there is a lot of scenes connected to the punk scene like the activist scene, anarchist scene, there is scenes near the punk scene. I haven't really noticed the difference between the two. I mean, people coming from the same part of the punk scene that we come from understand a lot other concepts already about like…like you don't just read a book, you think that the book has good ideas and you act all these ideas. And so the people who have seen applying the book, the way that I think it should be applied…often punk rockers who steal ideas from themselves, plagiarize ideas and do their own pamphlets or reprint things or make posters. Hopefully, the people that the book reaches outside of the punk scene, will also sort of pick up something. It is just like a hardcore show, a catharsis show like you said earlier in the interview. If it is like the circus, it doesn't do any good. If it's a little break, it doesn't do any good, but if it's something that you start to discover that you could take responsibility for then it can be important. As far as plagiarism goes, I don't believe that there is anything special about any fucking geniuses. Ideas, human ideas, come from the millions of years of millions of people all talking to each other and coming up with ideas. Possession of ideas is the same as possession of land. One rich asshole who has gotten everybody think that he is important and say he owns the land or he owns the idea. But you know, ideas and land come out… I don't know...hi-hi… Ideas are like languages. Nobody can claim to own a word. I can't claim to own because a word if we all share it in common. So, if I write something, I don't claim that I wrote it like it is my possession. I just share it with everyone and it is theirs as much as mine. If they read it and understand it, it belongs to them too.
R: The new song "Arsonist's prayer". Is it about Guliano Giuliani? (Well, here one of us did a fucking big mistake since he wanted to refer to Carlo Giuliani, but somehow pronounced Giuliano Giuliani. That's why probably Brian was a bit uncertain with his answer. Sorry.)
B: Yeah, sometimes.
R: Can you tell me something more about the song?
B: The song is just about, it is reference to a lot of things just as a lot of different people try to make things happen in the world right now. They try to make good things happen. People on the United States who are blowing up fur factories, or people in Italy who are risking their lives just to let everyone know that it's not in our favor that's going on. A lot of people argue about what the most effective way to make change is, and those discussions are important. But for me, before those discussions I just want to express that anybody who is willing to risk what they have to make the world different is a hero. And no matter how they do it. Whenever change happens, change doesn't happen because somebody comes up with a good idea, change happens because somebody is willing to take a risk. I'm not saying that we shouldn't discuss which risks to take, but everybody who endangers themselves to try to do something generous or to try to do something idealistic, this song is dedicated to them.
V: There's a small objection in connected with when you were talking about being young and age and activism and punk or whatever, is also that when you are young you don't have that much to risk. And then when you grow old you get a car and a TV and you think that these are all important to you and you don't wanna risk it, which is crazy.
B: You spend your whole life trying to persuade yourself that that was important, because if that's not important you have nothing.
R: Something about the tour. What are you experiences? How was it to play in places where probably no American punk band has played before? Like StPetersbourgh…
B: Oh, we didn't get across the border, because of some problems with visas…So we didn't get there.
R: Bulgaria?
B: We're just going to Bulgaria.
R: Moscow?
B: We couldn't get into Russia, it sucks…
R: Lithuania, Belorussia.
B: We missed some of those shows because of Matt. In this tour we had a lot of hard things happened to us. The important thing for me about the tour is that to prove to ourselves that we can keep going on no matter what happens. As a sidenote, I think, for me it's important that we travel outside of the normal punk circles, you know. Just like it's important that when we publish a book, it isn't just for punk rockers. But at the same time, I think, sometimes, the most effective things we can do are to play in United States or in Belgium where we know everybody and we know whatever they are in needs. So we can go there and not just saying this is what we're doing in the US, but also saying this is what needs to be done here. And not be done he-he.. In Hungary, we can't tell anybody what's useful, because it is not our place we don't know what it is here…I mean, if we play in Hungary it is just a vacation for people. It is because we don't know how to make anything different.
R: Something, concerning the book. So, who are the persons behind such names as Nietzsche Guevara etc…?
B: You know, in Crimethinc. hmm… These are secret identities, but the other thing is that the names don't actually represent real people. Because if I used the same name every time, it would just be my other name. But if we share the names and pass them around then nobody knows what's going on. Then nobody becomes a rock star for being able to say "The best part of the book, I wrote that.". So, that when like Crimethinc. is over, the best author can go on a publishing deal with a big fucking corporation, because they are like "the singer of the band" or whatever, it's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen anyway….he-he-he
we stopped here due to the length of the tape or whatever other reasons, so a proper ending is missing.... (down here there are printable version...in the fromat we were planning to print the interviews)
The following one is an intie with the brazilian sxe vegan band point of no return. The interview was planned to appear in xresistancex no2 a zine some of us was busy editing some years ago. The zine never got its paper format, but i think it's fun to read these chats. Note that the images files cover only one part of the interview, because the second part (when a year or two later we talked again to the band) of the it was not edited at all. Enjoy!!!
@: I have to confess that I’m in an unpleasent situation because we’ve never heard your music and we haven’t known your band yet. But honestly, through the show we felt that there is a good band, which has something to say. I mean that this is very important in hardcore. So, tell me something about your message.
Fred: O.K.. We are a vegan SXE band from Brazil. ...And I don’t know why, but maybe because we’re from a country that is a third world country, where capitalism is much more oppressive upon the life’s of the people than maybe here or in Western Europe. So, maybe because that we’re much more concerned about political issues than a lot of bands are nowadays. I think this fact influences a lot the things that we’re singing about and the lyrics we write, the position we stand. When we first got into Hardcore and into SXE and veganism it was because that we were and are not content with the world in the way that it’s work. It was our way to express our aggressive discontent with the world through Hardcore. It was not only, because we liked the music and the style and we went to shows and saw kids moshing...
@: So you realized that Hardcore is a scene where revolutionary or political ideas can spread freely. People are also freeminded in this scene and they are interesting about things like that.
Pedro: Can I say something.
@: Yeah.
Pedro: I totally agree with you. I think what you said is really right, but I think that because of the current state of commercialism and bands that don’t say anything on the stage or even on their lyrics for that matter. This is just going away and Hardcore is becoming something like a new style of Heavy Metal music. I mean the way we produce our culture is not different than the way any other styles of music does the same thing. We do basically the same thing with a different cover, you know like different clothes and sometimes different music. But I mean, since even D.I.Y., which is the basic idea of punk is going away because of the big labels and the way they do their business. Well I think Hardcore is becoming pointless. So it’s about time that bands, that really care about real issues- political or not, but real issues - start really spreading their messages in a consistent way and talking on stage, writing good lyrics about real stuff or otherwise in some years Hardcore will be just a pointless fashion. If it isn’t now. I mean it’s our job, mine and yours and yours to save the scene from total boredom and total pointlessness.
@: Would you tell me something about your main message, about this Landless Workers Movement ‘cause we here in Europe haven’t heard about that.
Fred: Actually, this is not our main message. We just realized when we came in to Europe to tour that people here don’t know anything about that. We think that we can direct our efforts to spread this message to this people here, because in Brazil a lot of people already know about that movement. We thought that it would be a good thing if we put our efforts in doing this, because we think, that this is a very important movement which could change the lives of the people who are involved in. So maybe it would inspire people everywhere to do something for their own lives. Like the Zapatist army does.
@: Do you support these armies like the zapatist one.
Fred: Yeah, we totally support them.
@: I’m ashamed of myself, but I didn’t understand well what your guitarist said during the show. So will you be here in Prague during this conference.
Fred: O.K. So, there’ll be this meeting with the IMF and the World Bank in Prague in 26, September. The same people who have organized a lot of protests in Washington and Seattle, you know about it. They’re trying to organize a protest there-the main protest- and everywhere in the world. We there- in Sao Paolo ,the city where we live- so, we’ll gonna protest with a lot of different groups like left-party people, anarchists and with lot of different people who join together to do something.
@: So you’re gonna do like Rage Against The machine does and you‘re of the same opinion as them or Catharsis or Trial are. (Of course there are differences in their message too.) If not, do you have any specific message within it.
Fred: I think, that each man has it’s own characteristics that differs from band to band, but I think that we can join all together to fight against capitalism. Especially those bands, that are more D.I.Y. like Catharsis and Trial.
Pedro: I think, the main part is that the bands you mentioned are all against capitalism and they have differences. But the thing is that they use music as a means to an end. Not just music as an end to itself. I think, that it is really important, because sometimes in Hardcore some issues are really popular and they are not really popular, because they are really more important than other issues, they are important , because people like to imitate each other and like to be just like their friends. For example one thing that is really important and really discussed in Hardcore is Animal Rights, but Animal Rights is a pointless cause and a waste of time, if you don’t talk about eliminating capitalism, because the exploitation of animals is a total consequence of the exploitation of humans and what the market demands. Like for example cows. Cows get hormone injections and they become more like milk-making machines. But, why? They become machines, because the market demands it of they to be machines to produce more milk. Just for example. So this is an example, that –in my opinion- proves, that it’s pointless to fight against the exploitation of animals and not against the exploitation of humans through capitalism. They’re all the same, you know. So, I think that what we should learn with all those bands you mentioned is that we must not only fight against the symptoms, but we must fight against the disease itself, you know. The disease, that produces those problems. And this is capitalism.
@: Is it your goal to spread your message not only within the Hardcore scene, but to people who are outside the scene?
Fred: I think that militant grouping- that do something against capitalism- is a way to spread your message outside the Hardcore crowd. It’s obvious, because the Hardcore crowd is limited one and it has it’s own characteristics. It’s not a normal thing like a mass culture or something like that. We don’t think that Hardcore is the only way to spread what you think, because there are other ways like the militant groups, acting with political groups, not political parties, but political groups and creating community to try to resist against the oppression is a very important thing. No creating community inside capitalism, but outside in your private life.
@: So, I mean that, you know Rage Against The Machine uses media to spread their message .
Fred: The mainstream media.
@: And I think it has two sides. Although they’re against capitalism they use it, they support it and they’re involved in it at the same time. So what do you think about this twofoldness?
Pedro:I don’t know about that ‘cause sometimes you have to use capitalist tools to destroy capitalism. But, you know, although I haven’t seen that, but someone told me that they’re not like really talking anymore in shows- I mean Rae Against The Machine-and I don’t really know exactly what they are doing. But I honestly think that some people actually became more politically aware because of them, but I also think that, you know like for every 100.000 that they play to maybe 1000 or less actually take something from their lyrics or the things they say. So maybe it’s better to play to a smaller audience with a high percentage of people who are open to what you gonna say than to play for 100.000 people and compromise D.I.Y. just to spread your message to a larger audience ‘cause sometimes it doesn’t work. But, maybe it does, I don’t really know about that and I don’t have an answer for that. It’s a hard thing…
Fred: Do It Yourself is a way to do the things in your own life in the way you want. This is an act, you know. You do the things not in the way as capitalism works, but in the way you want society to work, and I think it’s a better way. You act know and not in a future utopia, but you act now, do the things in the way as society should do.
@: Your music is really aggressive and your performance is aggressive too. Where does this come from? Who write the music, the lyrics?
Fred: Who wrote them? Everybody. I think that, since we can’t speak English so good, in this tour only Marco-our other singer-and Tarcisio (one of their guitarists) speak on the stage. In Brazil everybody speaks and we talk about the issues before we write a lyric. Anybody comes out with a new idea we join together and talk about that. It is not something that is too personal, due to the three singers and the other six members of the band.
@: Do you support any movement that deals with environmental protection? Do you care about this issue? Because it can be heard everywhere, that deforestation is a really threatening problem especially in Brazil.
Fred: Yes of course. We think, that the ecological problems more than the animal rights problems are problems created by capitalism. Because, for example when the American government says to Brazilian government that,: Hey, men you have to protect your forests, because you’re destroying that and if you won’t protect we are going to intervene somehow. Because your forests represent something that the whole humankind needs. I think that what moves this whole deforestation is not the evilness of the people, but the way that system works. We think, that this whole ecological problem is caused by capitalism. It’s not only a matter of what you’re buying, whether it is harmful to the ozone or not, but it is a thing that you don’t have to force people to use useless products, you don’t have to produce a lot of things that people really don’t need. You don’t have to accept how this society works, but you should create a new one with new values.
Pedro: Can I say something.
@: Of course.
Pedro: Just to make it shorter. I think, that apart from capitalism the main reason why the nature is being destroyed is a mentality- has been built up over the centuries through many ideologies, like christianity or even capitalism- which states that mankind owns the Earth and it’s not like a part, but the owner of it. This kind of supremacist thought has been responsible for all kind of destructive actions and I think, that one way to illuminate this kind of ideology is veganism. Because veganism as a symbolic protest, a symbolic boycott totally rebuilds your moral system- I mean your relation toward the Earth the animals and other human beings.
Fred: They don’t consider themselves as a superior thing, but an equal thing as everything is in this world. Man is not this supreme creation of the evolution, but man is just another thing in the Earth as everything.
Pedro: So, if capitalism ended the destruction of the environment would obviously be minimized. But maybe it would not end until mankind wouldn’t has a different mentality –and I think that this mentality can be reached through veganism.
@: Do you believe in any perfect political system? Do you think there is a political system that could work well?
Fred: It’s hard to figure out what could be done in future society. People have to work to destroy this society and during this process they have to rebuild new values and try to do the things more for themselves and more in conscience than the way that things are nowadays. Something like a society without classes, without hierarchy and with people acting together in a conscience way not only to achieve their goals, but to cooperate. There are more anarchist in this group, than libertarian-socialist. So, we don’t agree at this point. I think that if people join together to construct a community to resist and to attack capitalism,- like in the way that Zapatist army has done- than they reconstruct society and fill up everything with new values.
@: But do you think, that the personality of man could change?
Fred: I’m not thinking in terms of human nature, because culture is a thing that can make man active in a lot of ways, you know. We can rebuild our culture in any way that we want. You can create a society where everybody is greedy, aggressive, violent or you can create a society where everyone is equal. So, resistant inside capitalism is a way to recreate our values.
Pedro: People always say that it is not possible to build a society, an equal society, where everybody participate in decision-making, because as they say human beings are too greedy and competitive and too whatever, you know. But competition and greed and all those stuffs people use to paint human nature are excuses not to change the current system. ‘Values’ that are not inherent to the human nature, because such thing doesn’t really exist –human nature, you know. Those things are simulated by culture, culture as a means to support capitalism. Because since you were born you learn to compete and you learn, that the automating for a person is to be rich, to be better than anybody else and to conquer as much power to yourself and not to share with other people. So, those excuses are just excuses. If we or anybody else can be really aware, why couldn’t others do the same. It doesn’t mean that people who are politically aware were chosen by god or anything else. They just found out that there are alternatives and there are better ways. So, I think, that if we found out a way for the rest of mankind to join us, we could build a much better society. The hard part is to get there, but once we got there it would totally work. Also. People say that an other kind of society could not work. But is capitalism working? I don’t think it is, I mean maybe it’s working in countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Australia or even in the United States, but once you go to Eastern Europe or to Latin America or to Asia you can see that it doesn’t work for everybody. If a system doesn’t work for everybody it’s not working for anybody. So, it’s a fraud, it’s really a lie to say that other systems would not work.
@: How do you create your music?
Jefferson: We practice. We join together and somebody comes with an idea… We try to give the same emphasis to the lyrics as to the music.
We stopped here recording the interview, but we kept talking with the guys. This interview was done with one of their singer Fred, Pedro (their road and substitute bass player) and Jefferson (bass).
Interview by laci, gabi
And here comes a second part to this delightful conversation. Two years later on another Fluff-fest we made another interview with them or better to say with Pedro, their substitute guitar player/roadie. Ronnie was also present and so we managed to immerge again into Southern American hardcore-punk, politics and a lot more. So here it is, enjoy!
@: Hey, You also mentioned during the show that as you're a South-American band it's quite hard for you to organize a tour. I mean a band that is not from the USA or from a very developed country, it's quite impossible to set up a tour all over Europe. So, how did you manage to make it and what are your impressions about this tour?
Pedro: Well, this time it was even easier for us because we had already come here two years ago. So, all the doors were opened for us and we have a cd out in the United States so, we already knew that everything would be pretty easier. But the first time we came here, it wasn’t that hard for us too because we had sort of enough money to invest on this and not really expect to have it all back -except for a couple of members of the band who were in a worse economic situation- we could do that for the first time and come here with not really knowing what would happen. The thing is that it’s possible to come to Europe for any band in Brazil who has the money for the tickets and the will and a couple of contacts to book the shows. But the problem is that there obviously not gonna have a tour as good as a tour for any shitty American band on a big label, because a lotta people wouldn’t put as much work on a Brazilian bands tour as they would put on any American bands tour. Because as we said it on the stage people learn ever since they kids that American stuff is better and American products are better for consumption. So as much as I don’t like to say it …as much as I don’t like this concept even hardcore bands are the products so people rather buy an American band record than a Brazilian band. So as I’ve already said it’s pretty easy for a band that has the money to come to Europe, but it’s obvious that an American band doesn’t have to be as good as a Brazilian one in order to make it and to have good shows and to play in festivals and stuffs. I mean I’ve seen really bad American bands in Europe playing in the best festivals and people pay attention to them and buy their stuffs. While there are amazing bands in Eastern Europe and Brazil and Asia and everywhere that wouldn’t get the same attention so that’s the main problem you know. It’s not really that it’s hard for bands to come over here but the conditions are pretty much different for a Brazilian or wherever else’s band than for an American band.
@: …Cultural and political reasons for you're not being able to come to Europe for a tour. Personal reasons for you like finances, which stop you to come and all the other people?
Pedro: Yeah, of course it’s much harder. For example, here in Europe and in the United States, it’s pretty usual for people to work on temporary jobs in order to raise money for tour or something else. Then they leave their jobs and tour for a couple of months and then when they go back home, they can either pick the same job again or find a different job. I mean it’s not an issue for them. While in Brazil you can’t really quit your job and expect to go back and find an other one because it’s a way harder there. And also you can work a lot and not really get any money, you can’t really raise money because you get paid pretty bad there. For example: I’m a middle class guy and I’m 23 and if I got a job where they would pay 300 euros a month it would be a pretty good payment. So, How can I really raise money to go to Europe once a year if I get paid 300 Euros a month. And that’s … because most of the people get paid even worse than that. Well, also as I said not a lot of bands can come without expecting to get their money back. I came this time because I’ve already knew I would get at least a big part of my money back. Otherwise probably I wouldn’t be able to come. And a lots of bands are more poor people so it would be impossible for them I think.
@: How is the story of you guys, that you're able to come here?
Pedro: Well, most of the band members have good jobs or they have supporter families for example : my grandmother gave me money for the tickets and then I’m getting it back. For other guys they used their credit cards and they gonna pay for the tickets when they get back to Brazil. So, it wasn’t really a problem for us except for the bass player who is pretty poor and has children, so we paid for him and then he get the money back for us. As I was always saying in the second part so it's easy to sell Cds and merchandise stuffs but we pretty much rely on that.
@: I could conclude …..like other punks in working class are just not able to come over here. Because of the money.
Pedro: Yeah, there has been bands that came but they had all sort of special deals because they had friends working at Airline companies so they had all kind of managed to come. And also most of them came a few years ago when it was actually cheaper. Because now our currency isn’t worth a shit and it’s getting worse and worse. Our money used to have the same values as US dollar and now it’s like 3 real - which is our money- for 1 dollar. So, everything in Western Europe is like three times as expensive as it is at home. For us eating in a normal restaurant here is like the price of a really fancy restaurant for you, as you from Holland (pointing at Ronnie). I think that now that we built this bridge a lot of other bands will be able to come and we are really supporting them. And different people from the band can support people who live in bad economic situation and also labels can help and everybody can help. So I think that now it’s gonna be pretty cool for other bands to come and I think two Brazilian bands are coming next year: Confonto and Carahter. And it’s probably gonna be in the same way.
@: What about touring in South America? I’ve heard that it’s almost impossible because of the very big distances.
Pedro: Yeah, the distances are problem but some bands have toured there like a band called Colligere. They’ve made a really big tour in Brazil and they were actually the first band from our scene who did a full tour in Brazil. They played on weekdays which is not really usual there ‘cause in Brazil you mostly only have shows on Fridays and weekends. So, they made an almost one month long tour in Brazil. But it’s really hard because Brazil is bigger than Europe and there are hardcore scenes in all urban centers in the south of the country but the more you go to the north it gets harder. The country gets poorer and poorer and there is less hardcore scenes and less stuffs, but it’s possible…possible but hard actually. And then you can always go to Argentina or to Chile what other bands have already done that. I mean bands from US have done that like Catharsis have done a f... tour of many places in Brazil Argentina , Chile and Uruguay only by bus. But you should be aware that you’re gonna take like 24hrs drives sometimes and not a lotta people are willing to do that. And also you won’t get paid very well. But if you have a car I mean if a band has a car it’s possible but not easy.
@: You mentioned that there is a division between the southern part of Brazil and the northern part of Brazil. How is it like? Is it like the same way as Western and Eastern Europe?
Pedro: Well, I think it’s worse actually because the south of Brazil is almost like Western Europe and the North of Brazil is more like India or Africa. If you compare the statistics and numbers you’re going to find out something really similar to that because the South of Brazil was populated by European immigrants mostly from Italy, Eastern Europe and Germany. So, they had small agricultural properties of land which pretty much make it a richer place because it’s more productive and people get employed much easier. And than it’s more industrialized also because when they industrialized they called the immigrants, so it1s pretty much related. And then you have Sao Paolo which is the fourth most Southern State and it’s like the border of the South of brazil and the rest of Brazil and Sao Paolo is the most developed state but then you also have big social contradictions like especially in the capital Sao Paolo city. But the most North you go the worse you get and when you go to the North East which is the poorest region then it becomes really really bad like a lot of hungry people and a lotta from there go to Sao Paolo or to Rio or to other big cities to find job and they get pretty poor there too. So most of the poor people in Sao Paolo came from the North of Brazil so, then you can see the difference the both parts of the country. It’s almost like people from Africa and Asia who go to Europe. They’re pretty much like immigrants in Sao Paolo, they have different culture because they came from the countryside and when they go a big city they become cultureless and most of them they don’t get job much less a good salary. So, Sao Paolo is a huge city with almost 20 million inhabitants and most of these people or the parents of them came from the North East region and now they live in absolute poverty in Sao Paolo. It’s a real contrast. A lotta people call Brazil Belindia because it’s Belgium and India inside the same country. Like in the city of Sao Paolo you have some neighborhoods that have like Ferrari car stores and then you drive away half an hour and you go to places where people are killing each other and smocking crack and totally chaotic. The biggest cliche in Brazil is to say that Brazil is the country of contrast, but it is you know. There is a very big contrast between poor and rich because actually Brazil is a very rich country but all the wealth is concentrated on the hand of a very few people.
@: You said that you are the part of middle class....
Pedro: Well, actually I live in pretty much minority because the middle class in Brazil is really small.
@: But What I was trying to ask you is that as you’re a vegan sxe band how do you see that like the contrast that you have the chance to be vegan sxe that sometimes how I feel it. Because the people in the slumps make the decision to drink because of their problems. So, how do you see that?
Pedro: Well...
@: I think it’s a middle class thing to be vegan sxe.
Pedro: Yeah, in a way it’s easier for middle class people to be vegan sxe but then it’s easier for a middle class people to be anything than for poor people because they have the time they have the education and so it’s pretty much easier for them to do anything. But than in Brazil there are a lot of poor people who are vegan and sxe you know. This is also something that is very different from Europe I think. In Europe almost everyone I met who was into hardcore was middle class or rich while in Brazil there are middle class and rich people into it but a lotta people are poor. And it's amazing to see that. I don’t know about other countries but actually at least in Brazil it’s not really more expensive for you to be vegan than to eat meat because soya in Brazil is actually cheaper than meat. I think Brazil is the biggest soya producer in the world.
@: But you have the choice to be vegan....
Pedro: Yeah exactly you have that but as long as ...
@: ...because the people have to be happy if they have anything to eat.
Pedro: Yeah that’s right! But you know as soon as you get your independence and if you cook for yourself then it’s not really more expensive to be vegan than to eat meat. It’s easier because of that choice thing and for other issues I was talking about, but you can pretty much be vegan and sxe there even if you’re poor because we have many examples of that. For example the bass player in PONR. He has three children an ex-wife to support and he gets paid pretty bad and he’s vegan and sxe for many years. And a lotta people are there like that. An other thing that makes it harder is that: How can you sympathize with exploited animals when you’re really overexploited yourself? When you’re a victim of superexploitation. I mean everybody is exploited to an extend as long as they work for someone else, but then there’s super exploitation. So, how can you relate to an animal being exploited when you’re exploited like an animal like most people in poor countries are. You know, working eight hours almost everyday and you get paid a hundred Euros or even less for a month and you have a family to support and you’re living in a shitty place...so, how can you expect these people to care about animals when they’re “animals” themselves in these terms. That’s a very big problem ...and that’s why we come into with this issue that I think is really important and that I think is a very big part of PONR’s agenda which is to associate veganism with anticapitalism. You’re not really gonna get a mass vegan thing, a cruelty free society before you end up with capitalism, before you finish with capitalist social relations. Because, as long as people are being exploited, animals will be exploited too. Even if you eventually get some kind of vegan capitalist society, human beings will continue being exploited. And you know this is kind of a joke but it’s true that human beings are also animals. So no product inside capitalism is really vegan because everything that is bought or sold comes from the exploitation of a human being which is an animal... so, you never gonna get a vegan capitalism. I think that’s the main reason why you should be vegan with an anticapitalist perspective. Just like it’s for gay rights or minority rights or for anything. If you don’t get a revolutionary anticapitalist perspective associated with it, it eventually becomes pointless or becomes just a tool for reforming capitalism and therefore a tool for supporting it. Because capitalism have to be reformed in order to survive. For example: black people were really discriminated in Brazil for instance and in the USA but then capitalist society saw a new market in them so now you can see products for black people, a lotta black people in advertisements in TV shows and stuffs but Why? Just because now they’re useful for capitalism. When they were not useful for capitalism they were just ignored and that could happen also with animal rights and actually that’s happening with animal rights. To see stuffs like the Body shop or even PETA – I’m not questioning their intentions – but there just the capital incorporating the animal rights question which is something that people are worried about right now and capitalism make a part of itself. So, that’s an example of what happens if you don’t associate these kind of issues with a an anticapitalist perspective. It doesn’t really take you anywhere if you just fight against the symptoms without fighting against the source of the disease.
Ronnie: And how is the anticapitalist struggle in general in Brazil? Because there are several other countries in South America like Bolivia or Colombia who has a pretty big movement going on because of the privatization of water for example. How is it in Brazil? Is there a big social movement among the rural classes?
Pedro: Yeah there is. The biggest one is actually the MST (Movimento Sem Terra) the Landless Workers Movement and this movement is based on the peasants who don’t have land to crop so they find unproductive lands like really big farms owned by landlords and they occupy them. The media say that they invade them but we like to say that they occupy them because they really seize that land. And doing that they also make a pressure towards the government into making landreform which is a very basic demand for any capitalist country. It’s not even a very radical thing if you think historically about it like all the bourgeoisie revolution in the world, which started capitalism they made landreform. After the French Revolution they distributed land among the peasants after the American or English Revolution they did that and all the bourgeoisie revolution did that and all the countries which are developed now. The underdeveloped countries like Brazil and the rest of Latin America seems like the bourgeoisie the currant ruling class is not really able to do this kind of reform that they did in Europe and other countries before. So, the poor population, the working class and the peasants have to really struggle for really basic capitalist reforms, which are not really radical. Therefore they’re called terrorists and hooligans while they’re just pushing the government to make the same reforms that were made in the USA and in Europe two or three hundred years ago. So, then we have this big problem with the distribution of the land and in the MST there’re more then a million families are involved in and they get pretty radicalized which is a very important thing. Also we have other kinds of movements like Movemento Sem Tatto which is a similar thing but in urban areas for homeless people. It’s basically the homeless movement that’s what it means and they occupy public buildings which are empty. It’s sort of like squatters but the difference is that they don’t really do that because they want to live an alternative lifestyle or anything, is more a matter of survival for them and it’s also pretty politicized and pretty radicalized and a lotta people and anarchist and socialist groups are involved in it also. Other kinds of movement is the Workers Movement which is pretty bad right now. All the unions became really reformist or even right-wing all together and I… (here we had to change the side of the tape)
So, as I was saying the traditional Left is pretty bad in Brazil right now. They have pretty much gone more right wing and more bureaucratic. But reacting to the fuckedupness of the Left we have a whole new thing with the youth that is totally linked with the punk and hardcore scene which is, what I would call, the Brazilian section of the new anti-capitalist movement. And we all have the demonstrations simultaneously to all the places in the world like A20, S26 and all those other important dates in the last few years. That was a very important thing. After a long time of really doing anything it seems like the more radical parts of the Left like anarchists and leftist communists are really doing something and the youth leading it. This is the first time that people are doing this all around the world at the same time. So I think it’s a pretty beautiful thing and I’m really happy that the hardcore scene in Brazil has embraced this whole thing because it seems like in many parts of the world hardcore kids haven’t been a major part of that you know, not even punks. I think that’s the basic situation in Brazil. We don’t have guerrillas like in Columbia or we didn’t have something revolutionary like in Bolivia during the water conflicts but then we have our stuff and I hope the Movimento Sem Terra keeps doing their stuff and I hope they will go more and more radical. I hope they’re not bought by the left wing parties or anything. And I hope the anti-capitalist movement doesn’t also die after S11, and doesn’t die now it’s set back a little a bit all around the world after Genoa. I hope it doesn’t die because it was such a new hope for us after so many years. It was such a wrap of fresh air that it’s going to be remembered. If it dies, it’s going to be really sad because that’s what we’re going to remember from our generation. But I don’t want it to be like that. I think it should be something that lasted.
You mentioned Argentina? In Argentina it’s a story in itself. The situation there is even worse than in Brazil. It’s really strange that people talk about, as Point Of No Return says, the end of history, and that nothing is going to happen anymore and that there will be no more revolutions, no more class struggle. And then you have something like Argentina where people just throw presidents down. It’s amazing. They could have done a revolution there if they were organised in a more united way.
Ronnie: Why didn’t something like this happen in Brazil yet? The people in Argentina were so desperate after the value of the money inflated so much they didn't have anything left. They were just desperate, so middle class people looted the shops and vandalised everything. Why doesn’t something like that happen in Brazil, as the situation is quite similar to that of Argentina…
Pedro: I think the middle class in Argentina became really more radicalised because there was actually a very big proletarisation of the middle class there. They became really poor. In the forties Argentina was actually the fourth richest country in the world and now about half of the people are below the poverty line. So I mean it’s obvious that a very big part of the middle class got poor actually. And in Brazil that really hasn’t happened yet but when it happens I hope that there will be radicalisation of the middle class. But that shouldn’t really be a necessary condition for a major thing, for a major change in society because the middle class in Brazil is what, five percent of the population, ten percent if you’re pushing it. Then you have ninety percent or more of the population which have been really fucked up for a long time. Anthropologists and sociologists have been asking the same question you asked me for a hundred years or something. Why don’t people revolt if they live in such fucked up conditions? I don’t know. There are all kinds of explanations. One is that the left wing in Brazil is very bureaucratic and it’s more and more right wing all the time. We have twenty years of military dictatorship there, so the left wing was too busy fighting for democracy. They couldn’t really fight for revolution. You know what I mean. That’s what happens when you have stuff like that. We have a reactionary regime so the left wing becomes sort of reactionary and people start to join forces with bourgeois parties and struggle for democracy while they should be struggling for an anti-capitalist revolution. So we have that. And most of the parties, most of the people came from the communist party which was Stalinist and you guys from Hungary know that Stalinism doesn’t really take you anywhere, so most people who were Stalinist back then now got into mainstream politics just like in Eastern Europe. They were really bureaucratic and fucked up anyway. As I was saying, you have a very disorganised and very reactionary left wing that doesn’t really try to push the poor population for some kind of revolutionary goal. The opposite actually. Also a lot of people there are not even more, but are totally miserable. They don’t have a basic education. A lot of people are illiterate. I don’t know but it’s really hard to think that people like that wouldn’t fall into the trap of the ruling class ideology. So what happens is that they don’t have the necessary intellectual tools, or theoretical tools so they believe in everything they see in the media and on television. They see the bourgeois ideology all the time, everywhere. Especially in Brazil where soap operas, which we call ‘tele novelas’, are really popular and they’re really, really ideological. People fall for that also. And also a lot of people have all those theories about special conditions of the culture in Brazil where people are just so laid back and don’t really care, people don’t really fight for a lot of stuff.
I wouldn’t really be able to answer your question why people don’t revolt in Brazil. There are all sorts of explanations for that but I can only give you different versions and my opinion. If I knew the answer I would be there trying to put it into practice.
Ronnie: You mentioned hose explanations, but at the moment in Europe there is also another explanation because of the repression. What happened in Genoa and the period after has been of great influence on the social movements over here, as the people got so scared because it turned out that the authorities and thus capitalism are prepared to kill to stop a critical voice. Is that the same in Brazil for movements like MST for example or the urban movements?
Pedro: Yes, that’s pretty much the same. People talk a lot about fascism and democracy, like they’re two different things while they’re just two sides of the same coin which is the bourgeois system that is capitalism. You know what I mean. So whenever they need fascism or any other kind of repressive regime, that’s what you’re going to have. And then when you need so called democracy, you will get democracy. But then when this democracy needs to kick ass, it does. That’s what you see. I think it was in 1995, I’m not sure, we had a big massacre of the Sem Terra in the North of Brazil in a place called ***El Dorado Dos Carajas*** in the state of Pará. That’s a perfect example of what happens when you do something that really threatens the state of things, even inside of democracy. The thing is that the Sem Terra occupied a place. One day they were raided by police men and, to make a long story short, they just killed most of the people there, almost everybody. And now, about five years later, they were judged. They’re all free now and nobody paid for this. It was such a fucking scandal. It was unbelievable. And as sad as it is I just hope that this kind of thing opens the eyes of people and make them see how fucked up this system. It doesn’t even keep with its own promises. They criticise the MST for instance because they break the law when they occupy land. On the other hand the police men are not getting arrested for what they did, which is killing people. So I mean when people see that the system doesn’t keep up to their promises which is legality, I hope that they will lose their faith in this thing, capitalism.
Laci: Do the events in Argentina have any kind of impact on Brazilian society, and the revolutionary movement ?
Pedro: Not really. It had in a way, that it has been discussed a lot and in some circles it’s been analysed and seen as an example but the anti-capitalist movement and the youth that I was talking about paid a lot less attention to the Argentinean situation then I would have liked them to. And it influenced the mainstream society, but in a reactionary way actually. It made them scared to be the next Argentina so they’re really into not changing the state of things because they’re scared that for example if they vote for the left wing that all the foreign investors are going away and the country is going to break. It’s totally stupid because what happened in Argentina took place because of the exact opposite. Argentina just obeyed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for years and years and gave everything to them and everything that the United States told them to do. That’s why the country broke up. I’m not really saying that the Left would save our asses, because it wouldn’t but I’m just using it as an example.
It affected people but not the way I liked it to have.
Ronnie: Last year there were the A20 demonstrations because of the Summit Of The Americas that took place in Quebec City, Canada. During that meeting the introduction of the Free Trade America of the Americas (FTAA) was being discussed. This agreement will in succession of NAFTA, convert the whole Western hemisphere in one huge free trade area. Do you have any idea how the FTAA agreements will influence the everyday life of people in Brazil?
Ronnie: Last year there were the A20 demonstrations because of the Summit Of The Americas that took place in Quebec City, Canada. During that meeting the introduction of the Free Trade America of the Americas (FTAA) was being discussed. This agreement will in succession of NAFTA, convert the whole Western hemisphere in one huge free trade area. Do you have any idea how the FTAA agreements will influence the everyday life of people in Brazil?
Pedro: Well, they will just speed up what’s already happening and give wings to the problems that are already affecting our lives everyday because we’re already almost a colony of the United States and corporations are buying our whole country because everything has been privatised.
Ronnie: Like?
Pedro: Not water, and some other things that are considered strategic. They’re not really being privatised, but stew companies have been privatised and telecommunications and all sorts of things that were state owned. Even companies that were profitable. This is going to happen and also they’re going to open everything. Brazil won’t even have the tools to protect itself against competition with the United States and will just open itself to be even more exploited by the United States. It’s like putting you or me fighting against Mike Tyson in a boxing match. It’s a total unequal thing and some parts of the contract are not even open to the public you know because they’re so fucked up that they won’t even allow us to see it. That was one of the reasons behind the demonstrations because people would at least like to see that, and you can’t. Even parts of the ruling class in Brazil are against that because it’s going to be suicide for national interest, the national industry and national trades. Even for Brazilian national capitalism it will be suicidal, and I think we’re going to see a very dark future for Brazil if it all happens if it happens the way it’s bound to happen. And I think it will happen. I’m really pessimistic about it, but if you think ***dialectically*** , I hope it turns out to be another thing to open the eyes of the people and to make people react in an appropriate way. I hope so.
Ronnie: Like?
Pedro: Not water, and some other things that are considered strategic. They’re not really being privatised, but stew companies have been privatised and telecommunications and all sorts of things that were state owned. Even companies that were profitable. This is going to happen and also they’re going to open everything. Brazil won’t even have the tools to protect itself against competition with the United States and will just open itself to be even more exploited by the United States. It’s like putting you or me fighting against Mike Tyson in a boxing match. It’s a total unequal thing and some parts of the contract are not even open to the public you know because they’re so fucked up that they won’t even allow us to see it. That was one of the reasons behind the demonstrations because people would at least like to see that, and you can’t. Even parts of the ruling class in Brazil are against that because it’s going to be suicide for national interest, the national industry and national trades. Even for Brazilian national capitalism it will be suicidal, and I think we’re going to see a very dark future for Brazil if it all happens if it happens the way it’s bound to happen. And I think it will happen. I’m really pessimistic about it, but if you think ***dialectically*** , I hope it turns out to be another thing to open the eyes of the people and to make people react in an appropriate way. I hope so.
Ronnie: Do you think things will get worse for people from below; the workers and the people in the slums. Will it influence them more then the middle class?
Pedro: They’re going to be the ones that will be influenced the most because they’re the ones that are going to lose their jobs and they’re the ones who get it in the ass first when this kind of stuff is going to happen in Brazil. The middle class always has some reserves and money saved, but those people don’t. Every company that’s being privatised or that’s being bought by a foreign corporation will fire most of its workers. They have all those policies of optimising profits and optimising production which is just firing people and making the people that remain work more and more and mechanise everything. So you get a real big army of unemployed workers. And you know what happens when you got a lot of unemployed people? The wages get lower and lower. It gets bad even for the people who still have jobs. If you get that, you bet that the working class will be the ones that will be most damaged by it. The middle class will be affected as well of course, but it’s always the working class who gets the worst part. At least I think so.
Gabi: Is it possible for somebody in the Brazilian working class to get higher on the social scale? What is there to reach for them?
Pedro: It happens to some people you know but it’s not common at all and it’s only getting harder and harder. What’s happening and has been happening for a while in Brazil is that the rich are getting richer and the poor people are getting poorer because capital is more and more concentrated in the hands of a few people. The middle class is becoming an animal in extinction. Eventually it’s probably going to be extinct. The whole social process is that the poor people are getting poor so if anyone is born poor right now and goes up it’s a total exception to the rule. There’s not a lot of mobility. Actually, the same five hundred or so families that used to rule Brazil four hundred years ago are the same that still control the country. Especially in the North of the country you see they have almost some kind of nobility there. It’s people who came from Portugal in the 1600s or something and got farms in Brazil and they still have the land, and they still have the capital in their hands pretty much. It’s pretty much the same people. And it’s getting more and more concentrated. But as I was saying, I don’t know what’s going to happen because even the national ruling class is getting damaged by the neo liberal policies. It’s all benefiting the multinational corporations more and more. Who knows what’s going to happen.
As you asked me, there’s no real social mobility in Brazil. If you’re born poor, you pretty die poor.
Us: We were talking about future perspectives, but what are the chances and opportunities that people in Brazil have today? Like you have the chance to come over to Europe. But what’s the chance on education, and all the other simple primary things for an average person? And what’s it like for you and your friends in Point Of No Return?
Pedro: It’s pretty common in Brazil for the middle class to go to private schools because during the military dictatorship they pretty much fucked up the whole educational system and they made it worse and worse and the teachers’ wages lower and lower. Right now the whole educational system is really in a ridiculous state. It’s a total tragedy. In recent years it got even worse because of the whole new liberal thing. The president got new policies like for example that you can’t repeat a year in school if you go bad. He basically finished this concept of repeating years. So now you don’t really have to learn anything anymore. But then he advertises that now everybody passes like it was a very good thing. That’s because of his policy as you can no longer repeat. In a few years we’re going to have only a few people finishing school, and they will be very ignorant. Even more then they are now. Education in Brazil is pretty fucked up.
You know what’s really ironic. In Brazil you have private and public universities like everywhere, but only the rich people get to the public universities because they went to good schools so they have the education to pass the exams that are required for you to get into public university. So what happens is that the few poor who go to public university have to work during the day and study at night. The private universities are usually worse then the public ones.
Ronnie: So Basically the current situation of poverty and illiteracy of people in Brazil is being sustained as long as they can’t afford a decent education. It’s an endless cycle. Especially with all the new developments ahead of us on national politics and global capitalism. The state of things won’t change.
Pedro: No, it won’t. For example, the IMF makes the Brazilian government take over policies in order to give them money. One of those policies is about education and, as I would say, neo liberalise the schools. Because of that the government doesn’t invest in humanities anymore, like history, sociology, philosophy and stuff like that. The biggest university in Brazil, which is the University of Sao Paolo had a very long strike recently because of that, because they don’t have any money and too many students in the classes, too few teachers, and the teachers are getting paid worse and worse. All these problems in education are being pushed by the international state of affairs and the interests of imperialism actually. It comes from abroad and it comes from a higher power.
Ronnie: I saw the concept of the artwork of your latest record, and there’s a lot of fire and riots being displayed. What’s the idea behind this concept?
Pedro: I wasn’t really involved in the making of the artwork but what I can say is that it has a lot to do with the historical moment we’re in. Right now capitalism is in a real critical stage and we have an international crisis. People were at least writing everywhere, and people are still writing in a lot of places. I think it’s really important to document that and to push it even further through the stuff we do because what is art other then the expression of what you live, and an expression of a certain point of view of the world. I think it’s pretty appropriate to do this kind of artwork right now, and it totally fits the band’s agenda and the lyrics. I think the main goal of Point Of No Return is actually to make people want to riot. It’s probably the biggest cliché in punk but as long as it’s sincere it’s an amazing thing. Ever since The Clash talked about White Riot it has been the biggest part of the punkrock agenda. It just changes how you want to riot and for what reasons.
Ronnie: Something about this movement. We’re now at this festival with a lot of vegetarian/vegan straight edge kids, but the whole atmosphere at this event is really apathic and passive. People only seem to be focused on isolated issues like animal rights and a drug free lifestyle, but they don’t see it in a wider perspective like you’re talking about and I also believe in. Do you think this movement, like you have witnessed it the past few days, is still moving towards something or is it no longer progressing, as if it has stagnated?
Pedro: I like to believe that it can progress and maybe it is progressing in different places, at least in isolated sectors of the punkrock scene because otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it in this place. A band like Point Of No Return wouldn’t exist. In Brazil it’s pretty much progressing, but I don’t really know about other places.
As you were asking. I don’t really believe in single issue causes like this when they’re alienated from the anti-capitalist perspective. I don’t think they will lead you anywhere or anywhere else then the reformation of capitalism and into creating the illusion that capitalism can be reformed. In the end, they’re a dead end actually.
When you see cruelty free corporations selling vegan food or cosmetics, you see that when you don’t have an anti-capitalist perspective, when you don’t take your issues into a single bigger think it just becomes a part of capitalism. It becomes a tool for capitalism to reform itself. In other words to renew itself in order to survive. What can be tool against capitalism, actually becomes a tool for capitalism. It becomes reformist, and we already know that reformism is necessary for capitalism and it totally kills the revolution.
Ronnie: Do you think punkrock is going to cause that revolution because within this movement veganism has only become another commodity. The kids became vegan and just changed their whole consumer pattern into an animal friendly version based on a soy dessert diet and synthetic Nike sneakers. So basically they just incorporated veganism into capitalism, and thereby only transforming one type of cruelty into another one. The suffering remains, but the symptoms change since people and nature are the ones exploited in this kind of capitalism.
Pedro: First of all, punkrock is not going to cause a revolution. At least not more then other fronts isolated. But it can be a part of it, and a very important fuel for the youth which is a very important part of the revolution as history has taught us. If you see the history of the Russian Revolution, the students were a very big part of it. I think punkrock can be an expression and a stimulus for the youth in the revolution. But then again it can’t be seen as the instrument of it because it would be totally naive and childish to believe that we’re going to make the revolution. It is a very big problem within the Left that everybody thinks they’re going to make the revolution. That’s bullshit. No isolated groups are going to make it. It’s part of a historical movement that’s supposed to be made by all the people that don’t benefit from this system. Not from isolated groups. Nobody is going to save the world and give the world save to the rest of the people. The rest of the people are the ones that have to save the world.
As you were saying about veganism you’re totally right and I will never get tired of saying it that unless you move one step ahead of it, we’re not going to get anywhere. It was a very big progress that veganism came into being, and I think animal rights are an amazing thing. You can associate it with anti-capitalism because of the way animals get treated like machines and commodity making machines or as a commodity in itself. Capitalism pushes animals in a way that totally ignores the welfare of animals, just like it does to humans so it’s really part of the same thing. Then again people don’t make this association, don’t take this step and don’t make this bridge. I think unless people start doing that inside the punkscene, this scene will remain in itself and will remain like a dog running after its own tail. It’s going to be just about itself, looking at its own ass. Punkrock has other good aspects in spite of that which is for example being an antidote to the mainstream ideology which is forced to us by the media and mainstream music and movies. So just by being independent and making our own culture we can sort of be more free of this kind of ideology. We can become our own media. Even sometimes literally like the people behind Indymedia are doing internationally, and there’s a lot of people in the punkscene involved in that. You can totally relate something like Indymedia with DIY for example. It’s DIY applied politically with a political end. Even in arts. I think it’s a pretty political thing to take arts back to the hands of the people and make art not just to be a spectacular thing where most of the people just watch and have no control over it and just a few people produce this art in order to sell it as a commodity. I think as long as punk remains independent, and as long as it remains DIY and controlled by the same people that consumes, it’s still a pretty amazing thing. Of course it is a commodity but everything is a commodity inside of capitalism. You are a commodity and I am a commodity because we have to sell our workforces to survive. It’s an obligatory thing in capitalism so it’s naïve to criticise punkrock because we have to sell stuff or because it becomes a commodity, because everything is. You can’t really escape from that. But we can make this commodity thing into a progressive thing, into something that we benefit from, into something that’s revolutionary. A piece of paper is a commodity, but you can write something revolutionary in it and distribute it and then it becomes a revolutionary commodity if something like that can really be.
Laci: I think it’s a good idea to end this interview to ask you about the positive side of being a South American band and living in Brazil. We’ve now only talked about all the negative aspects, but I think the people should know about all those beautiful things that exist and what makes your life beautiful.
Pedro: There’s lots of good things, especially hardcore wise I think. One of them is that since we live in a place that’s so full of contradictions and so many in-your-face situations, I think we have a more direct anger to sing about so it makes up for a better punk. It doesn’t really have to be an abstraction for us. We see that everyday. That’s a very cool. And I think it’s easier to make people relate to political issues in places like Brazil like it is in places like maybe Germany or Belgium because if we talk about Brazilian or Latin American issues in Belgium people really have to imagine, they don’t really see it. It becomes just abstract. While in Brazil, people see it everyday and it’s much easier to relate. A lot of people even suffer from it. Maybe because of that we have a really cool scene over there. A lot of people are politically active, and many kids are into cool things. Even leaving political issues aside, the hardcore scene and especially the straight edge scene is much more punk then it is in most of Europe. That’s pretty cool in my opinion. Even aesthetically because I think it makes up for better bands and it makes people less concerned about fashion and stuff.
I don’t really like to brag about my culture because I kind of feel uncomfortable talking about Brazilian culture because is it really Brazilian culture or is it a stereotype of the ideology of the ruling class. Or the ideology that imperialism pushes as what being Brazilian is all about. I like it there as much as I hate it there. I’m not proud of being from there, but I’m not really ashamed of it. I think that right now in the world maybe revolutionary things can start in poor countries, can start in the Third World because we are the weakest bond in the chain of capitalism. I think that is a pretty crucial thing, an important thing to think about when you live there. That’s the biggest thing from being from Latin America I guess, and also Eastern Europe maybe. Although as much as we’re different, we’re also similar in a lot of ways. Band wise with Point Of No Return, being from there is a pretty important thing. Other bands in the past have become really big in terms of influence because they started with new issues that appealed to a lot of people like for example Crass. They became a huge thing because they brought real anarchism back as an interesting thing to the youth and they brought serious anarchism into punkrock. And then in the straight edge scene a band like Youth Of Today became really influential because they pushed a more militant view of straight edge and they pushed vegetarianism. Even a controversial band like Earth Crisis also became really influential because they had something new to say, which was their way of veganism and the whole straight edge thing. I don’t know how influential they were in the long term but bands like Man Lifting Banner and Nations On Fire were really influential in Brazil because they had amazing things too say and they totally connected straight edge to politics, which not a lot of bands had done before. So I think that Point Of No Return can be one of those bands because they’re the first band that’s pushing a Third World agenda and is talking about Third World problems to the hardcore scene and also associating that with straight edge and hardcore in a way that it doesn’t really become alienated from each other. They don’t really have two different things that don’t really belong together. They have their own version of straight edge which is really connective to being from Latin America, to being from the Third World. And I think they’re an amazing band because of that, and because they’re doing that I think they can be one of those bands that’s going to be very influential and going to add something to punkrock and especially the straight edge hardcore scene. Especially now when this scene is dominated by mediocrity and passivity. I think that’s it.
ZEGOTA
Some from the dzsukhell collective were running a zine called xresistancex back in the days. Only isse no 1 was printed and the second one (though it was ready) was sleeping on my PC for about 10 years..hehe. Now, I guess it's time for some nostalgy! I start with the zegota one! (this was done when zegota played in hungary. we recorded this stuff and then i typed in and made some errors both when asking the questions or when typing and misunderstanding something...that was due to my level of english at that time..i didn't correct any of those mistaks, let them be records of how we communicated back in those days. I put up the version that was supposed to be printed..just to show you how it was planned to be released..)
Would you introduce the band? You know, things like the members etc..J:Ah.. Well the band is called Zegota. Hmm.. Right know we consist of Jon, Ard, Will and Moe.
M: Will and Arod are not presented in the interview.
J: Most of us are from a town called Greensborough in North Carolina. Ard is from just outside of a town called …in the Netherlands. Hmmm.. Is it a good introduction?
R: Yeah. So, as you’re being the member of Catharsis and as I suppose all of you are the ‘members’ of Crimethinc.. Are there any differences in the message of Zegota, -does the band have a specific message -or it represents the whole Crimethinc. ideology?
J: I think, that what we’re trying to do in Zegota with music is the same thing that Crimethinc. wants to do with publishing books and with action… I think, Crimethinc. doesn’t have a message and this is the case with Zegota too. So, it’s not a message that we want to communicate to people. Crimethinc. is nothing new and Zegota is nothing new, it’s just a new way of articulating a feeling that is already there, that is already in the world. I think of Crimethinc. more as a frontline of battle than an organization. Crimethinc. exists in everyone to the same extent that it does in us. We just have a name for it. And it’s Crimethinc.. It means your true yourself. It means that you follow your desires and demand more from the world than it is offered. We live in a such a sheep fuckin’ world… And that’s all Crimethinc. is.
R: While you were on the stage, you said that people should follow their desires even if these desires are destructive ones. But in my opinion whenever somebody is acting he/she should think out whether his/her actions, desires are moral ones or not.
J: I think I understand what you’re trying to say… Yes, I have morals, but not in the traditional sense. The thing is, when all of your beliefs… when meaning is affixed to all of your actions then freedom as an action is irrelevant, because everything that you are and everything that you think is right, is already laid out for you. I’ve morals, I believe in morals, but my morals are never concrete, I never want my morals to be predictable. I believe, that creation and destruction are part of the same thing, and that every act of destruction is also an act of creation and also every act of creation is also an act of destruction. I don’t want my action to be predetermined by law or god or morals or whatever. I believe that my role as a revolutionary, as an anarchist or whatever means I have to be formless and I have to be adaptable. I believe in balance. I believe that morals exist for a good purpose and I have values that are… and if I look back over my past actions I can see these overwhelming morals or values or whatever. But I never want them to determine my action now. I want to be free in this moment, able to do anything that I want. Not pinned down by, worrying about whether what I’m doing is right according to this or that moral, or this or that tradition. My thing is to banish all traditions and all morals, and realize that they are not concrete, that every moment is fresh, every moment is like a blank canvas that can be created or destroyed, however we please in the moment. I mean, every moment is recreated the instinct we live in and there’s no tradition or law or moral that can tell me how I can act. I can act in any way I want. And realizing that in each moment is really important to me, and that’s a big reason why I’m a musician and why I’m a part of Crimethinc.. Does that answer to your question?
R: Yes, maybe. But you know, realizing such things presupposes that you are good, that you’re a good man. To live in this way you should have a valuable life where you don’t threaten other peoples lives.
M: I think, I understand it. I guess what we say, like sometimes follow destructive behavior when it comes down to real life and being emotional and creative. And… Yeah, it’s important to realize that your behavior and your actions can affect the earth we live on and the people we care about, the things we care about and the ideas we care about. And all has to be take into consideration. When we go on is like emotional and a creative, sometimes pleasurable experiences and sometimes like disturbing experiences. But if it’s a question of kinda like whether we should be aware of everything in what we are destructive or it is a consequence regardless that we’re gonna be destructive… and there’s always gonna be things that it affects… I guess, my answer is that just to be honest with the world and try not to cause negative effects throughout living, you know. Because I mean, I wanna be positive and I wanna be supportive of the things that my friends are doing mostly. There are important parts in life where you feel deserve, like good attention and love and care… And I think, what John was talking about “how desires can sometimes be destructive”… There’s a flip-side that desires can be the most… can be the most beautiful thing ever. I’m not sure… The question was a kinda wage for me, you know, and I think I have a wage answer. You probably know what I mean.R: As parts of the crimethinc. collective what do you do in your private life? You know, how do you spend your days?
J: As for today?
R: Not only, but in general.
J: Like when I’m at home. Like when I’m not on tour.
R: Yes.
J: Hmm… As for how my days have been: During the fall and during the spring after I get back from the Catharsis tour I spent a lot of time working on school. I was a student at the University in my town and I.. I decided- over the summer- to quit that University, because I wanted to have more of time to myself. I spend… I guess I spend my time doing different things. I spend a lot of time with writing, because I love to write. I do a lot of reading, because I love to read good writings. All of us -as being a part of Crimethinc.- are occupied by various Crimethinc. busywork, like there’s tons of mails to answer, and there’s usually some Crimethinc. project in motion at any given time. I guess, under the banner of Crimethinc. I worked on a few projects over the spring and summer. They were really important to me, helping to organize a “reclaim the streets” in my hometown… I worked on (sorry I couldn’t understand) project, known infamously as the “noise parade”. Crimethinc. is always busy with putting out records and a lot of work was put into the Crimethinc. book which was recently published in Europe, you can saw them downstairs. And there’s always a calms to write or you know, there are dreams to realize. I try to spent all my time during a day with persuading some desire that I have. Like, whether it’s a dream to travel somewhere, or to have an idea and realize that idea. I do end up compromising that value sometimes.. I worked … I had a job for part of the summer and I worked some, because I had to make some money because I had no apartment I had to pay a rent and my student loan was not enough to pay for that all.. yeah.. Moe?M: My life doesn’t consist… I don’t do a lot of Crimethinc. busywork anymore, like the answering of the letters and packaging boxes and shit like that. I guess… In the past year I was living in Philadelphia while John was on tour with Catharsis and to me that was a challenge that I’ve never lived that far away from my hometown, I guess. And especially in a much bigger city. Not knowing really anyone, and I got through that and I got a lot of experiences. As for me that time of living in Philadelphia was kinda putting a lot of fears to test and to limit whether I was gonna be able to cope with being in such a big and strange place where I didn’t really know anyone. And I did. And I learned a lot about myself. Like, I learned a lot of like difficulties I have in my life, because I showed up to the city, and with expectations for the city to do something for me, and me not necessarily do something for the city or for myself at the same time. I remember, the first month I was living in Philadelphia I just like, I found a place to live with some friends on a couch and I just like.. I wasn’t do anything for myself like I just stuck in the house in the neighborhood, walking around sometimes and that was it… I just was in going on to the world and making something… And it took some time when I gradually was able to make some friends, and see some things, and be a part of something, and create something. Living in Philadelphia kinda pushed me to the edge of what I should be doing of my life. And once Catharsis got back, and John came back and Zegota got back together I moved back to North Carolina, not to our hometown Greensborogh, but to a town about an hour away, because I just wasn’t ready to be around everyone I knew. I found a basement to live in for barely any money. And that’s when things start happening for the better for me because like there’s always woods everywhere and in Philadelphia it is not like that. It’s pretty intimidating, because it’s all country and it’s all pretty round down. But in this new town Chapel Hill, North Carolina there is always trails to follow and walk around and just think about things that I wanna be involved in. Honestly the people I was living with has a great part in that because they are people that were fucking so beautiful and creative that they are always pushing each other. And there is this times when something beautiful happen, because we’re all involved in and pushing each other. But with that comes these times when we are all just sitting in around the room, bored as hell. That’s kinda a part of what it has been and I guess, that being alive is trying to find some sort of fight boredom and trying to make something useful and we don’t feel like there is anything useful. And that’s kinda like, I know that when I get back to North Carolina there’s gonna be some bad in our town. As far as maybe I can travel for five months so that I feel if I could always be impressive. Like, fuck!, how the hell could I be bored now. There are things to think about, there are things to do. I guess it still happens. To pay my cheap rent I put on a tax and I work for a catering company…It’s pretty boring, but it covers my plain ticket to Europe and I can pay for a van for us to tour in the US to get all these other experiences. So at the same time I totally compromise I realize my dreams as well.
R: Have you ever thinking about how to live your life? Do all the band members live their lives according to the same values?
J: That’s a sort of similar question to what we were talking about earlier. I think, that Crimethinc. definitely has an entire work-philosophy about life that we should never work for anyone but ourselves. We should never sell our time or energy to the highest bidder like fucking sheep. But Crimethinc. is also about getting things done and about action and about creation. And sometimes living in a capitalist society that takes money, takes the resources that money can put in your hands and many times those resources and that money is more important to me than the ethic or the moral of never work. I mean, Crimethinc. never work, never ever work, but I have dreams and goals and I’m willing to sacrifice that moral and that philosophy and that belief in order to be active. I would rather accept that fate as a worker and be able to create as my heart creates, instead of sitting around or whatever.
M: The idea of never working and always working for yourself… and the idea of becoming a hypocrite… I mean, like John or I said we both have jobs and we both have expenses like to live under a roof and to have water, electricity and heat. We do become hypocrites at times, but to me it’s like… in order to not feel if I’m selling my life away I’m working so many hours a week, it’s to become resourceful. And in a world where is so abundance with access, especially in America, where you actually you can get buy a lot of things whether it’s finding your food in dumpsters or shopping at stores that sell clothes second hand or funny ways like scam in trains, riding bikes. Just like trying to take everything that people think “… oh fuck, we don’t need that outcast…” or “this new technology just came out to make this role of my life, this much better - I don’t need this old piece of crap anymore. It’s about taking that and being like HA-HA, now I don’t have to buy another of these products, because you just want to throw away and I’m going to take it and use it at second hand. To me, that is like: “ Fuck yeah, I live of your trash to the best that I can!” Because me doing that says that I don’t have to put on my tax this week and go and serve you fuckers like food at the next time here when your rich daughter gets married.
R: But how do you imagine your future, while following this life-style? Do you think that you’ll be able to live the way you live now, when you get much older? Would you change anything in the future?
M: It’s definitely like, we are young and we do have ideas and I do foresee complications in the future. But, to me it’s a big deal to make the lifestyles that we are choosing to live and how we do it, to somehow make it sustainable. So we can grow old and there is an alternative community of people that do care about each other and we’ll hope to take care one and others needs. It’s easier to me to say these things now, because I am considered a young man in American society. There are things in that what we are doing now that we are definitely going to change, maybe for the better or for the worse. But I honestly feel as if around it is something that can be put you right on and there is a future in it and I do have a future in Life and living like this.
J: Yeah. That’s a question the people always wanna ask. People always talking to us about the future and being secure, having security in the future like “how you are… how it’s gonna be when have won’t have any money to retire or to have insurance?”. I believe that security doesn’t come with money, that no amount of money can buy the security that I want. Security comes from community and having friends and being able to depend on one or another to take care of each other and to fulfill our needs. And I think, that’s not something that gets bought, and all people are capable of that just as much as young people. I have friends that I plan on having for the rest of my life, and as we grow old together we’ll find ways to overcome our problems collectively. I have much more confidence in the Crimethinc. collective and the community that we have together than I would ever have in some fucking health insurance company or some rest home for full of ninety year old people who can’t fucking go to the bathroom without a nurse whom they don’t know and who doesn’t care about them and who is only there in order to earn their fucking minimum wage and go watch TV at night.
R: Do you agree with Greg from Trial who said that Trial for him is like an immortality project and that he wants to make some remarkable things for the future
J: Hmmm… Yeah, I read that in the interview in reflections about Greg. And I don’t agree or disagree with Greg has going on. I don’t think of Zegota as having to do with mortality or.. immortality or whatever. To me, it’s a form of self-expression, a music. And we use the music and the words of Zegota to try to express who we are. And there is all these by-products of that expression like travel, like meeting new people, like expending you horizon as an individual. But the only purpose, the only reason that I play guitar is for self-expression and to share myself with people, because I believe that’s important. Maybe that is a sort of like immortality, but to me it’s more about being in the moment and being present here and now and talking to you or whatever. R: I think, you are a politically aware band. What do you think about current political events involving Israel, the EU or the USA?
J: Okay. I think that we are a very important point in Human history where there’s global capitalism and capitalism on such an imposing scale that the radicals and anarchists still left. I’m gonna have to work really hard to keep the planet alive, to keep the plane from destroying itself. I think, this fall coming back to Europe, Europe is so much more like the United States than it was last year when I came. You can see it in people’s attitudes and there… like there’s McDonalds everywhere and Burger King etc. all this banners of global capitalism are littered across Europe and ore so in Eastern Europe than I suspected and it’s really a big problem. I think that the recent actions in Seattle and D.C. and Prague surrounded the IMF protest are really important. People are stepping up and acting in a way they haven’t for years. Just the fact that five thousand people can show up to a protest, ready to basically have a street fight with the police in order to shut down the meeting of the World Bank or the IMF, is pretty amazing. I think what is important for us as activist to realize now is that our actions should no longer be symbolic. Of the sixties and the hippies and the yuppies in America concentrated on making their voices heard, voicing their opinion as protestors. If you go to the protest and you have your banner and you have your slogans or whatever you make your voice heard. But to me they are… the big deal now is to realize that nobody is listening, your voice is not heard and that symbolic action is non-action, symbolic action is action that doesn’t take place. I think, we need to concentrate our protests more on being clever and being settled and when we set out to stop the IMF and the World Bank, we should think of new ways and new means to actually stop the IMF or the World Bank. To stop them should be our goal, not to voice our opinion or to make ourselves seen or heard. I think that a single protestor hiding in the basement of the building where the IMF meeting is held, who can flip a power switch at the right time is so much more valuable to our movement than two-hundred people outside carrying signs or whatever. And I think people need to concentrate more than they ever have on not getting caught. So many people that I know have been in jail and have been paying outrageous costs for court costs to get themselves out. To me it seems like such a waste of time and money to even put yourself in that situation. I wanna say to everyone who showed up in Prague, in Philly and L.A. : Don’t get caught! Get away with it! Have a plan, have a scheme and execute that! I think that one of the really valuable things about modern protestors is the affinity group and that people form these single autonomous groups called ‘affinity groups’ where they come out with their own plans and designs and execute them themselves independently of any central organization. And I think that that is a really productive way and a really good way to get things done, because there is no central leadership or authority and you can act freely in an out yourself. Just a small group of five or six people can plan something and make it happen without all the inertia of central leadership, without all the chaos involved with trying to organize mass of groups of people. But I mean, to answer your question I think that the world is at a critical point and that the anarchists that are still alive really have to work hard because… because we’re losing a big fight. And I think as the world becomes more capitalist-centered the environment is gonna be destroyed bit by bit. And people’s ability to realize what’s happening in the world is gonna be destroyed bit by bit. I think, in a hundred or two hundred years life as we know it will be gone and…. shit it’s gonna be fucked up.
R: Anything you wanted to say during the interview … or any last words…
J: I guess I would just say to people who are reading this that you owe it to yourself not to waste anymore time, embrace life and… Don’t give up.
R: Thank you!
J, M: Thank you.
