Originally published in ‘zine issue #12, 1994
Fascism Infects Us All!
by Jan Frederickx
Here in Belgium, we have three different languages: Flemish (it’s the same like Dutch from Holland), German, and French. We, Agathocles, come from the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. In October ‘94, we had elections to choose new governments for the cities and towns in Belgium. These elections are held every six years.
In the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, we have a very big fascist-minded political movement called the Vlaams Blok. Like every fascist-minded movement, they are against a multi-racial and multi-cultural society.
During the elections of October 1994, this movement has gained lots of votes, which means that some of their members have got a seat in the governments of a lot of Flemish-speaking cities and towns. They have now got the right to decide which policy has to be run in the town/city.
Well, let’s get to the point. In Belgium, we have got lots of youth centres where activities like info meetings, parties, workshops, gigs, et cetera can be held. These youth centres are very important to give bands of all kinds of music a chance to let people know their ideas and music. The gigs and other activities organized by the youth centres are mostly very cheap or even for free. The main idea behind these centres is to give everyone a chance to have fun, to learn something, and to do something active yourself. With “everyone,” I mean all kids, male, female, white, black, red, yellow, or whatever, with all different tastes of music, culture, fun, art, et cetera. Everyone is allowed at the centres. They are based upon multi-racial and multi-cultural principles. Multi-cultural also means all kinds of music, going from techno-rave to black metal or from ska to mince-core. Music is culture too, even if the music is a reaction against standardized culture.
These youth centres get money from the town/city in which it is located. The council of the town is in charge to give the yearly financial help to the centres. Without this money, the centres cannot function completely. You see where this is heading towards?
Viaams Blok are against a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. When these bastards have their say in the city-council, they will surely use their vote to sabotage these centres which, in their eyes of course, are a threat to their Aryan society. There’s no place for different cultures in their fascist “reich.” This means that it’s possible that, sooner or later, bands don’t get the chance to play in these centres or rehearse at the place.
“Get off your asses and do something about it.”
The same thing can be said about the French- and German-speaking parts of Belgium, where the fascists of the Front National have lots of influence.
We think it is time to act now, to do something about this problem right away, because before you know, we’ll all be the victims of fascist censorship, something like the “book burning” thing in Nazi Germany. But this time it will be a “record and tape burning” thing. And let’s not think about a “human burning” thing.
When it should happen, don’t say, “Wir haben es nicht gewusst,” because you have been warned many times before.
Okay, everyone has the right to have his/her own political belief, but fascism is not a belief. It is a crime! It takes away the right to have an own opinion! What can we do about it?
We can start by boycotting all fascist-minded bands, all fascist-minded papers, and all fascist-minded political movements. Boycotting fascism is not censorship, it is one of the ways to fight censorship. So get off your asses and do something about it.
The ones of you who are reading this and don’t care about this will be victims too, because maybe the time comes that your fave apolitical bands don’t have any place left to play. And one of those reasons will be your lack of interest and action.
Like we said before, fascism infects us all. To all people who have been involved with anti-fascist movements and activities, keep up the good work. To all of you who didn’t care until now, start being active and kick the Nazis’ butts. Any kind of help is good. Mince-core forever! Fascism never! ■
Pulling Your Chain
by Vaughn Currier
Well, it’s been a couple years since my last article, so I figured I’m about due. This is in regard to a benefit show for an abused women shelter I attended. The bands: Anasarca, Contagen, Bubble Jug, and someone else, all what I would call “emocore” or “post-hardcore.” I don’t like to use the term “politically correct,” but that’s what kind of show this was supposed to be: the bands, the audience, the cause.
And it happened again: skinheads. You know they come to just about every show. I mean, it’s fine that they’d want to come and participate, but there’s almost inevitably problems. They almost always seem to start fights. At this show, they started flailing into the crowd during of the songs. I mean hard-dancing with all their might. So we were getting annoyed by this, and one kid sat down in the middle of the floor out of protest, so they all started beating him down! We broke that up, but they threw a couple punches at the crowd, trying to start something.
In all reality, we could have beat them within an inch of their lives because we outnumbered them 10 to one, but instead we gave them their money back and asked them to leave. Eventually they did, after a good bit of name-calling.
Use your heads, my hairless brothers. Do something productive like plant a tree, adopt a cow, or hassle Ice Cube at one of his shows. ■