Bono the "Radical Chic Artist"

This article published by The Phoenix tells us what Fermin Muguruza thinks of Bono, the lead man for Irish band U2:

Basque planet

Fermin Muguruza takes Bono to task

BY JOSH KUN

On the opening night of the World Economic Forum last January, Bono introduced Jean-Paul Messier, the CEO of Vivendi-Universal, by calling him a " corporate motherfucker. " Far from an insult, it was an elbow nudge between millionaires and a sign of just how empty Bono’s merger of pop and politics has become. Even before Angélique Kidjo and Ravi Shankar took the stage to do a post–September 11 version of " we are the world, " the script’s finale had been written and performed: corporatized rebellion had triumphed, and the international audience of business executives and world leaders gathered to " address global issues " and to engage the forum’s " corporate members in global citizenship " had been assured that dissent can be bought.

As post-punk Basque singer/songwriter Fermin Muguruza reminds us on his 2000 album of cheery agit-ska, FM 99.00 Dub Manifest (newly available in the United States on Piranha), this was not the first time Bono had embarrassed himself in the presence of world leadership. In " Radical Chic, " Muguruza blasts Bono for calling the pope a " funky pontiff. " Bono’s blur of trans-national politics into corporate handshakes and wanna-be cool poses represents everything Muguruza — who since the 1980s has been a leading musical voice for Basque nationalist independence — is against.

Bono is what Muguruza calls a " radical chic artist " : someone who in trying to make rebellion cool sacrifices the true purpose of art: to be dangerous, to tell the truth, to upset the social balance. Just look at the yellow crime-scene tape bearing the slogan " Artist Line Do Not Cross " that adorns FM’s liner notes. At Muguruza’s world economic forum, the musician is not an entertainer but a people’s cop who protects and serves the non-corporate members of the global citizenry. The Basques are the oldest indigenous ethnic group in Europe, and for the past three decades many of them — the car-bombing separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( " Basque homeland and freedom " ) being the most extreme example — have been struggling to be recognized as an autonomous people and region.

On FM’s opening track, Muguruza — who sings in Euskera, the Basque language — bills himself as the " commander " of a musical army armed with " dissident thinking against just one memory. " On " Nazio Ibilitaria Naiz, " a song from another Muguruza album now available, Brigadistak Sound System (Piranha), he calls himself " a wandering nation, " does a Public Enemy " fear of a Basque planet " riff, and then outlines a " strategy of symbolic resistance to linguistic domination, to the structured division of society. " He wants to keep modernization from becoming synonymous with cultural homogeneity — as he sings on " Big Benat and Korrika 2001: Reunite the World! " , he wants to be both a Basque and a citizen of the world, without having to sacrifice one for the other.

Although both albums were released more than two years ago, it’s hard to listen to either FM or Brigadistak without hearing them through the ears of Passover massacres and Jenin border attacks. Both albums come from a world of bombs exploding on city streets and of people so wedded to the land they call their own that they are willing to saturate it with their own blood. On FM’s " Ekhi Eder, " Muguruza laments that " the right to live in the place of birth appears to be on sale. "

Ever since the Franco dictatorship that Muguruza was born into suppressed Basque culture with death squads and political imprisonment, the violent tug-of-war between the Basques and the Spanish has had its echoes of the Middle East conflict, complete with political assassinations, ethnic separatism, and anti-state violence committed in the name of future state formation. Throughout Brigadistak — where Muguruza’s " musical army " is backed up by a global crew of " fellow travelers " that includes Mexican border punks Tijuana No and peripatetic Franco-Spanish agitator Manu Chao — he sings of language as if it were a weapon of war, of occupation as a way of life, and of culture as a military battlefield. He pays homage to his favorite Arabic bar while " remembering the words we have in common " ; he equates the US bombing of Iraq with " Madrid fascists " killing Basques.

You could see this as a shortsighted, even irresponsible, conflation of very different political situations. Or you could see it the way Muguruza does, as a brand of global thinking that instead of merging economies and linking national interests to international markets merges oppressions and links struggles. In short, one that calls Jean-Paul Messier a corporate motherfucker and doesn’t expect a laugh.

Issue Date: May 9 - 16, 2002

By the way, Manu Chao is Basque too, his mother is Basque, not Spaniard.

.... ... .