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Irony, anyone?
Jun. 8th, 2012 02:29 pmWe went to an alternative culture place yesterday to listen to a lecture about Neofolk and its supposed inherent right-wing tendencies. In fact, let's just quote the entire text advertising the event here:
Thursday 07 June
EAG-Tresen Diesmal mit Infoveranstaltung ab 20.00 Uhr. Die „Schwarze Szene“, wie sich das Milieu der Gothics und „Gruftis“ selbst bezeichnet, wird wegen rechter Tendenzen immer wieder von Antifaschist_innen kritisiert – meistens völlig zu Recht. Besonders unangenehm fällt in diesem Zusammenhang die Stilrichtung „Neofolk“ auf, der unter anderem die bekannten rechten Musikprojekte „Death in June“ und „Von Thronstahl“ zuzurechnen sind. Der mit ein paar Bildern und Hörbeispielen garnierte Vortrag wird darüber informieren, was Neofolk eigentlich ist, woher die rechten Einflüsse kommen und was das Ganze überhaupt soll.
Danach noch ein bisschen düstere Musik und gruslige Cocktails wie „Zombie“, „Suicide“ und „Bloody Mary“ (angefragt).
For a start, the mentioned cocktails were not served and those that were, were lacking in quality. But that's besides the point now and in any case, beer was cheap.
Even if I had no particular feelings about Neofolk, I think I might have been enticed to attend on the strength of the first sentence. Allow me to translate: "The 'Black Scene', as the subculture of the goths calls itself, has repeatedly been criticised by anti-fascists due to its right-wing tendencies - mostly absolutely justifiedly."
That is quite an accusation to make, isn't it?
The lecture that followed did not live up to this level of vitriol, was rather half-arsed, not terribly well researched and preferred to suggest and insinutate rather than analyze any band or song in detail. In fairness, I have heard worse discourse on the subject but remain convinced that I could have made a better case accusing the bands of using images and ideas questionably while defending them than the speaker did just accusing them.
Where said speaker really let himself down, though, was when we corrected him on certain details and disagreed (politely*) with some of his suggestions. As he later told us, he had not expected to have somebody who already knew about the subject present and would have much preferred if we had not been there. Of course he would, it's much easier to "teach" people if they just unquestioningly accept all you tell them.
Will I have to write the final word on neofolk myself?
To cap it all off: You will have noticed that the lecture was held in the context of the "EAG"-group. That's short for "Emanzipative und Antifaschistische Gruppe", in other words: anti-fascist and anti-sexist. And ye verily, out beloved speaker did say at several points that he really wasn't all that interested in what artist said what when and why (after doing just that making his case) but that he was rather interested in equal rights and lack of prejudice.
At the same time, his girlfriend was spreading flyers advertising her events all over the place, which sported the picture of a woman cutting the throat of another, deep-clevaged female on the front. Lesbians as psychos, psycho females, the male gaze on the suffering female, the murder of the confident female, you take your pick.
*Okay, slightly less politely when he suggested that Current 93 are actually a Nazi band. Why? Because they have a song and an EP ("a whole album", in his words) called "Hitler as Kalki". What is that song about? He could not tell us.
You do not insult David Tibet lightly in my presence.
Thursday 07 June
EAG-Tresen Diesmal mit Infoveranstaltung ab 20.00 Uhr. Die „Schwarze Szene“, wie sich das Milieu der Gothics und „Gruftis“ selbst bezeichnet, wird wegen rechter Tendenzen immer wieder von Antifaschist_innen kritisiert – meistens völlig zu Recht. Besonders unangenehm fällt in diesem Zusammenhang die Stilrichtung „Neofolk“ auf, der unter anderem die bekannten rechten Musikprojekte „Death in June“ und „Von Thronstahl“ zuzurechnen sind. Der mit ein paar Bildern und Hörbeispielen garnierte Vortrag wird darüber informieren, was Neofolk eigentlich ist, woher die rechten Einflüsse kommen und was das Ganze überhaupt soll.
Danach noch ein bisschen düstere Musik und gruslige Cocktails wie „Zombie“, „Suicide“ und „Bloody Mary“ (angefragt).
For a start, the mentioned cocktails were not served and those that were, were lacking in quality. But that's besides the point now and in any case, beer was cheap.
Even if I had no particular feelings about Neofolk, I think I might have been enticed to attend on the strength of the first sentence. Allow me to translate: "The 'Black Scene', as the subculture of the goths calls itself, has repeatedly been criticised by anti-fascists due to its right-wing tendencies - mostly absolutely justifiedly."
That is quite an accusation to make, isn't it?
The lecture that followed did not live up to this level of vitriol, was rather half-arsed, not terribly well researched and preferred to suggest and insinutate rather than analyze any band or song in detail. In fairness, I have heard worse discourse on the subject but remain convinced that I could have made a better case accusing the bands of using images and ideas questionably while defending them than the speaker did just accusing them.
Where said speaker really let himself down, though, was when we corrected him on certain details and disagreed (politely*) with some of his suggestions. As he later told us, he had not expected to have somebody who already knew about the subject present and would have much preferred if we had not been there. Of course he would, it's much easier to "teach" people if they just unquestioningly accept all you tell them.
Will I have to write the final word on neofolk myself?
To cap it all off: You will have noticed that the lecture was held in the context of the "EAG"-group. That's short for "Emanzipative und Antifaschistische Gruppe", in other words: anti-fascist and anti-sexist. And ye verily, out beloved speaker did say at several points that he really wasn't all that interested in what artist said what when and why (after doing just that making his case) but that he was rather interested in equal rights and lack of prejudice.
At the same time, his girlfriend was spreading flyers advertising her events all over the place, which sported the picture of a woman cutting the throat of another, deep-clevaged female on the front. Lesbians as psychos, psycho females, the male gaze on the suffering female, the murder of the confident female, you take your pick.
*Okay, slightly less politely when he suggested that Current 93 are actually a Nazi band. Why? Because they have a song and an EP ("a whole album", in his words) called "Hitler as Kalki". What is that song about? He could not tell us.
You do not insult David Tibet lightly in my presence.
