{"id":508,"date":"2007-09-29T18:52:17","date_gmt":"2007-09-29T18:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=508"},"modified":"2021-03-15T18:35:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T18:35:39","slug":"internationalist-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/29\/internationalist-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Internationalist Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allan Armstrong reviews two albums, which address the world of migrant workers \u2013 dispossession and discrimination, longing and hope, oppression and resistance.<\/h2>\n
\"Road
Road of Tears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Road of Tears<\/cite><\/a><\/h3>\n

Battlefield Band, \u00a39.50<\/p>\n

Battlefield Band released their 26th album, The Road of Tears<\/cite>, last year. The theme is emigration and immigration. The album makes the link between the experience of the dispossessed from Scotland and Ireland, in the face of clearance and famine, and the plight of the world\u2019s migrant workers today. The band\u2019s line-up highlights Scotland\u2019s multi-ethnic character, with the Scots, Alan Reid and Alistair White, the Irish, Sean O\u2019Donnell and Jewish American, Mike Katz (Highland pipe player!)<\/p>\n

The title track, written and sung by Alan Reid, sets the scene by focusing on the Highland Clearances, the Irish Famine and the Trail of Tears. This refers to the Cherokees\u2019 march to Oklahoma, in 1838. They were forcibly, removed by US<\/acronym> President Jackson, to the Indian Territories (Oklahoma). Four thousand, mainly women and children, died on the trail. The survivors sent money to the Irish Famine Relief Fund in 1847.<\/p>\n

The album includes fine versions of two of Burns\u2019 poems, sung by Alan Reid, The Slaves Lament<\/cite> and To A Mouse<\/cite>. Woody Guthrie\u2019s Plane Wreck At Los Gatos<\/em> is sung by Sean O\u2019Donnell. Many will already know this song as Deportees<\/em> from Christy Moore\u2019s Spirit of Freedom<\/cite> album. Battlefield\u2019s sleeve notes link the death of 28 illegal Mexican migrant workers in 1948 with the fate of the 18 cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay in 2004.<\/p>\n

The first instrumental set includes the piece dedicated to Mr. Galloway Goes To Washington<\/cite>. This celebrates George Galloway\u2019s triumph in the face of the US<\/acronym> Senate sub-committee. There are another four instrumental sets which also show off Battlefield\u2019s musical skills. The album finishes with The Green and The Blue<\/cite>, written and sung by Alan Reid, calling upon Irish migrants from Antrim and Fermanagh, arriving in Scotland to:-<\/p>\n

Look onwards to Glasgow and all your tomorrows The future lies there, and its still waiting for you As the green crosses over to meet with the blue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Its great to see that that some of Scotland\u2019s leading musicians can fully live up to that Scottish internationalist spirit, so well demonstrated in Hamish Henderson\u2019s Freedom Come All Ye<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

La Radiolina<\/cite><\/h3>\n

Manu Chau
\nNacional Records<\/p>\n

\"Manu
Manu Chau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Manu Chao first came to international fame for his Clandestino<\/cite> album, which sold three million copies worldwide, putting it just behind Bueno Vista Social Club<\/cite> as the best-selling world-music album of all-time. Not a lot of people know that \u2013 well not in the English-speaking world that is. Hopefully, things will change here with the recent release of Manu\u2019s third album, La Radiolina<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

Manu grew up in Paris, because his Galician father and Basque mother had to escape from Franco\u2019s fascist Spain. Manu\u2019s current home base is the Catalan capital of Barcelona, but he spends a lot of time in Buenos Aires, another city with a strong oppositional culture. He also visits Bamako in Mali, a major centre of world music.<\/p>\n

La Radiolina<\/cite> includes songs in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and English. It has a much rockier feel compared to his first album. This is because he uses Radio Bemba Sound System for backing. \u2018Radio Bemba\u2019 is the word-of-mouth system used by the Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, to communicate with each other in the forest of the Sierra Maestra.<\/p>\n

When Manu recently toured the USA<\/acronym>, he played to a 90,000 strong audience, at the Coachela Festival in California. They were waiting to hear their idols, Rage Against the Machine, but he won over the mainly non-Latin audience. His band performed with a banner draped across the stage – Immigrants are not Criminals<\/cite>. This followed the major protests organised mainly by Latin American immigrants, throughout the USA<\/acronym>, on May Day, 2006.<\/p>\n

The lyrics from one of Manu\u2019s English-worded songs give an indication of Manu\u2019s politics and highlight the reason why so many people are forced to emigrate worldwide. After verses about the appalling conditions in war-torn Zaire and Liberia, Manu finishes Rainin in Paradize<\/cite> with the following verse:-<\/p>\n

In Bagdad
\nIts no democracy
\nThat\u2019s just because
\nIt\u2019s a US<\/acronym> country!
\nIn Fallouja
\nToo much calamity
\nThis world go crazy
\nIts no fatality<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get Manu\u2019s new album up there to equal the sales of the justly famed Bueno Vista Social Club<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

Battlefield Band<\/a>
\nBattlefield Band (Wikipedia)<\/a>
\nManu Chau<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allan Armstrong reviews two albums, which address the world of migrant workers \u2013 dispossession and discrimination, longing and hope, oppression and resistance. The Road of Tears Battlefield Band, \u00a39.50 Battlefield Band released their 26th album, The Road of Tears, last year. The theme is emigration and immigration. The album makes the link between the experience…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,102],"tags":[230],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emancipation-liberation","category-issue-15","tag-author-allan-armstrong"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":10934,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18686,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions\/18686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}