Music |
“You can blow out a candle/ But you can’t blow out a fire/ Once the flames begin to catch/ The wind will blow it higher”
By
Published: Apr 18, 2021
Category:
World
Chris Wallace was the only American journalist permitted to interview Vladimir Putin face-to-face at the Helsinki summit in 2018. As Craig Lambert writes in a profile of Wallace, the longtime host of Fox News Sunday asked Putin a blunt, unprecedented question: “Why do so many people who criticize you end up dead?” For good measure, he mentioned a few names.
This week, Putin is likely to add one more. Last year, his agents poisoned dissident politician Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok. Five months later, when Navalny recovered, he returned to Russia, knowing he’d be arrested. He was sent to a jail known for harsh conditions. On March 31, to protest the refusal of prison authorities to treat him for acute back and leg pain, he began a hunger strike. He’s at increasing risk of kidney failure. He may have pneumonia. Eighty writers, actors, historians, journalists and directors wrote an open letter to Putin on April 16, urging him to give Navalny medical care. On April 17, Navalny’s press representative reported, “People typically avoid the word ‘dying’. But Aleksei is dying now. In his condition, it is a matter of days.”
Why does Putin kill people? Because he can. Because it pleases him. Because it’s a reminder to others to keep silent. And, above all, because he doesn’t fear that a dead dissident can become a martyr who inspires citizens to revolt.
Navalny is a likely martyr.
He needs to be a song.
Why did the Russians tear down the Berlin Wall? The common answer is because Ronald Reagan told them to do it. I say: Western culture. Jeans and music. Look at Bruce Springsteen singing Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” in East Berlin in 1988. Historic. Unprecedented. 300,000 East Berliners were there. Yes, Bruce is terrific. But look at the faces in the crowd. They tell me: That wall is coming down.
Now consider South Africa. Steve Biko, a 30-year-old black activist, was the country’s most important young black leader. He was arrested in 1977 for being outside his district after hours and because the police had “reason to believe” he was distributing inflammatory pamphlets. He was held, naked and rarely fed, in a Port Elizabeth police station from August 19 to Sept. 6. He suffered a head injury. Then he was taken 800 miles, naked and manacled in the back of a Land Rover, from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria, where he died. The official cause of death: “brain injury.”
Many black men in South Africa were killed by the police, without any officials charged, during those years. But Biko’s murder galvanized black opposition more than any murder since the 1960 police massacre of 62 protesters in Sharpeville.
Peter Gabriel, who was morally sensitive before there was a name for it, wrote a song. It was banned in South Africa, where the government saw it as a threat to security. But it was an international hit, and it’s credited for making resistance to apartheid part of western popular culture. Gabriel donated the proceeds — about $60,000 — to the South African Black Consciousness Movement. And not least, it was the final song of his concerts for a few years. A fan recalls: “The crowd chanted the final part of the song for what seemed like ten minutes after the band had left the stage.” Another remembers a 1988 concert in Buenos Aires: “70,000 candles singing ‘Biko.’” Bono said that “‘Biko’ is where my journey to Africa began.” Later, there was a not so great movie, starring Denzel Washington. [To buy the MP3 download of “Biko” from Amazon, click here.]
Peter Gabriel has made a new recording of the song. You’ll see many musicians you don’t know and a few you do: Meshell Ndegeocello, Yo-Yo Ma — what he does with his bow at 1:53 is thrilling — and Angélique Kidjo. It’s a benefit for the Playing for Change Foundation. As I write, it’s raised $48,000 of a desired $50,000. To donate, click on the button on the video.
These are the lyrics:
September ’77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead
The man is dead
When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead
The man is dead
You can blow out a candle
But you can’t blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead
The man is dead
And the eyes of the world are watching now, watching now.
And here is the video:
Why write about this now? Because police are killing more and more black people in our country. It’s always “accidental.” It looked like he had a gun. He had an air freshener dangling from his rear view mirror and when we made a routine stop, he ran. We had the wrong address. How were we to know the 13-year-old kid in the playground had a toy gun? I had my knee on his neck for nine minutes, but it only looks like murder. And on and on.
It’s difficult to sustain outrage now; there are too many events, they happen so frequently they blur, pandemic fatigue has become pandemic trauma, and we’ve had the vaccine, we’re desperate to get out and do whatever.
I have a thought.
Somebody ought to write a song as good as “Biko.”
