Chooky Dancers

A quirky dance routine to the music of Zorba the Greek has earned a group of young Aborigines worldwide fame on the Internet as well as invitations to perform around Australia, and also to visit Greece.

The father of one member of the troupe, who live on remote Elcho Island off Australia's northern coast, posted a clip of their engaging and comical performance on YouTube two months ago. As of this week, it had been viewed nearly 500,000 times. Half of the dozen dancers, aged between 12 and 23, for whom English is their second or third language, have never been further from home than Darwin; the other half had not even been to Darwin until recently.

Now the Chooky Dancers are preparing to travel to Melbourne in February for a televised talent competition, then on to a festival in Canberra. In March, they will tour Queensland.

Their act, which melds Aboriginal dance with music from the classic Sixties film, has reportedly won accolades from, among others, the legendary Zorba composer, Mikis Theodorakis. The young men and boys from the Yolngu clan who perform in bare feet, loincloths and ceremonial body paint - have been invited to Greece, where the video clip has caused such a storm that one cafe owner on the island of Kastelorizo screened it in the village square.

The recording was made at a music festival in Ramingining in Arnhem Land, a traditional tribal area in the Northern Territory. Lionel Djirrimbilpiluwy, the 21-year-old troupe leader, who came up with the Zorba idea, said: “It's fantastic the world wants to see us dance. Who would think a white-fella audience would react like that? It's incredible.”

Mr Djirrimbilpiluwy's father, Frank, a well-known singer who manages the Chooky Dancers, was responsible for bringing them to international attention. “We still can't believe it,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I posted video of the dance on YouTube for a bit of fun, and it just took off.”

The dancers hope they will be seen as role models on Elcho Island, which suffers from many of the social problems that blight Aboriginal communities.

From The Independent.

"Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of wonderful times to come"

From A German War Primer

by Bertolt Brecht


AMONGST THE HIGHLY PLACED
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.


Poverty and Wealth by William Powell Frith, 1888.

The lowly must leave this earth
Without having tasted
Any good meat.

For wondering where they come from and
Where they are going
The fine evenings find them
Too exhausted.

They have not yet seen
The mountains and the great sea
When their time is already up.

If the lowly do not
Think about what's low
They will never rise.

THE BREAD OF THE HUNGRY HAS
ALL BEEN EATEN
Meat has become unknown. Useless
The pouring out of the people's sweat.
The laurel groves have been
Lopped down.
From the chimneys of the arms factories
Rises smoke.

THE HOUSE-PAINTER SPEAKS OF
GREAT TIMES TO COME
The forests still grow.
The fields still bear
The cities still stand.
The people still breathe.

ON THE CALENDAR THE DAY IS NOT
YET SHOWN
Every month, every day
Lies open still. One of those days
Is going to be marked with a cross.

THE WORKERS CRY OUT FOR BREAD
The merchants cry out for markets.
The unemployed were hungry. The employed
Are hungry now.
The hands that lay folded are busy again.
They are making shells.



THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the contribution is destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.

WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACE
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.

THOSE AT THE TOP SAY: PEACE
AND WAR
Are of different substance.
But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.

War grows from their peace
Like son from his mother
He bears
Her frightful features.

Their war kills
Whatever their peace
Has left over.

ON THE WALL WAS CHALKED:
They want war.
The man who wrote it
Has already fallen.


Per Capita by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981.

THOSE AT THE TOP SAY:
This way to glory.
Those down below say:
This way to the grave.


Social Mobility by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset,
2005.

THE WAR WHICH IS COMING
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.

THOSE AT THE TOP SAY COMRADESHIP
Reigns in the army.
The truth of this is seen
In the cookhouse.
In their hearts should be
The selfsame courage. But
On their plates
Are two kinds of rations.


U.S. Army Tank Crew, Tamiya
Military Miniature Series

WHEN IT COMES TO MARCHING MANY DO NOT
KNOW
That their enemy is marching at their head.
The voice which gives them their orders
Is their enemy's voice and
The man who speaks of the enemy
Is the enemy himself.

IT IS NIGHT
The married couples
Lie in their beds. The young women
Will bear orphans.

GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.


US Air Force B-52 bomber returning from a mission
in Iraq with empty bomb racks under its wings.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.


The Thinker, Auguste Rodin,
1902.

Believe it or Not!

I was astonished to read in today's newspaper that the infamous Tata group has been hailed as the world's third most transparent and accountable corporation by Britain's One World Trust in their Global Accountability Report!

The assessment is supposed to be "a measure of the extent to which organisations have the policies and systems in place to enhance consistent and coherent accountability to the people they affect."


Victims of police firing, Kalinganagar.

In January 2006, 13 people (including a woman and a boy) were killed in police firing in Kalinganagar, Orissa, when indigenous communities protested against the setting up of a Tata steel plant and demanded rehabilitation of the evictees.


Tapasi Malik's charred body.

And later in 2006, the Tatas were in a hush-hush deal with the CPI(M) in West Bengal to obtain land to set up a car plant in the fertile agricultural zone of Singur. Almost exactly a year ago, Tapasi Malik, a young girl participating in the anti-acquisition movement, was brutally raped, murdered and burnt by the local powers that be, with a view to terrorising the agitationists into submission. (Read Dr Mrinal Bose's story on Singur here, and Sandip Bandopadhyay's article on Singur and Nandigram here.)

Here's my letter to the One World Trust (info@oneworldtrust.org).

Dear Madam or Sir

I am writing from Calcutta, India, after reading about the Tata group in India being named the world's third most accountable and transparent company in the One World Trust's Global Accountability Report.

I am dismayed to read this. In the last year and a half, people in Calcutta, in the state of West Bengal in India, and also elsewhere in India, have been extremely concerned about the secret deal made between the Tatas and the West Bengal state govt, for land in Singur to set up a car manufacturing plant in an extremely fertile agricultural belt. Both the company and the govt have shrouded the whole matter in secrecy. But given the fact that a large number of farmers and farm workers would be displaced, the matter is one of acute public concern. In December 2006, Tapasi Malik, a young girl participating in the anti-acquisition movement, was brutally raped, murdered and burnt by the local powers that be, with a view to terrorising the agitationists into submission.

Though the Tata group had tended to be regarded with a modicum of respect in India for its socially concerned policies, it is evident now that with the intensification of globalisation the company has decided to discard such principles and hunt with the hounds.

The state govt with which the Tatas made this deal - is one which is notorious in India today for its failure of governance, with the state ranking among the lowest in India in human development indicators. It is the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) that is running the state, rather than the govt. It is a parallel state within the state, unconstrained by laws and constitutional strictures. Every aspect of life in the state is controlled by the party. As witnessed through 2007 in Nandigram, another site of proposed land acquisition, the party rules by its murderous might. Yet the Tata group, for its commercial interests, has chosen to make a secret deal with this party, giving short shrift to the interests of people. The party then uses its proximity to the Tatas to boast about its success in attracting investments to the state.

The car plant being built in Singur is to manufacture the very low-cost car being developed by the Tatas. However, much more than cheap cars, what India needs now is a drastic overhauling of transport policy to address paralysing congestion, frightening pollution and escalating accidents. The Tatas have chosen to entirely disregard such concerns.

But in January 2006, well before the Singur land acquisition, 13 people (including 3 women and a boy) were killed in police firing in Kalinganagar in the neighbouring state of Orissa, when indigenous communities protested against the setting up of a Tata steel plant and demanded rehabilitation of the evictees. In its alacrity to make secret deals with pliant govts, all concern for the well-being of the country's people, and especially the poor and vulnerable sections, has been thrown to the wind. Amnesty International had conducted an investigation into this incident and concluded that the land acquisition was shrouded in secrecy, without the slightest transparency or public accountability.

Incidentally, the Global Accountability Report comes close on the heels of the news of the Tata vehicles being rated the worst in South Africa.

In the light of the above, one is compelled to dismiss the Global Accountability Report as something not worth paying any attention to, or even, more cynically, see it as a means to help the Tatas shore up their rapidly eroding credibility with a little bit of cosmetic make-up. However, the govts who make secret deals with the Tatas would undoubtedly be very pleased to read about the "distinction" granted to their friends, the Tatas.

Yours sincerely

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta / INDIA

A Palestinian woman speaks

Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian-American poet and political activist, who hails from Brooklyn.

Here is Suheir expressing her point of view as a Palestinian woman.