Day 340. The eyes of the world.. (6/12/13)

I'll tell this quickly in the order that I remember it with all the inconsistencies that involves.

Anybody that has ever endured a 'new starter induction' with me will be aware that I have a quote that I love to run out to explain what my job 'does';

"Music can't change the world but it can change the way that you walk through the world" - Joe Strummer.

The thing is that I don't actually 100% believe that that's true. Very, very occasionally music does have the power to change the world, to make people aware of the plight of others, to highlight causes and issues.

It wasn't The Special AKA's 'Free Nelson Mandela' that first influenced me to "heed the causes of the ANC". In 1980 I bought Peter Gabriel's third album (known as 3 since he didn't title his work at that time) wherein the singer, previously known as a deliverer of fantasies with the original line up of Genesis, discovered his political side;

"September 77, Port Elizabeth, weather fine. It was business as usual in police room 619"

The album's closing track, the epic "Biko" described the story of the death of Steve Biko, the leader of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, whilst in police custody. Biko had died in 1977. I was 13, I knew nothing of it. At 16 I was at exactly the right age to understand the evil of apartheid.

I can't claim to have marched in opposition to the South African regime, I've never been one for involvement, I sometimes wish that I was, that I had been, more active in this way. Morally, obviously I found the system repugnant.

I would still have been unaware of Nelson Mandela at this point but my knowledge and understanding of his stance, his position, his cause and beliefs would have grown during the early part of the 80s. Bear in mind that the stance against apartheid was entirely on the side of the left wing, that opposition to institutionalised racism and hatred was a socialist principle. Remember this as David Cameron whose party was in power in the early 80s spouts his platitudes about Mandela's great leadership, remember that his great hero Margaret thatcher described Mandela as a terrorist, that the Conservative student body that he belonged to printed posters stating that we should "Hang Nelson Mandela and all ANC terrorists. They are butchers." The apology that he made for Thatcher's statement in 2006 holds no weight; his party believed in upholding apartheid, believed in the right of a minority to rule over a majority.

Through the early 80s the left leaning music community took up the baton, took on the responsibility of passing on the word to the world. And this is where we find that music is capable of social change.

Jerry Dammers, ex of The Specials and a commentator on political and social issues through his work wrote 'Free Nelson Mandela' in 1984 founding Artists Against Apartheid shortly thereafter to continue the message started with the success of the single. A direct line leads to 1988's 'Mandela Day' concert at Wembley; a show designed to celebrate the still imprisoned ANC leader's 70th birthday.

Gabriel's 'Biko' continued "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"

The eighties had been a decade when an idea was finally able to take hold in the outside world, when a section of society (in the face of what its leaders believed) was able to take a stance against a global injustice. Publicity played its part in that; a small gesture, a song of outrage by one man, gave millions an insight into another man's struggle.

I've always strongly believed that, no matter how strongly Jerry Dammers would undoubtedly refute the idea, that one song raised the consciousness of the general public to an incredible degree.

Change can be effected by the desire of the ordinary people. Change came here in the shape of the walk to freedom, Mandela's release from prison in 1990. The moment was vivid, the first sight that the world at large had been given of the man that they had campaigned in the name of; a slighter figure than the robust young lawyer that had been imprisoned 27 years earlier but whose real stature would become evident in the four years that followed.

And today he's gone, 95 years of age, a man who spent a third of his life in prison for an ideal that he would have been prepared to die for but was able to forgive his jailers. Indisputably the greatest leader of the last century, a giant amongst men who accomplished what had seemed impossible for so long; the eradication of a system based on constitutional bigotry.

Barack Obama, whose Presidency would be inconceivable without the prior example of Mandela's statesmanship, paid appropriate tribute with the words of Lincoln's secretary;

"He no longer belongs to us, he belongs to the ages"

Political pygmies will spend the coming days attempting to gain political credence with tributes to a giant that their forebears abhorred; it's of little concern, it has been proved now that ultimately you cannot defy the will of the people to achieve what is right.

Peter Gabriel, once again,  and his commemoration of the passing of Steve Biko;

"The eyes of the world are watching now."

There is one other quote that I love; William Blake - "A man's reach should exceed his grasp else what's a heaven for?" - aspiration to achieve more than is thought possible.

We have been privileged to share our time with the greatest of men.

RIP