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Thursday, July 3, 2008

dance hall days





the atmosphere was so electrically charged in the "high hair and everything black" 80's that a certain sound can bring much of that back in an instant. the music was rich and abundant, and a "world music" sound was infiltrating dance music on both sides of the pond. but there were many things going on outside the precious dance halls of our very catered-to lives, too. the world was getting smaller it seemed. and there were some new kids in town making a big splash. their names were famine, apartheid, and plague. these n'er-do-wells were not just seen on southern shores, and the connections between ourselves and africa are astounding still. the issues we were dealing with at that time are still with us, although they have evolved. most of our "aids" panic has moved to other coasts. but definitely remains in africa. if only we could mobilize that continent's nations as we have done on northern soil. but some of those nations are still dealing with genocide and hatred. we certainly would have much much more to sing about if these could disappear. still, a thread that connects our lands began then and continues to grow. remember "do they even know it's christmas" and boomtown rats' bob geldorf and his "live aid"? or the clash's "sandinista" album? (i know it's anti-america and about nicaragua, but it helped pave the path to a more social awareness) and even "sun city" by little steven? mtv and my dance hall days broadcast the beginning of my generations' understanding of our own frailty in contrast to the injustices around the globe and in our own backyard, of the world's interdependence, and the beginnings of a higher consciousness and how much impact we could have and how much power we might muster. we didn't need to take life's punches lying down. i believe we began to know ourselves as citizens of the world and the brits were leading the way.



1980s - In 1985, a State of Emergency was declared in South Africa that would last for five years. This was a result of riots and unrest that had arisen in response to Apartheid, the system of racial segregation that had been in place since the 1950s. Apartheid prohibited mixed-race marriages and sex between different ethnic groups, and categorised separate areas in which different races lived. In the same year, the government set up the country’s first AIDS Advisory Group in response to the increasingly apparent presence of HIV amongst South Africans. The first recorded case of AIDS in South Africa was diagnosed in 1982, and although initially HIV infections seemed mainly to be occurring amongst gay men, by 1985 it was clear that other sectors of society were also affected. Towards the end of the decade, as the abolition of Apartheid began, an increasing amount of attention was paid to the AIDS crisis.



4 comments:

Mark Olmsted said...

This post confuses me. You talk about the music of the 80s, then suddenly lay in a quote with no context or introduction beyond that it came from the time. Do you agree with its contentions?
Which is fine, if you do, but it's sort of a dramatic accusation.

Anonymous said...

I loved The Clash.

Unknown said...

marc-you are completely right- this post morphed so many times as i was flooded with memories, mostly musical. i removed the quote- sounded like mathilde krimm didn't it?

A Bear in the Woods said...

I love that quote of Mandela

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