Another artist been meaning to get around to. I have known about Alpha Blondy since the nineties, because of my interest in reggae. I really connected with his art this week, by hearing a song I downloaded mostly for the title, called, "Jerusalem." His pull on me is so strong, that I wandered into Native Sun today and bought his 1987 breakthrough, "Apartheid is Nazism," from Shanachie Records.
Even if you are not a big fan of the hippie lettuce, "Apartheid is Nazism," is the most accessible reggae you will ever hear. There isn't a single song instructing any one to pass any duchy. From the first play, the listener will appreciate the textured melodies, and thoughtful, arranged harmonies between the instrumentals, and the vocals. My favorite song right now is called Sebe Allah Y'E. I have no idea what it means, but it grooves and takes makes me to a spiritual plane. The title song, "Apartheid is Nazism," instructs America to help "break the neck of this apartheid."
At the time Blondy was writing the song, one can only imagine the terror the children of South Africa were enduring. In the year 1985, this pig named Botha was leading the slaughter of thousands of his country's people. However, South African universities were still cranking out professionals by the thousands. I wonder what subjects, law students at the time had to master. What did they teach their lawyers back then, "101 Ways to Perpetuate the White Supremacy."
Whatever. In 1985, I was marching against apartheid. Even though the golden age of student protest in this country was the sixties, some good things are destined to live forever. Like safe college boys, grabassing sorority girls, grasping the issue du'jour if it might get him laid. I give Blondy a ton of credit for his effort. His message helped the giants of American supremacy wage yet another successful war against a fascist enemy.
This one wasn't quite General Motors switching from sedans to tanks. More like the Coca-Cola Company and Citi Group and others deciding that they could live without their thirty pieces of silver, from that nation. But the actions by American corporations helped demonstrate that no single nation could survive, without the assent of the greater league of civilized nations. The economic sanctions, I believe, helped convince the Botha regime that their cause was both criminal, as well as futile.
Alpha Blondy was born Seydou Kone, on January 1, 1953, in Dimbokro, Ivory Coast, he was raised by his grandmother, Cherie Coco. She taught him the wisdom of the Koran, and the traditional morality of his own people, The Dioula. The Dioula taught him tolerance and racial acceptance alongside his French biblical and English lessons. Ms. Cherie also gave him the nickname, 'Blondy', a slang pun on the Dioula word for bandit.
"Jerusalem," is a song of devotion about the city, and what it represents to the people of the world. Ground sacred to half the world's population, the trees are comfortable with an array of baffling tongues there. Blondy easily switches among languages such French, and English, to pidgin, and so on. In the song, "Jerusalem," he adds Arabic and pidgin Hebrew to create a bridge between Jew and Muslim. Children will freely cross that bridge again, someday. The world just needs another Martin Luther King, Jr.
I hope to bridge a much smaller gulf before my father passes on. My father is a direct descendant of Abraham (so is each and every Arabic Muslim AND Palestinian). My father has never discussed religion with me, ever. In 1984, we shared an airplane ride to the holy land. We also shared a hotel room, and several meals. But that was just about all we shared.
The high point of his pilgrimage, became my personal low point. When we arrived at the Western Wall, he told me to wait at the top of the hill, with the women. This trip came down to me, observing my father pray from a distance, to an entity, that he personally denies me. I remember watching him bow his head, and put a single hand on the wall.
I love my father with a dear, yet respectful tenderness. I feel he unwittingly makes a few mistakes that I am determined not to repeat, with my children.
By now, I have got my head around the fact that he created five of us, then left. I am my father's son. I have turned "lack of a father figure" -pity into a reason to always try to work harder and smarter than other men. Since the day he turned his back on the Atlee house's front door for the last time, he has never stopped proving his worth as a father and a mensch. My father has worked very hard, his whole life, and really made something out of himself, something us kids aspire to. He was the son of immigrants, people who were suddenly compelled by Cossacks to decide between moving, converting, or perishing.
He has provided his children with all the material things they could rightfully ask for. He has worked hard to make emotional connections with each of us. But he did some unintentional damage by issuing his One Guiding Wish for me, and re-inforcing it since I was a boy. He would always say, "I just want you to be happy."
He has always treated religion like it is a man's most personal bastion. I don't know where he got that one. Jesus tells a man in Matthew to go pray in his closet. Jesus the Teacher was commenting on the Jewish 'hypcocrites', who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men."
Maybe The Son's elegant Lesson, somehow put another son of David a little too far out of whack?! I don't know that my father has ever taken the dogma out of christianity and just felt the words that Jesus said. Perhaps he still feels betrayed by my mother. She converted to Judaism for the sake of my father's family, then, after he left, turned around and raised us as good Flintridge Episcopalians.
I was circumsized by a rabbi. I may be considered Jewish. If my mother undertook the sacred Jewish bath, and IF my moyal was Orthodox. I could try to find out right now by picking up the phone, or I may never know. Every attempt to consciously connect with my father on a spiritual level has been met with resistance. One day we sat talking in his study, and I picked up a book from his shelf. It was Abba Eban's "My People - The Story of The Jews."
He told me to put the book back in it's place, because that was HIS book, and therefore does not belong to me. This is a man who unconsciously schleps to me every WEB Griffin pulpy dreck, but, no, the Jewish book only belongs to him?! This is a situation that will be amended somewhat when my children are old enough for instruction on morality.
Thank you for caring so much about my personal interests! It wasn't for many years that I realized what an enormous disservice his One Guiding Wish was providing. It is a parent's responsibility to make sure their child is good. It is up to the child to decide whether or not to be happy. One of the rare things that should fly out of this father's pie-hole, is, "I expect you to be good."
