Once upon a time in Gaza

Band/artist - Various artists
Genre(s) - Arab traditional music
Origin - Palestine, and Palestinian refugees from all over the world
Album - Palestine - Music of the Intifada
Year of release - 1989

1. Sabaya Al Intifada - Min al mukhayyam toulad al ru'aya
2. In A'd Rifaki - Al raba'yye
   
3. In A'd Rifaki - Al kassam al filistini
   
4. Al-amal Ashabi - Jirah lan tamout
   
5. Abnaa el-Balad - Ajrass al intisar
   
6. Palestinian Student Karmel Group - Al intifada was jabal al thawra
   
7. In A'd Rifaki - Kulluna fil tareeq
   
8. Palestinian Student Karmel Group - Watani laysa hakiba
   
9. Muhiddine Al Bagdadi - Al fajir
   
10. Sabaya Al Intifada - Jabal al zaytoun
    
11. Al-amal Ashabi - Bism ilhurriya
    
12. Sabaya Al Intifada - Ummi al habiba
    
13. Muhiddine Al Bagdadi - Al hegran
    
14. In A'd Rifaki - In a'd rafiki
    

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As I am posting this Israel wages a brutal war against the population at large of one of the last free strongholds of an already occupied, strangled land. After a week of bombardments and artillery fire, Israeli forces have entered Gaza in order to cripple the democratically chosen party Hamas whose paramilitary wing has been firing homemade rockets in answer to continuing blockades that brought the Gaza Strip far beyond the brink of a humanitarian crisis. As mounting anger and worry culminated into massive protests around the world, we took to the Amsterdam streets yesterday with nearly 10 000 men and women - Muslims, Christians, Jews, Socialists and everybody else who cares for Palestine, to protest the attack. Mainstream media speak of 1 500 to "several thousands" of protesters but this (sped-up) video by thentythreetv proves these estimates fall short of the truth:



Al-Jazeera has broadcasted the Amsterdam demonstration in the Gaza strip(!) to bring the Palestinians the strength of international solidarity. Obviously, the people in Gaza aren't happy about this either and they will not let themselves be punished for the resistance the Zionist agenda keeps eliciting against itself. Bombings and violent "incursions" will only drive more people to pick up weapons.
No short video can show the Palestinian spirit of resistance better than this one:



If you want you can also download the mp3 - here.

Until Israel withdraws from Gaza, lifts all the supply line blockades, allows all refugees since the Nakba the inalienable Right of Return and respects the Palestinian borders as laid down at the partition plan in 1948 - giving back all Palestinian territories it occupies since the 1967 war - we must and I will support Palestinian armed struggle. Of course this is only one step. In the end there must be one state, not a Jewish state or an Arab state, but one state for both. Before this happens there will be no true peace in the Middle East.

Dmitri Shostakovich - the Fall of Berlin

Composer - Dmitri Shostakovich
Conductor - Sergey Krivobokov
Performance - Moscow symphony orchestra, Moscow capella, Moscow youth chorus
Genre(s) - Classical, film score
Origin - Russia
Album - The Fall of Berlin OST
Year of release - 1949

It's Russia-mania! The Fall of Berlin was a propaganda movie about Russia's ultimate victory in the Second World War. I must confess I haven't seen it although I'd really love to. Its score was composed by the famous Dmitri Shostakovich, who often collaborated with Stalin's regime not because of ideological similarities but because he was the kind of person who could not say no to people even if he wanted. Much like his symphonies, this soundtrack is a volatile affair with many sudden, dramatic shifts in mood and tempo. Like O Fortuna in Orff's Carmina Burana and the Scherzo part in Beethoven's Ninth, this is "hard classical": heavy, victorious, and bombastic with a capital B. I usually don't have the patience for classical music but Shostakovich's compositions are another thing entirely.

The appearance of a very hated face on my blog forces me to repeat that because during the civil war and foreign intervention true workers' power quickly evaporated and Stalin's regime actually had a highly counterrevolutionary and bureaucratic character, Stalinist Russia and the Eastern Bloc can not be called socialist or communist!

1. Main title part 1
2. Beautiful day
3. Alyosha by the river
4. Stalin's garden
5. Alyosha and Natalia in the fields - attack!
6. Hitler's reception
7. In the devastated village
8. Forward!
9. Main title part 2
10. The roll call - attack at night
11. Storming Seelov Heights
12. The flooding of the underground station
13. The final battle for the reichstag - Kostya's death
    
14. Yussuf's death - the red banner
15. Stalin at Berlin's airport
16. Finale - Stalin's speech - Alyosha and Natasha reunited
    

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Ernst Busch

Band/artist - Ernst Busch
Genre(s) - Classical singer
Origin - Kiel, Deutschland
Album - My compilation for you!
Year of release - unreleased

Ernst Busch, who wrote the previously posted poem, was a communist stage actor and singer most famous for his roles in Bertold Brecht's plays and the political and worker songs (like those written by Hanns Eisler in the 20s and 30s, as well as traditionals from the Spanish Civil War in which Ernst actively fought) he gave voice to. This is my compilation of only the best and most militant of these. Bombastically orchestrated marches and hymns from the time when Moscow dictated exactly what the right ideological course was for most communists accross the globe. In the eponymous song, for instance, Lenin is described as some omnipotent demigod whose mere words made the houses, mines and factories rise from the ground. Listen especially to the brilliant Der Heimliche Aufmarsch ("Workers, peasants, take up your rifles...!"), learn the lyrics by heart and sing it in the streets!

1. Der heimliche Aufmarsch (gegen die Sowjetunion) (The surreptuous advance upon the Soviet Union)
2. Linker Marsch (Left march)
   
3. Lenin
4. Das lied vom Vaterland (Song of the fatherland)
   
5. Vorwärts, Bolshewik! (Forwards, bolshevik!)
   
6. Roter Wedding (Red district)
   
7. Vorwärts internationale Brigades! (Forwards, International Brigades!)
   
8. Halt Stand, rotes Madrid (Stand fast, red Madrid!)
   
9. Der Zukunft entgegen (Toward the future)
   
10. Die Rote Armee marschiert (The Red Army marches)
    

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