 |
 |
First of all - can you introduce yourself and your band to us?
We are Koh from Croatia, a young industrial rock band, this year we released an EP titled “The Censor”, which has been reviewed, among others, by IndustrializedMetal, some of your readers may have seen it; currently we’re promoting the material and writing new songs for the upcoming debut album and hopefully we’ll be coming your way in near future to promote it.
Could you describe your opinion and/or views on racism within 1-5 words?
Racism – fuck retro anything.
What are your views on your own country when it comes to racism? Bad? Worse? Not that bad? Please explain.
Well, one might come to the conclusion that there isn’t that much racism here, since Croatia is not racially mixed as, say, Netherlands or the UK. But you’d be wrong to assume that, since racism rarely comes alone as a destructive prejudice. It’s commonly mixed with totalitarian, patriarchic, sexist, homophobic views of the extreme right-wing and in it’s essence you can find the same basic ignorance and hostility that you find in any social prejudice or generally intolerance. So, here you have many football hooligans, skinheads and extreme right-wing youth that are hostile and violent as in any other country, if not worse. There are cases of racist attacks and threats or statements by those, from time to time, but I’m sure it would be a lot more frequent if we had, for instance 20 percent of Blacks here or Asians, as some countries do. So it’s not that big an issue here, but far from it that the reason for this is an advanced humanitarian civil society, we’re pretty orangutarian here in general concerning tolerance. The main issue here is still nationalism and extreme post-war patriotism.
It seems some kind of sick ´trend´ these days to bring racism into alternative music, referring to terms such as 'nazi-punk', 'NSBM' and 'right-winged electro'. What are your views on this? Do you think it will become dangerous?
As much as we know, it’s already had it’s peak here, but that doesn’t say it won’t be returning. It’s very dangerous, but rarely recognized by any government or authority, they don’t bother with things like that until they become a mayor issue, say, a fierce breakout of violence etc. But alternative music has always mainly been in the hands of the artistic/intellectual/creative elite that is generally too evolved socially to get drowned into such prejudice and behavior. The Nazis are good soldiers but shitty artists and musicians, fortunately for all of us. We all know how “good” a painter was Hitler; if only he had been such a “good” military commander, the holocaust would have never happened.
Did you witness any racist things during local gigs, festivals, etc? Would you reject an offer to play a show together with an outspoken right-winged band?
We haven’t witnessed anything like it so far, but you can turn on the TV here and see a major label outspoken right-wing band, and they actually fill arenas, I think one such has even been banned to perform in your country, because of this very issue of intolerance. But fortunately the genre of music we’re in doesn’t allow us to get anywhere near these musicians, and we mostly hang around open-minded, tolerant people that share our views on all of this, but if we’d ever get a chance to perform with such, I’d be the first one to put my veto on that. I’d reject a birthday card from a outspoken right-wing extremist, not to mention any form of musical or other kinds of collaboration. We get disgusted being around people of that profile.
Is there much racism in the music scene in Croatia?
Not racism, but nationalism, conservatism, intolerance etc…oh yeah…we have tons of that. Wanna import some? Pretty please? Haha!
When I was on holiday in Croatia in 2008, I saw quite some swastikas and Celtic crosses (white power sign) painted on walls in different cities. It probably still has to do with the Balkan war. What is your view on this?
It has to do with war, like the previously mentioned youth that revolves around these right-wing musicians, many of their songs still of that war-theme, and it also has to do with the post-war social despair and a civil society that is still an infant, so to speak. But you can also find that among many football fans, maybe even more extreme forms such as involving swastika symbols, and some of these groups are actually widely known across Europe for their violence. Why people do this? One theory that explains, maybe not the root of such behavior, but certainly the persistence of it is the so-called labeling theory combined with the theory of deviance, and it basically says that if you label a certain individual or a group as deviant they’ll soon start acting like it (or continue acting like it even more) and you’ve got a chain-effect of hostile behavior that is very hard to brake. And the mass media isn’t doing it any good. They have to write about it since it’s happening and it would be a form of Orwellian-censorship not to report it (not to mention the profit - violence sells), but then again you stick a label on them and they feed from it, they feed on the attention. It’s a global issue, an issue of every modern society. And here in Croatia and the Balkans, a lot of these people are still hungry for war and violence, they can’t get enough of it. Most of them were too young to be involved in the war, and it’s sad to say, it seems they just can’t get over the fact that they’ve missed it. Like it’s been a fucking party or something…
Got any final words?
Think for yourself, don’t bend to authority, whether it’s your parents, the teacher or the leading party, open your mind to the beauty of difference around you, and you’ll find within you all the moral paradigms you’ll ever need… And learn to recognize anything that’s retro an anti-humanitarian, so you don’t get sucked into it like some. Cuz when it comes to racism and prejudice, ignorance is no bliss. Thank you for the interview and letting us be a part of all this. It’s been an honour. Cheers from Koh to you and your readers!
Interview by: Gerardo
Answered by: Bojan (drums)
Listen to Koh at www.myspace.com/kohmusic
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2004 - 2008 Industrialized Metal. All rights
reserved. |
|
|
