Magma´s ideology controversy. Read this!

d.o.k wrote: The saddest part is that there is NO answers from Magma members rejecting and denying whats been said before.

Hmmmm...hmm.

That was a good post from a German fan, and touching at that.

A few thoughts of mine:

Lot's of contemporary artists, coming from metal, punk, prog, gothic, industrial etc. are somehow resembling  a certain...'Nazi kunst' spleen to their artist identification, be it musical, visual, or both. Many of them are NOT sharing the seemingly sinister (actualy ultra-right winged, excuse the pun) political ideas and motivations - Laibach springs to mind, with their lobotomized visual aesthetics, military uniforms, album titles such is 'Occupied Europe Tour' etc. They were often being accused for embracing Nazi ideology, while the situation is exactly the opposite - they are using the tools for provocations - while deeply behind their artistic statement is nested a political and philosophical one, which is opposite, criticism and warning. There are many artists sharing the same sharp and penultimate provocative aesthetics, and tagging them as Nazis is equally narrow-minded - or at least hasted - as calling 99% of metal artist 'Satanists'. Of course, there are bands that are actually wallowing in Nazi ideology and believing in it, but that's beside the point and I won't talk about them.

I'm not defending Magma, and I'm not accusing them neither.

I utterly despise Nazi ideology - I consider myself a humanist, but, as far as the art goes, I don't mind anyone to shout their angst in the most pervert way as possible: call for hatred, call for murders, rape, defecate on stage if you want. Make people sick and uncomfortable. Call for every shocking and horrifying thing that humanity, unfortunately, did experienced and still does. As long as there's an explicit line between what are you doing in the name of art and your private life and beliefs. Such an artistic exposure could be irony, parody, allegory, provocation, shock for the sake of shock. But if someone believes and defends all that off the stage, then I do pity such an individual.

Speaking of Magma, it seems the band members are intelligent individuals, sharp and bitter about dull and dumb everyday life and establishment surrounding. But it's true, they hadn't explicitly answered 'yes' or 'n' to accusations directed towards them. I hope that's for the sake of keeping the provocative edge sharp rather than hiding what Vander & co. actually think about such ideology, if it's true.

And if it's true, well...I don't know. Here's an example I'm familiar with: during the political storms of Yugoslav wars, madness and hatred, many  Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian rock fans experienced too radical statements from certain artists (no matter the side) - some of theme continued to listen the music, some just stopped listening to artist(s) altogether, some embraced the 'they're a****les, but they make good music' attitude. You can't predict it unless it actually happens.




Edited by clarke2001 - January 18 2010 at 12:20

@ Dok: On the contrary, in the last link they clearly say they belong to NO ideology and that all such accuses are not true.

That news are quite old, i know that since 1989

Sorry, d.o.k.  

I was very much mistaken. 

toroddfuglesteg wrote: Magma has denied this. See the opening post here and the links  http://kohntarkosz.blogspot.com/2009/11/magma-speaks.html http://kohntarkosz.blogspot.com/2009/11/angry-female-kobaian-member-of-magma.html http://kohntarkosz.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-comment-from-member-of-magma.html That is three rebuttals

This is exactly it. There is NO denying. These 3 answers never say things clearly. they prefer saying that Magma is defending an ecological earth, and fights extremist capitalism.... instead of getting precisely to the points and responding to them.

To reinforce what Fuxi just wrote, I'd like to bring up the case of one of my favourite writers - HP Lovecraft. He was openly racist (and a lot of his work, as well as his letters, support this fact), and for a time he was a keen admirer of Hitler. Knowing this, I still manage to enjoy reading Lovecraft's stories, though obviously the more racist passages make me cringe. It's not easy, especially for someone like me who has always been very strongly opposed to that kind of ideology. However, I also believe that art, in many ways, transcends the miseries of human nature.

Edited by Raff - January 18 2010 at 11:38

Let me make it absolutely clear that I abhor racism and anti-semitism in all its forms. And I hope you do too.

Indeed, I find it almost impossible to enjoy HUNKY DORY (by David Bowie, one of my favourite rock artists) because of Bowie's unwise flirtation with Heinrich Himmler and the concept of "the Superman" (= Uebermensch).

But apart from certain things Christian Vander may have said in interviews and in private (and you know how artists enjoy shocking people), are there any obvious traces of Nazi-worship in Magma's music?

If there are NOT, I think there's a case to be made for (a) enjoying Magma just as before and (b) ignoring Vander's despicable views. You see, I feel tempted to approach Vander in the way Daniel Barenboim (a well-known Argentina-born Jewish conductor) approaches Richard Wagner.

Wagner was a notorious anti-semite, and in his case there can be absolutely no doubt: he actually published anti-semitic literature. But Barenboim believes (as I do) that most of Wagner's operas can be enjoyed in spite of this. Barenboim even took some of Wagner's music to be performed in Israel.

Obviously, not all music-lovers will forgive Wagner as readily for his political views as that. But you could if you wanted to.

I read it with interrest, but some of the accusations are quite ridiculous. take for example this:
In MDK, "Fuhl mehn Fuhl ehndoh litaah" actually means "für mein Führer Adolf Hitler".
that is not even correct German (correct would be "für meinen Führer Adolf Hitler". the adjective "mein" becomes "meinen" in the accusative case)


Edited by BaldJean - January 18 2010 at 11:25

There's a very long and drawn out debate on this on the progressiveears site.You might have to go back a few pages to find it.