Magma´s ideology controversy. Read this!

ExittheLemming wrote: Alberto Muñoz wrote: Also for a footnote Albert Speer desings the world cup football Throphy No he didn't. The original Jules Rimet trophy was designed by Abel Lafleur and was presented to the World Cup winners until 1970. During World War II, the trophy was held by 1938 winners Italy. Ottorino Barassi, the Italian vice-president of FIFA who secretly transported the trophy from a bank in Rome and hid it in a shoe-box under his bed to prevent the Nazis from taking it. The trophy awarded from 1974 onwards was designed by Silvio Gazzaniga. How do I know this ? because I'm a sad man whose life is but an empty husk....

toroddfuglesteg wrote: Back to topic again: I can understand why Magma get fascist/nazi associations by some. Their music is a bit Horst Wessel at times, they have covers which may be associated with a totalitarian political belief. Their Kobaian language is a bit mystic and their society is almost like Free Masons. Hence....... Magma = A  Nazi band. Logical !!

It's not that simple. It seems like there actually were Nazi elements in Vander's history. See this quote from Daevid Allen:

"The fact that Christian Vander had swastika flags all over his bedroom and pictures of Hitler and would leap up and do kind of imitation Hitler speeches in the middle of his drum solo didn't seem to faze him all that much. It fazed everybody else. But Giorgio just loved the music, and loved the cultural impact of the music."

The question is: were these just aspects of an excentric persona Vander built for himself or were signs of a genuine ideological orientation of his? I assume the first answer is the true one, but we'll probably never know for sure.


Edited by harmonium.ro - January 18 2010 at 19:48

And was the point? Vander is or not a symphatic person to Nazism?

The fact is that Vander has neither denied or confirmed anything. As it stands now; we do not know.

It is though very harmful for a band/a person to be called Nazi. Their livelihood is on the line because they will be denied any work in Germany and most parts of Europe too. Which means legal implications all around. I am speaking of experience. 

So for the record: I am only accusing Magma for being a band who has released some albums. The rest; I do not know. 

I think sending an email to Vander is in order here.

harmonium.ro wrote: RE Daevid Allen, I don't know. I think I read the same story somewhere else, but I didn't bookmark that page and now I can't remember where it was... One thing that hasn't been said in the whole debate is that if a Frenchman is going to have extremist views, he/she would not adhere to Nazism. French people still hate Nazis and Hitler because they invaded France. The regular extremist ideologies in France are extreme leftism and nationalism a la BNP.

Alex, I don't live in France, but I am European, and have been following current affairs for a long time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember BNP leader Jean-Marie Le Pen made some very controversial statements as concerns the Holocaust and Jews in general, and was also prosecuted for that. I believe that calling the BNP just a nationalistic party is an understatement. We don't have a Neo-Nazi party in Italy either (and we were also invaded), but those who embrace far right ideologies generally have a strong anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic bent.

harmonium.ro wrote: Anyway, I would suppose that if Vander was ever fascinated by Nazism, it was for exteriour aspects (militarism, the usage of myth of the super-human, it's dark visual aspects, show-off, elitism, arrogance, etc.) and not because he believes in it's ideas.

This is actually what I believe as well. The Nazi aesthetics (or, better put, the totalitarian aesthetics) do seem to hold a sort of uncanny fascination for some artists, as I think was Bowie's case too. Unfortunately, though, we should never forget that for human beings it is easier to hate than to love - as the spread of racism and xenophobia in civilised countries proves all too well.

the human ability to hate everyone who looks different is a stone age reflex. everyone who looked different did not belong to the tribe and hence was an enemy. unfortunately we all are more governed by our stone age reflexes than we usually realize. and I mean ALL, without any exception

http://www.orkalarm.co.uk/orkalarm09/09_the_golden_years.htm 

I just want to point out that the original article makes a lot of definite wrong statements. for example, the "Übermensch" concept is not by Himmler but by Nietzsche and has originally nothing to do with the Nazis at all. it just means that we should strive to be more than "just human", though Nietzsche never fully explains what he means by that.
the concept reminds me of a poem by German poet Christian Morgenstern, which I will present in translated form here:

The Symbol of Man
"Show me", a demon spake to me
"Show me man's symbol,
And I will let you go".
I therupon, pulling my
Black boots off my toes,
Spake: "This, demon, is man's
Gruesome symbol; a foot of
Coarse leather, no longer nature
Yet also not become spirit yet,
A wandering form from animal's foot
To Mercury's winged sole".
As an effigy of ridiculousness
I stood there, a new saint.
Yet the demon, indefinably
Sighing, bowed down and wrote
With his finger on the earth.

this poem depicts human beings in their current form: able to cogitize yet still ruled by animal instincts. it seems that what the poet and Nietzsche have in mind is striving towards a being which is free of these animal instincts.

the Nazis had their own interpretation of the "Übermensch" concept and used it for their racial ideology, but the idea itself has originally nothing at all to do with national socialism or with racism
by the way: when Peter Hammill sings the line "in the death of mere humans life shall start" in "Childlike Faith in Childhood's End" he refers to that concept of the "Übermensch"


Edited by BaldJean - January 19 2010 at 14:33

Marty McFly wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Completely offtopic, César, don't you think your banana sig pic has lived its life and can now be replaced?  My girl said that this banana picture is weird. To topic: Isn't it something almost wished, in dream-like scenarios ? Like Stairway to Heaven with satanic message when playing backwards ?

Off topic: very well then, I'll change it.

On topic:

Well, this seems to be one of those topics where the subject just can't go forward. In the first place, I don't think Vander is a nazi, but if he is, will it make any difference? I doubt it.

Secondly, people are dying TODAY due to the action of authoritarian regimes all over the world and you are still discussing something that won't change our lives a bit. Hitler killed over 15 million people and nobody did nothing to spot it then. Actually, the world only took some action about it because they lost the war.

The Commies death camps continued to work for decades after the end of nazi Germany and they killed well over 300 million people and nobody seems to care (Stalin and Mao alone were responsible for almost half of that). Actually, it has become hip to use clothing with communist symbols (ostalgia anyone?) and still people don't see nothing wrong with bearing a flag or the symbol from one of those said "socialist republics".

The Japanese, during WWII killed over 10 million chinese people in death camps and did thing to them just like the nazis did to the "lives that were unworthy to live" and not only they were not punished by it, but they were awarded with the biggest economic recovery plan ever. Even today, a country that has to import almost everything they need to survive and to keep their economy going, is the second biggest economy in the world and they still have a racism problem there.

Seriously, this whole """magma is racist, gaise!"" thing seems to me as a way to attack Christian Vander and his wife to a personal level and if there were really something about it, Vander would still be in jail today for playing that kind of music.

After all, if the mormons or any other cult were unable to dig anything bad about them, odds are it is only a rumor.


Edited by CCVP - January 19 2010 at 17:35