Rebelliousness: Rebel Like You, Rebel Like Me

by: Irene Agrivina W

In the corner of a dark streets in front a club that play drum n bass, a boy standing in the corner, Mohawk hair, full tattoos, nails all over his belt and a dirty face. He smile at me, the smile look innocent, and friendly eyes.
“Hi”
“Hi”
Then he gave me a bottle of cheap vodka, ask me to drink. With a little doubt I drink it and damn! the taste is horrible, he get a bigger smile and laugh so hard. And so I laugh. We are laughing together. Then he said in a whisper “ keep the faith buddy ”.
I said “ Let’s go inside, I treat you a beer”

Then we go in to the club. Look at us, me an Mtv generation, hedonism adore, party goers, wearing a reebok shoes, nike bags, levis pants, donna karan perfume, distro shirt, zara skirt walking with a punkers that never going to the mall, singing an anarchist song, and anti capitalism ( o, really ? ). What a contrast world.
In the club, a lot of people there, some looks like me, some  looks similar with that boy, the rest are some gay couples, grunge, gothic, etc. The music is change into gothic punk and we melting in to the crowd all night, getting warm with glasses of beers,  yelling and sweat. Back at three o’clock in the morning, promise to meet again for the next gigs.

At home, with a bad headache because of too much drink I try to sleep, but I just remember a word that punk boy told me, keep the faith. So try to looking for what kind of faith that I have hold on to? In this confusion of political suck issues, do I have believe in my president? Or do I have believe in Mr.‘right’ Bush? In this globalization era do I have believe in McDonald rather than rice. Do I still believe in god than Mtv ? Then I fall asleep.

It is always a same question for us , the youth. The pathology of the new kids is familiar: impatience, distrust of authority, malaise, and a wistful, ironic sense of longing for defunct ideals and lost horizon. A man and the environments gets a sign from a symbolic construction. We find ourselves at the turning point in the history of our civilizations. The more we try to hold on  to the past attitudes, traditions or practices, whether they be political, commercial, artistic, or whatever, the more complicated and less manageable we find our lives.
At such a point in time, we must rethink the role of individual in this global society and must encourage new social experiments which try to establish creative, positive approaches to this brave  new world of us.
After the second war the youth of the world find a better language to express their feeling ‘Rock n Roll’. It was much more than a form music. A product of the childhood of the technological  revolution. It is the world’s youth; who always fought for the wars without having any say in this decisions. With an ever expanding network of media possibilities, this new generation grabbed onto the gold key offered to build a new and idealistic ideology which spread like wildfire throughout the world, a new frontier, culminating no less an office than the president of United States. Rock ‘n’ Roll was the language and the spirit, social reform was the massage. Since Rock ’n’ Roll, the foundation of music has been social relevance. From civil rights to the environment, from anti war movement to the awareness of global communication power, the hippies passed this legacy to the punks, who took the battle to the streets, fighting for the working class, for jobs, for the homeless for food. Rock ‘n’ roll and punk cultures routinely considered as losers and dropouts from society, they were derided because their lifestyle did not match current standards or codes of acceptability.
In here in 2005, we talk the same language with our own way. Trying to celebrate our youth with the same rituals. Rock n roll and punk culture transforming in to techno and club culture. The future of the world belong to us, it is our duty to live in, to take care of it.  The rebel nation still continue, fighting for peace and justice for today and tomorrow.
There we are punk, rock ‘n’ roll, techno, grunge, alternative, party slave, kids of all nation have only one word to say : peace

Play this game right ! No difference between black and white
The difference is between young and old…
Turn it up and see what happens
The game is drawing to a close
so it looks as good a time as any to ask the final question :
What does the future hold for us ?
Bring it down to ask for the coming back …
if the kids are united they’ve got 80,000 in the bank
and they don’t know how to live !
I used to work in a club where they never came to dance … fuckthem up!
Kids are united and they will never be divided !
( atari teenage riot )

 

ira,
Yogyakarta, 2005
the house of natural fiber
yogyakarta new media art laboratory
www.honf.org