The Anti-Punk Propaganda Machine

In Richard Sennett’s article “The New Capitalism” he states that “the new capitalism is impoverishing the value of work. Becoming more flexible and short-term, work is ceasing to serve as a point of reference for defining durable personal purposes and a sense of self-worth; sociologically, work serves ever less as a forum for stable, sociable relations.” He goes onto say that because people are losing a sense of belonging related to work  that they are increasingly committing themselves more to be related to geographic places such as cities, nations and localities. While this may be true, there is another option of belonging that I would like to explore. And it comes down to music, and subculture, in specific punk rock.

Since its conception in the 80’s punk rock and its cultural form have been berated in the public eyes, seen as hooligans of a dangerous nature, set out to destroy your public property and your nation. The  propaganda against punk rock worked to some extent, the movement was described as either meaningless, with no ideology behind its fashion, or contradictory to its ideology of anti-capitalism. The truth of the matter is that punk created a new ethic which had the power to displace corporate and commercial ideals. 

That ethic was the spirit of DIY, do it yourself. Instead of adhering to the popular culture portrayed on MTV by musical conglomerates such as Sony and BMG who would never sign or give exposure to bands who were not of a commercial nature, the punk culture of the 80’s created a new social order of belonging.  They created their own labels, sticking to low-fi recording techniques, they created their own infrustracture of advertising and public relations using fanzines, commonly known as ‘zines’. Which did not need large budgets for printing as they were mostly black and white print. They spoke out against the middle and working class life style of consumption, and maybe even more profoundly were one of the first social movements which had an understanding of the need for something to belong to and identify with that was not centred on work ethic, but on a lifestyle that was centred around this new ethic of DIY. It is something that resonates in the underlying ideal of entrepreneurship which is so valued in South African economic growth today, except it was based outside of capitalism - as the end goal was not profit, but cultural expansion, the growth of an ethic and identification system not based in work as it is interpreted today, as Marx describes it in all its exploitative glory.  

Today punk has transformed into a global network. At the beginning of 2012 65 Indonesian punk youths from Aceh were detained, their hair shaved off, were stripped of their body piercings, and sent for religious rehabilitation to put them back on the correct moral path – they were seen as a threat to the Islamic value system. This event did two things, firstly it showed the extremist attitude against punk rock, and secondly it highlighted the fact that the global network of punk has expanded since the 80’s and has it in their means to fight against such social injustices as a group, who identify with each other more strongly than they do with their nationality, religion or place of work.