Free City Radio
Art and community activism is the focus of Free City Radio, from McGill University’s campus radio station, CKUT. Free City Radio’s website includes interviews with a range of Montreal’s music / art provocateurs including:
Poet and trumpeter Jason Blackbird Selman (photo by Brian Kinzie): “… we are living in a Michael Brown world, in a CNN world, as opposed to living in an Emmett Till world, these types of things happened before but they rarely see the light of day completely. Now the world is watching, the world is waiting to see where things will go and people are willing to act like never before.”
Guitarist and oud player Sam Shalabi (photo credit Tanya Taboulsi), comparing Canada and Egypt:“Most Egyptians that I know, they don’t believe anything that their governments tell them, which we have seen expressed during all the major protests over recent years, not only in Egypt but across the region. In Canada, I am constantly dumbfounded when I discover how people are surprised, or shocked, when they discover how marginalized segments of society are treated, like First Nations people, they will express shock. But by extension when you point to the ways that this injustice is related to their country, to their own lives, they don’t really want to hear about this.”
Artist/activist Freda Guttman (photo credit thiên v.): “In 1990 … I was asked how I saw the future development of political art. At the time, I felt very much alone as an artist, dealing with political issues and trying to place my work within an activist framework. I said that I hoped that in the future there there would be a large community of activist artists that I could be a part of. My wish has come true. Now as never before there is a richly textured resistance culture, which anyone can be part of without having to call themselves artists or feel that they need special training or permission to do art. The notion that everyone is an artist is deeply embedded in principles of Anarchy. In the beautiful utopian world that Anarchist movements wish to bring about, everyone will be free to realize a fulfilled life, to be creative, to express themselves. Everyone will be free of wage slavery, free of educational systems that imprison the mind and soul, free of the violence of Capitalism.”
