Rock and Roll, Radicalization and Me; How I came to live in a political world?
Autobiographical essay for Power and Contest
When we were children, we tended to look up to authority figures which were glossed over by fictional tales of kings, princesses and queens, and we are shoved into a political world, blind to how all of it works until we eventually figure it out entirely on our own, some of us following a spectrum and others are on the fence. Everyone’s exposure to a political world differs and my integration was a little unconventional compared to everyone else. This essay seeks to highlight how I was brought into a political world through the media, my family and political figures and why these factors shape the views I hold.
To start, my parents never talked about politics in the household. One of the reasons that nobody in my family talked about politics was because we did not want to argue over political beliefs and cause drifts in the relationship. I would frequently hear my parents criticizing the government for their incompetency but despite this, my father was an active voter. As a child, I never liked politics because of how it made my parents feel. Despite these sentiments, we still kept up with the news to be more worldly. We would have active discussions about the news when I was a little older, but we still had that same sentiment about politics.
My parents grew up in a generation of heavy rock and that transcended in our household. It may sound a little unconventional because people do not tend to think about the politics behind rock music. I was, and still am obsessed with rock music. Besides listening to their music, I also adopted everything else along with it including their political beliefs, particularly the beliefs of bands like the Sex Pistols and the Rolling Stones.
I did not know the term for what my beliefs were until my father called me ‘ a little anarchist’. At the time, I had no idea what the term meant until my dad explained it to me. Furthermore, I agreed with the definition as I did think that the government is a commodity that is both dangerous and wasteful (Miller,2019)
This anti-establishment phase carried on until my teenage years when my family would watch political talk shows such as the Patriot Act and the Daily Show. When I started watching these shows, I thought to myself that maybe politics is not so boring after all. I was drawn to these shows was because of the jokes which were about politics as well as how digestible it was.
The more episodes I watched, the more I was interested in politics. I would watch videos about politics and read up on political news but my relationship with politics reverted to the very same disdain I had for it from the start. All the information made me feel bored due to the numerous figures as well as the fancy jargon and long, boring details. I stopped caring about politics for quite a while until I was 15 years old when I had a social media account for the first time.
When I started to become more of an internet-savvy teenager, I frequently received political content on my social media feed. I was drawn to the colourful infographics and the fact that these posts were written in the vernacular. These posts leaned to more social issues such as feminism, gay rights and the environment which was something that I was very interested in due to my sentimental nature. People would say that these are not political matters and that these issues were not ‘political enough’
Despite me gaining more knowledge in politics, my opinions were always central. This was partly due to my naturally open-minded nature. While I perceived my middleman behaviour to be morally superior, my theory was in vain. When I first started to develop a ‘firm’ political stance, I frequently labelled myself as a liberal. That all changed when I dove deeper into my conscience and realized that I held on to these beliefs due to my lack of knowledge of economics as well as my naivety of my worldview.
However, that all changed when I was 17 years old, I was starting to become a hardcore feminist who would not hesitate to debate on issues regarding equality. I started reading feminist literature from several feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis and bell hooks who I still look up to until this day.
At around this time, I started to be drawn to socialism because it praises the idea of the collective rather than private possession (Dagger and Ball,2019). Political commentators like Hasan Piker, Sam Seder and the Young Turks were my stepping stone to leftism.
I first thought of it as the solution to all the inequality in the world, but I was turned off by the idea of having to actively partake in a violent revolution which seemed to be straight out of a Sex Pistols song. This passion for a radical change of equality burned inside me and I started to develop a passion for fighting for equality.
I started to go deeper into socialism this year because of the recent events as well as the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement. During this time, I started to watch documentaries about racial inequality as well as documentaries about the Black Panther Party. I also started to read more works by Angela Davis.
However, as I started gaining more knowledge and seeing how capitalism badly affected the surrounding people, I started to become more radical and ended up diving deeper into the world of radical politics through the works of authors such as Angela Davis, Kwame Ture and Hannah Arendt.
Currently, I am pursuing a degree in politics to hopefully understand and continue to question the world around me. My integration into a political world was due to the media and like everyone who gets involved in politics, my views were constantly changing, but now I would call myself a socialist who is so desperate for a change in the system we live in and by studying politics, I hope that I can be one of the youths who can change the system we live in.
(This essay was an assignment for a Year 1 course; Power and Contest. This essay was marked by Dr Khairil Ahmad and Professor William Case)
