Twenty-two gunfights, including three murders. One rapper, Lexxxus, speaking from the hospital bed on You Tube: “I’m a gangster G, I don’t give a fuck”. And one wall with a colorful graffiti saying: ‘Stop The Violence -STOP! That Means You” Made by the world famous Amsterdam Hip Hopper and graffiti artist Aileen ‘Mickey’ Middel, who does give a fuck.
Amsterdam Southeast, The Netherlands, is an unique place on earth. So many different cultures live next and together with each other. The neighbourhood is the home of a mass of different African and South American nationalities. It is, also, struggling with serious poverty and crime. Reflecting on her latest work: a wall that stands tall in a world running out of hand.
Will the graffiti halt any violence? “No”, answers Aileen: “I don’t think so.” Together with Rogier ‘Azhq’ Wagenvoort she painted the tennis wall at the playground between the tall high rising apartment blocks Kleiberg and Kruitberg. The playground includes basketball courts, ping-pong tables, athletic track course and an open air fitness corner, too. It’s was where the nineteen year old young father Ishmael ‘Weezy’ Gumbs recently was murdered. The children at the playground saw it all happen.
All guns and assault weapons are illegal in The Netherlands. “I don’t think anybody carrying a fire arm, looking at the graffiti, will think ‘Gosh, let me turn in my weapon at the police station’. I don’t have that illusion,” she says in her studio in Kruitberg. Her three year old son climbs on a desk chair and jumps on her. After the third ‘mama-dive’ he has to find another game to play. The jumping becomes too much for Aileen.
Is the violence becoming too much for her as well? And is she worrying for the safety of her son and herself? “I did not become more scarred. I’m still feeling safe.” She lived and still works in Amsterdam Southeast for more than fifteen years. She knows from experience what it is to live here when it was still a ghetto. But about the recent shootings: “I don't know about what is happening on the streets. What does worry me is that guns are so easily used.”
The wall is a part of a bigger plan to halt the violence. Rogier is her neighbour and co-worker in the studios at Kruitberg. “Rogier and I wanted to do something new on that wall for a long time.” The violence inspired them: “Lets do something for the community. This time not glorifying our own names, painting our names big with a small text ‘Stop…’. But just big ‘Stop…’. Boom! Hood awareness. For all community members who do have common normal values. To push back.”
Its the more elder adults who show their appreciation: “They give us the thumbs up. I think a lot of people think what we say. ‘What’s happening? Let it stop!’ For these people it’s good support. Giving a social message with something beautiful.”
The text ‘Stop The Violence - Stop! That Means You’ is a lot more direct than ‘War Is Over - If You Want It’ from John Lennon and Yoko Onno back in 1969. But both have the same message, ‘It’s you that can do something’. The slogan of John Lennon was a protest against the Vietnam War.
The text used by Rogier and Aileen is taken from the Stop The Violence Movement in New York in the late eighties. Led by KRS-One, Hip Hop artist from New York, USA, who created the song Self Destruction. By coincidence, released twenty years after War Is Over, the Hip Hop artist pleaded to stop the violence in Hip Hop and the black communities. In 1990 a same initiative followed on the West Coast. West Coast All Stars released the song We Are All In The Same Gang. And now in Amsterdam Southeast, again twenty years later, the message is repeated as it proves to still be relevant.
The lyric ‘Bad boys move in silence’, originated from a song by KRS-One. “Well it is, or not!? If you are a real shot caller with serious business in the criminal world; society understands that guns are part of your game. But real bad boys don’t use them. Unless they don’t see any other option. They will not just shoot a nineteen year old kid.” And the smiley?: “That one I got from the internet. It’s part of a Stop The Violence campaign on Jamaica.”
It is still not clear what triggered the murder of Ishmael Gumbs. The story so far is that he got into a heated argument with an employee of the Albert Heijn supermarket at the local Kraaiennest shopping centre. The angry female employee called her boyfriend. A bit later Ishmael was murdered.
Aileen: “An argument about a girl, should be fought about with your fists. You do not need guns for it.” Is it manslaughter or murder? Manslaughter is taking a live in an upwelling of emotions. Murder is premeditated. If you carry a fire arm you know it’s not the same as a shield. After a moment of silence, concentrating on her thoughts, she closes: “That is my worry. Guns are used too easily. Guns are no toys.”
Auke VanderHoek - Pay and AQ Report…
Link You Tube - Stop The Violence - Self Destruction:
Link You Tube - West Coast All Stars - We Are All In The Same Gang
Link You Tube - John Lennon - War Is Over
More info about Aileen ‘Mickey’ Middel:
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten