Hegemony or Survival: The politics of System of a Down

'We fought your wars with all our hearts,
You sent us back in body parts,
You took our wills with the truth you stole,
We offer prayers for your long lost soul.

The remainder is,
An unjustifiable, egotistical, power struggle
At the expense of the American Dream,
Of the American Dream, of the American.

We don't give a damn about your world,
With all your global profits, and all your jeweled pearls,
We don't give a damn about your world,
Right now, right now.

There is no flag that is large enough,
To hide the shame of a man in cuffs,
You switched the signs then you closed our blinds,
You changed the channel then you changed our minds.

We don't give a damn about your world,
With all your global profits, and all your jeweled pearls,
We don't give a damn about your world,
Right now, right now.

No flag large enough,
Shame on a man in cuffs,
You closed your blinds.

The remainder is,
An unjustifiable, egotistical, power struggle,
At the expense of the American Dream,
Of the American Dream, of the American,
Of the American.

We don't give a damn about your world,
With all your global profits, and all your jeweled pearls,
We don't give a damn about your world,
Right now, right now.'

The lyrics of 'American Dream Denial' (A.D.D.) (2002) really do tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the politics of American metal band System of a Down - they are not just 'anti-Bush' like say, Green Day - they want to see the overthrow of global capitalism and then some. One reviewer of their 2001 breakthrough album Toxicity in Rolling Stone nevertheless felt that their political outlook was 'simplistic' with 'black-and-white divisions', before remarking that it 'ain't Noam Chomsky'. Given Chomsky was recently voted 'top public intellectual' and has been declared 'arguably the most important intellectual alive', one wonders how many political theorists, let alone metal bands, he can be seriously compared to. However, that aside, I want to try and argue that SOAD's politics deserve to be taken more seriously than they currently have been for two reasons.

Firstly, SOAD's politics were not 'new found', the result of fashion as mass movements based on anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism emerged towards the end of the 20th century, as the Rolling Stone critic hinted that they might be. All the band members are from Armenian descent, and therefore know from bitter family experience about how brutal imperial power can be. Their eponymous debut album (1998) was therefore not just 'meandering impressionism' but included a song, "P.L.U.C.K. (Politically Lying Unholy Cowardly Killers)", and stated that "System Of A Down would like to dedicate this song to the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Turkish Government in 1915."

In 2001, their breakthrough album Toxicity came out with its outstanding track 'Chop Suey!' The moment it came out, the terrible terrorist attacks on September 11th happened, and Chop Suey! was criticised as it had a chorus with the lyric "Trust in my self-righteous suicide". Nevertheless, incredibly it still went straight to #1 in the US album charts, though many thought 'Chop Suey!' was simply 'meandering palaver'. However, according to SOAD the lyrics came from a quote from Father Armeni after the Armenian genocide. 'He was asking why have you forsaken me in your eyes and also saying in his speech self righteous suicide has taken place'. Yet just as SOAD were concerned to raise awareness about the past injustices of the Ottoman Empire, so after September 11th they did not remain silent about the current injustices of the American Empire. On September 13, 2001, Serj Tankian penned an essay, which he posted on the official System of a Down website, titled 'Understanding Oil', which was promptly removed by Sony. This is an extract:

'People in Serbia, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to name a few have seen bombs fall, not always at military targets and kill innocent civilians, as the scene in New York city yesterday. The wars waged by our government in our names has landed smack in the middle of our living room. The half hour of destruction closed down all world financial markets, struck the central headquarters of our military, and had our leaders running into bunkers, and our citizens into fear and frenzy. What scares me more than what has occurred is what our reactions to the occurrences may cause. President Bush belongs to a long generation of Republican Presidents who love war economies. The media has only concentrated on the bombings, if you will, and what type of retaliations are looming for the perpetrators. What everyone fails to realize is that the bombings are a reaction to existing injustices around the world, generally unseen to most Americans. To react to a reaction would be to further sponsor the reaction. In other words, my belief is that the terror will multiply if concrete steps are not taken to sponsor peace in the middle east, NOW. This does not mean that we should not find the guilty party(s), Bin Laden, or whoever they may be, and not try them. Put simply, as long as a major injustice remains, violence precipitates to the surface of life.'

That an American band with mass appeal put out such a statement when they did was an incredibly brave act, and gives the lie to the idea that their political stance is merely for show or fashion. Toxicity itself was a very timely album indeed for the climate created by Bush's 'war on terror'. 'Prison Song' attacked the way in which US 'global policy' saw the US 'police the globe' with the help of 'brutal corporate sponsored dictators'. 'All our taxes paying for your wars, Against the new non-rich.' One could almost smell the tear gas of US anti-war protests in 'Deer Dance'. 'Peaceful, loving youth against the brutality, Of plastic existence. Pushing little children, With their fully automatics, they like to push the weak around'. The title of the album, 'Toxicity', stressed the way in which Bush cared about profit, not the planet.

Yet since 2001, SOAD have got even more political and even more radical - and this provides I think the second reason why it is important to critically examine where they are at now. With Bush now trying to justify war and bloodshed through hearing 'voices from God', SOAD seem to have retreated from some of their more mystical religious songs (see 'Science' from Toxicity, with its lyric 'Science has failed our Mother Earth'). In 'Tentative', on the latest album, Hypnotize, SOAD examine the ways in which much organised religion upholds the power structure of the rich. This is a marked step forward. The lyrics of the title track of their latest album reveal much about their new concerns:

'Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square
Was fashion the reason why they were there
They disguise it hypnotize it
Television made you buy it
I’m just sitting in my car
And waiting for my girl
She’s scared that I will take her away from there
Her dreams and her country left with no one there
Mezmerize the simple minded
Propaganda leaves us blinded
I’m just sitting in my car
And waiting for my girl...'

To me one of the overriding themes of their 2005 double album Mezmorize/Hypnotize is this focus on the power of the mass media to control and manipulate. If obviously not as detailed as the densely argued monographs of Noam Chomsky, SOAD are in essence now 'Chomskyian'. The massive influence of Chomsky can be seen even in the lyrics to A.D.D. I printed at the start, in the line 'You changed the channel then you changed our minds,' which is essentially Chomsky's 'propaganda model' of the 'free media' under corporate control. That song's attack on the power struggles waged by the American ruling class are also in keeping with Chomsky, an 'elite theorist' at heart. In their song 'BOOM', an explicit attack on Bush and Blair's looming war on Iraq, SOAD explicitly noted that 'Manufacturing consent, Is the name of the game, The bottom line is money, Nobody gives a fuck.'

That their songs are so imbued with Chomskyian attacks on corporate power and the American Empire is to be celebrated - SOAD are probably the biggest anti-capitalist band in the world and that they are also such conscious anti-imperialists is a huge strength. Mezmorize/Hypnotize has songs like 'Sad Statue' ( "You and me/We’ll all go down in history/With a sad Statue of Liberty/And a generation that didn’t agree") and the powerful 'B.Y.O.B.[Bring Your Own Bombs]' ("Why don’t presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?") System of a Down have arguably picked up the mantle left by Rage Against the Machine and helped to inspire a whole new generation internationally to fight back against capitalism and war - and this makes them currently possibly the most important band in the world today. That is in itself justification for a Marxist analysis of the band, but it should not be forgotten that musically they don't just rock but also break boundaries and transcend genres. I like them, anyway.

Yet despite all this, there remains a problem, and it is one that afflicts Chomsky as well - the question 'What is to be done?' When asked recently about this, Serj Tankian had little in the way of an answer:

'Q:I think many Americans feel frustrated with the way our country is being run right now. But feel helpless as to what they could possibly do? What would you say to them?
Serj: I wouldn't say anything to them. I want to hear what they would say to me.'

One one level, this humility is welcome - and far better than a stance which pretends to have all the answers written down in some 'little red book' or something. However, Tankian like Chomsky is someone that people look to for political leadership at the present time. What they suggest and put forward is important - these people are leading figures in the movement. Therefore, when Tankian, like Chomsky, decides to endorse John Kerry for President ("We need someone with a high degree of both intelligence and compassion in the White House, someone deserving of the good will of the American people. Bush and Co. do not deserve us as their public"), there is a problem.

The problem stems from the Chomskyian focus on the huge power wielded by the elite, and the idea that they can 'mezmorize' and 'hypnotise' the rest of us through the corporate media. This perspective robs the rest of us of any agency, leaving us as passive spectators trying to work out which rich politician would be better than which other rich politician come election time. It rules out the idea that it might be possible for working people to build an independent political organisation for themselves in the here and now - that can break through the 'power spectacle'. If it really was the case that this was an impossible task because such a party would inevitably get corrupted by power, then there is little point in being political at all. Everybody may as well just go out 'to the party and have a real good time' while American soldiers are 'dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine'. American hegemony would be triumphant.

Yet there is a rich but hidden history of working class struggle which attests precisely to the fact that ordinary people can take control of their own destiny and make history themselves, from the Chartists in Britain to the Paris Commune of 1871 to the Soviets of 1905 in Russia and then the Russian Revolution itself and beyond. The American working class in particular has an incredibly militant history of struggle and self-organisation. Classical Marxism is nothing more and nothing less than the theory that arises from the experience of working class people in struggle for their own liberation. As such it does have something to say about the strategic and tactical questions of the movement, and arguably therefore deserves critical attention from all who are concerned with the survival of humankind in the twenty-first century.