Song Of The Week: 6/24/12

Song: "Mate Ka Moris Ukun Rasik An"

Artist: Propagandhi

Album: "Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes"

Year: 2001



"Mate Ka Moris Ukun Rasik An" is a revolutionary cry of the East Timorese people that basically means "Live or die - we want independence". The song is inspired by the real life story of Bella Gahlos, a young East Timorese woman who saw the Indonesian government basically do a hostile military take over of East Timor, with support from both the U.S. and Canadian governments. It's the story of how the Indonesian government would basically torture, rape and murder the East Timorese people, specifically how the Indonesian military brutally beat to death Gahlos two young brothers as well as put her father in prison. The young East Timorese women would often be raped by the Indonesian military. The girls were also injected with birth control as a way to basically shut down the reproduction of East Timorese people. Gahlos would defect East Timor years later and now lives in Canada. She is very much an activist trying to gain support to free East Timor from Indonesian control. She uses the atrocities that she saw first hand to try to sway support for her cause. Propagandhi are a punk band from Manitoba, Canada who formed back in 1986. Vocalist/guitarist Chris Hannah and drummer Jord Samolesky are the founding members of the band and are still with the band to the present day. Propagandhi's style incorporates some skate punk with touches of metal influence. Lyrically, Propagandhi is a band that wears it's radical left wing views on it's sleeve. The band is known to take strong stances against human rights violations, sexism, racism, homophobia, imperialism, capitalism and organized religion. They also support animal rights and are all vegans. After touring in support of their debut album, 1993's "How To Clean Everything", with NOFX, Fat Mike, bassist and vocalist for NOFX, decided to sign Propagandhi to his punk label Fat Wreck Chords. In their twenty-six year career as a band, Propagandhi has released five full length albums, three EP's, three splits, two live albums, three demo tapes and a compilation album. In 1997, Todd Kowalski became their full time bass player and still is to this day. In 2006, the band officially became a four piece, adding second guitarist David Guillas. Currently, as of June 2012, the band has stated that they have finished recording and producing what will be their sixth full length album which has a tentative release date around late summer or early fall of 2012.