in a word that is today on the show will be broadcasting from great voices who specialize in this craft. as an award winning poet from india in australia is the son of an australian journalist and malaysian poet which is giving him a unique perspective on this generation where use this is love for hip hop and poetry to showcase form all over the world i first saw him years ago performing a piece called my generation which i asked him to come and perform for you. my generation sat on the brim of the ocean waiting for the tide to bring something in my generation was populated by booze hounds and pill heads crude clowns and bedspread stained with the neon dreams of cocaine in the diamond flooded visions of six kittens to sweat bullets glittering in the ones who drop out of college to get college and hoping to hook up with. a man with copycat tattoos

football contracts and right angled jewels hoping to ride amphetamine horses and red porsches into clubs who shelf life is. now my generation took solace in false prophets who promised change and did more of the same whose ideology of optimism would turn into fridge magnets and bumper stickers yes we can guess we witness prime ministers slain coups in the halls of parliament heads rolled over bad polls tongues lulled drums rolled as newspapers harmonize like wolves new kings and queens would smile for the all seeing cameras blink but never flinch freshly anointed leaders with polished teeth and long knives they would smile but deep down they knew that the guillotine also waited for them my generation bloomed with the blood of artists who sent messages in bottles that ended up lodged in bleach coral and humanity was a deep fossil to be someday by people other than us. well the traditional

aboriginal custody and sweated in the concrete gizzards of government flats left wing activists dread wine and talked of reform my generation had hot blooded six to cookie cutter music we made auto tuned love men learned how to have sex on the curriculum of pixilated pink porn star double d. digital we made love between oil spills and massacres tangoed between the headlines of history flitting between hushed lovemaking and murder drafts of cool wine and hellish salt pans when playing with dancing mirage is brought brief joy to our dissipated hearts my generation never stopped being children we grew weary or but not wiser we grew older but not up and our only possessions were our wind imaginations sitting on the brim of the ocean waiting for the tide to bring something. in.

got the chance to talk to amara about his inspiration and his craft i first asked him why the spoken word as its choice form of expression and here's what he had to say. it was like poetry from an early age my father was a poet in malaysia and he and my mother always encouraged me to express myself through words and said that i always like to do that but in australia at the time it felt like poetry was something that was considered pretentious and dusty and old and of you know like a very academic tower and so i was always looking for a form of poetry that was immediate and for young people and about issues that i could relate to and so i got into hip hop at an early age i got into the public enemy and ice cube and were telling klan and then some how hip hop led me in my early twenty's after being an emcee for years and years it led me to slam poetry and i started experimenting with that and so now i kind of just flip between them

but it was because i wanted to find an immediate powerful form of poetry it really does bridge the gap and that's what first let me on to you is seen in my generation i really did speak to me and you're from. new south wales australia you've said this is the side of us triad that's really unseen by a lot of people what do you mean by that well i feel like oftentimes in australia what's celebrated is you know the beach culture and things like that that's kind of the impression when i come here to the states people are surprised they say you really are you a story i didn't know there were brown people in australia you know. and i kind of had this image of surfers and became the models and whatnot and so i come from you know a small town it's kind of rural city it's very multicultural full of you know a lot of pacific islanders aboriginal people macedonian people and so i feel like it's really important that this side of history. which is often not talked about or not represented a multicultural sort of i think it's important for me to speak about that as

someone of a of a mine or. the background and it's sort of the same here you know because oftentimes you get fed one narrative and i think it's really important to complexity and different facets to the idea of a struggling identity absolutely and it seems that you embrace a lot of dark things about humanity and a lot of positive things about humanity especially a generation x. i mean our generation. with homes like my generation and also to slam poetry that you gave it for ted at the sydney opera house really highlights kind of the darkest and best things how do you juggle the relationship between the two concepts of this person is an optimism that you see one of my favorite writers is a nigerian god and he talks about how you can't deal with a lot unless you do with the shadows and i think it's really important in this kind of chaotic world that we deal with some of the dark asides of ourselves and we're willing to question not just to saudi and challenge a society but to challenge ourselves. and so you often talk about issues to do with

kind of apathy and superficiality in a style and maybe a sense of entitlement that a lot of people have and kind of challenging those norms but i think it's also important to try and talk about the courage and resilience that people display because those things often go hand in hand and you know if we don't have a gift what else what else do we have really and not the kind of stop of hope that you often hear about socially in this country well you know one phrase really stuck out to me you said this is the new scripture of our lives spelled skyscraper high in capital letters. i mean that to me just in caps you know this is this really the thing that we need to feel if we really want to pursue real tangible change is really believing in ourselves totally and i think that it has to start with the individual and also through grassroots work and that's why. i talk in that poll that i did for ted about hip hop and how it allowed people not just in this country all around the world people like myself who often felt dislocated as

a muslim. so you know oftentimes i felt like an outcast in a straw in society and hip hop allowed me to claim my voice and my story and told me that i was important and i think it's been the same for many people of different backgrounds and sort of poetry and storytelling you know it's not the be all and end all but it allows people to do that to claim their voices and to express themselves and i think it's really important because there are so many walls built up between us prejudice is based on race or gender or sexual orientation i think being able to creatively express yourself and not just express yourself through i guess superficial things and money and how much how many cars or houses you go on but more about really like. i mean there are so many different forms of art that are used as a form of expression it's really about tapping into that true will exert whatever you you know you feel like expresses yourself the most and then all of us have it and i think it's amazing that you found that so beautifully and what are you

working on right now are working to find out more about you love got a pretty active social media presence you can follow me on facebook or twitter i've got a blog as well but i'm working on the two main things are working on a novel that's coming out through penguin australia next year and that's about a man who starts a bush far on purpose but it's more an exploration of kind of migration and masculinity and powerlessness in a story in society and then i'm working on a play which deals with the the massacres of aboriginal people in australia and kind of the doc history of my country and packs of silence and blah i think both of our countries a kind of based on all knowledge of the darkness then you can never really understand the light or really towards the light i mean really and that's the big problem we have in american society a lot of conventional wisdom covering out a lot of dark truths omar prevents us from really moving forward our collective consciousness thank you so much i think you have how it. new book is out as well

you know i wrote a book of poetry it's all very independent. kind of like the idea since i'm coming out on a major with my novel i like the idea of doing something very independent where i saw it and send every copy and i think my supporters enjoy that as well it's an awesome book and you'll be launching it in malaysia very soon i will look out for that thank you so much for having me. don't go anywhere after the break we'll talk about the worldwide movement growing against. wealthy british style it's time to. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with my next concert no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on. a clear image of iraq after inflation. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the road full of dangerous. clear evidence from north to south. the roots of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. talks e t. he.

says. he misses. her. mum's.

my. last weekend over two million people took worldwide took to the streets to march against monsanto organizers reported that demonstrations were held in four hundred thirty six cities across fifty two countries here in the u.s. the most recent outrageous come from the passing of the monsanto protection act by congress because of corporation immunity from courts that could restrict the sale of g.m.o. products also individual states been trying to pass legislation requiring g.m.o.

foods to be labeled however these efforts have failed against the massive influence and financial hole that biotech chemical giants like monsanto have over lawmakers so much pull in fact the f.d.a. the u.s. food and drug administration doesn't even require independent testing of these products and fortunately this issue remains largely off the radar for the average american around the world however there's a growing for saying no to us produced g.m.o. foods and it's not just a protest there potentially adverse health effects see months and also holds patent rights several crop seeds which has proven devastating for the self-sufficient the sufficiency sorry and financial security of farmers around the world and just recently a new concern has been raised in oregon farmer just found genetically modified wheat that had never been sold for commercial use mysteriously growing on his land the crop was found to be a g.m. strain previously tested by monsanto but never approved shortly after these fine

means japan's foreign ministry canceled the import of some twenty five thousand. tons of wheat originating from the us the news also prompted european leaders to call for a testing of u.s. wheat looking for signs of the g.m. strain recommending that if the strain is indeed found that the wheat not be sold among the member states wow really seems like everywhere else in the entire world governments are taking precautionary measures against g.m. foods very seriously in fact some countries are going to bars destroying g.m. crops altogether i can the case of a hungry which reportedly torched over twelve hundred acres of g.m. corn just this week but hunger is not alone on this. outright ban in a number of countries the latest being parun which is the very first nation in the americas to introduce a ten year ban on g.e. foods all right guys two million people showed up last week to say no to g m o's

communities everywhere are banding together to fight back so what's stopping you. today marks the third anniversary of an international tragedy six ships on a flotilla route to gaza were seen just by the israeli military the flotilla's purpose was to bring in a ray of banned goods into palestine sadly the violent assault which took place in international waters and against international law left nine activists dead the people on that ship were part of a growing resistance against the israeli occupation of palestine it's a struggle that comes in many different forms from protest poetry my next guest is remi nazneen palestinian american poet and activist who uses his art to inspire and

educate others on the plight of palestinians in store hundreds of venues across the u.s. and europe and the middle east and now he's here in studio to perform one of his most popular pieces called normalize this. nothing is normal about occupation nothing normal about apartheid if the cleansing siege blockade settle in the roads bombing water well schools mosques and un buildings nothing normal about putting a civilian population on a diet paying non-indigenous foreigners to settle land that is already populated rewinding the nakba with each stone childhood trying to desensitize the bullet holes and call march put into the bodies about some of the russian made and rachel corrie no i don't want to normalize with you i don't want to hug have coffee talk it out break bread sit around the campfire each morning and gush about how we're all the same i don't want to share the stage can write a poem submit your anthology talk about how art it sort of justice can forge

a better path i don't want to indulge your enemies about a glorious past have a therapy session and choose sides with people grievances. the only thing baron is your moral capacity booming a settler colonial state with appropriated culture i will not fight for your privilege nor will i seek to normalise it here ty law group it's a breeding ground for injustice just look at the board members and the zero waste sponsorship zionism is a real demographic threat infecting the minds of millions with the racism they were hunted in the south pushing dr nations and japan to stand selling young men in each box in northern ireland and keisha missed the hen i don't want to pretend all is ok or the bombs dropped on gaza don't have a manufacture the pilot doesn't have a nationality and somehow shimon peres is any different than avatar lieberman it's not just the occupation stupid it's a writer for term equality for all palestinians it's a transformation from

a racist exclusivist supremacy state to one nation for all of its citizens you deserve nothing nothing more than equality which means more than african refugees are provided in south tel aviv you are the shining light on a settlement hill reminding the world that racism often comes and packaging we don't give the sudan three point one billion dollars in military aid don't have for french all trade agreements with north korea don't call iran a democracy you're our proxy for empire and nine hundred fifty s. at not proceeded twenty first century clothing yes israel has singled out with aid weapons and you went vetoes in your favor. did i hurt your feelings should we hug after the show do these words hurt more than i don't know bombs dropped on gaza white phosphorus in the flesh of children i am not the bad guy you're defending the

bad system your words and actions have consequences you're either with a passion or you're against it i don't write history and sure as hell didn't choose for you to stand on the wrong side of it you're just some of the passion that is coming to an end and whether you recognize it or not yet it will be liberating for you to. i was also able to speak to remy about his activism and poetry i first asked him as a palestinian american what emotions come to his mind when thinking of the gaza flotilla tragedy three years ago. i mean it's sad and tragic i mean whether it's people killed on the flotilla the massacre in gaza in two thousand in two thousand and nine or dating back to the naacp you know israel has been allowed to act with impunity supported by the united states the european union the u.k. so for me it just reaffirms that notion that we need to be taking action it's important to educate and advocate but the flotilla was an action and so i work on

boycott divestment sanctions specifically on cultural boycott and you know we live in the united states we're not a silent actor our government gives three point one billion dollars a year in military aid to israel in two thousand and fourteen they'll be giving three point four billion we act as their veto inside and outside of u.n. we give advanced weaponry we need to be caught in a direct line of complicity to our government through our tax dollars to our community and campus investments so whether it's the flotilla on the ground actions or supposed supporting b.d.'s globally we need to be taking action to cut our lines of complicity and that's what's so interesting is the disparity between kind of the consciousness of this issue in the states versus the rest of the world especially since we are complicit we do get billions of dollars of taxpayer money to israel to fund this operation what is the reception that you get here in the states when you're touring i know that you've toured you know hundreds of shows just in the last year and also in europe and the middle east what's the difference that you noticed well i mean i think the crowds are a little bit more lively in europe people are more point there i mean i think that we consider the b.b.c.

but the socialist propaganda where they consider right wing terrible media so i think there's definitely a disparity there but i think that there's there's a growing community right so if you're framing standing with justice with palestine in the same frame of stand against police brutality stop and frisk five million person stop under michael bloomberg four point four million being black and latino a million and a half undocumented people being. down last four years challenging gender violence on college campuses or homophobia in communities then i think that people understand those kind of parallels so there are a lot of other communities who are facing strands of oppression and i think that building those kind of coalitions and intersections is crucially important so i think that you know five years ago you could see barely say the word palestine and on a college campus without hate being flung at you and today you have one hundred eighty students for justice in palestine chapters you have met which is a chicano organization with four hundred loosely linked chapters throughout the united states nationally signed on to b.d.s. regionally signed on more black student union square support so i think that it's

expanding into building indigenous support you know standing in solidarity with idle no more talking about settler colonialism on this continent and linking it back to palestine so i think that the connections are happening the movement is going forward there's obviously a lot more to do but there is you know i'm a passionate poet but it does come out of a place of feeling positive that if another people come together we can see fundamental change and not in the barack obama cliche type of way but in the grassroots people taking to the streets type of way absolutely well then what point did you start becoming political about this issue and why was spoken word so killing you to use that message i mean my grandparents and parents are refugees from one thousand nine hundred eighty eight so this is something that had been part of my family i grew up in a small town in western massachusetts where i was a brown kid in a predominantly white town you just want to coca-cola mcdonald's and to assimilate but i moved to new york city four months before nine eleven and when those two towers came down there was so much vitriolic language that we got to go and turn that place into a parking lot mentality we got a new come and start over and i wanted a way to positively combat those misconceptions and stereotypes so at first i

started reading you know palestinian authority like edwards aide and noam chomsky and howard zinn but in two thousand and four i went to go see them on broadway it was the first time i saw poets like super perform live and so many other people and i knew that the average one thousand year old didn't necessarily want to read an op ed or see cable news but. i would listen to a hip hop track they would listen to a spoken word poem so for me spoken word was a way to get you know a political message out through a cultural medium and connect with as many people as i could and let's talk about refuse i mean it seems so obvious to palm that they're really heartfelt poem about refusing to join the military and armed forces what compelled you to write it though. i think that you know i've written a lot from i've written pieces like before the mr machetes arrays which talks about this is a manic dehumanization of the arab and muslim male post nine eleven something that happened long before the black and latino indigenous male in with the refuse you know the ultimate victim at the end of the day is not the person with the best it's

not the person in the tank is not the person with the f. sixteen it's the iraqi mother that didn't ask for her village to be bombed it's the afghan father that was just trying to put food on the table as the afghan school child just trying to get an education so i think that it's important that we act and we recognize our own role and it's not to say that people aren't preyed upon socio economically but whether it's refusing service in the israeli military or the american military there are a million dead iraqi people five and a half million refugees birth defects or up five hundred percent and that is real life you know just because it's not boston or newtown and we refused to look at it doesn't mean that the mass graves aren't as deep doesn't mean that the devastation that was brought to innocent people's doorsteps is any less devastating so i think that you know you have a rock that's against the war you have other groups that are challenging that are refusing and if if we have a problem with the status quo we have to challenge it right there's a role for the artist for the individual for the soldier for all of these people to

take action because if we only and this is kind of harkening on what howard zinn has said about the role of the individual the historian artist if we leave it up to the governments it's only going to reaffirm oppression and we have to take action ourselves and also throwing your bodies in the gears of the machine and what better machine in the military machine creating this perpetual warfare i mean where can people find out more about your work. i have a web site poetic injustice dot net also twitter and facebook an active on both of those mediums pretty constantly but those are probably the best ways to get in touch stay connected and at the end of the day it is about global activism and not just poets and celebrities and intellectuals but really about building a strong of a movement as possible so me up if you ever see me in person or online that's it for today's show guys have a great night now leave you with running performing the song who just spoke about refuse. don't pull the trigger you don't have to go don't have to

fight conquer kill beat torture scar your own conscience with a way you remind you tell you what you did at night and hallucination broken sleep and deep sweats and shattered relationships and black eyes it is not business as usual you will climb that chair creep up the ladder around your neck and leap to go back to the way it was swallow a shotgun it will fester jolt and show you you want supposed to be there those who sent you won't care won't treat won't keep promises you'll die all alone even of surrounded by loved ones don't pull that trigger step off that ledge you want jumping alone pull back left a finger turn in the other direction there won't be repercussions but they cannot last forever that will last forever that gunshot that trigger pulled will not end or be amended when you come back a shell of your former self when the country shot stop the conscious will be can

refuse to be damaged refuse to be pardoned for a fuse just some of the agenda you have a choice the number that you can refuse. they played in a family jazz band together. play hijacked

a plane together. boston them from music to tara. twenty five years old questions still remain. just bad hijack. seals are born to right on the ice fields of the white sea. throughout the twentieth century the poles were hunted for their snow white furs. russia imposed a ban on this trade and hunters have since been replaced by tourists but will these pups stay safe forever. saving seals on our teeth. the civilized world produces more food than it needs. well people die of hunger in other countries. millions of victims every year. where

a meal is the most value treasure. was. is flood or droughts to blame. and if was a bad year for the train. we couldn't plant anything with what we were dead of and there was great hunger and some. low isn't that help comes too late and without good intentions. charity diplomacy and business run up to.

chaotic scenes in terror keys major cities after a harsh police response environmental rally triggers an angry backlash in other parts of the country. passions give way to violence in frankfurt as baton wielding riot police plow into the march of protesters threatening a second day of paralysis for the euro zone's financial capital. an american and a british citizen are killed in the syrian war fighting on antacids side of it fears that the program will rather it is pushing westerners to foreign battlefields .