Now that I'm living up in God knows where
Sometimes it gets hard without a friend
But as I am lurkin' around
Hoptza! I see another immigrant punk!
There is a little punk rock mafia
Everywhere you go
She is good to me and I am good to her...
"Immigrant Punk"
by Gogol Bordello
A friend of mine -- let's call her Dead Star -- relocated to Dubai several months ago, to live with her dad (an engineer in the ranks of the Overseas Filipino Workforce) and his new girlfriend.
Her first weeks in the country left her bored out of her skull, unable to deal with the frustrating mix of large-scale consumption (grandiose shopping malls; opulent luxury resorts) and fundamentalist Islamic cultural practices (getting the stink-eye for her discount-bin harajuku fashion, and dealing with the inconvenience of buying cheap snack food during the Ramadan fasting).
But she quickly found small comfort in a burgeoning, tight-knit punk scene, initiated by a handful of twentyomething Pinoy contract employees, who refused to allow their new situation to get in the way of their need for loud music.
Don't get the wrong idea -- there is no larger political message here. Their shows are much-needed escape from the workaday pressure of specialized labor, an unforgiving climate, and wiring remittances to cash-strapped families back home.
And yet, there's a sense of lingering threat hanging over each gig. The conservative Islamic state heavily monitors all telecommunication, so it's not exactly advisble to be coordinating a gathering of immigrant workers, singing hardcore anthems in fist-pumping unison. Thus, organizing a show usually involves military-like precision, even for low-budget, sweaty affairs held in eggshell-lined practice spaces.
This may not be capital-P Punk, as evangelized by the likes of Ian MacKaye. But for Dead Star and her pals, it goes a small way towards making life bearable amidst the drudgery of the globalized labor market.
