THE POP LIFE
Raging Against an Unusual Benefit Concert
By NEIL STRAUSS
LOS ANGELES -- When the rock group Rage Against the Machine heard that the
final appeal of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist who was sentenced to death in
Pennsylvania
for killing a police officer in 1981, had been rejected, the band decided
to hold a benefit concert.
After all, celebrities, governments and human rights organizations -- from
Amnesty International to the European Parliament --
have been clamoring for a new trial for Abu-Jamal.
So Rage Against the Machine contacted friends in the Beastie Boys and Bad
Religion and
arranged a benefit scheduled for Thursday night at the Continental Airlines
Arena in East Rutherford, N.J.,
which quickly sold out. But these bands did not anticipate the fury and
outrage their concert would inspire,
especially since the last time Abu-Jamal was scheduled to be executed, Rage
Against the Machine held
a similar benefit in Washington, to little rancor.
But this time, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey called the event
despicable and
urged concertgoers not to go. A New York State Senator, Serphin Maltese, a
Queens Republican,
accused ticket buyers of being "pro-cop killer." The National Association
of Police Organizations lambasted
the concert's organizers for lionizing "a convicted cop killer." The
commander of the New Jersey State Police,
responsible for providing security for the show, declared his opposition.
The general manager of the Manhattan
radio station K-Rock (WXRK 92.3 FM) apologized on-air for promoting the
concert, calling it a "big-time" mistake.
And the arena offered refunds to ticket buyers unaware that their money
would benefit Abu-Jamal. The concert
is expected to bring in $375,000 in ticket sales.
Normally, when pop groups appear at benefits, they perform for popular
causes: helping cancer research,
AIDS awareness, homeless people. But this benefit is not so clear cut.
Abu-Jamal was convicted of
shooting a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, point-blank during
an argument over a traffic violation,
but Abu-Jamal's supporters say he was set up, citing witness tampering,
suppression of evidence and a
racially biased judge and jury.
Police and prosecutors have called the conviction fair, and the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
ruled in October that there would not be a new trial.
Tom Morello, Rage's guitarist, said that no groups turned down the band's
invitation to perform,
and many others -- ranging from the folk duo the Indigo Girls to the
heavy-metal heroes Black Sabbath
to the Latin big band Ozomatli -- offered to play.
"It's not the first time that Rage Against the Machine has opened up a can
of worms by standing up
for what we believed in," Morello said from his Manhattan hotel yesterday.
"We've had the Ku Klux Klan
protest our shows, but I didn't expect this from the Governor of New
Jersey's office."
The others performing in the concert were equally caught off guard. The
Beastie Boys distanced
themselves from the controversy by declining to talk about it, and Greg
Graffin, the Bad Religion
singer, said he felt like the victim of a smear campaign.
Graffin said his band had always promoted "skeptical inquiry," and that
this had been absent from
Abu-Jamal's case."But I want to emphatically state that this does not mean
we support cop killers."
Graffin and Morello said they felt that the benefit, arranged to help win a
new trial for Abu-Jamal,
had been wrongly portrayed by its opponents as a village meeting of police
haters.
Morello said he saw a model for the event in Bob Dylan's benefit concerts
for Rubin (Hurricane) Carter
in the mid-70's. At the time, Carter, a former middleweight boxer, was
serving three life sentences for a
triple murder, and Dylan helped begin the process that led to a 1985
judge's order to release Carter
because the case had been tainted by corrupted evidence.
"This is not some far-flung left-field crazy case," Morello continued.
"This is as mainstream as human
rights cases get: you've got Amnesty International on board saying give him
a new trial. But because
the incident involved the killing of a policeman, all rationality goes out
the window. I would think that any
decent policeman would want this guy to have another trial. If they're so
sure he's guilty, why not?"
|