The last two weeks have been very strange. Sydney has seen visits from the Pope, Bill Gates of multinational computer giant, Microsoft, American academic, anarchist and social critic Noam Chomsky, and now FunDaMental. Represented here are the two most oppressive groups in the world today - the Catholic Church, and the multinational hi-tech corporation - and two of the more liberating activists pushing self-determination, human rights, and freedom from economic and social domination. Where the Catholic Church has spread a doctrine of subservience and control throughout history to the impoverished nations of the world, Microsoft's many tentacles have it aiming to be a part of every computer system in the world generating an almost impenetrable web of knowledge, access to which will be only available to the rich who will inevitably be White. On the other side there is Noam Chomsky who gave a series of inspiring lectures to packed houses, trying to raise people's awareness of the situation of the world, and an awareness of what their silence of complicity is doing to countries like East Timor, Bouganville, Latin America and elsewhere. Now FunDaMental arrive for two Sydney shows, one at the Big Day Out, the other at the Metro.

If I was pressed to name some events that have shaped my perceptions of the world, hearing FunDaMental's debut, Seize The Time, would certainly rank amongst the top five - their dissection of the politics of race and their portrayal of being Asian in a Western country hitting home. The beach represents the point of first point of contact between invader and native so it is to the beach that Miguel and I take FunDaMental's Aki Nawaz and Dave Watts to conduct our interview.

Aki is very modest about the message of FunDaMental, preferring to see their work as another step in a direction that has been being carved out over the last century - "What we're saying is nothing new, its been going on for 50 or 60 years and we hope our children and our children's children will be going on about it. Like the Holocaust we have to keep bringing it up until a solution is found for the West's historical past. Australia has got nowhere near resolving the Aboriginal issues - you have shops selling artifacts and places called after Aboriginal names - but I look around and I can't see the beauty because I know the historical issues have not been resolved". There is an urgency in Aki's voice; "You can only educate people into badness, or by controlling them into badness - I mean people aren't born bad. But you see that white man over there, he's not directly responsible for what his ancestors or his race did but he has to be part of the solution. If he's not then he's part of the problem . . . . Sometimes I think about the whole Black struggle and I'll say to D[ave Watts] 'Are we stupid or what? All this has gone on. We've got all these monuments of ancient civilisations and 'progressiveness', and how could we have been so stupid to have let a few people arriving on a boat take us in'. And then I think we are just human and its like we invited these people in for a cup of tea and when we came back they had stolen the furniture."

People, inevitably White people, have mused since the Bicentenary of Invasion about something that they call 'White guilt' and blame this for the re-emergence of race as an issue in contemporary Australia. But if you remember back to school what were you taught? Even in Year 12 I did not learn about the mass genocide of the Aboriginal people; the history I learnt was White and eurocentric. Explorers were people to be looked up to for their bravery in discovering the 'New World' and for civilising the uncouth natives; and this was in the 1980s. Still in the 1990s I look for a history of colonialism in my father's homeland of China, and because my first language is English I am restricted to European accounts of these events.

"I met this English girl who came to see us at a gig and after the show she comes up and is talking about religion and politics and then she comes out and says that she is part of this organisation at her university that is taking the British Government to the European Court. Her organisation is arguing that the Government has not taught children the real story about the Industrial Revolution, that the only reason that we've had this so-called 'progress' is because we raped, pillaged and ripped off other countries under colonial control. So there must be hope." Dave adds; "We've got people who care about things - there are four of us here now. It may not happen now but it might be the catalyst. We sit here and talk about Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Edward Said, and hopefully heaps of young people are reading these, and these are the people who have had many more setbacks than us, so all we have to do now is get everyone together to start doing it".

Possibly with the crackdown that has resulted from the Criminal Justice Bill which effects everyone from ravers to immigrants, pensioners, to bushwalkers - "ravers, vegies, conscious people" - music may be helping to put White youths in positions where they feel the true face of the State and the police. "There aren't enough white bands that are political and when they are its often just a fashion. We did a an anti-racist song with Pop Will Eat Itself [Ich Bin Ein Auslander] and then they made a video clip for it which had nothing at all to do with any sort of racism at all . . . but with the Criminal Justice Bill, I think a lot of White kids are finding out that they are also being controlled just like Black people have been. Now they are saying 'lets get involved and kill the bill because we can't play our music anymore' but they fail to realise that its a whole lot bigger than that. At least now they're getting out on the streets and realising that they are being controlled and they have to fight it . . . . And its not just the youth its the pensioners and everyone who wants to protest about something or hike across the land, and you're going to get locked up. Its unfortunate but in many ways it might be the catalyst".

But the catalyst for what? Where would this sorely needed change lead us?

Dave begins; "[The Governments of the world] are smart with words so they redefine everything in terms of crises. They are very cunning and yet people just don't care enough to dig deep and see what has been going on. People talk about JFK and what a great man he was and yet he was instrumental in instigating the Cuban 'crisis' amongst other things. This democracy thing is a complete scam. You take a thing like the Criminal Justice Bill and you see that we are all supposed to observe democracy as Noam Chomsky says, rather than participate in it. Maybe we should fuck democracy". Aki continues; "The way democracy is now its like fascism. We are constantly told 'change the System from the inside' but you have to be outside to really change it". As the end of millennium nears fringe groups are springing up, too, all calling for change - "I don't really like fanatics but I can also see that a lot of fundamentalist groups are like freedom fighters and then the people in power come along and paint them with a different and more negative brush. I look at the Third World that is supposedly in 'crisis' and I see people who have actually worked out how to fight the System and are being called fundamentalists or subversives because they are succeeding . . . but you can't go back in time because too much has changed. Instead we have to all go forward at the same time. If the Aborigines were to get Australia back tomorrow, they wouldn't knock it all down, they'd say 'we'll keep this and keep that but we'll demolish that' and there would be much more of a balance". As Chomsky and many others repeat - there are solutions but we are just not being allowed access to them. Dave agrees; "In Australia I believe you have two thirds of your press controlled by Murdoch and the other third by Packer and so you are constantly being bombarded with 'Murdoch-isms' or 'Packer-isms', in Italy they have Silvio Berlesconi, the ex-prime minister owning the press, and we wonder why we don't get told the truth . . . . the people up on the hill want you to be ruthless, to be only out for yourself and not care - so you've got to take on responsibility and be responsible to your community to counter that"

In our supposedly multicultural country, politicians, the media and the glitterati, Paddingtonites and wealthy students, take great pride in their abilities to digest the foods of a thousand starving nations at their favourite restaurants whilst listening to the latest tape of indigenous music released on some New Age record label. This is the lie we are sold in the guise of multiculturalism. Yet at the end of these cultural excursions, these people always return to their nice secure White bungalows content to be merely tourists. Surely this is not multiculturalism. Dave Watts elaborates, "I don't really believe in this multiculturalism thing that's prevalent in Western countries. Multiculturalism is more than just going to an Indian or Caribbean takeaway, you've got to respect their faiths and listen to their beliefs", and Aki adds "As soon as you say 'their' then you're creating a difference. I mean people of colour don't really have a problem with other people and this is a historical fact. There might be disputes between religions and the like but on the whole racism seems to be a Western construct . . . and they say 'you all have chips on your shoulders' and I tell you we'll soon have fish and bloody whales, too, if they're not careful".

With the Big Day Out looming and seething masses of drunken White indie youths pretending to be more alternative than thou, FunDaMental plan a rude shock. "To be brutally honest I'm not particularly grateful for the BDO but its an opportunity. Unlike the rock gods [Primal Scream and The Cult] in the hotel who come to sit on the beach and have a holiday, we see it as an opportunity to meet other people and learn, tomorrow we're going way out into the countryside to make a documentary. But we kind of look forward to going up on the stage to hordes of drunk and drugged-out indie kids and almost terrifying the shit out of them. We're like the ultimate coming down pill". And as for the inevitable yobs whose beer consumption makes their racist remarks flow more freely - "We'll just say what we have to say and if they are offended or we're touching nerves with people its showing their weakness . . their ignorance . . .and that they don't understand and don't want to understand. Its not our problem anymore, its theirs".

Interview - Yellow Peril & Miguel D'Souza

Text - Yellow Peril

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