Russell Brand Isn't My Great Leader. in Voices Windward

The first time I came across RB he was still just a comedian and a host, it was in passing on some Channel 4 thing and I was left with an initial impression of a decadent, smarmy bourgeoisie who encapsulate everything I loath about the floating world.

This isn’t why I slate him tho, I’m a professionally minded little revolutionary and personality conflicts have no place in activism, I’ve stood along side people i loathed much more. Neither is it the chauvinistic drivel that forms his humour or the allegations of cultural appropriation (racism?)or that he isn’t putting his dialectic and rhetoric into action and manning the barricades any of that, my reasons are three fold.

• The man himself
• The way the people see him
• The meme of icon validation
• the way activists act around him

I’ll state her, that it isn’t even a Russell Brand thing, it’s a icon thing, but let’s do this specific case.

• First of all, RB is to steal a turn of phrase “The Moon”, reflecting the glory of countless activists and parroting their worlds. This isn’t Naomi Klien here or Chomsky , Bakunin or even Tony Benn or Ian Bone… Those people created and manifested ideas and put them out into the world.

Russell Brand, and the various others who jump into activism here and there are appropriating the creative efforts and learning of revolutionaries of all forms and - through intention or not I couldn’t say - then claiming them as his own. Suddenly I find that I’m in “Russell Brand’s Revolution” and I don’t know whether that’s a result of a cleverly titled book or some PR agents hard at work.

• With a icon at the front, you cannot have bastions of independent, there is no encouragement for the people to coin their own thoughts, RB isn’t propagating an idea he’d like people to get behind, he’s storming in the front, appropriating the thoughts and intentions of the peons beneath him and verbalising them in a form the media will give five seconds too. Some would say “Trews” and stuff is bringing a revolutionary message to the people, but it’s watered down and tempered by propaganda and PR, it’s saccharine revolution. You’d hope that he’d be the Blink 182 and act as bit of a gate way, but we all know that in reality his brand of digestible pop politics will stay round the pub table and breed inaction.

• Amongst revolutionary types there is often a bit of a constant debate, much in the way the Sex wars tear at Feminism, the hum let’s call them, “The popular awareness debate” draws a rift, Some want to just get on with the task in hand and make beautiful action where they see fit, individual pockets of varied politics, the other side spends it’s time trying to draw the populous in to this great idea of social change, they want the world to be empowered, to start thinking.

One of the few grounds that both forms find they share is empowerment. Whatever social change is too come, it should come from the people, the communities and those changes will affect. It’s not for some loft removed organisation, leader or government to credit and direct.

The moment RB took a mic at E15 or at Democracy village, everyone there was dis-empowered. The Icon validated their action. Think about that, think about what that means, What a photo of a half dozen black bloc revolutionaries and RB on the mic says.

It pushes the idea that these things happened because of “Great Leaders” when in reality they are but The Moon again. He didn’t organise, He won’t be staying, He won’t be hurting… The faces on the news should be yours.

• Activists, Revolutionaries, Insurrectionists, Protesters and whatever other term you have, we are almost always a curious and excitable bunch. So the moment RB turns up or for that matter Brian May or Tom Morello, everything stops, They want to see the interesting thing, “hey that person people care about, cares about us” and we sit in a pow wow and talk to them with reverence in our tones while like I say the action stops. This, this is not a good thing.

Look, I think it’s a good thing tat booming voices join our own, and we should take advantage of ever tool in the box, but central focus on a celebrity whose revolutionary principles came out of the dust a few months ago, who steals the limelight and the power and vanishes off…

If Russell Brand truly wants change, he would stop appropriating the work of thousands, he wouldn’t turn up to media savvy actions for a parley and a sound bite, he’d just turn up, have a cup of tea, chant and struggle next to any other person there… Many famous faces do this (on occasion) … he’d use some of that net worth of $20 million dollars and buy marques for the village, houses for the mothers at E15, Christ even set up a socialites charity or something, but no… A book with your words in will be sold for 20 quid and the money will line his pockets.

A millionaire telling the poor “I’m with you guys” before fucking off. Then the downtrodden offer apologisms for his bit part attitude.

Fucking Nelson Mandela didn’t go home after a speech, MLK didn’t just write a nice book, Guevara didn’t offer empty rhetoric to dis-empower the masses.

Icons can be fantastic, they can provide focus and bring awareness they really can but our Icons should come from great minds who with new thought change everything and great hearts who struggle each day for a better world, Our land is full of such icons, poor and rich, some have a degree or fame others are only known to a few lucky souls. If we’re going to have any voice speaking on our behalf it should be these guys, not some removed distant millionaire who is the personality equivalent of Topman’s “Punk / grunge fashion range.”

Stop being The Moon Russell, and next time you visit an action, shut up, listen to the people there instead and defer your actions to the community instead of using charm and fame to make minions out of heroes.