ROCK FOR PEACE

19 June 2021

9:45-11:15 AM CEST (Warsaw)

Join this event to explore the relationship between rebel rock music and social movements, anti-racism, and peacebuilding. Learn how the legendary Woodstock Festival of 1969, featuring Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, influenced cultural history as a symbol of the peace movement. Learn about the Rock Against Racism campaign which emerged in reaction to the rise of violent racist attacks in the 1970s in the UK. It has also inspired Music Against Racism in Poland, as well as other similar initiatives tackling the challenges of racism, xenophobia, oppression, dictatorships, and human rights abuses across the world including in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. Can music really change the world? This interactive session will provide an opportunity to engage in discussion with issues of human rights, peace, protest, and reconciliation with high-profile rock and punk musicians as well as renowned intellectuals from Myanmar, Cambodia, Poland, UK, and other countries.

This event is being organised by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and it is part of the Global Peace Conference ‘Weaving a Shared Future Together’.

You will receive the link for participation after registering here: https://sites.google.com/rpfaa.org/gpc-2021 .

Hosts and moderators:

- Rafal Pankowski, sociology professor, researcher of racism and popular culture, co-founder of Music Against Racism, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association;
- Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska, Rotary Peace Fellow, Chulalongkorn 2018, genocide scholar and educator (Poland).

Speakers:

- Chris Salewicz, a London-based renowned music journalist and author of ‘Bob Marley: The Untold Story’, ‘Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer’, ‘Jimmy Page: The Definitive Biography’, and more;
- Kyaw Kyaw, the founder and leader of Rebel Riot, a punk band from Yangon, Myanmar, who was featured in the acclaimed documentary ‘My Buddha is Punk’. In the aftermath of the recent military coup in Myanmar, Rebel Riot released a new song One Day inspiring the protesters to stand against oppression;
- Julien Poulson, co-founder (with the internationally recognised singer Srey Channthy) of Cambodian Space Project, a freewheeling, psychedelic Cambodian rock group which led a revival of the Cambodian music scene;
- Riz Farooqi, founder of King Ly Chee, one of the first groups to introduce hardcore punk to China, editor of Unite Asia website (Hong Kong);
- Maqsoodul Haque a.k.a. Mac Haque, the leader of Maqsood O Dhaka, the leading jazz-rock fusion band from Bangladesh, featuring strong environmental and social messages of peace, harmony and cohesion;
- Pawel Gumola, the leader of Moskwa, a legendary Polish punk band established in 1983, he also played reggae with 5000 Lat and folk with R.U.T.A., a band using historical revolutionary lyrics from the region of Eastern Europe.

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