Mighty Mic to sound off about women in Afghanistan
By Taleen Kalenderian
April 9, 2007 9:55 p.m.
Sometimes, the mic can be mightier than the pen.
Peaches, Jello Biafra and Saul Williams will be a few of many performers and speakers at Mighty Mic, a human rights awareness concert which will take place tonight in Ackerman Grand Ballroom from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. The concert is free, with a suggested donation of $10 and profits benefiting the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and Doctors Without Borders.
The event is sponsored by a number of campus organizations, including the Campus Events and Cultural Affairs Commissions and Undergraduate Students Association Council. Wristbands for admission to the event will be distributed outside the venue at 5 p.m. to students with BruinCards.
Electro-pop dance queen Peaches is headlining the event, which she called a “stripped-down solo extravaganza.”
“It’s about how you need nothing to entertain everything,” Peaches said. “When I play benefits, I hope for a celebratory feeling because you’re there to try and change things. … I’m not talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan in my music, but I’m trying to put in the message of empowering women to any group that isn’t the average marketable heterosexual male from ages 18-24. I want to bring people to the party who haven’t been included.”
Mighty Mic will also feature artists such as hip-hop group Far East Movement, Raine Maida (front man of Our Lady Peace), and hardcore band The Fall of Troy.
Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues,” and Malalai Joya, the first female to be elected to the Afghan Parliament, will also be honored speakers at the event.
“I feel a little more comfortable that “˜The Vagina Monologues’ writer is there, because some people see me as a big vagina anyway,” Peaches said jokingly. “I’m really excited to hear (Joya) speak as well. The situation of women in Afghanistan to anybody we are in contact with seems unbelievable, right? That there’s an organization playing toward rights for women there, and that (Joya) is a young woman and the first one in their parliament is huge. … Attention should be brought to it.”
Azadeh Ghafari, a third-year history and political science student and lead organizer of the Mighty Mic concert, anticipates seeing the kind of crowd the eclectic lineup will bring to the event.
“Seeing a bunch of hip-hop kids dancing with hardcore kids and seeing the two listening to each other’s music will be amazing,” she said.
Ghafari is also a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Supporters at UCLA, which is one of many groups who helped organize the event. Others include Amnesty International, UNICEF and Invisible Children, among other international and campus-based groups. According to Ghafari, Mighty Mic started as a RAWA Supporters effort and branched out to include numerous other campus organizations during International Social Justice Network meetings, a group of which she is also a member. Many of the organizations will be tabling tonight, making the event one that not only crosses musical boundaries but also a breadth of causes as well.
“Even if you can’t directly identify with RAWA or Doctors Without Borders, you might be able to identify with another group at the event,” Ghafari said.
“Some students are going to hear things they’ve never been exposed to before, and it’s going to be done in an artistic, nonthreatening way. You can’t always have it be about rhetoric. It needs to be something you dance to and have fun with as well.”
However, rhetoric too will play an integral part at Mighty Mic in the form of free-speech icon Jello Biafra, ex-lead singer of legendary punk band Dead Kennedys, who will be performing spoken word drawn from his solo material.
“I want to fill in the blanks about what people might not say about “˜mismanagement of the war on terror incorporated,'” Biafra said.
“The huge tragedy to me in Afghanistan is how utterly we’ve betrayed the Afghan people. My dream come true after a concert like this one is that every bank and corporate greed headquarters are leveled to the ground by an inspired audience. Since that’s not going to happen, all we can hope for is to inspire people, and it might not always be in the ways that people expect. You never know what seeds you’re planting.”
Though it has been Mighty Mic’s mission to propagate awareness, planning the event itself has been an “eye-opener,” according to Ghafari, as well as a “unifier” for students and groups involved.
“I think it’s important that so many different organizations are working together in this one event,” Biafra said.
“Part of the reason why I think corporate dictatorship and Bush-ism has gotten so strong is because so much of the other side has focused on one-issue organizations. But a lot of these issues connect and I think people are starting to see that in an area where we all have our eyes on the same prize, it’s better if we work together. The key is not to hate the media, but to become the media.”
With Mighty Mic anticipated to sell out tonight and plans already in the works to make the concert an annual event, the concert may be on the way to having a media stronghold of its own.
