BY MIKE BYRNE
Punk rock legend and lead singer of the Clash, Joe Strummer, died of a heart attack on December 22, aged 50. Born John Graham Mellor in 1952, the son of a British diplomat, Strummer became disillusioned with his middle-class upbringing at a boarding school in Surrey and then at art school in London. He spent the early 1970s busking in London and playing around the pub rock circuit.
It was after attending a Sex Pistols concert in 1976 that Strummer saw new musical possibilities and together with Mick Jones formed the Clash. From the "Rock Against Racism" concerts of the late '70s through to his final gig, fittingly a benefit for striking British firefighters, in London last November, Strummer was always prepared to support working-class and anti-racist struggles.
When Punk rock first burst onto the music scene in late 1976, Britain was in social turmoil. The working class was paying the price of the Labour government's austerity policies, with massive attacks on the wages and conditions of workers. Public sector and local government workers were particularly under attack.
Racism was also on the rise with the fascist, anti-immigration National Front winning a hearing from some sections of the working class looking to scapegoat migrants for the deterioration of their living standards.
Institutional racism was also rampant. In 1976, the police were used to smash a strike by mainly Asian women workers at the Grunwick plant in London. The Notting Hill Carnival (an annual event for the Caribbean community in West London) was also attacked. The use of the draconian 1824 Vagrancy Act, known as the "sus" law, to harass and intimidate black youth was causing mass resentment.
In the last years of the Labour Party government, unemployment rose to more than 1 million due to public spending cuts. In 1978-79, a series of massive strikes, especially of public sector workers, erupted. This was the famous "Winter of Discontent". Fire brigade workers were also engaged in protracted industrial action and the army was used as scab labour.
While the Sex Pistols were influential in the forming of the Clash, Joe Strummer and his band were soon counterposing support for left-wing political causes to the anarchy and nihilism of the Pistols. In 1978, the Clash headlined a "Rock Against Racism" concert. Around 100,000 people made the long march from Trafalgar Square in central London to Victoria Park in East London; this was a crucial turning point in mobilising youth against racism.
By the time of the general election in 1979, disillusionment among Labour's traditional working-class and migrant supporters was so high that many abstained from voting. Sections of the more privileged working class defected to the Tories, electing the Conservative Party's Margaret Thatcher.
The Clash's music also drew on reggae, dub and rockabilly, giving the band a far larger audience and following than other punk bands. The Clash released a string of albums, starting with the hard hitting self-titled album in 1977, which contained tracks such as "London's Burning", which reflected the alienation of youth in London and "Career Opportunities", which commented on the lack of them for working-class people. In 1980, they released the two-LP Sandinista album in solidarity with the Nicaraguan revolution. Many people consider the Clash's 1979 London Calling album the band's best work.
Unlike other bands of the era, the Clash stood by their principles of non-commercialism. Strummer and the other band members refused to appear on the BBC's mainstream Top of the Pops and on many occasions would open the back door of their concerts to let in ticketless fans, often joining them for a beer after the gig. When their record company, CBS, gave the Clash a limousine, the band members immediately donated it to a Welsh miners' strike committee.
After Mick Jones left the Clash in 1983, the band produced one last album in 1985 and finally disbanded in 1986. Following the break up, Strummer worked on a variety of projects including acting and writing movie scores. Strummer and his latest band, the Mescaleros, were joined onstage by Jones at his final concert, the firefighters benefit gig.
Strummer was always prepared to join the fight for a society in which workers are valued and racism challenged. He once commented, "I think people ought to know that we're anti-fascist, anti-violence and anti-racist. We're against ignorance".
Millions will miss Joe Strummer.
From Green Left Weekly, January 15, 2003.
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