Never Enough Slovenian Subversion Department

Years ago, when I was still living in Dallas, a friend of mine first turned me onto a band that has confused many people with their enigmatic presence. The band Laibach often gets labeled "fascist" by people concerned only with surface appearances. Indeed, with their often militaristic uniforms, extensive use of drums and horns, grim expressions, use of seemingly barbaric languages, and provocative statements, it is all too easy to presume that Laibach represents a yearning for totalitarian systems. On the contrary, what is often missed is how they use this pretense to hold a mirror to the world.

In their early days they brashly exposed the hidden totalitarian contradictions in a post-Tito Yugoslavia eager to become a liberal socialist country even if it meant censoring its own history. The Yugoslav government of the 80s, fearing the extremes that Laibach artistically represented, reacted in its own totalitarian way and was thus trapped into revealing its own extreme tendencies in the political arena.

As they began releasing records in Western Europe and the USA, they turned songs by Queen and Opus into anthems of fascism by merely translating the words into German and the music into marches, thus revealing the hidden fascism that festers under the guise of "individualistic" rock and roll. They further sharpened their criticism of the contradictory nature of rock music with covers of "Sympathy For The Devil" and the entire Beatles album Let It Be--the high point of the latter for me being the recording of the concert audience chanting "I've got a feeling" in unison.

When Slovenia began to exert its independence and to flirt with democracy, Laibach sternly warned that "Nazi-fascism under the disguise of democracy is the rule of financial capital itself" and released the album Kapital to illustrate the fact. As Serbian nationalism reared its head and began its military campaign against the former Yugoslav states, Laibach responded with the album NATO to reveal a chaotic collusion of idealism and cynicism, as manifest by the military, ideological, and economic conflict of East and West in a land that, for much of the late 20th Century, was deeply suspicious of both sides of the Cold War. And most recently, Laibach released Jesus Christ Superstars to illustrate how religion and entertainment have become infused with one another, their synthesis being that of a bland universal treatment of good and evil which then serves the manipulative ends of both churches and mass media.

Needless to say, in the context of the breadth and depth of Laibach's musical work over the past 20 years, it is entirely too simplistic, too reactionary, to claim they are fascists. Then again, as a mirror to the world, if we react to Laibach as if they are fascists, we are only revealing our mingled fear and lust for being controlled and manipulated by a larger and impersonal system. If we instead recognize the beautiful subversiveness of their art, we can then attempt our own deciphering of culture, its myths and presumptions, and its effects on humanity from a much more honest place. And while it is unlikely that we will overcome human nature in one leap, perhaps the insight we gain will at least keep us from repeating the same mistakes as quickly or as frequently as before.

One can only hope.

(I am not aware of any site with full length Laibach mp3s, but this fan site has snippets of Laibach on mp3 as well as video clips, and thus makes a worthy introduction to Laibach's provocative music and art.)