John Lennon : Power To People

[uncluster/news]---Tiga puluh tahun lalu, 8 Desember 1980, sebuah pistol menyalak melesatkan lima butir peluru. Hanya satu peluru yang meleset, sisanya melubangi tubuh  John Lennon. Tubuhnya terkulai, tepat di depan rumahnya di Dakota  Manhattan, New York. Tak lama berselang, dari St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, tersiar kabar John Lennon tewas.

John Lennon tewas di pusat kota yang mengendalikan perekonomian dunia. Di New York ada Wall Streets. Bila Wall Streets oleng, tidak hanya para bankir dan pemilik transcorporation yang linglung, setiap penjuru dunia pun ikut terguncang.  Itulah sudut pandang Oliver Stone melalui sekuel film "Wall Streets : Money Never Sleeps".

New York pun punya sisi lain. Dalam film "Gangsters of New York", tergambarkan bagaimana para begundal menjadikan darah sebagai tinta yang menorehkan sejarah berdirinya Kota New York.

“Berhati-hatilah, John. Terlalu banyak orang sinting di negara itu,” Tariq Ali  mengingatkan John Lennon suatu hari, ketika ia hendak hijrah ke Amerika. Tariq Ali adalah seorang ahli sejarah, aktivis, dan juga jurnalis dari majalah bawah tanah Red Mole di Inggris. Hasil wawancara dan pertemanannya dengan John Lennon kemudian dibukukan dalam Memories of John Lennon, yang diedit dan kata pengantarnya oleh Yoko Ono, istri John Lennon.

John Lennon terlanjur kecewa dengan Inggris. Menurutnya, tabloid di Inggris tampak naïf dan rasis. Terutama sorotannya terhadap kehadiran Yoko Ono yang dianggap sebagai pemecah The Beatles.

Tapi, Tariq memiliki catatan lain. Yoko memberi kekuatan warna lain terhadap John Lennon. John menjadi lebih radikal  dalam artistik dan politik. Suatu hari, melalui telepon, John Lennon mengatakan kepada Tariq bahwa ia terinspirasi selama diwawancarai olehnya. John pun menyanyikan ciptaannya melalui telepon. Tariq orang pertama yang mendengar lagu 'Power To  People' (Power To  People pun dijadikan judul album kompilasi lagu-lagu hit John Lennon dan telah dirilis  Oktober 2010, untuk menyambut ultah John Lennon).

Setelah bersolo karir, kekhawatiran Brian Epstein – mantan manajer The Beatles – akan tabiat John, menjadi semakin nyata. Menurut Epstein, pandangan John Lennon menjadi ultra-subversif dan politis. Dalam album solo pertamanya John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, lagu 'God' menegaskan bahwa hanya dirinyalah yang layak dipercayai daripada Bible, Hitler, The Beatles, Kennedy hingga Jesus. Sementara lagu lainnya, 'Working Class Hero' : “It is about working class individuals being processed into the middle class, into the machine,”  tutur John, dalam sebuah wawancara dengan Jann S. Wenner dari Rolling Stone Magazine (1970).

Kehadiran Yoko pun memberikan polesan feminis pada John. Simaklah, 'Woman Is The Nigger of The World', single yang dirilis pada 1972.  John Lennon memotret adanya sikap tunduk dan takluk kaum perempuan terhadap laki-laki melintasi seluruh budaya.

Kegundahan dan pemberontakkan John Lennon bak karaben yang memuntahkan peluru sinisme dan kritiknya ke berbagai ranah. Tidak hanya dituangkan menjadi lagu, bila perlu ia pun ikut berdemontrasi. Bulan madunya dengan Yoko menjadi ajang protes anti-perang, sebuah peristiwa yang menghebohkan, Bed-In for Peace di Belanda dan Kanada. Peristiwa lainnya, John mengembalikan Members of The Order of The British Empire (MBE) karena keterlibatan Inggris dalam perang sipil di Nigeria serta dukungan negaranya pada perang Vietnam. Dalam konteks inilah, lagu 'Imagine' dan 'Give Peace a Chance' pun menjadi anti-war anthem.

Imagine John Lennon Dead

Apa yang ditengarai Tariq Ali bahwa di Amerika banyak orang sinting pun menjadi kenyataan. “Kesintingan” itu terlihat pada Mark David Chapman, ia memuja The Beatles dan John Lennon. Bahkan perjalanan hidupnya mirip dengan John, Chapman pernah menikahi perempuan berdarah Jepang juga. Namun ketika Chapman menjadi Kristen fundamentalis, ia melihat bahwa John Lennon adalah orang yang berbahaya karena pandangannya terhadap agama dan negara

Kala lagu 'Imagine' mencapai puncaknya pada 1971, Chapman memparodikan lagu itu menjadi “Imagine John Lennnon Died.” Sembilan tahun kemudian, Chapman merealisasikan impiannya.

Kini, para pecinta John Lennon hanya tinggal mengenang dan juga mereflesikan pandangannya. Pada sebuah untaian mosaik sambil menatap sebuah lingkaran yang bertuliskan 'Imagine', di Strawberry Fields Memorial, Central Park New York.  

Bahkan, ketika terjadi peristiwa pengeboman WTC (9/11/01), masyarakat pecinta damai  mengenang peristiwa itu di Strawberry Fields Memorial. Lihatlah, betapa dahsyat dampak pasca WTC. Tidak sedikit masyarakat Barat dirasuki pandangan Islam-fobia. Presiden Amerika George W. Bush menerapkan kebijakan diskriminatif di negaranya. Bush juga mengajak Negara Inggris dan lainnya untuk meluluhlantakkan Irak, dengan alasan yang tidak terbukti, Irak memiliki senjata pemusnah massal.

Peristiwa ini pun disusul maraknya demontrasi global menentang Bush-Blair ketika perang Irak terjadi. Dalam suasana seperti ini, Tariq Ali teringat akan sahabatnya John Lennon. Tariq merasakan semangat John Lennon menyertainya saat berdemonstrasi.

Ya, semangat kata-kata yang Tariq edit dari jawaban John Lennon terhadap surat terbukanya kritikus musik/pop kultur,  John Hoyland, yang mengaji dengan kritis album Revolution – The Beatles di majalah politik-budaya radikal Black Dwarf  (sebelum pecah menjadi Red Mole). Hoyland memandang bahwa album Revolution terlalu santun untuk sebuah revolusi. Dan, John Lennon pun menjawabnya :

“…. Anda kira semua musuh mengenakan lencana kapitalis sehingga Anda dapat menembaki mereka? Itu sedikit naif John……. Daripada bertengkar karena masalah kecil soal The Beatles dan The Stones – pikirkanlah hal yang lebih besar… Lihatlah pada dunia tempat kita tinggal dan tanyalah pada diri sendiri: mengapa? Lalu – datang dan bergabunglah bersama kami….”  

Love,
John Lennon

[Ian Kameswara]

***

Thirty years ago, on 8 December 1980, a handgun was ignited, five bullets were discharged. There’s only one got out of target, the other remaining four riddled John Lennon’s body. His body was flowed, right in front of his house at Dakota, Manhattan, New York. No longer after, the St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center announced the death of John Lennon.

John Lennon was dead at the centre of city that controls world economy. There is Wall Street in New York. Whenever Wall Street is inclined, there would be not only bankers and trans-corporations owners will be absentminded, each corner of the world might be jolted.  That is the viewpoint of Oliver Stone through his sequel; "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps".

New York has another side. In "Gangsters of New York", the director portrayed how criminals made bloods as the inks that notched the history of New York City’s emergence.
“Be careful, John. Too many cranks over the country,” Tariq Ali reminded John Lennon one day, at the time he decided to move to USA. Tariq Ali is a historian, activist as well as a journalist of underground magazine Red Mole, based in England. The interview and his friendship with John Lennon were then documented into a book entitled Memories of John

Lennon, which was edited and got preface written by Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s wife.
John Lennon was too disappointed by England. In his opinion, tabloids in England were naïve and racism. Largely, on their opinion upon the presence of Yoko Ono which was widely assumed as the cause of The Beatles’ disintegration.

Nevertheless, Tariq has got another explanation. Yoko gave different color of power to John Lennon. John became more radical in term of artistic and politics. One day, by phone, John Lennon said to Tariq that he was inspired during the interview mentioned. And John even sung his work through the phone-talk. Tariq was the first person who listens to 'Power to People' (After then, Power to People became title of the compilation album of John Lennon’s hits and actually it has been released last October 2010, to commemorate John Lennon’s birthday).

After got on solo career, the ex-manager of The Beatles Brian Epstein’s fear on John’s character became a reality. Epstein indicated that John Lennon’s outlook became ultra-subversive and political. In his first solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, the song of 'God' affirmed that he was deserved to be trusted, rather than Bible, Hitler, The Beatles, Kennedy up to Jesus! Whereas the other song, 'Working Class Hero' tells; “It is about working class individuals being processed into the middle class, into the machine,” John uttered in certain interview with Jann S. Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine (1970).

The presence of Yoko also decorated feminine adornment to John. Just take a brief hearing to 'Woman Is the Nigger of the World', it was a single released in 1972.  John Lennon portrayed stoop attitude and naïve obedience of women before men across all cultures.

John Lennon’s rebellion is as if a rifle that releases cynicism and critics bullets to many scenes. It not only comes to songs, if needed he might be participated in protest rally. His honey moon with Yoko became arena of anti-war protest, a kind of sensational incident, Bed-In for Peace in Netherlands and Canada. In another event, John returned back Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) as a response to England’s involvement in civil war of Nigeria as well as his country’s support to Vietnam War. Therefore, in such context, the songs of 'Imagine' and 'Give Peace a Chance' became anti-war anthems.
Imagine John Lennon Dead

What had been once expected by Tariq Ali that there were lots of cranks in America was real. The proof of “cranky” was evident on Mark David Chapman figure, as he adored The Beatles and John Lennon. Even his life was resembled with that of John’s. Chapman has once married with a Japanese woman too. But when Chapman became fundamentalist of Christian, he found that John Lennon was a dangerous man, since his outlook on religion and state.

When 'Imagine' got the top in 1971, Chapman satirized the song to be “Imagine John Lennon Died.” Nine years later, Chapman made real his dream.

Now, the devotees of John Lennon are just commemorating and reflecting his outlook in a chain of mosaic while staring at a circle with a text on it; 'Imagine', at Strawberry Fields Memorial, Central Park New York.  

Even when WTC bombing was occurred (9/11/01), peace lovers’ community commemorated the incident at Strawberry Fields Memorial. Just see, how huge did the impact of WTC bombing. Lots of Western people were infected by Islam-phobia outlook. President George W. Bush enacted discriminative policy in his state. Bush also asked England and other countries to overthrow Iraqi administration, by unproved reasons that Iraq has got Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The incident was followed by the outbreak of global protest against Bush-Blair when Iraq war was occurred. Within such situation, Tariq Ali was reminded to the reminiscence on his best friend, John Lennon. Tariq felt that John Lennon’s spirit was went along with him when participated in protest.

Sure, the spirit of words that was edited by Tariq, which was taken from John Lennon’s response upon the letter of pop culture/ music critic , John Hoyland, who critically scrutinized the album of Revolution – The Beatles in radical culture-politics magazine, Black Dwarf (before it was split up to be Red Mole). Hoyland assumed that the album Revolution was too polite for a particular revolution. And, John Lennon responded:

“…. You think all of foes are wearing capitalist badge, so you can shoot them all? That’s a bit naive, John……. Instead of brawling in cause of small matter about The Beatles and The Stones – you should think another bigger one … Just observe the world we live and ask ourselves: why? After that, just come and join us ….”  

Love,
John Lennon