Following his appearance on BBC’s Newsnight, the comedian explains in The Guardian on 5.11.2013 why he believes there are alternatives to our current regime.
He makes some excellent points with refreshing humour; may he inspire in particular also young people to think outside the box and speak from their guts.
Here some excerpts:
I’ve had an incredible week since I spoke from the heart, some would say via my arse, on Paxman. I’ve had slaps on the back, fist bumps, cheers and hugs while out and about, cock-eyed offers of political power from well intentioned chancers and some good ol’ fashioned character assassinations in the papers.
The people who liked the interview said it was because I’d articulated what they were thinking. I recognise this. God knows I’d love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original, it was the expression of the knowledge that democracy is irrelevant that resonated. As long as the priorities of those in government remain the interests of big business, rather than the people they were elected to serve, the impact of voting is negligible and it is our responsibility to be more active if we want real change.
[…] Obviously there has been some criticism of my outburst, I’ve not been universally applauded as a cross between Jack Sparrow and Spartacus (which is what I’m going for) but they’ve been oddly personal and I think irrelevant to the argument. I try not to read about myself as the mean stuff is hurtful and the good stuff hard to believe, but my mates always give me the gist of what’s going on, the bastards. Some people say I’m a hypocrite because I’ve got money now. When I was poor and I complained about inequality people said I was bitter, now I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.
It’s easy to attack me, I’m a right twerp, I’m a junkie and a cheeky monkey, I accept it, but that doesn’t detract from the incontrovertible fact that we are living in a time of huge economic disparity and confronting ecological disaster. This disparity has always been, in cultures since expired, a warning sign of end of days. In Rome, Egypt and Easter Island the incubated ruling elites, who had forgotten that we are one interconnected people, destroyed their societies by not sharing. That is what’s happening now, regardless of what you think of my hair or me using long words, the facts are the facts and the problem is the problem. Don’t be distracted. I think these columnist fellas who give me aggro for not devising a solution or for using long words are just being territorial. When they say “long words” they mean “their words” like I’m a monkey who got in their Mum’s dressing up box or a hooligan in policeman’s helmet.
As I said to Paxman at the time “I can’t conjure up a global Utopia right now in this hotel room”. Obviously that’s not my job and it doesn’t need to be, we have brilliant thinkers and organisations and no one needs to cook up an egalitarian Shangri-La on their todd; we can all do it together.
I like Jeremy Paxman, incidentally. I think he’s a decent bloke but like a lot of people who work deep within the system it’s hard for him to countenance ideas from outside the narrowly prescribed trench of contemporary democracy. Most of the people who criticized me have a vested interest in the maintenance of the system. They say the system works. What they mean is “the system works for me”.

The less privileged among us are already living in the apocalypse, the thousands of street sleepers in our country, the refugees and the exploited underclass across our planet daily confront what we would regard as the end of the world. No money, no home, no friends, no support, no hand of friendship reaching out, just acculturated and inculcated condemnation.
[…] I realised then that our treasured concepts of tribe and nation are not valued by those who govern except when it is to divide us from each other. They don’t believe in Britain or America they believe in the dollar and the pound. These are deep and entrenched systemic wrongs that are unaddressed by party politics.
The symptoms of these wrongs are obvious, global and painful. Drone strikes on the innocent, a festering investment for future conflict.
How many combatants are created each time an innocent person in a faraway land is silently ironed out from an Arizona call centre? The reality is we have more in common with the people we’re bombing than the people we’re bombing them for.
NSA spying, how far-reaching is the issue of surveillance? Do you think we don’t have our own cute, quaint British version? Does it matter if the dominant paradigm of Western Capitalism is indifferent to our Bud Flanagan belief in nation? Can we really believe these problems can be altered within the system that created them? That depends on them? The system that we are invited to vote for? Of course not, that’s why I won’t vote. That’s why I support the growing revolution.
We can all contribute ideas as to how to change our world; schoolboys, squaddies, hippies, Muslims, Jews and if what I’m describing is naive then you can keep your education and your indoctrination because loving our planet and each other is a duty, a beautiful obligation.
[…] If we all collude and collaborate together we can design a new system that makes the current one obsolete. The reality is there are alternatives. That is the terrifying truth that the media, government and big business work so hard to conceal. Even the outlet that printed this will tomorrow print a couple of columns saying what a naïve wanker I am, or try to find ways that I’ve fucked up. Well I am naïve and I have fucked up but I tell you something else. I believe in change. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty because my hands are dirty already. I don’t mind giving my life to this because I’m only alive because of the compassion and love of others. Men and women strong enough to defy this system and live according to higher laws. This is a journey we can all go on together, all of us. We can include everyone and fear no one. A system that serves the planet and the people. I’d vote for that.
Read the full article: Russell Brand: “God knows I’d love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original”
Related article on Osho News: Rebel with a cause
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