I’m 100% behind every word. They were jumped on by the media and the government and we’re now seeing the reality of the Tories Public order Act. We should all be worried about how easily this was passed into Law.
Where I find it problematic is when they have the chants/flags/social media about Hezbollah. This is where it just becomes hatred. When Bashar Alsad’s army was barrel bombing towns and cities in Syria, that was Hezbollah. Those victims don’t seem to matter though as that can’t be easily reduced to a simplistic worldview. The oppression of the Israeli government and state against the Palestinians is wrong on every level. The same is true of the victims of Hezbollah. And anyone else
Sadly a lot of the current rhetoric is similar to the sectarianism we have here in the West of Scotland.
Even when the critique involves supporting a murderous group because they are against this other murderous group - almost like the actual victims are not the main concern.
however much 1 might not like the people resisting israel, they are the one’s doing it right now.
the overwhelming majority of people protesting against israel right now are doing it for the right reasons. – and if people do it in crude ways, i find that understandable for a number of reason, not least because it really doesn’t matter given it’s a genocide! i don’t think the new statesman is part of the struggle, and therefore the article isn’t a comment in a comradely manner, written to add nuance and support. instead it is part of a project to delegitimise criticism, if not to outright vilify and criminalise anyone who stands up and speaks out.
whether the groups resisting against isarel also do things 1 might disagree with, sure, but that’s not what the article was about.
sure you might not like kneecap, their music, their posturing, their pro ira stuff, whatever, i don’t rate them either. but people are loosing their jobs and being locked up and criminalised for protesting against the genocide. i don’t think we should forget that. – going to a protest or a gig or whatever is often about letting off steam, it’s often cathartic because you feel powerless the rest of the time whilst all this awful death is going on. i really don’t think it’s worth being annoyed at them or their fans for that. and it’s not about an evil foreign bogeyman, it’s a very real situation that our govt is complicit in.
Nobody here is denying the horror of Gaza but the article was expressly about Kneecap. Yes they are trivial in the grander scheme, but they need to make up their minds if they are serious activists or not. Because if they are, they should be on that flotilla with Thunberg, Ada Colau et al and actually doing stuff rather than just milking the notoriety. I’m too old to be impressed by shouty musicians who never influence anything
i don’t think everyone protesting has to be on the flotilla, props to anyone who was tho! that’s for sure!
essentially, i don’t rate them culturally or aesthetically, but i don’t think they need slagging off, especially when they are under attack in quite serious ways like being prosecuted under terrorism laws.
I was brought up in a very pro Palestine home due to my mum advocating, corresponding with prisoners, bringing Palestinians (from Shu’fat camp) over to Scotland (these days to Orkney) to promote awareness. We have a close family friend who managed to leave Gaza for Edinburgh, who has lost half her family in the last 3 years. And she has a very large family. I have never heard any of these people saying the kind of nonsense that is pretty widespread, especially with a younger demographic within the pro Palestinian movement since October 7th.
Comfortably shielded people in the West protesting the horrors in Gaza by supporting groups (Hamas, Hezbollah) and states (Iran) that slaughtered 1000’s of Syrian civilians with barrel bombs and chemical weapons, and in Iran’s most recent case, 1000’s of innocent Iranians (including between 10,000 and 30,000 in a couple of days), is not crude, it’s morally bankrupt.
The New Statesman has a multitude of writers with varying views. Maybe I’m old school, but that’s a good thing in my book.
That’s a very classic ‘young people not doing it right’ kinda argument.
Sorry. but this conversation is just going on waaay too long. I hear what you’re saying but I feel like you’re not hearing what I’m saying or seeing the wider issues I’m raising around repression of pro Palestinian voices. So let’s leave it here. Cheers.
I did say in the very first post that the attempt to shut them down is wrong and it should have been nowhere near a court. This is not a worrying trend that is new, or only applied to criticism of Israel - the Sarah Everard murder protests being an obvious example.
Where a good place to get started with Sant Etienne? I’d slightly dismissed them first time around as being too ‘pop’. But did find myself really liking the last 2 albums, especially ’ I’ve Been Trying To Tell You’. So feels like time for a proper dive in.
So Tough is also pretty good, but it went downhill from there. That’s meant I haven’t even tried their albums from the last 20 years. Maybe I should give it a go, but it was the wide eyed innocence of the first 2 that was so great.
i loved “sound of water”, it might be my favorite. “heart failed in the back of a taxi” was great and i got a lot of milage out of the TLS remixes. “boy is crying” is a bop. “how we used to live” is a delight from end-to-end, and i played the dirt out of the dot allison mixes, way back when.
