Shaun Says: It’s our duty to challenge the establishment
The Irish band, Kneecap, have come under significant attack from many areas of the media, From government, and from event organisers alike.
The band are from West Belfast, as speakers of and champions for the Gailge the Irish language. Fiercely working class but educated, articulate and able to create a storm, mostly of joy and unity at their sold-out gigs. In their home city they draw crowds of people from both sides of the sectarian divide, people who feel part of something new, feeling a realisation that in spite of being a province of the United Kingdom, their land of birth is Ireland, and their identity as Irish people is becoming stronger, and pulling away from rule by Westminster.
Kneecap have been outspoken, and very public in their abhorrence and anger at the ongoing situation in Palestine, the continuing destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and the slaughter of over 60,000 men, women, and children. Their criticism of the Israeli government, the Zionist movement, and the continued support from Western governments for what is increasingly being recognised as a genocide. I do not use the word lightly. I am only too aware of the terrible irony that the horror of the holocaust is now being revisited upon an entire people by the descendants of the survivors of the first.
At the Coachella festival in America, Kneecap made a verbal denunciation of the above and in huge letters on stage, made their feelings abundantly clear.
Since returning the press have branded them antisemitic, terrorists, and have called for their gigs to be cancelled, a gig at the Eden Project has already gone, and their appearances at TRNSMT festival and at next month’s Glastonbury festival is in doubt.
The band have released a statement: the statement can be seen online, and on the band’s Twitter and Instagram feeds.
The usual establishment media voices are repeating the age-old accusations and shouting about how musicians should, in essence, stay out of politics, know their place, and keep their music “family friendly.”
My argument now, as ever, is that musicians are ultimately members of the public, just the same as you or I. We would all be up in arms to be told to keep our noses out of politics, to stay in our lane and to know our place. It is our right as musicians, artists, writers, comedians, and citizens, in fact it is our DUTY to challenge the establishment, to call out obvious injustices, violence and oppression. The Beatles did it, The Sex Pistols did it, The Housemartins, Tom Robinson, The Specials, Madness, the Selecter, Marvin Gaye, Gil Scott Heron, Public Enemy, Body Count, Chumbawamba, The Clash, The Manic Street Preachers, among thousands of others, have been doing this for the best part of a century.
In fact, we can go back to Handel’s messiah, which caused moral outrage and panic and saw protests at its first performance. Elvis Presley was accused of being a danger to America’s youth.
The story is not Kneecap. The Story is a genocide, committed by an evil regime, sponsored, and supported by governments across the Western World. 20,000 murdered children, deliberate starvation, THAT is the story.