Something for the weekend: Roger Waters “In the Flesh?” (Live)

Credit: Andrés Ibarra

Well that’s it from us for another week dear reader and we leave you this week in solidarity with Roger Waters who’s been labelled a racist by everyone from Keir “Not Jeremy Corbyn” Starmer to the US State Department for the crime of playing the role of a Nazi onstage, the same role that he’s played for, er, the last 40 years – be warned, if you’re ever in a production about the Holocaust and you play the part of a German soldier, you too could apparently be anti-Semitic. Here at AUK Towers in Liverpool, we as a city are well experienced in being misrepresented and stigmatised, and regardless of what you think of Waters’ views on other matters, a man whose father died fighting the Nazis, the philistine reaction to a respected anti-fascist work of performance art is deeply worrying, not to mention in ludicrously bad faith when the main accusers know full well the point of the piece, and trivialise the real issue of anti-Semitism in society. The same could of course be said about the furore around one of the UK’s greatest living film-makers Ken Loach. It’s almost as if it’s not really about the performance at all.

Why does this matter to an americana site? It does because when musicians and the broader arts are cancelled on spurious grounds, it’s the thin end of the wedge, and it’s important we take a collective stand as a community. First they came for the communists has never been a more important warning. If you want to watch Waters’ combative pushback against what’s turned into an undoubted witch-hunt, he’s posted a 20-minute clip on Double Down News which you can watch here. Solidarity comrades – have a good one.

 

About Mark Whitfield 2068 Articles
Editor of Americana UK website, the UK's leading home for americana news and reviews since 2001 (when life was simpler, at least for the first 253 days)
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ray

Well said. The only reasons he is attacked and smeared is because he supports human rights for ALL people. ….and of couse that includes the Palestinians.

Malcolm

Hear! Hear!
It is beyond credibility that once again we are being gaslighted into believing that another long serving anti racist, but more importantly pro Palestian public figure is an anti semite and that somehow we have failed to notice this throughout the past 40 years that Roger has been performing his satirical attack on fascism.
It is so important that those of us who value freedom of expression in
the arts and media make a stand and call out these ludicrous and dangerous authoritarian dog whistles.
So thankyou AUK. I am proud to be a supporter.