The Dark Side of Pink Floyd Singer Roger Waters National Council Commission Wants “Only Yes is Yes” Solution in Sexual Criminal Justice

Are art and the artist’s political views intrinsically intertwined? Can you support art if the political position of the artist violates human rights?

The Swiss concert scene is currently confronted with these questions. A concert with Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters is planned in April 2023 in the Hallenstadion. His anti-Israel stance and his statements about the war in Ukraine have repeatedly sparked sharp discussions and are currently causing a concert in Munich to be cancelled.

But from the start:

Roger Waters, a BDS supporter

Pink Floyd co-founder Waters has publicly emerged as a supporter of BDS since 2006. BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and is the name of a transnational movement.

The idea of ​​his followers is to isolate the State of Israel economically, culturally and politically by calling on politicians, companies, artists, researchers or athletes to cancel their performances, investments or collaborations related to Israel. Leading BDS supporters deny Israel’s right to exist.

The Swiss Federation of Israelite Communities (SIG) tells Watson that it has been highly critical of the BDS movement for years. Denying the State of Israel its right to exist or calling for the boycott of Israeli researchers or artists is “massive border crossing”. Jonathan Kreutner, Secretary General of the SIG, says:

Waters repeatedly speaks out against Israel. For example, in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin” in 2018, he accused the Israeli government of pursuing an “apartheid policy” and “ethnic cleansing”. He even affirms that his worldview is black and white at this point, adding, “There are the oppressed and the oppressors.” For Waters, all the blame lies with Israel.

Waters aggressively asked his fellow artists not to perform in Israel. This happened, for example, in 2017 with Nick Cave through an open letter from the “Artists for Palestine UK” initiative.

The fact that he lets balloons in the shape of pigs rise into the air at his concerts has also been criticized repeatedly. At least one of them was decorated with a Star of David. And the Star of David is primarily a symbol of Judaism itself – not of the State of Israel.

That the Star of David, along with other messages and symbols, is depicted on this balloon is difficult, as it creates the association with the animal metaphor “Jews**”. Since the Middle Ages, Jews have been mocked with this insulting and derogatory term.

“Roger Waters continues to play the keyboard of anti-Semitic stereotypes – even during his concerts,” Miriam Heigl, head of Munich’s city department for democracy, told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.

Kreutner of SIG writes watson:

Dispute in Munich – soon also in Zurich?

The BDS movement is also not well received in the German city of Munich. At the end of 2017, the city council decided to stop renting out rooms to the BDS. However, in January 2022, the City Council failed to pass this resolution before the Federal Constitutional Court, as the court ruled that the resolution violated free speech and was therefore unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, Waters performed at the Olympiahalle in Munich in 2018. Munich mayor Dieter Reiter said at the time that Waters would no longer be welcome in his city due to his sympathizing with the Israeli boycott movement BDS. The musician then took legal action against Reiter, as the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) writes.

In May 2023 another concert with Waters is planned in the Olympiahalle in Munich. And the mayor seems to have made it his mission to thwart the concert.

Regarding Roger Waters’ concert in Switzerland on April 24, 2023 at the Hallenstadion, Hallenstadion CEO Philipp Musshafen made it clear to Watson: “We are not the organizers of the concert. We only rent the venue.” He adds:

Stephanie Graetz, director of the Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism, speaks in the “Tages-Anzeiger”: The concert tour must now be complied with and legal action taken if Waters makes racist or anti-Semitic comments on stage. The “Tages-Anzeiger” quotes Graetz: “Without distancing ourselves from the problematic statements, there is no pretense.”

Is Waters a Putin sympathizer?

In addition to his anti-Israel remarks, the musician has recently been annoyed by comments about the war in Ukraine.

So he wrote two open letters to Ukrainian First Lady Olena Selenska. Although Waters writes that he wants peace in Ukraine, he blames Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj for the war:

In addition, Zelenskyi announced as a campaign pledge to end the conflict in Ukraine that had been dormant since 2014 — with “partial autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions if necessary,” Waters claims. He ends the open letter to Selenska with:

Zelensky has even repeatedly said during the election campaign that the conflict in eastern Ukraine must be ended by all means. Shortly after Selenskyj was elected president of Ukraine, Deutschlandfunk analyzed that this could only be carried out if concessions were made to Russia. But “what kind of concessions could be, that is so far unclear.”

After criticizing social media, Waters issued a third letter on September 25 — this time to Putin. The letter is no longer on Waters’ Facebook page, the music magazine NMW archives a screenshot:

Also in this letter, Waters suggests that Russia only wants to guarantee the safety of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine. He therefore proposes a solution: negotiating Ukraine’s neutrality status.

He then writes — addressed to Putin, incidentally — that while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should be condemned, the US and NATO would also invade sovereign countries — for “a few barrels of oil”:

Renowned music magazine “Rolling Stone” spoke to Waters about his statements. In conversations he uses the tonality of conspiracy mystics. He whispers:

Unlike Waters, the other members of Pink Floyd are clearly pro-Ukraine. In April the single “Hey, Hey, Rise Up!” – the first truly new Pink Floyd recording since 1994. All proceeds support Ukraine.

That’s what Roger Waters says

Waters’s opinion is clear and made clear in the clip that flickers across the screens for his shows:

Elsewhere he fades:

The promoter of the concert in Switzerland, Gadget abc Entertainment Group AG, has not yet responded to questions about how many tickets for the concert in Switzerland have already been sold.