My Pink Floyd hit and this tragedy, by ROGER WATERS

By ROGER WATERS FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 23 December 2014



The revelations about the Americans’ torture of terror suspects have rightly caused outrage across the world.
The U.S. government has owned up to the shadow of institutionalised brutality that has hung over ‘The Land Of The Free’ since the inception of the War On Terror after 9/11.

The sense of disquiet should extend to the political establishment in Britain, given the mounting evidence that our own intelligence and security agencies may have colluded with the CIA in rendition, torture and a disregard for international human rights law including the Geneva Conventions.

Nothing illustrates our own national disgrace more graphically than the case of Shaker Aamer, a 46-year-old family man from London, who has now been held for almost 13 years in the notorious detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, having been seized by the U.S. military in Afghanistan in November 2001.

During Mr Aamer’s long spell of incarceration, he has never been put on trial or even had any charges levelled against him.

He has been subjected to systematic torture, humiliation and degradation, deprived not just of his liberty, but of all rights normally afforded to those in custody yet to be proven guilty of any crime.
The time has surely come for a judge-led inquiry to find out the true extent of Britain’s role in the barbaric treatment of Mr Aamer.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported on the growing pressure on David Cameron from nine human rights groups for just such an inquiry into the CIA’s torture of prisoners, including Mr Aamer.

No human being should be subjected to such monstrous and prolonged treatment — 13 years, with no evidence produced to suggest a crime!

It is little wonder that one recent medical report stated Mr Aamer is now suffering from a host of serious health problems, including failing eyesight, kidney damage and depression.

This is, after all, a man who has been incarcerated for so long without trial that he has never even seen his youngest child, a 12-year-old son.
His experience is a scandalous affront to justice, making a complete mockery of respect for the law and due legal process.

Even cold-blooded murderers rarely serve as lengthy a sentence as Mr Aamer has had to endure, and, if they do, they will at least have been convicted in a court by a jury of their peers.

I have a deep personal involvement in the campaign to release Mr Aamer, ever since his case was brought to my attention by the renowned defence advocate Clive Stafford Smith.

With a spirit of selfless determination, Clive runs the organisation Reprieve, which campaigns for the rights, among many others, of British prisoners held overseas. Appalled by Mr Aamer’s plight, Clive had contacted him and lent him his support.

That is how I became involved. In one letter to Clive from Guantanamo, Mr Aamer began with the opening lyrics of one of my songs, Hey You, from the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. Mr Aamer said the lyrics captured his experience in Guantanamo. These lyrics run:

‘Hey you! Out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old. Can you feel me
Hey you! Standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles. Can you feel me
Hey you! Don’t help them to bury the light
Don’t give in without a fight.’

Clive was able to pass Mr Aamer’s letter on to me, and I was profoundly touched that Hey You had had such a resonance with him. Other parts of his letter reinforced how much this man was suffering. He explained that for most of the time, he had to stay in his tiny cell and was denied access to a computer, books, journals or even stationery.

He was occasionally allowed to write a letter, but even this was difficult because the pens provided by the guards were wobbly and soft, like a ballpoint with the plastic outer casing removed.

Apparently, this was a security precaution to stop the detainees attacking their guards — an obviously ridiculous measure, given that the guards outnumbered the prisoners ten to one and were armed with M16 rifles.

On a more uplifting note, in his letter Mr Aamer paid tribute to an American Christian pastor who had been in touch with him and had spoken of his work to build an understanding between Christianity and Islam.

This highlighted Shaker’s attachment to the idea of understanding between peoples and faiths, to the idea of reconciliation and peace, and his fundamental opposition to extremism.

But then, his entire story seemed to undermine the American claims that he was a dangerous extremist embedded with Al-Qaeda and bent on the destruction of Western civilisation.

Born in Saudi Arabia and trained as a nurse, he came to Britain in the mid-1990s, married a British woman and started a family.

In 2001, he moved with his family to Afghanistan, where he began work for a humanitarian charity. This fact is disputed by the Americans, who claim he became an Al-Qaeda fighter.
Really? Where is the evidence?

Shaker has never been allowed to defend himself in a court of law. In effect, he has been held purely on the whim of the U.S. authorities.

This abuse of power exhibits all the hallmarks of despotism. Either we believe in freedom to live under the law, including the law of Habeas Corpus, or we don’t. Either we, the so‑called enlightened West, are law-abiding or we are a tyranny.

Strangely, the U.S. government, the ‘tyranny’ that guards the rest of us from Shaker Aamer, now appears all the more culpable with the extraordinary news that the British Government has repeatedly called upon them to release him.

The failure to heed this request must raise suspicions that American and British intelligence are worried that, if Mr Aamer is set free, he might reveal the shocking complicity of British intelligence in the savage interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo, and at secret rendition sites elsewhere in the world.

Last month, I attended a gathering in Parliament Square in support of a movement to free Shaker Aamer. Among the others present was the campaigning journalist Andy Worthington. Andy, to his eternal credit, has devoted much of his recent working life to exposing the horrors of Guantanamo.
I was proud to be there, standing as I did alongside other Brits who still care about the law, about standards, about justice, about fair play.

Thanks to the recent Senate report into CIA torture, the public mood has changed, maybe even dramatically, in the past few days.

It is possible people are coming to see that justice is important and that the British legal principles dating back to Magna Carta in 1215 enshrine the rights of the individual and are to be defended at all costs.

Detention and incarceration without trial have absolutely no place in the legal system which we, the British people, are all rightfully proud to call our own.

From dailymail.co.uk

A note from Roger - July 11, 2014

"Enough is enough".
In January this year I wrote a private letter to Neil Young, it was sent via his manager Elliot Roberts' email, I never received a reply of any kind.

More recently I spoke openly about The Rolling Stones performing in Tel Aviv.

In light of the appalling recent events in Israel and Gaza and my dismay at the the lack of any response from our governments and in a final appeal to Neil's possible attachment to the rights of all human beings, not just the disenfranchised natives of North America, but all human beings all over the world, I am publishing that letter now.
Here it Is.


Dear Neil Young.

There are rumors flying about that you are considering doing shows in Tel Aviv this year.

The picket lines have been crossed in this last year by one or two lightweights from our community but no one of your stature. Woody Guthrie would turn in his grave. Neil Young! You are one of my biggest heroes, you are one of a very short list, you, John Lennon, Woody Guthrie, Huddy Ledbetter, Harry Belafonte, Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday and, like some others, but not many, your songs have always been redolent of love and humanity and compassion for your fellow man and woman. I find it hard to believe that you would turn your back on the indigenous people of Palestine. That you would lend support to, and encourage and legitimize, with your presence, a colonial apartheid regime, largely settled from Europe, that seeks to confine the native people of the land, either in exile or in second class status in reservations and ghettos.

Please, brother, tell me it ain't so.


As I recall, back in the day, along with the rest of us (Stevie van Zandt, Bruce, Led Zep etc etc etc etc)  you would not "Play In Sun City" I am asking you to stand on the same moral ground now. The late, great, Nelson Mandela lives on in us, we cannot let him down. He was explicit in his position and I quote, " We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians".  It is time for "Rock Against Racism" to show some of it's muscle by refusing to lend our names to the whitewashing of the illegal colonization of Palestinian land and the systematic oppression of its indigenous people. Unfortunately the opposition lobby has a lot of muscle too. They spend millions on their "Hasbara"(If like me you have no Hebrew)”Explaining” or to you and me "Propaganda". The propaganda machine is well oiled and ruthless. We, on the other hand, have only our commitment to non-violent resistance to lie down in front of the IDF caterpillar tractors that would raze the native people from the land of Palestine. We stand with those people, and with all the brave people of Israel and Palestine, Jewish and Arab alike who oppose The Israeli Governments brutal policies. We stand with Rachel Corrie, the young American woman who gave her life under the caterpillar's tracks. Please join me and countless other artists all over the world in solidarity with the oppressed and the disenfranchised. It is time to heed the peoples call. People like The Bedouin, the nomadic people of the Negev in the arid south of Israel, please research their plight, one village, Al-Araqib has been destroyed 63 times by IDF Bulldozers. If you are in doubt about any of this, I will go with you to Palestine, and Israel, if they’ll let me in, you will see what I have seen, and then let us figure out the right thing to do.


By the way I watched your Bridge School concert on YouTube last year, it was very moving, you were, of course magnificent. You had asked me to perform, and as I explained to your management, I would have gladly done so had I not already been committed to The Wall Tour in Europe and Stand Up For Heroes in New York. This year I will be pleased and proud to come and support you if you call.

With respect, and love.

Roger Waters.

PS.
Fyi. Nice Christmas present.



Bedouin Village Demolished For 63rd Time
Thursday December 26, 2013 18:18 by Chris Carlson - 1 of International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

For the 63rd time, Israeli forces have demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib, in the Negev, Thursday morning.

A Ma’an reporter in Beersheba said that bulldozers, escorted by 25 police patrols, raided the village at 9 a.m. and demolished all of its steel houses.

“Forces of demolition and destruction raided our village in the morning and demolished our houses, for the 63rd time. This is a barbarian assault, as they left residents homeless during wintry weather,” local resident Aziz Sayyah al-Touri told Ma’an.  He highlighted that the assault has come following the Israeli annoncement to abandon the Prawer Plan in displacing Negev Bedouins. Bedouins claim the are as their ancestral lands, while Israel considers al-Araqib and all Bedouin villages in the Negev illegal. There are about 260,000 Bedouin in Israel, mostly living in and around the Negev, in the arid south. More than half live in unrecognized villages without utilities, with many living in extreme poverty.


PPS
Google “Prawer plan” and follow a few links, you may catch a glimpse of the tip of an extremely large and terrifying iceburg.

Neil, we’re talking about the occupation, subjugation, dispossession, eviction, ghettoization and possible eventual eradication of a nation.

You, more than most should find this, taboo, story, more than a little disquieting.

From Facebook

New Roger Waters "The Child Will Fly" music video

Written by Matt
Saturday, 31 May 2014

Six years ago, Roger Waters recorded a song for the Fundación Alas, a foundation to help improve health and education for children in Latin America. Two years ago, Roger, who was in Buenos Aires performing a record breaking set of nine Wall concerts at the Estadio River Plate, chose the city to film the promo video for the song, which is called "The Child Will Fly".
Working with the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and with the support of the Spanish International Cooperation Agency, Alas made a contribution of $2 million for 22 early childhood centers serving more than 2,000 children in neighborhoods with high poverty levels.
The theme song was intended to help raise awareness about the importance of early education as a tool for children, with financial and cultural projects hopefully opening a world of greater possibilities. The track features the collaboration with Roger of different international and Latin artists such as Shakira, Eric Clapton, Pedro Aznar and Gustavo Cerati, who have worked actively with Alas.
The video features the artistic supervision of Roger Waters and was directed by Argentine Diego Kaplan and has just become available online - as you can see below.




The child will fly (making off)


From www.brain-damage.co.uk

Roger Waters: Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS

ROGER WATERS, MONDAY, MAR 17, 2014


Salon exclusive: The Pink Floyd star details why he supports the boycott

 AP/Bebeto Matthews

Seventy years ago, my father – 2nd Lt. Eric Fletcher Waters – died in Italy fighting the Nazis. He was a committed pacifist, and a conscientious objector at the start of the war, but as Hitler’s crimes spread across Europe, he swapped the ambulance he had driven through the London blitz for a tin hat and a commission in the Royal Fusiliers and he joined the fight against fascism. He was killed near Aprilia in the battle for the Anzio Bridgehead on Feb. 18, 1944.  My mother – Mary Duncan Waters – spent the rest of her life politically active, striving always to ensure that her children, and everyone else’s children, had no Sword of Damocles in the form of the despised Nazi Creed or any other despicable creed hanging over their heads.

Last month, thanks to the good people of Aprilia and Anzio, I was able to pay tribute to the father I never knew by unveiling a memorial in the town where he died and laying a wreath to honor him, and all the other fallen. Losing my father before I ever knew him and being brought up by a single, working mother who fought tirelessly for equality and justice colored my life in far-reaching ways and has driven all my work. And, at this point in my journey, I like to think that I pay tribute to both my parents each time I speak out in support of any beleaguered people denied the freedom and justice that I believe all of us deserve.

After visiting Israel in 2005 and the West Bank the following year, I was deeply moved and concerned by what I saw, and determined to add my voice to those searching for an equitable and lawful solution to the problem – for both Palestinians and Jews.

Given my upbringing, I really had no choice.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society appealed to people of conscience all over the world to act where governments had failed. They asked us to join their nonviolent movement – for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) – which aims to end Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, to secure equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to uphold the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the cities and villages they were violently forced out of in 1948 and 1967.

After more than two decades of negotiations, the vulnerable Palestinian population still lives under occupation, while more land is taken, more illegal settlements built, and more Palestinians are imprisoned, injured or killed struggling for the right to live in dignity and peace, to raise their families, to till their land, to aspire to each and every human goal, just like the rest of us. The Palestinians’ prolonged statelessness has made them among the most vulnerable of all peoples, particularly in their diaspora where, as now in Syria, they are subject, as stateless, powerless refugees, to targeted violence, from all sides in that bloody conflict, subject to unimaginable hardship and  deprivation and, in many cases, particularly for the vulnerable young, to starvation.   

What can we all do to advance the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories, Israel and the diaspora? Well, BDS is a nonviolent, citizen-led movement that is grounded in universal principles of human rights for all people. All people! In consequence, I have determined that the BDS approach is one I can fully support.

I feel honored to stand in solidarity alongside my father and my mother, and alongside my Palestinian brothers and sisters, and so many others of all colors, faiths and circumstances from all over the world – including an ever-increasing number of courageous Jewish Americans and Israelis – who have also answered the call.

In the furor that exists in the U.S. today about BDS and the right and wrong of a cultural boycott of Israel, a quote from one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, has been on my mind. He prophetically said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”  The BDS movement is fulfilling its promise and fits Gandhi’s description.  Once dismissed by many as a futile strategy that would “never work,” BDS has gained much ground in recent weeks, bringing with it the expected backlash.

Divestment votes at major U.S. universities, European pension funds divesting from Israeli banks that do business with illegal Israeli settlements, and the recent high-profile parting of the ways between actor Scarlett Johansson and the global anti-poverty group Oxfam are symptoms of a growing resistance to the Israeli subjugation of the indigenous people of Palestine, and also, to the decades of occupation of land designated by the U.N. as a future state for the Palestinian people.

And with each new BDS headline, the ferocious reaction from the movement’s critics, with Netanyahu and his AIPAC fulminations in the vanguard, has risen exponentially.  I think it’s safe to say BDS is in the “then they fight you” stage.

Some wrongly portray the boycott movement, which is modeled on the boycotts employed against Apartheid South Africa and used in the U.S. civil rights movement, to be an attack on the Israeli people or even on the Jewish people, as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth. The movement recognizes universal human rights under the law for all people, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or color.

I do not claim to speak on behalf of the BDS movement, yet, as a vocal supporter, and because of my visibility in the music industry, I have become a natural target for those who wish to attack BDS, not by addressing the merits of its claims but, instead, by assigning hateful and racist motivations to BDS supporters like me. It has even been said, cruelly and wrongly, that I am a Nazi and an anti-Semite.

When I remarked in a recent interview on historical parallels, stating that I would not have played Vichy France or Berlin in World War II, it was not my intention to compare the Israelis to Nazis or the Holocaust to the decades-long oppression of the Palestinians.  There is no comparison to the Holocaust.  Nor did I intend or ever wish to compare the suffering of Jews then with the suffering of Palestinians now.  Comparing suffering is a painful, grotesque and diminishing exercise that dishonors the specific memory of all our fallen loved ones.

I believe that the root of all injustice and oppression has always been the same – the dehumanization of the other. It is the obsession with Us and Them that can lead us, regardless of racial or religious identity, into the abyss.

Let us never forget that oppression begets more oppression, and the tree of fear and bigotry bears only bitter fruit. The end of the occupation of Palestine, should we all manage to secure it, will mean freedom for the occupied and the occupiers and freedom from the bitter taste of all those wasted years and lives. And that will be a great gift to the world.

“Ashes and diamonds

Foe and friend

We were all equal

In the end.”

From www.salon.com

Roger Waters: “Is There A Palestinian Mandela?”

Written by Greg Moskovitch on 2nd January, 2014

As 2013 drew to a close, former frontman of prog-rock legends Pink Floyd Roger Waters issued a year-end statement , in which the musician salutes whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and appeals to his fans to “keep asking awkward questions.”

In the reflective missive, which Waters addresses “To all my friends, in fact to everyone, foe and friend,” the 70-year-old artist begins by musing on recent reading material, saying, “I have spent much of the holidays, take your pick which…reading a remarkable book, King Leopold’s Ghost.”

As Waters himself explains, the 1998 best-selling popular history book, written by American journalist Adam Hochschild, “tells the story of Leopold II of Belgium’s catastrophic colonization of the Congo in the late 19th century,” adding, “It is an horrific read but serves us all well on a number of levels.”

Waters then uses the “powerful indictment of colonialism, greed and un-regulated commerce” found in the book to reflect on today’s socio-political zeitgeist, saying, “[it is] disquietingly apparent that the rich and powerful are still much attached to the feathering of their own nests at any cost to others.”

“So, here we stand, at the turning of one year into the next, looking back maybe at 2013, and wondering if there is anything to be done in 2014,” writes Waters, before declaring, “There is.” Waters then hails whistleblowers such as Manning as “our life line to the survival of democracy.”

“Without these brave men, who are not prepared to hide behind the ‘just following orders’ line of defense, the studded, padlocked, iron door marked, ‘CLASSIFIED’ could forever stand, impenetrable, between you the people, and the information that is your constitutional right.”

The artist’s attention then shifted the Israel-Palestine conflict. Waters has long been a vocal critic of the actions of the Israeli government, which last month landed him in hot water once again, after he compared the “unacceptable” and “racist apartheid Israeli regime” to Nazi Germany.

Waters insists his fans “keep asking awkward questions,” listing examples such as “Is there a Palestinian Mandela? Is there such a man, languishing in some dark prison cell? Equally, is there an Israeli F.W. De Klerk?” referencing the last State President of apartheid-era South Africa.

Waters concludes his post by praising the civic action he witnessed in 2013 and urges the “fledgling movement” to press on, saying, “we are against the forces of commerce, racism, bigotry, religious extremism and narrow self-interest,” adding, “Let us make 2014 The End Of The Beginning.



Roger Waters Year-End Statement


To all my friends, in fact to everyone, foe and friend.

Happy New Year!

We are all brothers and sisters in the family of man and we all deserve each others love and respect.

I have spent much of the holidays, take your pick which holiday, reading a remarkable book, “King Leopolds Ghost”. It tells the story of Leopold 11 of Belgium’s catastrophic colonization of the Congo in the late 19th century. It is an horrific read but serves us all well on a number of levels.

Firstly, it is a powerful indictment of colonialism, greed and un-regulated commerce. It would be easy to tut, tut, in disapproval of those bad old days, were it not disquietingly apparent that the rich and powerful are still much attached to the feathering of their own nests at any cost to others. (Chevron v The People of Ecuador) par example.

Secondly, there are heroes in this story, not least E.D. Morel, a humble cog in the machinery of shipping, who worked for a company in Liverpool England, discovered the calumny in the Congo through accounting, of all things, and devoted the rest of his life to exposing it. Then there is Sir Roger Casement, an Irish patriot and human rights activist who eventually gave his life for his part in the Irish republican struggle, on the gallows in Pentonville prison London in 1916.

So, here we stand, at the turning of one year into the next, looking back maybe at 2013, and wondering if there is anything to be done in 2014.

There is.

Firstly, we can learn from the examples of E.D. Morel and Roger Casement. We can admire their sacrifice, and give full voice to our admiration for contemporary whistle blowers. Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning we salute you and all the others who have gone before you. The whistle blowers are our life line to the survival of democracy, the corrupt in government cover their tracks assiduously, without The Pentagon papers how would we have ever known that President Lyndon Johnson had repeatedly lied to congress? Without these brave men, who are not prepared to hide behind the “just following orders” line of defense, the studded, padlocked, iron door marked, “CLASSIFIED” could forever stand, impenetrable, between you the people, and the information that is your constitutional right.

Secondly, keep asking awkward questions.

Is there a Palestinian Mandela?
Is there such a man, languishing in some dark prison cell?
Equally, is there an Israeli F.W. De Klerk?

Why is the Government of The U.S.A. slowly but inexorably turning its back on Mistress Liberty and The rule of Law?

I won’t bang-on, the new year is a time for positive thoughts and looking forward.

However, to look back for just a moment, it has been exciting in 2013 to see so many good people organizing in the Universities and the Churches, in the temples and the bars, uniting across boundaries of faith and nationality in support of Universal Human Rights. I feel your spirit abroad in the land, abroad across the globe. We are a fledgling movement, a mere two hundred and fifty years old, and arraigned as we are against the forces of commerce, racism, bigotry, religious extremism and narrow self-interest, the fight will be long and hard.. As Winston Churchill famously said in November 1942, “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Let us make 2014 The End Of The Beginning.

Love

Roger

From musicfeeds.com.au

Roger Waters - We Shall Overcome

"Over the new year 2009-2010, an international group of 1500 men and women from 42 nations went to Egypt to join a Freedom March to Gaza. They did this to protest the current blockade of Gaza. To protest the fact that the people of Gaza live in a virtual prison. To protest the fact that a year after the terror attack by Israeli armed forces destroyed most of their homes, hospitals, schools, and other public buildings, they have no possibility to rebuild because their borders are closed. The would be Freedom Marchers wanted to peacefully draw attention to the predicament of the Palestinian population of Gaza. The Egyptian government, (funded to the tune of $2.1 billion a year, by us, the US tax payers), would not allow the marchers to approach Gaza. How lame is that? And how predictable! I live in the USA and during this time Dec 25th 2009-Jan3rd 2010 I saw no reference to Gaza or the Freedom March or the multi national protesters gathered there. Anyway I was moved, in the circumstances, to record a new version of " We shall overcome". It seems appropriate."  
                                                                    Roger Waters




We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Deep in my heart
I do believe
That we shall overcome
Some day

And we'll walk hand in hand
we'll walk hand in hand
we'll walk hand in hand one day
Deep in my heart
I do believe
That we'll walk hand in hand
One day

And we'll break down the prison walls
We will tear down those prison walls
Together we will tear down the prison walls on that day
Deep in my heart
I do believe
That we will tear down all those prison walls
On that day

Deep in my heart
I do believe
That we will tear down those prison walls
On that day

And the truth will set us free
The truth will set us free
The truth will set us all free
On that day

And deep in my heart
I do believe
That the truth will set us all free
And we shall overcome
On that day

Exclusive Interview with Roger Waters

Rock legend Roger Waters speaks to us about music, the role of artists in today’s society and his activism for justice around the world, including in Palestine.

- Recorded 04/12/2013




Frank Barat: When did you make the decision to make the « Wall tour » (that ended in Paris in September 2013) so political ? And why did you dedicate the final concert to Jean-Charles De Menezes ?

Roger Waters: The first show was October 14th 2010. We started working on content of show with Sean Evans in 2009. I had already decided to make it much broader politically than it had been in 1979/80. It could not be just about this whinny little guy who didn’t like his teachers. It had to be more universal. That’s why ‘fallen loved ones’ came into it (the shows are showing pictures of people that died during wars) trying to universalise the sense of grief and loss that we all feel towards family members killed in conflict. Whatever the wars or the circumstances, they (in the non western world), feel has much lost as we do. Wars become an important symbol because of that separation between ‘us and them,’ which is fundamental to all conflicts. Regarding Jean-Charles, we used to do Brick II with three solos at the end and I decided that three solos was too much, it was boring me. So sitting in a hotel room, one night, I was thinking about what I could do instead of that. Somebody had recently sent me a photograph of Jean-Charles De Menezes to go on the wall. So he was in my mind and I thought that I should sing his story. I wrote that song, taught it to the band, and that’s what we did.

FB: A lot of artist would say that mixing arts and politics is wrong. That their goal is only to entertain. What would you say to those people?

RW: Well it’s funny you should say that because I just finished yesterday the text of a new piece which will be a new album of mine. It’s about a grandfather in Northern Ireland going on a quest with his grandchild to find the answer to the question: “Why are they killing the children?”, because the child is really worried about it. Right at the very end of it, I decided to add something more. In the song, the child tells his grandpa: “Is that it?” and the grandpa replies “No, we cannot leave on that note, give me another note”. A new song starts and the grandpa makes a speech. He says: “We live on a tiny dot in a middle of a lot of fucking nothing. Now, if you’re not interested in any of this, if you’re one of those “Roger I love Pink Floyd but I hate your fucking politics”, if you believe artists should be mute, emasculated, nodding dogs dangling aimlessly over the dashboard of life, you might be well advised to fuck off to the bar now, because, time keeps slipping away.” That’s my answer to your question.

FB: When will album be out?

RW: I’ve got no idea. I’m working away furiously on lots of old projects. I’m going to give a first listen to this to Sean Evans. He’s coming to my house tomorrow to listen to it. I’ve made a demo which is one hour and six minutes long. It’s pretty heavy I confess, but there is also some humor in it, I hope, but it’s extremely radical and it poses very important questions. Look, if I’m the only one doing it, I am entirely content. I mean, I’m not, I wish there were more people writing about politics and our real situation. Even from what could be considered extreme points of view. It’s very important that Goya did what he did, same for Picasso and Guernica and all those anti-war novels that came out during and after the Vietnam war.

FB: You’re talking about yourself being one of the only one, in your position, taking radical political positions. When it comes to Palestine, you are very open about your support for a cultural boycott of Israel. People opposing this tactic say that culture should not be boycotted. What would you answer to that?

RW: I would say that I understand their opinion. Everybody should have one. But I can’t agree with them, I think that they are entirely wrong. The situation in Israel/ Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is un acceptable. So for an artist to go and play in a country that occupies other people’s land and oppresses them the way Israel does, is plain wrong. They should say no. I would not have played for the Vichy government in occupied France in the Second World War, I would not have played in Berlin either during this time. Many people did, back in the day. There were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinian People being murdered. It’s the duty of every thinking human being to ask: “What can I do?”. Anybody who looks at the situation will see that if you choose not to take up arms to fight your oppressor, the non violent route, and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S) movement, which started in Palestine with 100% support from Palestinian civil society in 2004-2005, a movement that has now been joined by many people around the world, the global civil society, is a legitimate form of resistance to this brutal and oppressive regime. I have nearly finished Max Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in greater Israel”. It’s a chilling read. It’s extremely well written in my view. He is a very good journalist and takes great pains to make sure that what he writes is correct. He also gives a voice to the other side. The voice, for instance, of the right wing rabbinate, which is so bizarre and hard to hear that you can hardly believe that it’s real. They believe some very weird stuff you know, they believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and they believe that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious that it doesn’t surprise me that the movement that both you and I are involved in is growing every day. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was trying to shed light on this when we met, I only took part in two sessions, you took part in many more. It is an extremely obvious and fundamental problem of human rights which every thinking human being should apply himself to.

FB: The scary thing is that the extreme Rabbinate you were talking about with the extreme right wing views about the Palestinians and the non-Jews are having a more and more prominent place in terms of the Israeli society, regime and power structure and that is very scary.

I wanted to follow up on the Cultural Boycott and about the fact that you are one of the only ones who take such a stand. You could, as many others do, I guess enjoy the benefits of your success and lead a quiet, at least politically, non-controversial life. Why do you do it but more importantly why do you think not more people are doing it? Why a lot of artists who often take position against wars, why don’t they touch Palestine?

RW: Well, where I live, in the USA, I think, A: they are frightened and B: I think the propaganda machine that starts in Israeli schools and that continues through all the Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just Fox but also CNN and in fact in all the mainstream media. It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say “we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…”. It’s a diversionary tactic. The lie that they have told for the last 20 years is “Oh, we want to make peace”, you know and they talk about Clinton and Arafat and Barak being in Camp David and that they came very close to agreeing, and the story that they sold was “Oh Arafat fucked it all up”. Well, no, he did not. This is not the story. The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948. They’ve always had the Ben Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel. They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years . For instance, even after when Obama went to Cairo and made that speech about Arabs and the Israelis, everybody was like “Oh, this is a step in a new direction at least”. But as soon as he visited Israel, they said. “Oh by the way, we are building another 1200 settlements”. Exactly the same when Kerry went last year saying, “Oh I am going to try to get the sides together and talk peace”. Netanhayu said “Fuck you. We are going to build another 1500 settlements and we a going to build them in E1, this is our plan.” This is so transparent that you’d have to have an IQ above room temperature not to understand what is going on. It is just dopey.

You know I read some piece the other day where it said “apparently only the Secretary State of the United States, believes that these current peace talks are real, no one else in the world does”.

It is a very complicated situation which is why you and I and all the other people in the world who care about their brothers and sisters and not just about the people of our own faith, our own colour, our own race or our own whatever, have to stand in solidarity shoulder to shoulder. This has been a very hard sell particularly where I live in the United States of America. The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say. I promise you, naming no names, I’ve spoken to people who are terrified that if they stand shoulder to shoulder with me they are going to get fucked. They have said to me “aren’t you worried for your life?” and I go “No, I’m not”. A few years ago, I was touring and 9/11 happened in the middle of the tour and 2 or 3 people in my band who happened to be United States citizens wouldn’t come on the next leg of the tour. I said “ why not? Don’t you like the music anymore?” and they replied “no, we love the music but we are Americans and it’s too dangerous for us to travel abroad, they are trying to kill us” and I thought “Wow!”.

FB: Yes, the brainwashing works!

RW: Obviously it does, that is why I am happy to be doing this interview with you because it is super important that we make as much noise as possible. I’m so glad that this right wing newspaper in Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth, printed my interview with Alon Hadar. At least they printed it. Although they changed the context and made it sound different that what is actually was but at least they printed something. You know, I would expect to be completely suppressed and ignored.

You know that Shuki Weiss( preeminent Israeli promotor) was offering me a hundred thousand people at hundred dollars a ticket a few months ago to come and play in Tel Aviv! “Hang on, that’s 10 million dollars”, how could they offer it to me?! And I thought Shuki are you fucking deaf or just dumb?! I am part of the BDS movement, I’m not going anywhere in Israel, for any money, all I would be doing would be legitimizing the policies of the government.

I have a confession to make to you. I did actually write to Cindy Lauper a couple of weeks ago. I did not make the letter public but I wrote her a letter because I know her a bit, she worked with me on the Wall in Berlin which is why I found it super difficult to understand that she is doing a gig in Tel Aviv on January the 4th. apparently, quite extraordinary, reprehensible in my view, but I don’t know her personal story and people have to make up their own mind about these things. One can’t get to personal about it.

FB: For sure but you can help them, I guess by what you are doing, by writing to them. You can open their eyes because that’s what they need I think.

RW: Yes but if their eyes were going to be opened they would need to either visit the Holy land, visit the West Bank or Gaza or even visit Israel or any single checkpoint anywhere and see what it’s like. All they would need to do is visiting or, read, read a book! Check out the history. Read Max Blumenthal’s book. Then say “Oh I know what I am going to do, I am going to play a gig in Tel Aviv”. That would be a good plan! (sarcastic tone).

From lemuradesoreilles.org

A note from Roger - October 9, 2013

On September 7, 2013, Roger was interviewed by Alon Hadar for the magazine accompanying Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.  The article can be read here. Below is an open letter to the editor from Roger. The transcription that is referred to was pulled from a video recording of the nearly 90-minute on-the-record conversation between Roger and Alon.

To the Editor

Dear Sir,

I do not read Hebrew so I have had to wait for a translation of the article your paper printed on Wednesday, 18th September, based upon an interview I did with Alon Hadar in Amsterdam the previous week.

Without wishing to fan the flames, I feel I owe it to my fans in Israel to correct the record on a number of points.

The article was a serious distortion of the actual interview I gave.

Both questions and answers were changed. I can only assume to suit an editorial agenda.

The measured, reasonable and humane conversation that Alon and I had in Amsterdam was intended as a way for me to communicate with my Israeli fans, to explain my position on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), to break down Walls, and shed light on possible misunderstandings and our shared predicament. It has been re-written as a combative, ill-natured, dog-fight. It appears, with all its distortions and untruths, to want to maintain the status quo, alienate me from my fans in Israel and retreat from any consideration of the position that all the peoples of the region deserve to live in peace and justice with equal rights for all under the same laws, irrespective of color, race or religion. I have today received and studied a transcript of the interview I gave. The thing that is most strikingly different between the actual interview and what you printed in your magazine is that you have rewritten all the questions. It is very shoddy journalism to hold up to be real, what is in fact, a fabrication. I attach a link to the transcript at the end of this letter, should your readers and my Israeli fans wish to know what really happened, and what was really said.

As for the article itself, the editorial content is littered with misinformation. As you know, I have an agreement with your paper that I have copy approval of my quotes. When I finally got an English translation of the article, even though there was very little time before you went to press, I sat up half the night trying to correct some of the worst errors. You largely ignored my input.

I intend no pettiness or rancor, but will mention two specific untruths.  Firstly, the article claims that I am constantly contacting other musicians trying to persuade them not to perform in Israel.  It’s simply not so. I have never written to Elton John or Rihanna. In fact, I have made no specific approach to anyone except Stevie Wonder, about an IDF fundraiser in Los Angeles, and Alicia Keys. There is one other Englishman, but my letter to him was in confidence and will remain so. That’s it. To their credit, Elvis Costello, and many others, supported BDS before me.

It is true I have recently written an open letter to my Colleagues in Rock and Roll declaring my support for BDS and asking them as a group to join the movement. We are attempting peacefully, through BDS, to encourage your government to change its colonial and apartheid policies.

There are many other distortions and untruths.  I shall mention but one more of them. Alon asked me what I would like to say to Benjamin Netanyahu. In my reply I suggested, that based on his record, it seemed unlikely he would be the one to negotiate a just peace and that he might better spend his time looking for ‘The One,’ the one who might be Israel’s ‘de Klerk.’

For anyone who may not know: F.W. de Klerk was the last white president of South Africa and is best known for brokering the end of apartheid, and supporting the transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial democracy by entering into the negotiations that resulted in all citizens, including the country's black majority, having equal rights. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, along with Nelson Mandela, for his part in ending apartheid in South Africa. To be clear, I’m suggesting that Israel, like South Africa in the past, needs a leader who is prepared to negotiate a just and lasting peace based on equal rights.

I attach a translation of this letter in Hebrew and here is a link to a transcript of the whole on-the-record conversation I had with Alon in Amsterdam.  http://rogerwaters.com/interview/

With respect,

Yours truly,

Roger Waters

From www.facebook.com/roger-waters-the-wall

Malala Yousafzai and Harry Belafonte given Amnesty award

Posted: 17 September 2013



Pakistani schoolgirl and education rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai and American singer, human rights and social justice activist Harry Belafonte were today jointly announced as the recipients of Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2013.

The Award will be presented at a ceremony this evening at the Mansion House, Dublin, Ireland, 17.30 pm
Images and video footage of the Award Ceremony will be available.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award is Amnesty’s highest honour, recognising individuals who have promoted and enhanced the cause of human rights through their life and by example.

Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty:

“Harry and Malala are truly Ambassadors of Conscience, speaking up for universal rights, justice and human dignity and inspiring others to follow their example.

“Our two new Ambassadors of Conscience are different from each other in many ways, but they share a dedication to the fight for human rights everywhere and for all.”

Malala Yousafzai, 16, is an advocate for equal access to education. Her 2009 diary for the BBC detailed her frustrations with the Taliban’s edict to shut down all girls’ schools in her native Pakistan.  In 2012 she was shot and severely wounded in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

Malala will be presented with the Award by Bono accompanied by Azar Nafisi, author of ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’.

On receiving the accolade Malala Yousafzai said:

“I am truly honoured to receive this award and would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that there are many millions of children like me across the world who fight every single day for their right to go to school. I hope that by working together we will one day realise our dream of education for every child, in every corner of the world.”

Harry Belafonte has dedicated his life to humanitarian causes, spanning the civil rights movement to the plight of children caught in Syria’s armed conflict. An Emmy- and Tony Award-winning musician and entertainer, Harry Belafonte has in innumerable ways acted on what he describes as the “obligation to do more than just entertain”.

Harry Belafonte commented:

“Since its birth, I have been devoted to the principles for which Amnesty International stands. It is an honour to receive the recognition being bestowed. Amnesty International’s stand on any universal abuse to human rights has been courageous and is our moral compass.

“I am especially honoured to receive the Ambassador of Conscience Award because I am having the distinction of sharing this with Malala Yousafzai, a true hero of our time. My admiration for her is unending. She has awakened many in the global family to a commitment in struggle against tyranny. For all this I remain eternally grateful.”

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters will make the presentation to Harry Belafonte.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award was inspired by the poem From the Republic of Conscience, written for Amnesty by the late Seamus Heaney. The Irish poet had been due to read the poem at the Award Ceremony. The ceremony will pay tribute to the Nobel Laureate, including a reading of the poem that has inspired a generation of human rights activists.

The evening will be hosted by BBC correspondent Orla Guerin and will feature music performances from tenor Joseph Calleja, Grammy award-winning artist Esperanza Spalding and Music Generation.

The 2013 honourees join the other exceptional individuals who have been recognised as Ambassadors of Conscience since the award was established, including:  Vaclav Havel (2003); Mary Robinson and Hilda Morales Trujillo (2004); U2 and Paul McGuinness (2005); Nelson Mandela (2006); Peter Gabriel (2008); and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (awarded 2009, presented 2012).

From amnesty.org.uk

Roger Waters odpowiada na oskarżenia o antysemityzm

Roger Waters odniósł się do oskarżeń o antysemityzm, jakie pojawiły się po koncercie artysty w Belgii.

Koncert "The Wall" Rogera Watersa w Belgii odbył się 18 lipca. Jednym z elementów show jest balon w kształcie świni, na którym namalowane są różne symbole - w tym gwiazda Dawida. Nie spodobało się to jednemu z uczestników wydarzenia, Alonowi Onfusowi Asifowi. Izraelczyk mieszkający w Belgii zgłosił tę sprawę do serwisu Israeli Daily. Sprawę skomentował rabin Abraham Cooper, który oskarżył Rogera Watersa o antysemityzm. Artysta postanowił odnieść się do zarzutów w specjalnym oświadczeniu.

Rabin Abraham Cooper bardzo ostro wyraził się o całej sprawie. W swoich wypowiedziach nazywa Watersa "antysemitą", "sympatykiem nazistów" i zarzuca mu postawę antyżydowską.

Roger Waters rozpoczyna oświadczenie od stwierdzenia, że zarzuty rabina Coopera są tworzeniem nieistniejącego konfliktu, który nic nie wnosi, a może jedynie przeszkodzić w budowaniu porozumienia między ludźmi. Następnie przedstawia trzy ważne punkty.

Po pierwsze, podczas przygotowań do trasy "The Wall", Waters konsultował z amerykańską organizacją Anti-Defamation League (Liga Przeciwko Zniesławieniu), czy może wykorzystać gwiazdę Dawida w wybranym przez siebie kontekście. Działacze organizacji walczącej z atakami na Żydów doszli do wniosku, że działanie artysty nie ma znamion antysemityzmu. Roger Waters podkreśla, że na dmuchanym balonie znalazły się także symbole krzyża, półksiężyca, sierp i młot, logo Shell, Mercedesa, McDonald's oraz znak dolara.

Po drugie, Waters podkreśla, że ma bardzo wielu bliskich przyjaciół, którzy są Żydami. Muzyk przyjaźni się między innymi z siostrzeńcem Szymona Wiesenthala. Synowa Watersa jest Żydówką.

Wreszcie, Roger Waters absolutnie nie zgadza się, by nazywano go sympatykiem nazistów z jednego prostego powodu: jego ojciec zginął podczas II Wojny Światowej, we Włoszech, walcząc z nazistami. "Pamiętam przyjaciółki mojej mamy, Claudette i Marię, pamiętam ich tatuaże, one przeżyły obozy, były jednymi z tych, którym się udało" - pisze muzyk w oświadczeniu.

Dalej w komunikacie Roger Waters przyznaje, że używa gwiazdy Dawida, ponieważ ta symbolizuje państwo Izrael, a artysta chce zaprotestować przeciwko izraelskiej polityce wewnętrznej i zewnętrznej. Na koniec muzyk oznajmił, że balon w kształcie świni jest używany na koncertach "The Wall" od września 2010 i pojawił się na scenie niemal dwieście razy. "To symbol represji, a publiczność na każdym koncercie wie, co z tym balonem należy zrobić. Przebić go".

Roger Waters wystąpi w Polsce z koncertem "The Wall" już 20 sierpnia. Muzyk zaprezentuje epickie widowisko na Stadionie Narodowym w Warszawie. Onet jest patronem koncertu.

Roger Waters w Polsce: szczegóły wielkiego muru - Muzyk wystąpi 20 sierpnia 2013 roku na Stadionie Narodowym w Warszawie. Roger Waters, współzałożyciel i główny twórca utworów legendarnego, progresywnego zespołu Pink Floyd ogłosił powrót historycznej produkcji "The Wall" do Europy w 2013 roku. Jego dźwiękowe i wizualne arcydzieło alienacji i transformacji będzie wykonywane w całości z udziałem pełnego zespołu i supernowoczesnej produkcji. "The Wall" zagrano na żywo 192 razy na całym świecie dla więcej niż 3,3 miliona fanów, co uplasowało "The Wall" wśród najbardziej popularnych tras w historii rocka. Zobaczcie, jak działa słynny mur! Ceny bilety na koncert w Polsce: 1310 zł - VIP 1013 zł - VIP 660 zł - płyta siedząca przód 495 zł - płyta siedząca przód 330 zł - płyta siedząca tył 363 zł - trybuny 330 zł - trybuny 303 zł - trybuny 242 zł - trybuny i osoby niepełnosprawne Onet jest patronem koncertu. - Materiały prasowe

muzyka.onet.pl

Roger Waters Addresses Star of David Controversy

Pink Floyd singer-bassist calls rabbi's claims 'wild and bigoted'

By RJ CUBARRUBIA

AUGUST 2, 2013

Roger Waters performs in Arnhem, Netherlands.

Paul Bergen/Redferns via Getty Images

Roger Waters called for a boycott of Israel earlier this year, and now the former Pink Floyd singer-bassist is defending his The Wall Live Tour from accusations of anti-semitism in a Facebook post, titled "An open letter from Roger Waters." Waters begins the letter by explaining the recent controversy that erupted after a performance in Belgium last week: An Israeli man alerted a news source with video footage of a Star of David-marked prop pig that was featured in the show and destroyed by the audience at the end of the performance. 

The story gained traction and was picked up by Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that Waters "is an open hater of Jews" and urged other artists to "denounce his anti-Semitism and bigotry." In his Facebook post, Waters calls Cooper's words "wild and bigoted" with an "entirely predictable resulting rant."

Waters first criticizes Cooper's use of "anti-Semitic," saying the Anti-Defamation League has ruled his work has no anti-Semitic intent. "I also use the Crucifix, the Crescent and Star, the Hammer and Sickle, the Shell Oil Logo and The McDonald's Sign, a Dollar Sign and a Mercedes sign [in the show]," writes Waters.

Waters then defends himself from Cooper's claims of Jew-hating by noting that he himself has close Jewish friends, including Wiesenthal's nephew, and a Jewish daughter-in-law. "[She] is Jewish and so, in consequence, I'm told, are [my grandsons]," he writes.

Waters' third and final point addresses Cooper's use of the word "Nazi." Waters points to his father, who died fighting for Britain in Italy during World War II, and his upbringing in post-war England. "I received the most thorough education on the subject of Nazism and where I was spared no horrific detail of the heinous crimes committed in the name of that most foul ideology," writes Waters, also pointing to his mother's political involvement. "I for my part, as best I can, have continued along my parent's path," Waters continues. "At the age of nearly 70, in the spirit of my Father and Mother and all they did, I have stood my ground, as best I can, in defense of Mistress Liberty."

Waters closes by targeting Israeli policies. "In a functioning theocracy it is almost inevitable that the symbol of the religion becomes confused with the symbol of the state, in this case the State of Israel, a state that operates Apartheid both within its own borders and also in the territories it has occupied and colonized since 1967," he writes. "The Star of David represents Israel and its policies and is legitimately subject to any and all forms of non violent protest. To peacefully protest against Israel’s racist domestic and foreign policies is NOT ANTI-SEMITIC."

Waters also notes that the pig, which has been used in his show since September 2010, represents "evil, and more specifically the evil of errant government."

From www.rollingstone.com

  

Roger Waters, John Mayer Help Build New Homes for Returning Vets

By Phil Gallo, Los Angeles
 June 24, 2013

When Roger Waters started his tour of The Wall in early 2010, he wanted to create a connection between the concept album’s anti-war sentiment and the former soldiers who returned from battle wounded. He asked his brother-in-law, Jim Durning, to invite veterans to the shows, perhaps 20 in each city.


“It was moving and illuminating -- we learned so much about the challenges they face,” says Durning, who handles Waters’ merchandise and veterans-outreach efforts, having brought more than 1,500 wounded vets to "The Wall Live" shows and orchestrated meet-and-greets with Waters.



A meeting with Bob and Lee Woodruff at last year’s Stand Up for Heroes event -- a dozen wounded vets performed with Waters there -- led to discussions with Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, whose Fuller Foundation provides housing for the homeless.



As research began on where best to start, they discovered Shreveport, La., one of the top three cities with high rates of homelessness and unemployment among veterans and a high percentage of vets living below the poverty line. They created Veterans Village with houses going to veterans who completed a two-year program that included 90 days in rehab, steady employment and adherence to a formulated financial plan.


Ground was broken for the first four houses, financed by Waters’ $300,000 donation, on March 9. Keys were handed out to families on June 4 after Volunteers of America and musician John Mayer helped build, paint and furnish the homes.

“Collectively, we have a responsibility to these men and women when they come home,” Mayer wrote in an email. “They take good care of us when they are serving their country -- we need to take good care of them when they come back to us.”


Mayer spent a day in Shreveport, accompanied by some fans, painting a house with its future resident working along side him. They toured other homes, shared a group lunch with the volunteers and veterans and, in Mayer’s words, “got to do something important together.”

“It’s amazing what everyone has accomplished there,” Mayer says.  “It’s a real community.”

Mayer and Waters share a personal interest in helping U.S. military veterans adjust to healthy civilian lives. Since 2011 Mayer -- a longtime supporter of veterans causes -- has been involved with the Northern California Institute for Research and Education (NCIRE) in providing post-traumatic stress programs for soldiers after they return home from service.

“What was also great about the day was that it brought together so many people and organizations behind one cause—building these veterans and their families a home,” Mayer says.  “We had Roger’s team represented, we had my team from NCIRE there, we had people from Bob Woodruff’s team there, and several local organizations there, too.

“I’d love to get Roger and Bob to the Bay Area to check out what NCIRE is doing and see how veterans are benefitting from their programs.  And last year I played at Bob’s annual gala in New York.  It’s great to be able to help each other out.”

The Woodruff Foundation, which stepped in to steward funds and handle accountability reports, found itself in a unique position of working with multiple smaller organizations. “This is a good example of a community getting to the heart of a problem,” foundation executive director Anne Marie Dougherty says. “And for us, it’s the definition of a model for future success.”

From billboard.com

Roger Waters in Bradley Manning video

Interview with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters about his support for the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Published By: Organised Rage - 8 April 2013



Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

A founder of Pink Floyd — a British rock group which has sold more than 250 million albums — Waters decided to become active in the international Palestinian solidarity movement following a trip to the West Bank in 2006. Shocked by the oppression that he witnessed, Waters spray-painted the words “we don’t need no thought control” — a line from one of his biggest hits — on Israel’s wall.

More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year.

Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

Waters spoke to electronicintifada.net David Cronin.


David Cronin: Do you think the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel is having an impact?

Roger Waters: I’d like to think that it was.
My experience when I speak to people to and say “don’t go” is either they reply “that sounds good”or they say “don’t you think it’s better to go there?”

Well, no, I fucking don’t.

I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides. Let us not forget that they laid waste to most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.

They are running riot and it seems unlikely that running over there and playing the violin will have any lasting effect.

DC: Have you personally asked any fellow musicians to boycott Israel?

RW: Yeah, I have.

DC: Would you prepared to say who those musicians were?

RW: No, I wouldn’t be. It was entirely private between me and them.

All I would say is that part of my involvement here in the Russell Tribunal today and tomorrow is that I am about to publish an open letter written to all my colleagues in the music industry, asking them to join me in the BDS movement. This is not just to colleagues in the UK or US but around the world.

What caused me to write this public letter was an affair where Stevie Wonder was hired to play a gala dinner for the Israeli Defense Forces on 6 December last year. I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace. It wasn’t just me. Desmond Tutu also wrote a letter.

To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called them [the gala’s organizers] up and said “I didn’t quite get it” [and canceled the performance]. This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America.

Both events were almost as important as [TV personality] Kim Kardashian’s bra size. The way they are not being reported means the media must be under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.
DC: How do you feel about the support for Israel offered by David Cameron’s government in your native Britain?

RW: Cameron has absolutely adopted Tony Blair’s wolf’s clothing that he [Blair] adopted so eagerly and happily when he went to war in Iraq on George Bush’s coat-tails.

Cameron is entirely content for Great Britain to be a satellite nation of the US. None of us can quite understand why.

There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The EU’s diplomatic emissaries [in the West Bank] joined together [recently]. They protested the settlements and asked for sanctions. This is almost unprecedented. But the governments of these emissaries have done nothing and continue to do nothing.

I have been very disillusioned with UK foreign policy really since [Harold] Wilson [a Labor Party prime minister during the 1960s and 1970s]. It was such a political turnabout from [Labor leaders] Keir Hardie and [Clement] Attlee and the principles of British socialism. It was a precursor for taking over the country with the appalling monetarist strategies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I’m quite ashamed of the way we have behaved. The UK has been royally fucking the world over for centuries — not least you bog Irish.

DC: One of your fellow jurors on the Russell Tribunal, Stéphane Hessel, died recently. Did you know him well?

RW: I knew him very little. What a brave, eloquent, good-hearted, brilliant man.

DC: As a musician, have you had a chance to check out the vibrant Palestinian hip-hop scene?

RW: I haven’t. But if it thrives, I can’t find anything negative about that, so long as it’s not about bling and booty and wearing a baseball cap sideways. So long as it’s about protest and realism, rather than the flight from realism that hip-hop is in the US.

DC: In your speech to the UN, you paid tribute to Rachel Corrie. Is there anything you would like to say about Rachel Corrie, given that it’s the tenth anniversary of her murder?

RW: Her parents attended the [Russell Tribunal] session in New York [last year]. It was very moving.

DC: Do you support the hunger strikes being undertaken by a number of Palestinian prisoners?

RW: The thing about political prisoners is: it doesn’t matter if you are in the Maze [in Northern Ireland] or in a prison somewhere in Israel, your options are very limited. Hunger strikes or dirty protests are some of the very few options to bring attention to your specific predicament.

I respect the brave men and women who go to those lengths. As we know, hunger-striking is not like going on a diet. It is real, dangerous and painful. You don’t do it without compelling reasons.

David Cronin is a contributing editor with The Electronic Intifada. His book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.
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Thanks to Tony Greenstein for heads up.

From www.organizedrage.com
 

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People 29 November

In 1977, the General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II))

In resolution 60/37 of 1 December 2005, the Assembly requested the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the Division for Palestinian Rights, as part of the observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November, to continue to organize an annual exhibit on Palestinian rights or a cultural event in cooperation with the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN.
The observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People also encouraged Member States to continue to give the widest support and publicity to the observance of the Day of Solidarity.

Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, showing a copy of 
the ‎application for UN ‎membership which he submitted to 
the Secretary-General in 2011. ‎Palestinians are ‎seeking 
non-member state status at the current General Assembly
‎session.‎ UN Photo.

www.un.org

A special message from UNESCO's Director-General  Ms Irina Bokova

"Over the new year 2009-2010, an international group of 1500 men and women from 42 nations went to Egypt to join a Freedom March to Gaza. They did this to protest the current blockade of Gaza. To protest the fact that the people of Gaza live in a virtual prison. To protest the fact that a year after the terror attack by Israeli armed forces destroyed most of their homes, hospitals, schools, and other public buildings, they have no possibility to rebuild because their borders are closed. The would be Freedom Marchers wanted to peacefully draw attention to the predicament of the Palestinian population of Gaza. The Egyptian government, (funded to the tune of $2.1 billion a year, by us, the US tax payers), would not allow the marchers to approach Gaza. How lame is that? And how predictable! I live in the USA and during this time Dec 25th 2009-Jan3rd 2010 I saw no reference to Gaza or the Freedom March or the multi national protesters gathered there. Anyway I was moved, in the circumstances, to record a new version of " We shall overcome". It seems appropriate."

Roger Waters

Roger Water's epilogue "Russell Tribunal on Palestine New York session"

"The great Jewish-American writer, professor, human rights activist, Nobel Laureate, and holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, the author of 'Night', famously wrote:
"..TO REMAIN SILENT AND INDIFFERENT IS THE GREATEST SIN OF ALL."
How right he was, and is.
It is with great respect for Mr Wiesel and also for Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and tireless advocate for human rights,
who set up the first Russell Tribunal back in 1966 to protest the Vietnam war, that I presume to address these remarks to you, today.

Love
Roger
PS If you care to read a Draft of the Executive Summary of the Findings of the Fourth Session of the Russell Tribunal, go to: www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/future-sessions/new-york-session-summary-of-findings-draft "

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