Our Lorde not the first to have a rethink
In Israel, even concerts are political. For international superstars, deciding whether or not to show up might imply what side you’re on: Israel’s or the Palestinians’. And over the weekend, the singer Lorde became the latest musician to cancel a performance in Tel Aviv after fans pressured her to do so.
Last week, two of Lorde’s fans in New Zealand - one of them Jewish and the other Palestinian - published an open letter to the Grammy-award-winning singer, asking her to cancel a performance planned for June 5, 2018. It cited "the Israeli government’s policies of oppression" and "apartheid," and said that "we believe that an economic, intellectual and artistic boycott is an effective way of speaking out against these crimes." The letter added that "playing in Tel Aviv will be seen as giving support to the policies of the Israeli government, even if you make no comment on the political situation."
The letter did not specifically mention the boycott, divestment and sanctions - or BDS - movement, but the views expressed within it are in line with that Palestinian-led campaign. Since 2005, the BDS movement has urged academic and governmental institutions, companies, musicians and others to avoid visiting Israel and buying its products with the goal of getting Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and allow Palestinians to return to places they left when Israel was created in 1948.
At first Lorde responded to the letter by saying she would reconsider the concert date, and by Sunday, she said in a statement, "I’ve received an overwhelming number of messages and letters and have had a lot of discussions with people holding many views, and I think the right decision at this time is to cancel the show."
In recent years, several artists have canceled tour dates in Israel, either for political reasons or because of ongoing violence. In 2010, the Pixies decided not to perform after the Israeli military raided a Turkish ship bringing aid for the Gaza Strip, an operation that killed nine people. (The band later played in Israel in 2014.) Elvis Costello also canceled two shows in Israel in 2010, saying that "sometimes silence in music is better than adding to the static." In 2014, when Israel was in a 50-day war with the Hamas-governed Gaza, several artists - including Lana Del Rey, Neil Young and the Backstreet Boys - postponed or canceled shows.
For as many artists who cancel shows in Israel, there are others who face criticism and still press on with their tour dates.
In 2014, The Post’s Ruth Eglash noted that, since the BDS effort started, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull and the Red Hot Chili Peppers all kept their concert dates in Israel despite public pressure to cancel them. Once on stage, these megastars sometimes use their microphones for more than their lyrics. For example, during a 2012 performance in Tel Aviv, Madonna, who isn’t Jewish but follows the Jewish mystical practice of Kabbalah, wrapped herself in an Israeli flag and made a plea to rise above ego, religion and national allegiance to forge peace in the Middle East. "You can’t be a fan of mine and not want peace in the world," she said.
Some artists keep their shows in order to make a statement critical of Israel. In 2006, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters moved a performance from Tel Aviv to a village jointly formed by Arabs and Israelis.
Waters has since urged other artists not to perform in Israel. In a 2016 interview with the Independent, he said that the music industry "has been particularly recalcitrant in even raising a voice" against Israel.
"I’m hoping to encourage some of them to stop being frightened and to stand up and be counted, because we need them," Waters added. OPINION: Don Brash could be excused for feeling a little bruised as 2017 draws to a close.
The former leader of the National and ACT parties used his Facebook page to criticise Guyon Espiner, one of the presenters of Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report, for repeatedly showing off his fluency in Ma¯ori.
Brash objected because, as he pointed out, hardly any listeners to the programme would know what Espiner was saying. According to Brash, the presenter’s use of te reo is an example of ‘‘virtue signalling’’ – in other words, flaunting his moral superiority.
It was a legitimate comment about a high-profile figure employed by a publicly owned institution, but Brash’s Facebook post was the signal for one of the most brutal media gang-ups I can recall.
As the former leader of two right-of-centre political parties and the founder of a supposedly racist pressure group called Hobson’s Pledge, he’s considered fair game by the so-called ‘‘liberal’’ Left. And predictably, they piled in.
I put that word ‘‘liberal’’ in inverted commas because many of these people are angrily intolerant of opinions they don’t approve of. In other words, they are illiberal.
Many of the attacks on Brash were striking for their sheer malice and venom, and I’m not just talking about those that appeared in the Wild West of online social media. Some of the most vicious were published in mainstream media, where editors normally keep a check on spiteful and gratuitous personal attacks.
One columnist who makes his primary living as a comedian – a word that now seems interchangeable with ‘‘smug moralist’’ – harrumphed about Brash creating a ‘‘storm in a teacup’’ over te reo. But if there was a storm in a teacup, it was entirely due to the furious, overthe-top reaction from Brash’s attackers. All he did was write something on his Facebook page.
Brash was also subjected to an openly hostile attack in an interview (for want of a better word) with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand – a rare example of a stateowned broadcasting organisation publicly exacting utu against a critic – and was subsequently ridiculed for not pronouncing ‘‘whanau’’ correctly. If your name is Don Brash you can’t win, even when you try to play the game.
Brash, of course, has been a marked man ever since he delivered what is routinely described in the media as his ‘‘infamous’’ Orewa speech in 2004, when he was National Party leader. In that speech he espoused one rule for all New Zealanders and an end to special treatment in
By that definition, Brash could more accurately by characterised as anti-racist, since he opposes special treatment for a racial minority.
He mounts perfectly cogent arguments against racial privilege on the basis that it runs counter to the principle that everyone in a democracy should have equal rights and privileges. The most obvious example of Ma¯ori being treated differently is the Ma¯ori seats in Parliament, which become very hard to justify when there are 23 MPs of Ma¯ori or part-Ma¯ori descent representing general electorates.
That’s not to say that Hobson’s Pledge doesn’t have members who are truly racist. It’s possible some are, although I would guess that many of the organisation’s members (I’m not one, incidentally) are simply older New Zealanders who are struggling to come to terms with the prevailing spirit of biculturalism. That may seem quaintly out-of-touch, but it doesn’t make them racist.
That raises another striking aspect of the attacks on Brash. A recurring theme was that he should shut up because he’s old, male and white, which apparently disqualifies him from having any right to express an opinion. We hear a lot of talk about the need to embrace diversity, but apparently it doesn’t extend to Pakeha men of a certain age.
We also hear a lot from the Left about the need for tougher laws against ‘‘hate speech’’ to protect vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities and the gay community. But ironically, the closest I’ve seen to hate speech in 2017, by far, was the outpouring of loathing for Brash.