Bands that cancel Israel bookings are “wimps”
The following isn’t my normal musical choice, but I’m highlighting Deep Purple today in honor of the band’s integrity:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MSyFA84u48[/youtube]
Here’s the back story. Deep Purple, the 70s hard rock band, is heading back to Israel for the third time. Unlike other bands, Deep Purple will not pressured to back off of a booking:
Ahead of their third Israeli tour, English rock band Deep Purple took a stand against other musicians who cancel their concerts in Israel due to politics, saying artists should not take sides in political conflicts, with drummer Ian Paice calling these musicians “real wimps.”
[snip]
Deep Purple’s vocalist Ian Gillen stressed to reporters that musicians should remain impartial in political disputes, and likened this to making the assumption that Deep Purple supported all of Tony Blair’s policies because they gave a concert in London ten years ago.
Guitarist Steve Morse quipped that left-wing groups did not know what to say to them when they refused to cancel performances in Israel. Saying that in any case, Deep Purple doesn’t respect politicians in their native England, and questioned why their attitude would be any different in other countries.
I doubt the band members are quite so apolitical as they seem. I don’t imagine that they’d cheerfully agree to perform in North Korea or (some time traveling involved here) Nazi Germany. I suspect that they’re saying that, when a country operates within the ordinary range of a vaguely democratic political system, they’re performers, not political activists.
Evelyn Gordon adds something important here, which is that the bands Deep Purple derides as wimps are not acting out of political principle but, instead, are bowing to Left Wing pressure:
Paice, who was speaking ahead of the group’s third Israel tour, is exactly right. None of the artists who have canceled performances in Israel in recent years in response to pressure from pro-Palestinian activists actually thinks the boycott is justified as a matter of principle. If they did, they wouldn’t have booked engagements in Israel to begin with. They simply couldn’t withstand the pressure from their left-wing cultural milieu.
Rather, it’s the artists who don’t cancel Israel engagements who actually have the courage of their convictions. Often, these convictions have nothing to do with Israel: Deep Purple, for instance, simply believes strongly that “artists should not take sides in political conflicts.” But that makes them no less valid.
So here’s to Deep Purple, a band that understands its role in the scheme of things, which is to entertain democracies, whether or not it likes them very much.
The Bookworm Turns : A Secret Conservative in Liberal Land, available in e-format for $4.99 at Amazon, Smashwords or through your iBook app.
