Roger Waters, the legend, joins the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as a juror.
The great Roger Waters once again stands up for justice.
Roger Waters supports those who will publicly declare their disregard of new Israeli anti-boycott law. Please support and promote Palestinian rights by joining the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
More on the BDS campaign and the Boycott from Within statement. Also, see ICAHD founder Jeff Halper’s message below:
The following statement has been issued by Jeff Halper, Director, ICAHD:
Continue reading “Roger Waters endorses BDS and speaks against Israeli anti-boycott law”
by Roger Waters
In 1980, a song I wrote, “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2,” was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by Black South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so-to-speak, on certain songs, including mine.
Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a West Bank festival used the song to protest Israel’s apartheid wall. They sang “We don’t need no occupation! We don’t need no racist wall!” At the time, I hadn’t seen first-hand what they were singing about.
A year later in 2006, I contracted to perform in Tel Aviv.
Palestinians from the movement advocating an academic and cultural boycott of Israel urged me to reconsider. I had already spoken out against the wall, but I was unsure whether a cultural boycott was the right way to go. The Palestinian advocates of a boycott asked that I visit the occupied Palestinian territory, to see the Wall for myself before I made up my mind. I agreed.
Roger Waters and David Gilmour reunite to help young Palestinian refugees at an event organized by Jemima Khan. Rolling Stone reports:
For the first time in five years, the two driving forces behind Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, reunited onstage at a benefit in England over the weekend. The unannounced team-up went down before the 200 attendees of the Hoping Foundation benefit in Oxfordshire, which raised money for young Palestinian refugees. The duo’s four-song set included Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is To Love Him” (a Floyd sound-check staple according to the blog on Gilmour’s website) and the band’s classics “Wish You Were Here,” “Comfortably Numb” and “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.”
The Saturday night set marks the first time Waters and Gilmour have shared the stage since Pink Floyd’s reunion performance at 2005’s Live 8 in London. The duo’s Hoping Foundation performance helped raise £350,000. At the benefit, Gilmour and Waters — who swapped his bass for an acoustic guitar — were joined by keyboardists Harry Waters and Jonjo Grisdale, drummer Andy Newmark, guitarist Chester Kamen and bassist Guy Pratt, who ironically replaced Waters in the Gilmour-led, Division Bell-era Pink Floyd.
UPDATE: A video message by Waters added below.
27 December 2009 — My name is Roger Waters. I am an English musician living in the USA. I am writing to express my great admiration for and solidarity with the 1360 men and women from 42 different countries around the World who are gathering in Egypt, preparing for The Gaza Freedom March. We all watched, aghast, the vicious attack made a year ago on the people of Gaza by Israeli armed forces and the ongoing illegal siege. The suffering wrought on the population of Gaza by both the invasion and the siege is unimaginable to us outside the walls. The aim of The Freedom March is to focus world attention on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza in the hope that the scales will fall from the eyes of all, ordinary, decent people round the world, that they may see the enormity of the crimes that have been committed, and demand that their governments bring all possible pressure to bear on Israel to lift the siege.
I use the word ‘crimes’ advisedly, as both the siege and the invasion have been declared unlawful by United Nations bodies and leading human rights organizations. If we do not all observe international law, if some governments think themselves above it, it is but a few short, dark, steps to barbarism and anarchy.
Continue reading “Roger Waters in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March”
Roger Waters is a prophet. This is from Amused to Death, an album that was inspired by Neil Postman’s classic book Amusing Ourselves to Death. (gracias Judith)
It’s A Miracle — by Roger Waters
P U L S E 