Kneecap

[Physical_graffiti]

12 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

are any of the knee cap loyalists in here able to tell me exactly how you square this circle? Presumably we are just meant to shrug and say they obv weren't being serious? bit of a cop out 

 

In one, the band allegedly call for the death of Conservative MPs. Another seems to show a band member shouting "up Hamas, up Hezbollah". Both groups are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.

Kneecap have responded with a statement, saying they "do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah".

 

 

yeah, see my previous post here: 

 

[westholtschic]

41 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

where have you seen that?

They are not on their website at the moment and with the comments on their facebook page, which has been taken down, not a good look for the Pavilions.

 

[fraybentos1]

10 minutes ago, Physical_graffiti said:

they just saw it as a funny/violent/edgy thing to say at a gig.

can't even imagine how thick people would be to find that funny or edgy

[steviewevie]

35 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

 

Yes OK.  The intent is to give a veneer of complexity to the situation that it really doesn't warrant.  If folk think they need to understand 1000s of years of history and internecine regional squabbles to get a handle on what's happening today then they're likely to switch off and move on.

Still, it's useful to know the history...Judea, the Romans, the crusades, the ottomans, ww1 and the British mandate for Palestine, antisemitism, pogroms and Zionism, the holocaust, the 48 war and nakba, 6 day war, yom kippur, the intifadas, Oslo, Oct 7 attacks, destruction of Gaza...all leading to whether Kneecap will play Glastonbury.

[CaledonianGonzo]

4 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

can't even imagine how thick people would be to find that funny or edgy

 

Agreed -  but then most edgelordery isn't really funny.

 

The question is more about whether everything else they say and do should be censored - or to coin a phrase loved by the right - whether they should be 'cancelled' as a result of it

[richarddep]

35 minutes ago, Jacko45 said:

It's weird, seemingly people cannot seperate their comments/views on Palestine from the comments that are actually causing all the controversy. 

 

You can't say things like "Kill Your MP" in their position and expect no reprecussions. 

Hard agree. Their manager was on RTE deflecting like a media trained politician.

 

I personally don't disagree with their point on Gaza, but at the same time their statements have gone over the line and you can't just shout conspiracy when rightly criticised for it. The fact they have immediately apologised to the Jo Fox and David Amess families shows they know they've got that badly wrong...

[fraybentos1]

10 minutes ago, Physical_graffiti said:

yeah, see my previous post here: 

 

Ah yes of course- back to words don't have meaning type argument. You can't justify everything by saying it's performative or in character imo, it doesn't wash. Where do you draw the line? Is any spoken word fine cause it's not meant to be taken literally? 

 

You don't need to defend every single thing they say or do, you could just say 'yeah that one is too far'. Is there anything they could say that you would think is OTT?

 

Also worth pointing out, they turn people off their cause with stuff like that 100%. No one who is unaware of the conflict is going to hear a shite band say go kill your MP and be like 'hmmm the man in the ireland balaclava makes a good point'. They're preaching to the converted at their own gigs. I wonder how it would have gone down at Glasto if they said a similar thing on stage. I think maybe not too well.

 

 

[fraybentos1]

1 minute ago, richarddep said:

I personally don't disagree with their point on Gaza, but at the same time their statements have gone over the line and you can't just shout conspiracy when rightly criticised for it. The fact they have immediately apologised to the Jo Fox and David Amess families shows they know they've got that badly wrong...

Yeah, they've shat their pants clearly which is rather pathetic given how they preach to others. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

24 minutes ago, Blisterpack said:

Been on here for years, been going to Glastonbury for decades, talk about it here and elsewhere often. I am as passionate about this as you. 
on Right to Return, surely even you can see the problem with allowing 5 million people who have literally never stepped foot in Israel, Gaza or West Bank to move in there. The world clearly needs a better solution than that. Given that it was as much the role played by Egypt and Jordan in removing the Arabs in the first place then I am surprised you don’t question why they won’t allow these descendants of the originally displaced to go there…. 

 

But the Right of Return - to a land they've also literally never set foot in - is extended to and guaranteed for the global Jewish population. 

 

Saying that the Palestineans can only got to Egypt or Jordan - which, as you know, are different countries - creates an exception to international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that only exists for Palestineans.

[CaledonianGonzo]

5 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Still, it's useful to know the history...Judea, the Romans, the crusades, the ottomans, ww1 and the British mandate for Palestine, antisemitism, pogroms and Zionism, the holocaust, the 48 war and nakba, 6 day war, yom kippur, the intifadas, Oslo, Oct 7 attacks, destruction of Gaza...all leading to whether Kneecap will play Glastonbury.

 

Sure.  The history is fascinating - it's  just not really necessary to have an in depth understanding of a whole library to get to the heart of the current issues.

[radioahed]

22 minutes ago, Physical_graffiti said:

I think with anything, context is key. They said it on stage at a gig, they didn't call a press conference in Westminster to announce a call to arms. Printed in the daily mail in the cold light of day it looks very dodgy of course, but absolutely no one, zero percent of people at that gig, took it literally, they just saw it as a funny/violent/edgy thing to say at a gig.

 

I guess the argument is though it only takes one to do it and thats the scary thing. We have seen on both left and right it only takes one idiot to take it not as a joke/edgy thing to say and someone is dead.

But like people have said we are all talking about the band so it is so far working for them. 

[narwhal]

15 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

are any of the knee cap loyalists in here able to tell me exactly how you square this circle? Presumably we are just meant to shrug and say they obv weren't being serious? bit of a cop out 

 

In one, the band allegedly call for the death of Conservative MPs. Another seems to show a band member shouting "up Hamas, up Hezbollah". Both groups are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.

Kneecap have responded with a statement, saying they "do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah".

 

 

Loyalists for Kneecap would be a bunch of people with crazy cognitive dissonance I imagine, but anyway, Kneecap are a performing act saying controversial and provocative things on stage, in the context of a performance in a genre known for acts saying controversial and provocative things on stage. So I think it's totally reasonable to say that they may not have been serious. 

 

If Kneecap were writing and publishing regular manifestos, trying to run for elected office on a pro Hamas platform, making Hamas, Hezbollah and killing Tory MPs the sole focus of their work, raising money for Hamas and Hezbollah or similar actual consequential, repeated and serious actions then it would be a different matter.

 

Also worth adding on the MP front the left don't really go in for killing MPs (or anyone to be honest) and the last time an MP was killed by the RA was 1990. Nobody is being radicalised by a satirical hip hop band to kill their MP. We should take the safety of public officials seriously but we should also be able to differentiate between a serious threat and one that is clearly not.

 

It's understandable for people to disagree with what they said (I don't, in the context of which they said it) but it's fanciful to suggest this is as big an issue as it's being made out to be or there is any plausible threat to MPs or Jewish people in the UK because of what Kneecap said. Just fundamentally unserious as a proposition. 

[fraybentos1]

4 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

 

Agreed -  but then most edgelordery isn't really funny.

 

The question is more about whether everything else they say and do should be censored - or to coin a phrase loved by the right - whether they should be 'cancelled' as a result of it

Ultimately it's up to individual festivals. I wouldn't be shocked if they play Glasto as this will all die down in a week. Personally I find the MP comment rather disturbed given the context and I'm pretty unclear why it is being attached to a largely separate convo about the middle east and I find it pathetic to discard every inappropriate comment as being ok cause they are performers.  

 

 

[Colorblindjames]

6 minutes ago, richarddep said:

Hard agree. Their manager was on RTE deflecting like a media trained politician.

 

I personally don't disagree with their point on Gaza, but at the same time their statements have gone over the line and you can't just shout conspiracy when rightly criticised for it. The fact they have immediately apologised to the Jo Fox and David Amess families shows they know they've got that badly wrong...

They apologised for it. So we should all move on shouldn’t we. Yet many don’t want to move on because there’s another agenda at play as we all know. Any criticism of Israel must be hammered to set an example to other artists. They must be cancelled!!!

 

The hypocrisy is off the charts while our weapons are being used to mutilate children. 

[The Nal]

Theres been an idiotic lurch back to romanticising Republicism in the last few years in some quarters. Mainly through gains from Sinn Fein during covid etc, anti lockdown rebellion against the government. A lot of very young people who havent a clue. 

 

Now we have 40,000 people at Wolfe Tone gigs at the Electric Picnic (a shite band who played half empty pubs for 50 years) and lads dressed up like the IRA calling for politicians to be killed.

[richarddep]

3 minutes ago, Colorblindjames said:

They apologised for it. So we should all move on shouldn’t we. Yet many don’t want to move on because there’s another agenda at play as we all know. Any criticism of Israel must be hammered to set an example to other artists. They must be cancelled!!!

 

The hypocrisy is off the charts while our weapons are being used to mutilate children. 

Yep, it's good that they have apologised. Their reputation is also deservedly in the ground. Two things can be true at once!

[Colorblindjames]

4 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Theres been an idiotic lurch back to romanticising Republicism in the last few years in some quarters. Mainly through gains from Sinn Fein during covid etc, anti lockdown rebellion against the government. A lot of very young people who havent a clue. 

 

Now we have 40,000 people at Wolfe Tone gigs at the Electric Picnic (a shite band who played half empty pubs for 50 years) and lads dressed up like the IRA calling for politicians to be killed.

Conversely there has been a significant uptick in Irish language interest and Kneecap have helped this especially among young people. 
 

Like it’s easy to just dismiss Kneecap for their Republicianism and laughably compare them to the wolfetones but all that does is miss the significant impact they are having elsewhere. 

[Colorblindjames]

2 minutes ago, richarddep said:

Yep, it's good that they have apologised. Their reputation is also deservedly in the ground. Two things can be true at once!

Their reputation is in the ground with people who I or they wouldn’t share much political common ground with. Who cares. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

3 minutes ago, richarddep said:

Yep, it's good that they have apologised. Their reputation is also deservedly in the ground. Two things can be true at once!

 

I think that remains to be seen.  Do the gammons hate them?  I'm sure they do - but that's not a new thing, inasmuch as folk were aware of them before - this has no doubt raised their profile. 

 

Elsewhere I expect they'll get a heroes welcome.

[Physical_graffiti]

16 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

can't even imagine how thick people would be to find that funny or edgy

well yeah you can think that no problem, perfectly fine for us all to have opinions on what's funny. Point is, it's very obviously not to be taken literally.

 

11 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Ah yes of course- back to words don't have meaning type argument. You can't justify everything by saying it's performative or in character imo, it doesn't wash. Where do you draw the line? Is any spoken word fine cause it's not meant to be taken literally? 

 

Also worth pointing out, they turn people off their cause with stuff like that 100%. No one who is unaware of the conflict is going to hear a shite band say go kill your MP and be like 'hmmm the man in the ireland balaclava makes a good point'. They're preaching to the converted at their own gigs. I wonder how it would have gone down at Glasto if they said a similar thing on stage. I think maybe not too well.

 

 

First point - Well then I guess we disagree here. I just think we're in an insane world if we're taking anything said on stage, in song lyrics etc literally. 

 

Second point - again this is irrelevant to cancelling gigs, but yeah obviously musicians have a long history of promoting causes and raising awareness among fans.

12 minutes ago, radioahed said:

 

I guess the argument is though it only takes one to do it and thats the scary thing. We have seen on both left and right it only takes one idiot to take it not as a joke/edgy thing to say and someone is dead.

But like people have said we are all talking about the band so it is so far working for them. 

whilst true, you can use that argument to justify censoring absolutely anything. Charles manson interpreted some beatles songs as cause to start a race war for example. I think you've got to assume 99.999999999% people see it as a joke.

[fraybentos1]

13 minutes ago, Colorblindjames said:

They apologised for it. So we should all move on shouldn’t we. Yet many don’t want to move on because there’s another agenda at play as we all know. Any criticism of Israel must be hammered to set an example to other artists. They must be cancelled!!!

 

The hypocrisy is off the charts while our weapons are being used to mutilate children. 

How is saying kill your local MP a criticism of Israel 

[Colorblindjames]

2 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

How is saying kill your local MP a criticism of Israel 

Context my dear bentos, context. 

[Skip997]

43 minutes ago, Physical_graffiti said:

I think with anything, context is key. They said it on stage at a gig, they didn't call a press conference in Westminster to announce a call to arms. Printed in the daily mail in the cold light of day it looks very dodgy of course, but absolutely no one, zero percent of people at that gig, took it literally, they just saw it as a funny/violent/edgy thing to say at a gig.

Yeah. It’s art. People got to start realising all this cancelling of acts is only going to lead to a bad place. Boring sanitised safe arts and culture, politically controlled is not a place anyone should want to be. The arts should to a degree about challenging people’s thoughts and perceptions, making people question and not just blindly accept the mainstream narrative. 
 

Should GFL cancel Kneecap it will be a massive mistake. Let the people judge by their attendance. 

[Mand3]

3 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

How is saying kill your local MP a criticism of Israel 

It's only been dragged up because they are outspoken about Israel and got loads of attention at Coachella. 

[fraybentos1]

4 minutes ago, Mand3 said:

It's only been dragged up because they are outspoken about Israel and got loads of attention at Coachella. 

And?