The U.S. authorities on Tuesday joined the accusations of anti-Semitism lodged in opposition to Roger Waters after the rock legend wore a Nazi-style uniform at a Berlin live performance in what he known as an announcement in opposition to fascism.
Berlin police are investigating whether or not the Pink Floyd cofounder, a vocal critic of Israel, incited hatred by way of the May live performance during which he wore an extended, black coat with armbands.
The State Department weighed in by saying that the live performance “contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust.”
“The artist in question has a long track record of using anti-Semitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people,” the State Department mentioned in written response to questions.
Germany has strict legal guidelines on portrayal of the Holocaust, however Waters famous his demagogic function on stage wasn’t new.
Waters, one of many highest-grossing touring artists of all time, has lengthy taken to the stage within the guise of a dictator as a part of a hallucinatory plot twist in performing “The Wall,” the acclaimed 1979 Pink Floyd album that touches on isolation, psychological sickness and political extremism.
“My recent performance in Berlin has attracted bad-faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles,” he mentioned within the assertion after police opened the probe.
Waters has lengthy criticized Israel, urging a cultural boycott and flying an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his live shows.
The rocker, born in Britain and a longtime New York resident, has additionally triggered controversy by accusing Ukraine of frightening its invasion by Russia.
At the identical Berlin live performance, Waters appeared to attract parallels between the deaths of a number of folks by flashing their names on a big display, together with these of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who died in a Nazi focus camp, and Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American journalist shot useless final 12 months whereas masking an Israeli raid.
The State Department remark was in help of its envoy on combating anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, who condemned the rocker’s “despicable Holocaust distortion.”
Her commentary was in flip a response to her counterpart from the European Union, Katharina von Schnurbein, who mentioned she was “sick and disgusted by Roger Waters’ obsession to belittle and trivialize the Shoah,” utilizing the Hebrew time period for the Holocaust.
Decades earlier than the current controversy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was such a fan of Pink Floyd that he quoted the music “Another Brick in the Wall” in his highschool yearbook.
© 2023 AFP