12 July 2009 - PACBI has been heartened by the untiring efforts of BDS activists in the US and UK in organizing demonstrations and pickets at Leonard Cohen’s performances in advance of his planned concert in Tel Aviv later this summer.
The call, “don’t Play Israel!” has been heard loud and clear.
After exhausting all attempts to convince Cohen to apply his avowed humanistic principles in a morally consistent way by refusing to entertain Israeli apartheid and whitewash its crimes, we called on all supporters of a just peace in our region to shun Cohen‘s concerts and CDs and to protest his appearances everywhere. In an open letter to Cohen in May, we warned that we considered his performance in Israel a form of complicity in its grave violations of international law; we reminded him that by violating the Palestinian boycott against Israel he would bring back the ugly memory of artists who violated the boycott against apartheid South Africa and insisted to perform at Sun City, drawing condemnation and revulsion by people of conscience the world over [1].
We are now pleased to announce that we have received confirmation from the Palestinian Prisoners‘ Club Society that they will not be hosting Leonard Cohen in Ramallah. A strong consensus has emerged among all parties concerned that Cohen is not welcome in Ramallah as long as he insists on performing in Tel Aviv, even though it had been claimed that Cohen would dedicate his concert in Palestine to the cause of Palestinian prisoners. Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel‘s colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel.
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What? No splitting the baby? Soon we will find out what Cohen is made of - dare I name it?
ReplyDeleteWhy am I gettinga message all of a sudden about not exceeding 3000 characters?
ReplyDeletePlease do...If this guy is not able to see things for what they are then he's not worth listening to..
ReplyDeleteBecause you are not supposed to be publishing books here :)
ReplyDeleteOk, he is full of shit
ReplyDeleteThe Martin Luther King that the wingnuts would like to forget about:
ReplyDelete"We cannot talk of Dr. DuBois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the English-speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. DuBois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational, obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.” ( MLK, February 23, 1968 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Dr. W.E.B. Dubois)
The same could be said of Helen Keller, Maracatú.
ReplyDeleteBut back to Mr. Cohen - I would like to think that the Ramallah decision was based on taste, not politics. He is bloody awful as a singer, and not much cop as a songwriter.
Notice that the speech has been wiped from history. You can't find it on Google and it isn't even listed among his speeches archived at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.
ReplyDeleteThere is no censorship in the US. =-X
That is a good one Mara :)
ReplyDeleteHelen Keller was a communist Jemmy? Didn't know!
ReplyDeleteSenor Marcatu,
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for your post sbove. It had been a few days and the "wingnuts" were beginning to think you had forgotten about them! LOL
Try pointing your finger in a different direction. Wingnuts are not the ones behind MLK's ongoing promotion and "worship". In fact, its his family and the civil rights folks who have the most to gain from "cleansing" the record of what would surely be unpopular remarks in the mainstream USA.
That said, it is fairly well known that MLK was pro--communist. Kind of moot, now, though, considering he is long dead. His primary objective of economic and social progress for his race has obviously been a success.
An absolutely BRILLIANT strategy for the Republicans to win the next election in the US!!!
ReplyDelete...And if Mark Twain were alive today, he would be accused by the wingnuts of advocating for cutting and running.
ReplyDeleteI understand his family has control over the use of all of his speeches...that means the postiing and publication, too!
ReplyDeleteOkay, no more books.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cpusa.org/article/articleprint/820/
ReplyDeleteAnd some more memorabilia that we shall never forget:
ReplyDeleteTHE NIAGARA MOVEMENT
THE COLOSSAL FIGURE OF W.E.B. DUBOIS
Not sure about Helen K. being a Communist. She certainly was amember of Debs' Socialist Party, and of the Industrial Workers of the World, i.e., a "criminal syndicalist".
ReplyDeleteYes, they tried to field test her for planting bombs, but that did not work out,...lol sorry :)
ReplyDelete