US rapper Talib Kweli refused to cave in to demands from the German Open Source Festival that he denounce the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.
As a result, he was disinvited from the July festival’s line-up.
Kweli says he refuses to “censor myself and lie about BDS for a check”.
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, recently passed a resolution equating BDS, which calls for economic and cultural sanctions against Israel over its apartheid-like policies towards Palestinians, with anti-Semitism.
The smear, against a non-violent movement that rejects all forms of racism, prompted protests by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip and denunciation from across Palestinian society.
Modelled on the global solidarity campaign that helped end Apartheid in South Africa, the BDS movement explicitly opposes all forms of bigotry, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Kweli revealed that he received an email from Philipp Maiburg, artistic director of the festival in the western city of Düsseldorf, highlighting the Bundestag motion and demanding the artist’s position on BDS.
“As you know, there are many discussions around the BDS in Germany and artists which have signed to it,” Maiburg wrote. “There has also been a lot of confusion even with much bigger festivals than ours.
“The new situation now is that since 17 May 2019, there is now an official statement from the German government signed by all parties which, basically, officially declares the statements and methods of the BDS as anti-Semitic.”
Read the article by Tamara Nassar on Green Left Weekly.