Tricky: reconsider your planned concert in apartheid Israel
Ismahane, Patrizia, Erwan and Dror, La Campagne BDS France, le 9 Février 2015
▻http://www.bdsfrance.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3523%3Alettre-a-tricky-recon
Tricky
c/o !K7 records
Unit 10 – The Laundry
2-18 Warburton Road
London
E8 3FN
charlotte@k7.com
brana@k7.com
ben@primarytalent.com
kate@kishcommunications.com
v@obviously.fr
Paris, February 2nd 2015
Dear Tricky, dear Adrian,
We are 4 fans of yours, among your biggest French fans, we have grown up wearing out all your CDs, from Massive Attack to your solo albums, some of them being our all-time favourites. We have seen you every time you gave a concert in France, and a few times elsewhere, we have seen you sharing the stage with Rachid Taha and his oud player Hakim. We were just about to get tickets for your next Parisian concert and then... we learned that you were planning a concert in Israel. What a shock !
We are also concerned French citizens, involved in the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid, and convinced of the importance of artists’ public stances. We were very happy to read the description on your web site of your latest single, My Palestine Girl:
The album’s heaviest and most political track. A relationship with a Paris-based Palestinian inspired Tricky to think about the challenges of a relationship with someone who lived in Gaza. “ Imagine if the love of your life was there,” he says. “It’s a political thing to divide and rule. I’ve been to Israel. The kids I met don’t hate Palestinians. It’s a political thing.”
We don’t know what your Paris-based Palestinian friend would think of your planned concert, but we can definitely tell you that someone living in Gaza today, because of the blockade, would not be able to attend your concert in apartheid Tel Aviv.
Although it is true that not all Israeli kids hate Palestinians, performing in Israel today is a political thing, it is a political statement. A performance today in Israel is not a cultural event, it is a loud public support of the Israeli State, its apartheid policy, its brutal occupation, especially in the wake of last summer’s massacre which left a couple of thousand Palestinian civilians dead.
Performing in Israel today is refusing to hear Palestinians who are calling for a cultural boycott of Israel. This call was launched in 2005 and is now followed by a huge range of artists, including Cassandra Wilson, Annie Lennox, Cat Power, Stevie Wonder, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, Carlos Santana, Jello Biafra, MF Doom, Joker, Ewok, Massive Attack, Faithless, The Klaxons, The Killers, Gorillaz Sound System, Nigel Kennedy, but also Ken Loach, Angela Davis, Stephen Hawking, Henning Mankell, Eric Cantona or Trevor Hogan...
In a context of a growing isolation of Israel, be assured that your presence will be used by the Israeli State, and by the Barby Club in Tel Aviv, in their « Brand Israel » campaign aiming to create a positive image of the country, whitewashing its war crimes and its contempt for human rights. Although Tel Aviv looks like an open, cool and modern city, it has been built on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948. Your performance there would in effect say that you don’t mind the cruelties of ethnic cleansing. Do you really want to give this impression?
We hope that this letter will help you change your mind and reconsider your planned concert in apartheid Israel. Please join the artists of conscience who have refused to legitimate the racist policies of Israel by their mere presence.
We welcome every question you may have on this subject and we would be very happy to discuss it further with you as you are visiting France during your tour,
Your fans, Ismahane, Patrizia, Erwan and Dror
La Campagne BDS France
#Tricky #BDS #Boycott_culturel #Palestine
