Editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett
“Fear builds walls.”
Those intent on intimidating build walls. Plunderers wrap themselves within walls. Entrenched power bent on instilling fear builds walls. Berlin to Baghdad, Peshawar to Kandahar, New Delhi to Kashmir, to the West Bank, inordinate, imperial power walls out and walls in.
Thirty years after his globally acclaimed musical album ‘The Wall’ Roger Waters addresses the Israeli “separation barrier” in the West Bank, a wall that encroaches on Palestinian territory and causes untold hardships for the Palestinian people. Riz Khan leads an Al Jazeera interview this week with the performer.
Rock star Roger Waters calls on the Israeli government to “‘tear down the wall.’”
In her article “Roger Waters, a Man and an Exceptional Artist,” Silvia Cattori, quotes the performer on what motivates his production of “The Wall.” In the midst of today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “What it comes down to for me is this,” he said, “Will the technologies of communication in our culture serve to enlighten us and help us to understand one another better or will they deceive us and keep us apart?
“… The jury is out — there is a lot of commercial clutter and propaganda on the Net — but I have a sense that, just beneath the surface, understanding is gaining ground.…
“… ‘The Wall’ is an attempt to draw some comparisons, to illuminate our current predicament and is dedicated to all of the innocents lost in the intervening years.”
Waters said, “I… believe many of these tragic losses of life are avoidable. I feel empathy with the families of all the victims; and anger at ‘POWERS THAT BE,’ who are in equal measure responsible.
“Human beings need the protection of the rule of law but laws should not be set in stone. The trick for us is to agree upon what the law should be, now — something we have been working on for a few hundred years — but also to agree that, as we develop our understanding of both ourselves and our surroundings, we will have insights and may need to modify the laws that govern us.
“In a world where — from Palestine to Iraq via Afghanistan — so many innocent people are brutalized by barbarian armies, humiliated, bereft of hope, freedom, and human dignity, the voice of artists with the integrity to lend their talent and signature to say ‘no to savagery’ is a beacon of hope.”
Cattori says Waters’ “Wall” is a message of love directed toward Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan and many other victims suspended between death, anxiety and hope. It expresses the poet’s sensibility, a shared knowing of their pain.
Sources and notes
“Walls of division” with Riz Khan: “Former Pink Floyd star, Roger Waters, adds his voice to the calls for Israel to remove the separation wall,” March 3, 2011
“Roger Waters, a Man and an Exceptional Artist (Silvia Cattori, Silviacattori.net), February 8, 2011,
http://www.countercurrents.org/cattori080211.htm Translated from French by Mary Mathai (February 2, 2011) Original article in French (July 26, 2010): http://www.silviacattori.net/article1279.html
Other talented singers are also committed to Gaza. See on this topic: Gaza : Quand la douleur devient chant », by Silvia Cattori, silviacattori.net, February 4, 2009.
Roger Waters: http://www.rogerwaters.org/
“Anti-Wall protest in West Bank— Hundreds of Palestinians gather in Bi'lin to mark opposition to separation wall,” February 20, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/20102202353084960.html#
“Former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, who performed a one-off concert in Israel on Thursday, called on the government to tear down its separation barrier in the occupied West Bank, January 23, 2006, http://english.aljazeera.net/archive/2006/06/200849143834171675.html
___________________________________
Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
___________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment