Andrew L. Urban.
Only an arrogant, self-absorbed performer (rapper /singer /comic /muso /actor) would think that everyone or nearly everyone in a random crowd of several thousand people in a stadium or theatre shares their political world view – especially on a divisive issue such as Hamas & the Palestinians v the Jews. The performer doesn’t know any of the crowd personally; cannot know their views on anything. To assume that the audience is all on board with Jew-hating Palestinian slogans is the height of arrogance and the height of moral bullying. Who’d stand up against the performer’s hate-rant? It’s a coward’s way of asserting his so called virtue. Nobody can argue back.
The stupidity comes as the consequence of that arrogance: if you antagonise half your audience as a performer, you halve your business. (Not that I care.) Here I am projecting, I must admit, from my personal lived experience. In recent time I have avoided or turned off shows which feature actors etc who have made nasty public attacks on Jews, hailed Palestinians as heroes and chanted for a global intifada. Most recently I stopped watching a favoured drama series after seeing its star in a newsclip being feral in his Jew-hatred, expressed as strong support for the Palestinians who killed and tortured them. (I’m not giving him and the show any oxygen by naming them.) But by then I had long ago avoided anything with Robert de Niro in the cast list, revolted by his violent hatreds, starting with wanting to punch Donald Trump. That sort of primitive response in politics has become the norm – in some quarters. There are several other examples but this isn’t about them; it’s about us.
Are we so polite as to be tolerant of hatred? The past three years have revealed that illogical and irrational hatred can soak up our humanity and turn us into accomplices in the ugliest socio-political confrontation in history. And that has occurred world-wide.
So what does a performer intend when they spout their pro-Palestinian chants? It’s obviously not expected to make any difference to anyone, except in feelings of approval for those who agree and feelings of disapproval for those that don’t. But on top of the disapproval for the latter, there are feelings of frustration and deceit: ‘I did not buy tickets to this.’
Let’s not buy into that amoral virtue signalling from the stage. Any stage, theatrical or political.