Pink Floyd’s very vocal singer Roger Waters is attempting to rally more of his fellow musicians to join his boycott of the State of Israel. Waters spoke to world leaders at the UN of war crimes committed by Israel against Palestine, and is now reaching out to his peers to help the cause.
Speaking with Electronic Intifada, Rogers explains his next steps: “I am about to publish an open letter written to all my colleagues in the music industry, asking them to join me in the BDS movement. This is not just to colleagues in the UK or US but around the world.”
Already he has found some traction. Stevie Wonder pulled out of a run of shows announced for the area. Waters says, “I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace. It wasn’t just me. Desmond Tutu also wrote a letter.”
Wonder apparently spoke to organisers of the event, stating, “I don’t quite get it” and canned the shows. Waters added, “This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America.”
Waters has also said that he would entertain the idea of releasing a protest single with Steven Van Zandt, guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and a man well versed in protest songs, to raise even more awareness of the boycott.
UPDATE: Roger Waters’ boycott has backfired, forcing him to cancel gigs in New York
