Four Arab and a British Band canceled their concerts for the second largest music festival in Berlin. The reason The Israeli Embassy is one of the sponsors.
It is about 500 Euro. With this amount, the Israeli Embassy, this year’s music festival of “Pop-culture sponsored” in Berlin. 70 concerts with international musicians are there from the 23. to 25. August on the program. Including an Israeli artist: her arrival to Berlin subsidized the message.
This participation is now a stumbling-block. The movement “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) accused Israel, with the help of international cultural events of human rights violations cleansing against the Palestinians. For them, the Israeli Embassy is not only one of a total of 32 cultural partners such as the Institut Français, the GLS language centre or the German-French Council of culture; from their point of view, the Israeli government is taking targeted influence on the Festival. The call for a Boycott of the BDS and more than 100 participants have received artists, five followed him now: four Arab and a British Act to have cancelled your participation in the “Pop-culture”.
Canceled as a Protest: Emel Mathlouthi from Tunisia
One of them is the Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi. On her Facebook page, she writes, she had been looking forward to the concert in Berlin, but promised to do nothing of the Israeli sponsorship known. “The Situation inside and outside Palestine, is coming to a head. What can each of us do, is to show solidarity and empathy. As an artist it begins to be truthful and credible,” writes Mathlouthi. Among the other Arab artists, the Rapper Abu Hajar and Hello psych Aleppo from Syria, and the Egyptian electronic Trio Islam Chipsy & EEK.
Berlin’s Senator for Culture shows itself to be horrified
The Berlin culture Senator Klaus Lederer, has condemned the politically-motivated Cancellations in a Statement: “If artists choose artists from the Arab region, for this reason, do not participate in the Festival, it is disappointing for all those like me who thought we were more – would be the wiser. The Whole campaign of detention to inflate, for a Boycott of the festival and to operate with Fake News about an alleged co-funding of Festivals by the state of Israel, is disgusting and horrifies me.” He regards it as an unacceptable attempt in the freedom of art to intervene, “if by activists, to whom the mere existence of the state of Israel seems to be unbearable pressure on artists not to be exercised, to participate in ‘Pop-culture’.”
This year’s “Pop culture”-posters in dogs-Look
The music festival is since 2015, the successor to the industry meeting “Berlin Music Week” and puts in its orientation large value on exchange and dialogue. So not only concerts but also Workshops, readings and exhibitions take place in the three days. Also targeted artists had been invited from the Arab States. “Now, these voices fall away, that is sad,” said curator Christian Morin to the “taz”.
Pressure on musicians
In a Statement on the website of the Festival organizers explain: “The ‘BDS’campaign has exerted immense pressure on all Arab artists in our Line-up. We believe that discourse and dialogue is the only way, with the conflicts in this world. We, as artists and cultural workers to build networks, across borders, even if we are of different opinion.”
The campaign for “BDS”, since 2005, internationally, to isolate the state of Israel economically, culturally and politically. So international Acts are set on, most recently Radiohead – under pressure, in Israel, scheduled concerts to be cancelled.