Freedom of expression V encouraging aggression - Where’s the line in art.

Lately much has been made by the British press about the musicians Kneecap and Bob Vylan. Both bands willingness to use their art and the platform of performance to condemn genocide and challenge the governments official position has drawn ire and calls for criminal charges.

The BBC refused to air kneecaps set at Glastonbury (fearing they would call a genocide what it was, or maybe insult the king) in doing so they found out that trying to stifle one voice often results in two being raised against you. As punk rap group Bob Vylan would take the stage, calling the audience to take their country back from fascism, calling for a free Palestine, and leading a chant calling for the death of the IDF.

Now it’s that last chant that has stuck in the throat of many.

And some of you may agree with the BBC and the British PM, that this was a step too far, calling for soldiers engaged in genocide to die as though fighting and dying is something soldiers do…

I know I’m being flippant, what a thing to say. But honestly I think it’s important we remember, and not be misdirected by the presses, that this chant specifically addressed a military engaged in genocide, it was not aimed at a people, a religion, or even a government.

It is aimed at people ostensibly fighting a war, and even if we set the genocide aside, if two sides are fighting a war, members of those armies will die. If in that war you align with one side over the other, you inherently call for death upon the others soldiers. It is the nature of war. What’s that phrase the IDF use to justify blowing up teens at aid stations? “Fighting age males”? If simply being born male and hitting your teens makes you a target in a war zone, then what does being a professional soldier make you?

If Vylan had called for death to the Russian Wagner group no one would bat an eye, it might be noted in a review of the set in some mid page column at best.

So why this reaction? The context here is important, at least in understanding the weight of the response. The press and the powerful find it more useful to be aligned with one side than the other. Seeing a massive crowd in open opposition to that is not the kind of thinking they wish to see spread. So it reinforces their position with their voters and backers to be harsh on these “dangerous artists” spreading this “dangerous message”

You can perform a cover of Nzi Punks Fk off, tell people to rob a bank, rap about cooking crack, and even play songs where the love interest is underage, none of those things affect those in power, none of those affect the bottom line, so none of those things are “dangerous”

But wishing a military would lose a “war” -if it’s the “wrong” military- that is apparently dangerous…

So where’s the line between expression and aggression? It depends on who’s drawing the line, and as artists we should pay close attention to lines, how they’re drawn, and by who.