Do we want our "rock stars" to weigh in on politics? I guess it depends. Are they a lame, numbskull like Ted Nugent? Or a smart, engaged human being like Roger Waters? They both have a right to speak out, but I'd much rather hear what's on Roger Water's mind.
Roger Waters has waded into some heavy waters. Is there anything trickier, thornier, and more controversial than the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? If you speak up, and you are not Israeli or Palestinian, you open yourself up to "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," incoming missiles from all sides.
Still it's hard to argue with his very eloquent statement and support for the "BDS" movement. BDS stands for boycott, disinvestment and sanctions - which aims to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It's kind of the same strategy that worked against apartheid in South Africa. And the situation in Israel and the "occupied territories" is no longer acceptable.
Here is Waters: "Some wrongly portray the boycott movement, which is modeled on the boycotts employed against Apartheid South Africa and used in the U.S. civil rights movement, to be an attack on the Israeli people or even on the Jewish people, as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth. The movement recognizes universal human rights under the law for all people, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or color."
And this: "I believe that the root of all injustice and oppression has always been the same – the dehumanization of the other. It is the obsession with Us and Them that can lead us, regardless of racial or religious identity, into the abyss.
Let us never forget that oppression begets more oppression, and the tree of fear and bigotry bears only bitter fruit. The end of the occupation of Palestine, should we all manage to secure it, will mean freedom for the occupied and the occupiers and freedom from the bitter taste of all those wasted years and lives. And that will be a great gift to the world."
“Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal
In the end.”