Don't Let Censorship Win!

I want to open this post with a poem called "First They Came" that captures the main point of this post.

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

SPEAK OUT

Censorship, Something we have all experienced. Something that enrages us ,whether it be being told to be quiet in a public area or being told where you can or cannot play music by a government. I will be talking about the more severe of the 2. 

Whether it be The Sex Pistols or NWA or the most recent, Kneecap. I thought this was the perfect time to talk about censorship as it has only been days from the dismissal of the charges against Mo Cara. So it pleases me greatly to talk to you now about the censorship that musicians have experienced. So lets hear my biased opinion of them all. 

The Sex Pistols Had songs such as "God Save The Queen" banned from BBC Radio in 1977. So they chose use the negative public response to their own advantage and embraced it by making it their image.

NWA had their own issues with censorship from the FBI banning them from singing their song "Fuck The Police" at multiple venues. They disobeyed the order of course, but this is the example of blunt political commentary getting silenced. This also helped popularise NWA although they were already well established at this point.

Censorship in Glastonbury

Bob Vylan and Kneecaps time at Glastonbury this year was controversial from the start with Keir Starmer sending a letter to Michael Eavis (Founder of Glastonbury festival) to get them removed. Eavis refused, and put it down to political meddling. After this the BBC had it prepped that if anything "controversial" was said by Bob Vylan they could cut the broadcast quickly. Of course the broadcast was cut off half way through when Bobbi Vylan made the statement "Death death to the IDF". A statement that some would argue is comparatively nothing compared to the atrocities, and genocide that the IDF were committing and continue to commit. Though Bob Vylan's set had the televised cut off Kneecap did not even originally get their set televised live instead had a edited version released on demand several hours after . This is a Class A display of discrimination and censorship from the BBC.

Why should an organisation determine weather someone else's statement is dangerous or not. Whether you are in support of Kneecap or Bob Vylan I think we can all admit that their rights for free speech are being imposed upon. The link between Kneecap and Bob Vylan is they both promote Anti-Colonial sentiments. Which no matter whether you agree with this or not (Really trying not to make too many enemies early on {I will wait until I have more than 15 readers}) you can see that they are being made examples of. A career boosting opportunity  faced attempts at suppression because they were being open about their political views, and being against a genocidal Apartheid.

Although, it does not seem like the censorship has negatively impacted either Kneecap or Bob Vylan. In fact both their monthly listenership's increased massively, Kneecaps monthly listeners tripled and Bob Vylan's latest album hit top 10 on the UK charts in the days after Glastonbury. This shows that the censorship has actually promoted them. This shows that the BBC had the opposite impact, when they wanted to stop the message getting out it helped the groups. This shows that people won't stand for censorship. This shows the public won the battle, And the two groups came out looking better on both sides.

Mo Chara Free

We live in the age where activism is dubbed terrorism, When a flag is allegedly waved and a young man is charged with terrorism. This terror charge led to Kemi Badenoch of the conservative party to call for Kneecap to be banned from Glastonbury as I previously mentioned. This warranted the response from Mo Chara " We just want to stop people from dying". Mo Chara's case was dropped on Friday and he spoke out against the government, he was quoted "This entire process was never about me, never about any threat to the public and never about “terrorism”, a word used by your government to discredit people you oppress. It was always about Gaza, about what happens if you speak out” He felt that this was all a "Circus" to keep the news off Gaza. I just think we should be worried that it was his own publicly displayed peaceful protest that landed him a terrorism charge.

The fact is that peaceful protest have been going on for a long time, and people have been trying to censor them for a long time. We all need to band together and fight censorship, as it is in no way productive. If you don't agree with someone just don't listen to them. Don't fight for someone to lose credibility over a differing opinion. Most of the time a differing opinion can help unite people, so can we stop surrounding ourselves with yes men.

-Charlie J