One of the most saddening, bizarre and strange developments of the past year has been the behavior of large parts of the pop music world in the face of events in the Middle East.
After October 7, 2023, after the massacres by the Islamofascist terrorist group Hamas, including those of participants in a psytrance festival in the Negev desert, after the sexual violence and the abduction of hostages in the Gaza Strip, there was initially a resounding silence especially among musicians and DJs who were previously committed to #MeToo, anti-racism and awareness had.
Idolization of terrorists
And that’s not all: this silence quickly gave way to an idolization of the terrorists as supposed liberation fighters. Since then there has been an enormous escalation of anti-Semitism in the pop scene.
Israeli and Jewish artists are boycotted and threatened; The few concert halls and clubs in Germany that – such as About Blank in Berlin and Conne Island in Leipzig – profess Israel’s right to exist are subject to constant, even physical, attacks.
So-called pro-Palestinian activism has become radicalized and militarized to a frightening extent and is, if not supported, then at least benevolently tolerated by large parts of the club culture and art world. A scene that once stood for safer spaces, for sexual emancipation, for a life in freedom, is showing solidarity with authoritarian, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic forces. One can hardly understand this as anything other than complete moral bankruptcy.
Since then, every liberal and anti-authoritarian person has had a different view of the political potential of pop.