On Friday PSNA wrote to Fat Freddy’s Drop asking the Kiwi supergroup to withdraw from their scheduled 18 January performance at the Sydney Festival.
So far more than 25 acts have either withdraw or distanced themselves from the festival in protest over a $20,000 donation from Israel’s Australian embassy to support Sydney Dance Company’s production of Decadance by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.
In accepting this donation, the Sydney Festival is using the Israeli Government Ministry of Foreign Affairs logo in festival promotional material and is aligning itself directly with the racist, apartheid state of Israel.
This is an affront to Palestinians who have called on the international community for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel until Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian land, repeals its apartheid laws which discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel and allows Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land in Palestine.
The festival boycott is growing with stories here, here, here, here and here.
“Aotearoa New Zealand must join the boycott. The Sydney Festival is no place for any self-respecting Kiwi act” says PSNA National Chair John Minto.
The boycott approach to Israel was strongly supported by Nobel Peace prize winner and South African Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, who died two weeks ago.
“We are urging Fat Freddy’s Drop to show respect for the Palestinian struggle and pull out”
“We know this won’t be easy or comfortable but it’s the right thing – and the only decent thing – to do”
The festival’s main organiser is former All Black captain David Kirk and PSNA is also approaching him to reject the Israeli regime sponsorship of the event.
Hopefully they will do the right thing and withdrawal but I doubt they will.
Another failure for Herr Minto and cohorts…the Sydney Festival board is keeping the Israeli sponsored show. Dozens of artists, like Nick Cave, have come out in support
Fingers crossed
Nick Cave is a fucking israeli stooge. Should have quit after the greatest band in the world, The Birthday Party.
I’m optimistic.
Good luck getting Kirk to shift his position. He’s been a tory all his life, and no bunch of “hairy, knuckle dragging commies” are going to make him turn his back on his own.. It was “his people” that set up the paradigm that had kiwis having to pay to see their own team play on tv.. I know dozens of people who haven’t watched, or even bothered to get the results for years because they resent being gouged by people who already have more money then Croesus… I’m one of them .. I had to live in Australia before I ever saw them play, and had to put up with juvenile, and utterly one eyed “commentary” from the local talking heads… Not that the kiwi commentators are much better, with the “fourth loose forward” Marshall spending the whole game sucking up to the opposition… FFD should boycott this event. The Aussies have tin ears when it comes to the welfare of “brown people” and the proportions that utterly believe the propaganda used to justify the atrocity that is being perpetrated right under our noses is disappointing to say the least.. This event needs to face total collapse, or they won’t do any more than use the withdrawals as examples of “outsiders” dictating terms to them.. The locals will eat that up with relish..
There is one breath of fresh air if Kirk’s morality hasn’t been bought with Zionist shekels. A Google search comes up with, “….. and when the planned 1986 All Black tour to South Africa was cancelled David (KIrk) and John Kirwan were the only two players to refuse to join the rebel “Cavaliers” team on moral grounds—he felt that it would give comfort to the apartheid regime.” After all, one of a myriad of performers would be no great loss whereas, already over 25 acts have already pulled out on moral grounds.
Presumably the ghost of Demond Tutu will keep Kirk awake at night if he has lost his morality.
About 127 years ago I came upon a couple of superb E tablets which I took in the company of a young and beautiful female human lover and together we journeyed in my Landrover Discovery through an inky ether to a far off venue-land in Christchurch featuring Fat Freddy’s Drop.
Astoundingly, I found a park directly outside the main door and as we disembarked from my Big Green Space Ship I looked along a crowd of people cuing back down the foot path for what must have been about 200 meters despairingly and with a heavy heart.
Just as I was putting an empty vodka bottle back in under the front seat that’d rolled out into the gutter, ( We never drank the vodka. A big nope siree when A. driving and B when E-ing because booze kills the E experience.) my beautiful female human companion wearing 9 inch fetish heels and a tight, sparkling diamanté one piece mini dress tip toed over to a huge Samoan bouncer, said kind words, surely, and so with a sweep of his huge left arm he motioned as in ahead of the throng with a broad smile. To this day, I have no idea what she said, she wouldn’t tell me, but he smiled at my beautiful female human companion and laughed at me.
Once inside we heard the last toot of the cover band’s last song and as we clung to each other like long lost Bush Baby twins we found ourselves in a comfortable crowd when out came the Humans of Legend. The wonderful and wondrous Fat Freddy’s Drop.
That night, was by far and wide the most exceptional night of my party life, in as much as I perceived it to be, while High, I hasten to add. We swayed and swooned and melted in ecstatic Ecstasy as the saxophone and vocals opened up the Heavens and rained down divine beauty on all of us, but us in particular. Ba ha.
To this day, when I hear this, their tune “Black Bird” ( https://youtu.be/W_oaNOUmrQ0 ) I return to that vast sphere, a Universe of Love. A suspended joy almost beyond comprehension and all experienced within the comforting clarity that good E ( No bath salts FFS.) can afford a person while in the arms of a sweetheart both baring witness to one of, if not ,the, greatest AO/NZ bands ever.
I’m desperately begging Fat Freddy’s Drop to withdraw from that concert because to not do so will kill the experiences I’ve just described not to mention supporting the horrors brought down by israel on the Palestinians. Call me selfish of you must.
Fabulous Fat Freddy’s Drop. Please don’t do it?
How many big brave israeli soldiers does it take to dominate one Palestinian woman?
I counted 8.
https://www.addameer.org/publications/occupied-lives-imprisonment-palestinian-women-and-girls
How many Palestinian terrorists did it take to murder the defenceless Israeli athletes at Munich 1972?
How many Palestinian did European & Arab Jews murder & rape among them were pregnant women and children please provide info
How does an uneducated hasbara (lie) start spewing anti-Semitic tropes when depicting the Palestinians in a negative connotation? Oh that right you believe everything in the Zionist playbook which is flawed on multiple levels
Has David Kirk sold out for 30 pieces of silver at the expense of losing 25 and increasing number of acts?
“…. when the planned 1986 All Black tour to South Africa was cancelled David (Kirk) and John Kirwan were the only two players to refuse to join the rebel “Cavaliers” team on moral grounds—he felt that it would give comfort to the apartheid regime.”
One would hope not, but then, he may have no choice given the tentacles of the Zionist regime.
Ah, still with the classic antisemitic tropes…”tentacles”…Straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Pitiful.
Elders of Zion a purely fictional piece aimed at generating hatred.
non-fiction would be ‘the Benjamines of Zionism ‘, https://youtu.be/U1bQzcx9iBE?list=LL
,,, a story of blood and weapons money aimed at generating acceptance and compliance for a violent Apartheid terrorism infused regime. https://youtu.be/lR4SKdX1QfY?list=TLPQMTEwMTIwMjK1jDTfYywclA&t=1
I think we can Summarize that David Kirk would have played the South African springboks during Apartheid ….
Remember how the Nz rugby union fucked the Montreal Olympics ,,,,,
In modern ironic twist ,,, the bad choices of all-blacks are still leading to boycotts which negatively affect overseas events.
Kirks being a jerk and with acts the caliber of Fat Freddy’s alternative sponsorship could easily be found ,,,
Gaby – pathetic is too pathetic to describe your pathetic rhetoric. You sound like a pathetic 10 year old who can’t get something pathetic that they want. Probably best to ignore you but you are asking for it. Grow up and open your eyes.
Q. What would the death toll be Israel v Palestine since 1972 if that’s your pathetic focus? Don’t bother finding out as we know you just make stuff up. Pathetic.
Q. How many Palestinians made homeless by Israel since 1972?
Q. How many Israelis made homeless by Palestinians since 1972?
Such hard questions but I’m sure you could make up some answers.
Well, you certainly excel at pathetic. Making pathetic excuses for savage inexcusable Arab terrorism is the forte of your ilk, backing it up with vitriol and abuse because you know you’re false. Ask yourself who started the conflict and who keeps it going despite being offered their own state 8 times? Israelis lost faith in the peace process during the second Intifada which cost over a thousand Israeli lives, despite having offered the Arabs everything they asked for. FFD aren’t going to Oz because of Covid. They made no mention of Israel. Another failure for the racists.
does anyone really think a minor(though VG)kiwi band pulling out of a gig in sydney is gonna cross the radar of even one zionist…..virtue signalling is cheap but feels soooooo goooooood
How does an uneducated hasbara (lie) start spewing anti-Semitic tropes when depicting the Palestinians in a negative connotation? Oh that right you believe everything in the Zionist playbook which is flawed on multiple levels
The Pals earn themselves negativity all on their own. History’s biggest losers.
Over 30 acts have now withdrawn from the Sydney Festival and still counting. Was the bribe worth taking?
The festival is still going ahead with Israel’s involvement totally backed by Oz, a longtime supporter of Israel. That’s a win, and the racist dissenters not performing are the losers in every sense.
Yes -the festival is proceeding with a third of the acts withdrawing and less punters than expected, many no doubt signifying their distaste for supporting an immoral Zionist/Kahanist regime’s audacious bribe. A bit like a lame seabird trying to soar.
So, not totally backed as the racist propagandist troll wets his pants to exuberantly proclaim. He also hasn’t caught up with the fact that the dissenting acts are making alternative arrangements to perform for their fans outside of the festival arrangements, so who are the losers?
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