Munich: SPD and Greens censor Roger Waters’ concert and criticism of the NATO war in Ukraine
The Munich city government, a coalition of SPD and Greens, wants to prevent that Pink Floyd-Co-founder Roger Waters on May 21, 2023 in the city’s Olympic Hall his music show This is not an exercise performs. The ticket sale for the concert has already started.
Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) explained that he was very irritated that the city’s Olympic Park company had awarded the hall to Walters, he had no knowledge of it. He asked the company to review and reverse their decision. Similar statements were made by the mayors Verena Dietl (SPD) and Katrin habenharm (Greens).
The termination of the hall, which has over 15,000 seats, would mean a ban on Waters performing in Munich, as a comparable hall is not available. This unprecedented act of censorship is solely based on Water’s political stance, which runs counter to the interests of those in power in Germany.
how to die WSWS wrote about Waters’ concert tour, which began in July in the United States, almost every song “deals with the pressing issues of our time: imperialist war, fascism, the poison of nationalism, the plight of refugees, the victims of state oppression, global poverty, social inequality, the assault on democratic rights and the threat of nuclear annihilation”.
The SPD and the Greens, both of whom are also members of the federal government, do not want to allow that under any circumstances. They will not shy away from any slander to discredit Waters. They denounce him as an anti-Semite and a supporter of Putin, although this has been proven wrong. The CSU, which is the state government in Bavaria, and the media also support the campaign against Waters.
The city of Munich had already tried to prevent a Waters concert in the Olympiahalle in 2018, but was defeated in court. SIE backed a city council decision last year that prevented the city from giving rooms to organizations and individuals who—like Waters—support the BDS movement, which advocates for Palestinian rights. At that time, Mayor Reiter had already declared that no more concerts by Waters would be allowed in the Olympiahalle in the future.
In January 2022, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled in a different procedure that the BDS resolution of the Munich City Council from 2017 was unconstitutional and violated the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Access to public spaces can generally be restricted for specific purposes, but not for unwelcome opinions.
After this verdict, the Olympic Park Society awarded the hall to Waters, which they had previously delayed. You had to agree because there was “legally no reason not to offer the appointment,” explained Managing Director Nils Hoch. The fact that the Munich city government is now trying to prevent the concert shows how ruthlessly it tramples on the right to freedom of expression.
Roger Waters is one of the most successful musicians of the past 50 years. When the SPD and the Greens try to muzzle him, one can imagine how they would crack down on less influential artists and political activists. Waters has not only earned respect with his musical creativity, but also with his political commitment. Throughout his career, and particularly over the past two centuries, he has combined both elements to become one of the world’s most respected and influential musicians. It is estimated that one million viewers in North America alone This is not an exercise will visit.
Waters is one of the few artists to have repeatedly denounced universal government’s oppression of the Palestinian people and uncompromisingly defended Wikileaks founder Julian Assange against the conspiracy of the US and other imperialist powers to silence and annihilate him.
In 2018, the red-green campaign against Waters focused on his opposition to the indefinite government’s reactionary policies. This time the musician is increasingly being attacked for his resolute opposition to the war in Ukraine. In addition to “anti-Semitism”, Waters is now falsely accused of being “pro-Putin” and spreading “conspiracy myths” about the “Russian war of aggression” (Miriam Heigl, head of the Munich City Office for Democracy).
As the WSWS reported, Waters has strongly condemned the role played by the US and NATO countries in fomenting the war in Ukraine, while making it clear that he is not defending the Russian president.
The feverish efforts of the SPD and Greens in Munich to quell any opposition to the war in Ukraine are not limited to rock musician Waters. In March of this year, the city fired the chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev, for failing to explicitly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin. Recently, the city fired the same orchestra’s first violinist, Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, after a member of the Munich Green Party, Florian Roth, claimed that Nasturica-Herschcowici was “part of Putin’s propaganda machine.”
The political offensive to silence Roger Waters is also backed by the country’s leading media. The one appearing in Munich Southgerman newspaper has repeated Mayor Reiter’s slanders in numerous articles and claimed that Waters is “behind Putin”. In a comment dated October 12, the Southern German-Journalist Moritz Baumstieger Waters, aligning him with reactionary figures such as US musician and Trump supporter Kayne West and German singer and right-wing conspiracy theory supporter Xavier Naidoo.
In 2018, the magazine der Southern German published a multi-page interview with Waters in which he justified his opposition to the policy of unlimited government. “BDS does not deny Israel’s right to exist,” he said. The movement pursues three goals: “the end of the military rule that began in 1967 over the Palestinians in the occupied-ruled areas”, “full equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel” and “enforcement of the internationally recognized right of return for Palestinian refugees who died in the founding of Israel and Israel”. were then expelled from their homes”.
Today, amidst the growing war hysteria against Russia, the publication of this interview would be unthinkable.
Of the Deutschlandfunk also got involved in the campaign. On her frequent Corso show, reporter Susanne Luerweg repeated claims that Waters was anti-Semitic and pro-Russian, calling him a “frustrated old white man.”
The hysterical reaction of the German media to an artist who has courageously warned time and again that the proxy war between the USA and NATO in Ukraine is developing into a third world war confirms his own judgment after two concerts in Poland were recently canceled. Waters wrote: “The mainstream media in the West seems intent on publicly supporting an escalation of the proxy war between the US and the Russian Federation raging in Ukraine, to the point of considering nuclear gambles.”
Significantly the asked Deutschlandfunk Also linked the smear against Waters to the recent campaign to shut down the world-famous Documenta art exhibition, which has been justified by claims that some of the works on display are anti-Semitic.
Attacks on art, culture and dissent in Germany are taking on forms unprecedented in the country’s post-World War II history. A brief look at German history shows that the censorship of the opposition was always part of the preparation for new wars. In May 1933, the National Socialists burned the books of progressive and anti-war authors on the central Königsplatz in Munich. Four years later, Munich was the first port of call for the Nazi exhibition “Degenerate Art,” which vilified all German artists who opposed the war.
In his interview with the Southgerman newspaper in 2018, Waters made this comparison himself. “Silencing me, like your Lord Mayor would if he could – that’s the same as burning a book,” he said. “Books are burned to silence authors and blot out minds.”
The decisions of the SPD and Greens in Munich to censor any opposition to the war in Ukraine were undoubtedly coordinated with their party colleagues in the federal capital. In Berlin, the traffic light coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) is ruthlessly pushing ahead with German intervention in the Ukraine war.
On October 12, the government announced that it would send air defense systems to Ukraine. They are becoming a direct war party more and more quickly. The day before, the Berlin administrative court had ruled that a commercial company could provocatively set up the wreckage of Russian tanks destroyed by Ukrainian troops in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin.
The campaign against Waters also debunks the mendacious claim that support for the Ukraine war is in defense of the rule of law and democracy. While President Putin IS accused of stifling dissent, exactly the same is happening here.
Against the backdrop of a growing social crisis, rising inflation and growing opposition to the war, the SPD and Greens are determined to silence criticism of their policies. This is the reason for the frantic attempts to ban Roger Walter’s performance. The fight against the censorship of art and culture by the SPD and the Greens must be a central part of a new anti-war movement of the working class and youth.