Roger Waters headlined Barclaycard’s British Summer Time music festival at London’s Hyde Park last Friday and six activists headed down there to politely protest his putting a Jewish Star of David on an inflatable pig at one of his past concerts and this statement he mad:
“there were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinian people being murdered.”
We entered Hyde Park and made our way to one of the entrances into the concert and started handing out our leaflets containing a photo of that Star of David on the inflatable pig. Concert goers were taking the leaflets and some were disgusted but security and the police pounced forcing us out of Hyde Park on the premise that “political protest within a royal park is illegal”.
Eventually, with four free tickets available to us, four of us went into the Waters concert after a rather more than extensive bag check by security. We were immediately confronted by political slogans put up on screens by Waters showing support for Putin, Russia, Iran and Julian Assange. Israel was repeatedly demonised. Also demonised were western politicians, the “militarized” police and CIA nominee Gina Haspel who was told she “should be in prison”.
There were very young children in the audience (see photos of the audience) and on stage but that didn’t stop Waters from holding up a placard with the slogan “Fuck The Pigs”. The schoolchildren on stage were there for We Don’t Need No Education. They looked about 12 years old and stood there menacingly in orange jump suits and black hoods.
Here are the photos I took at the concert. Apparently, there was also an addition to these after we left (it was coming up on Shabbat) with Waters putting up the slogan “Resist Israeli Anti-Semitism”.
On the way out we asked the police to arrest Waters for political protest inside a royal park and for swearing in public. The police just laughed it off.
