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Spectator
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Let Kneecap play
During the Troubles, some 2,500 people were victims of kneecappings – punishment shootings, dished out by paramilitaries, for perceived crimes ranging from fraternising with British soldiers to drug dealing and rape. The term is something of a misnomer. The torture entails a low-velocity gunshot to the knee from a handgun. That isn't guaranteed to destroy one's kneecaps but could cause tissue or nerve damage and joint fractures. At least 13 victims had to have their limbs amputated; one in five was once estimated to limp for the rest of their lives. Until recently, a mention of kneecapping was a reminder of the terror that plagued Northern Ireland within living memory. Yet this week, thousands will descend upon Glastonbury, at £373.50 a ticket, for a chance to see a band named after the practice – a group who have won global fame, chart success, government funding and police attention by draping themselves in the violence of Ulster's recent history. For the unfamiliar, Kneecap are a Belfast hip-hop trio. Rapping in English and Irish, their output mixes odes to drug use with Irish republicanism. One of the trio – a 35-year-old ex-teacher – writes 'Brits Out' on his behind and performs in a tricolour balaclava. The band has commissioned a mural depicting a police Land Rover burning from a petrol bomb, above the slogan 'RUC not welcome' in Gaelic. Of late, the self-described 'anti-Zionists' have been especially vocal about the Middle East, performing in California with 'Fuck Israel/Free Palestine' projected behind them. But the band's outspokenness has caught up with them. Last week, one member appeared in court for allegedly displaying a flag supporting Hezbollah – a proscribed terrorist organisation – and chanting 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah' during a recent performance. A resurfaced video from 2023 featured one of the trio exclaiming that 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!' – seven years on from the murder of Jo Cox and two from that of Sir David Amess. Kneecap rushed out a statement 'clarifying' their positions. 'Let us be unequivocal,' the trio announced. 'We do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.' They would never 'seek to incite violence against any MP or individual'. Footage was being 'exploited and weaponised' by their opponents. Up to a point, Lord Copper. If the trio don't want to be accused of supporting terrorism or wanting politicians dead, they should be rather more careful about their language. None of this has stalled Kneecap's momentum. Their Glastonbury gig follows a Bafta-winning biopic last year. Yet beyond the nodding dogs of the music press, there will be many who find their work disgraceful, denials unconvincing and popularity disturbing. As business secretary, Kemi Badenoch blocked a £14,250 grant to the band, later overturned by the courts. Taxpayers' money, she argued, should not be given 'to people who oppose the United Kingdom itself'. She has condemned our national broadcaster for planning to show the group. 'As a publicly funded platform,' she warned, 'the BBC should not be rewarding extremism.' Kneecap came of age in a post-Troubles Northern Ireland. Whether they like it or not, the trio were raised in relative peace in the comfort and protection of the British state. They peddle the aesthetics of terror for the entertainment of the ignorant and nihilistic. Had they lived a little earlier, there is every chance the trio would have been kneecapped themselves, for crimes against good taste. Yet as objectionable as Kneecap are, trying to shut them up is wrong. Doing so provides them with what they want – the oxygen of publicity and the aura of danger. Just as the BBC's desperate efforts to keep the Sex Pistols off the radio during the Silver Jubilee only drove more people to buy their records, every attempt to block Kneecap has so far won them greater fame. If the establishment is so against them, punters might think, they must be doing something right. Letting Kneecap play is a sign of confidence. Their calls to 'Get Your Brits Out' are no more likely to unite Ireland than Johnny Rotten's warbling about a fascist regime was to topple the monarchy. For ageing middle-class Corbynistas with too much time and money on their hands, trekking through crowded Somerset fields to see the band play is a form of radical chic – as essential a fashion statement as draping a keffiyeh around their necks. Never mind that the Royal Ulster Constabulary was disbanded two decades ago. Too often, self-declared free speech defenders only stand up for those they perceive as being on their side. Even John Milton, in Areopagitica, was unwilling to concede freedom of expression to religious enemies. Some who seek to make a martyr out of Lucy Connolly – the mother imprisoned for telling her X followers to 'set fire' to hotels housing asylum seekers after the Southport attacks – are silent about the state's prosecution of Kneecap. Both have been accused of inciting violence; neither deserve to be behind bars. Let Kneecap play. Every Glastonbury goer with a little good taste can stick to Rod Stewart and the Kaiser Chiefs. In their own time, the band may yet be reconciled to the United Kingdom; stranger things have happened. Johnny Rotten, for instance, has declared himself a monarchist, backed Brexit and Donald Trump, and called for Jacob Rees-Mogg to be prime minister. Before they know it, Kneecap will be performing at a Tory conference.
The Herald Scotland
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
More fool the politicians who took the bait of Kneecap's provocations
Last week, when it emerged Kneecap —a rap band posing as dissident Republicans — once told their audience: 'The only good Tory MP is a dead one. Kill your local MP,' Badenoch condemned their behaviour as 'totally unacceptable,' and called for them to be prosecuted. Long before these allegations surfaced, the then business secretary had blocked an arts grant to the band on the grounds of 'anti-British sentiment' — a move the band challenged, and which the new Labour government later accepted had been illegal. Like Hester, Kneecap apologised; unlike Hester, Kneecap is reaping the consequences of its actions, with a number of gigs already cancelled. John Swinney said they should also be axed from TRNSMT, while lord of the U-turns, Keir Starmer has said he doesn't think "individuals expressing those views should be receiving government funding". No-one is duty-bound to like Kneecap, or indeed rap music. It's a genre which, at its best, gives a voice to the dispossessed, and tackles controversial issues like social inequality and police brutality. We may be discomfited by the extreme nature of the sentiments expressed. But our discomfort is the point of the exercise. Its aim is to shake us out of our complacency, as all good art should. At its worst, however, it can feel like cosplay, a hijacking or commodification of an ideology for the purposes of self-promotion; a celebration of edginess for edginess's sake. Irish band Kneecap face being banned from TRNSMT IRA IMAGERY FOR me, Kneecap straddles that line. The band's love of the Irish language is deeply felt; it has much to say about the ceasefire generation. I very much enjoyed its film. And yet its relentless invocation of IRA imagery, its 'Brits Out' written on the cheeks of JJ Ó Dochartaigh's bum, and, above all, the gimmicky balaclava, though funny, and doubtless self-parodying, can feel a bit, I don't know, cheap? Because, whether or not you believe in the Republican cause, the costs of pursuing it were so high and are still being counted. READ MORE: Dani Garavelli: A good death is an extension of a good life Dani Garavelli: Even for great writers, the pursuit of truth is perilous Dani Garavelli: Voters are done with politicians who talk big and act small There was always a risk that Kneecap's laddish playing to the crowd would undermine its serious intent. And so it has come to pass. Two pieces of footage -—one containing the call to kill your MP, the other chants of 'Up Hamas and Hezbollah' — have been dredged up to discredit its entirely legitimate condemnation at Coachella of Israel's US-funded genocide. More fool Kneecap, you might say. It walked straight into its own trap. But also — and to a much greater degree — more fool those politicians who have taken the bait. They have mustered more outrage over the on-stage maunderings of a band whose entire shtick is to noise up people like them, than over war crimes being perpetrated by the ultranationalist leader of a rogue state. To witness Swinney and Starmer holding forth on the iniquities of Kneecap as if they were facing down some grand moral threat is frankly pitiful. Why are politicians of their stature wasting breath they could be using to confront Benjamin Netanyahu on a trio of Irish musicians? (Image: First Minister John Swinney) And — if they're so very invested in what Kneecap has to say — why don't they tell us if they see the band's Coachella statements as an incitement to a US visa revocation, or a shrewd analysis of a situation those in positions of power are too milquetoast to mention? 'Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people' Kneecap said, and 'it is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes.' Come on then, ye great defenders of public propriety? Is there any part of this statement you believe to be untrue? While you're at it, why don't you clarify if you are ok with the idea, frequently promulgated, that criticism of the Israeli government is inherently anti-Semitic? But they won't. Far easier to call on festivals to boycott a loose-lipped rap band than to call on Trump to reinstate sanctions against violent settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank or to call for/ implement a total ban on the sale of arms to Israel. CALL TO BAN BAND MEANWHILE, I wonder what motivation Lord Walney — aka John Woodcock — might have for urging Glasgow City Council, the Scottish government or UK government to take action if TRNSMT promoters DF Concerts do not? Woodcock is the chair of a defence sector lobby organisation and last year paid an Elnet-funded visit to Israel. Elnet was founded as a pro-Israel advocacy group and exists to promote cooperation between Europe and Israel. Woodcock was axed from his role as independent adviser on Political Violence and Disruption in February after multiple claims of conflicts of interest. With most politicians laying low, it is being left to other bands to rally to Kneecap's defence and to musicians, writers and documentary makers to fill a moral vacuum. For this they receive little thanks. Look at the response to Louis Theroux whose documentary The Settlers exposes the contempt some Israeli settlers on the West Bank have for the lives of Palestinians. Theroux starts off with his usual faux-naif shtick. Like Ka in The Jungle Book, he lulls his prey with soothing susurrations, as he winds his coils ever tighter around them. The idea is to appear neutral; to provide a blank canvas onto which others will project their dysfunction. And so it goes as he meets Ari Abramowitz, a Texan-born settler who objects to Theroux's use of the word Palestine on the grounds that he doesn't believe it exists, and a rabbi who calls Palestinians 'camel-riders'. He stays calm as IDF soldiers try to prevent Arab farmers harvesting their olives. But when it comes to Daniella Weiss, the so-called mother of the settler movement, he can no longer affect disinterest. As she lays out, with a manic grin, her vision of a West Bank and Gaza from which Palestinians have been expunged, he becomes increasingly agitated, until, finally, he brands her indifference to the suffering of Palestinians 'sociopathic'. Read More: DIRTY WORK AT one point, Weiss pushes Theroux in an attempt to get him to retaliate. But the documentary's sharpest truth is more quietly delivered: an admission by Weiss that her organisation, Nachala, is doing Netanyahu's dirty work for him. When Theroux asks her if the settlers force the Israeli government's hands by building small residential outposts, which grow and grow, until the Israeli government has no choice but to recognise them,' she answers: 'We do not force the government. We do what they cannot do for themselves.' Banging a pointer on a map covered in such settlements, she adds: 'Even if you take Netanyahu now: he is happy with what we do here and with our plans to build Jewish communities in Gaza. He can't say he is happy. He says the opposite. He says: 'It's not realistic'. Good! We will make it realistic.' It feels like —as he made his film -—Theroux realised that there are some atrocities so unconscionable that even weaponised passivity is not enough; that sometimes we are duty-bound to articulate our horror. If only all those angered by musicians and documentary-makers could share in his epiphany. If only they could stop picking on pointless targets, and direct their righteous anger at those hellbent on erasing an entire population.
