Sukant Chandan is a revolutionary and he can prove it. Here is a hijacker chic photograph of him with Leila Khaled in Beirut in 2008. It’s from his “Sons of Malcolm” blog.
Chandan is one of the leaders of the bid to force the American musician Gil Scott Heron to refuse to play in Tel Aviv. This is how he reported the disruption of Gil’s performance on Saturday night at Festival Hall in London:
protest @ GS Heron gig went well, good public sympathy outside, but massive white middle class hatred to 10 anti-Apartheid activists raising slogans at start of concert. GSH ignores and fobs us off. but msg got clearly across.
…
one activist physically (unhurt) removed, others left by the end of the first song shouting slogans. activists were different ages and ethnic backgrounds incl black, south asian, white, arab, Palestinian. GSH clearly heard what we said and really big shame he couldn’t even explain himself a little.
…
its english white middle class people. the are oh so cultured and liberal, but scratch beneath the surface and out spews forth a torrent of racism and bigotry.
The wicked racists include the Guardian:
talking of white-liberal racism, here’s the Guardian’s COMPLETE falsification about the GSH conert on Sat in London, basically, there was no protest! http://bit.ly/aLK1Qo please write to them and complain.
Here is some “massive white middle class hatred” from a blogger who was there:
Then, even more bizarrely, anti-Israel protesters around the auditorium started heckling about Gil’s upcoming concert in Tel Aviv, shouting loudly and dumping leaflets over the balcony.
Ignoring the chaos – ‘You travel 4,000 miles and still you encounter assholes’ – unaccompanied on keyboard, he was in great voice and we were treated to Winter In America and a couple of songs I literally couldn’t hear, because all around me protesters were shouting, audience members were screaming at the protesters and, bizarrely, security stood back watching but saying they couldn’t do anything.
I guess as a protester himself it was in the spirit of Gil, but having paid £50 to watch this circus was pretty frustrating. Gil’s pianist did a solo as he took a break and then came back on, apparently having been informed of what people were shouting about, to say he wasn’t doing a show in Tel Aviv after all and asking the protesters, ‘Let me know when you have a concert, so I can come and shout all the way through yours’
…
And I could’ve done without the protesting idiots and their complete lack of respect for both the artist and the fact I’d shelled out fifty bleeding quid to listen to them screaming. Wankers.
“Let me know when you have a concert, so I can come and shout all the way through yours.”
Gil Scott Heron: dangerous middle class subversive.
It is a pretty safe bet that Israelis who would like to go to a Gil Scott Heron concert are on the left and for peace.
Never mind, thugs like Chandan and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign believe they must be denied even the small pleasures in life, simply because they are Israelis.
Discrimination, it’s so progressive, innit.
