I finally caught Kneecap’s set at Glastonbury this weekend, a week after the live event had taken place.
I tried to watch it the week before. I turned on my TV about half an hour ahead in anticipation. There had been much debate on social media and in the news about whether the BBC would allow it to be broadcast, given the controversy surrounding the band’s appearance at Coachella, when they’d led the chant “Free, free Palestine” to an audience of American youths. Consequently I caught the tail end of Bob Vylan’s set, which turned out to be even more controversial. He started off with the standard call of “Free, free Palestine,” but then shifted it. “Alright, but have you heard this one though?” he said, before launching into a new chant: “Death, death to the IDF.”
You could almost hear the ripple of outrage as it spread through middle-class living rooms throughout the country, although you have to ask why they were watching it in the first place. Obviously people were waiting to be offended. The entire establishment—politicians, propagandists and pundits alike—raised their voices in a chorus of protest. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the Sunday Telegraph that "there is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech," while Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, called for the BBC to sack those responsible for allowing it to be aired on live TV.
Speaking to the House of Commons, she said, "Given the seriousness of what happened, and particularly we heard in the House the absolute shocking stories of the impact this has had on the Jewish community in this country—given the seriousness of this, I would expect there to be accountability at the highest levels.”
She said, “There is a clear difference between speaking out for Palestine, which is the right of everybody in this House and everybody in our country, and anti-Semitism, which is not and never will be. When the rights and safety of people and communities are at risk and when our national broadcaster fails to uphold its own standards, we will intervene,” adding that “chanting death to the IDF is equivalent to calling for the death of every single Israeli Jew.”
There’s a strange kind of moral reversal going on here. Calling for the death of an institution that’s responsible for killing large numbers of people is considered more controversial than the actual deaths that’re taking place, almost exclusively on one side, and mainly of women and children. As Zohran Mamdani put it on Twitter: “Imagine living in a world where you could get arrested or suspended for saying don't kill children, because it might hurt the feelings of the killers.”
Just to make this clear, Bob Vylan is a punk-rock-rap duo consisting of Bobby Vylan, and Bobbie Vylan—two assumed names—so when we say “Bob Vylan” we’re referring to the band, not an individual. Nevertheless, in most people’s mind it’ll be the vocalist they’ll think of.
He’s an imposing figure, tall, black and dreadlocked, with a muscular frame and an aggressive manner. Their music is violent and hard-hitting. It’s energized by a sense of injustice, not only at the situation in Gaza, but at racism, police violence and inequality. They hail from Ipswich, in Suffolk, on the Eastern edge of England, though, like most British bands, they made their name in London. In their latest video, We Live Here, the vocalist is wearing a Crass t-shirt, which tells you all you need to know about their lineage. This is anarcho-punk at its rawest and most confrontational.
Their name is a reference to Bob Dylan, who started his career singing protest songs. People seem to have forgotten that Dylan too was enraged by the injustice in his day, and that he openly wished death upon the death-dealers in his song, Masters of War:
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
We also have to remind ourselves that Nandy, Starmer, and more than half of the cabinet are funded by the Israel lobby: Nandy to the tune of £52,000. These aren’t objective observers protecting the nation from hurtful slogans, but paid agents on the side that’s currently engaged in committing war crimes.
Bob Vylan obviously surprised the BBC with their impromptu chant, though it was clear from watching their set they were fully aware of the power of their position, live-streamed for the nation, and determined to take full advantage. They can be seen directly addressing the cameras at one point. Kneecap were less of a surprise. Everyone already knew what they were about. Their name gives them away. Kneecapping was a form of punishment used by the IRA. They’d blow people’s kneecaps off if they thought they were spies or traitors.
The Irish fought for their freedom. As an occupied nation they were at war with the British in a struggle that latest several centuries. We’ve not long passed the 109th anniversary of the Easter Rising, in April 2016, when Irish rebels under the leadership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood took over a number of public buildings in Dublin and held them for six days. The British overwhelmed them with superior fire power and the rebels surrendered on April 29. Sixteen of them were tried and executed.
A number of countries have supported the Palestinian cause. Ireland’s one of the foremost. I’ve seen a number of Irish people sporting pin badges showing crossed Irish and Palestinian flags. Kneecap’s set at Glastonbury was characterized by a sea of flags from both nations, emphasizing the fraternal relationship between these two peoples. Here is the Irish Taoiseach, Simon Harris, in a speech recognising the State of Palestine:
On the 21st of January 1919 Ireland asked the world to recognise our right to be an independent State. Our ‘Message to the Free Nations of the World’ was a plea for international recognition of our independence, emphasising our distinct national identity, our historical struggle, and our right to self-determination and justice. Today we use the same language to support the recognition of Palestine as a State. We do so because we ‘believe in freedom and justice as the fundamental principles of international law’, and because we believe that ‘permanent peace’ can only be secured ‘upon the basis of the free will of a free people’.
Kneecap are from West Belfast in Northern Ireland. Ireland remains a divided nation, between the Catholic South and the Protestant North. The Troubles, the conflict between the IRA and British State, lasted for more than 30 years, from the 1960s to 1998. It was finally brought to an end by diplomacy, by a peace process. But in all that time, despite the terrorist tactics employed by the IRA, the British Army never flattened entire neighbourhoods in occupied West Belfast or Derry. Nor did they kill whole families to rid themselves of a single IRA member. They never bombed IRA strongholds from the air. They never blew up hospitals, schools and churches. They never targeted journalists and aid workers. They never murdered people cowering in tents or waiting in line for food. They never starved the population to death.
As for Kneecap’s set at Glastonbury: my overwhelming feeling was a sense of excitement that the youth of the world are rising up. You could feel the spirit bursting through the music: the vitality, the ecstasy of outrage. The band dress like football casuals—what the Scots refer to as “Neds” and the English as “Chavs”—working-class kids in sports wear with sharp haircuts and a tendency to hooliganism. Unlike Bob Vylan, who are clearly very fit, they look slightly out of condition, a little podgy round the midriff. Not at all intimidating. But their hold over their audience is awe-inspiring. They’re at one with the crowd, who are bouncing in unison, opening up spaces to make “mosh pits,” where people crash into each other in joyous and bruising abandon. I could never do that myself, being claustrophobic and uncomfortable in crowds, but I could see the appeal from a distance.
The lyrics are very funny. I particularly liked the song, Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite, which seems to allude to a specific incident when they were searched by the police for drugs, although it’s hard to know because most of the lyrics are in Irish. I think this is their greatest achievement, the popularization of the Irish language, and its use as a form of countercultural patois.
But they also represent the working class, not just of Ireland but throughout the world. They’re articulating a sense of outrage and identity with the suffering of the Palestinian people: something that all humans with good heart are feeling right now. They speak from an Irish perspective but the reaction to their performances in Coachella and Glastonbury shows that the youth everywhere feels the same. No wonder the ruling class are scared.
—You can catch Kneecap’s performance at the Best Kept Secret festival here.