“Principle & courage will always defeat the dark forces who want to sow division, stoke fear & deny complicity in the worst atrocities known to man.”
By Samuel Sweek, Peace & Justice Project
A chilly Monday night at a weathered but well-loved East London music venue. To the naked eye or the uninitiated, this may not seem like the epicentre of local organising or birthplace of numerous solidarity movements.
But the Shacklewell Arms in Dalston, along with countless other grassroots music venues up and down the country, has cemented itself as both a place for up-and-coming artists to cut their teeth and also an invaluable hub of community building. It is also the venue for the inaugural Grassroots For Gaza concert, part of the Peace & Justice Project’s Music For The Many campaign.
Since its founding, Music For The Many has demanded government action to protect grassroots music venues and creative spaces. The UK lost 15% of its grassroots music venues in 2023 alone and, of those that remained open, nearly half posted financial losses. The years that have followed remain equally precarious and the state of British live music is in a situation that is beyond critical.
For so many, grassroots music venues play an invaluable role in building bridges and working together for a better world.
This, too, has been the mantra of the Music For The Many campaign since its founding, with no struggle left behind. We have proudly given places on our line-ups to artists and creators from all walks of life, with those who are traditionally absent from the music industry a key fixture in our curation – including black, trans/non-binary, neurodivergent and disabled performers.
We recognise that an injury to one is an injury to all of us, and to abandon that guiding principle only plays into the hands of our oppressors.
As a queer figure on the British left who is vocally supportive of a free Palestine, I am often met with criticism from people on the far-right who are quick to use categorically untrue stories of people being thrown to their deaths from buildings or hung from cranes in places like Gaza because of their sexuality as an accusation of moral contradiction. I know this has been the case with LGBTQ+ led movements for Palestine too.
But let’s be clear, even if these unsourced anecdotes were true, genocide is not – and never will be – justified. I’d also encourage anyone to check out the Queering The Map project and the anonymous entries from Gaza there. Many of the authors of these stories of unrequited love, first kisses and hopes for a brighter future outside of occupation are probably dead.
It was not ignorance that killed those queer souls in Gaza. They were vapourised by Israeli missiles, torn to pieces by Israeli sniper fire or crushed under the rubble of their own homes after an Israeli drone strike.
It is with that in mind that we carry forward our support for the Palestinian people and demand an end to our government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is a sad reality that many mainstream artists, including those that play to tens of thousands of people per show and have amassed millions of monthly streaming listens have, with very limited exception, chosen to ignore the horrors of Gaza and failed to speak out against the crimes against humanity that unfolded before our very eyes over the past two years.
The contrast between those artists and those just starting out and trying to establish themselves in the music industry, who arguably have more to gain in remaining silent, is stark.
With censorship and artistic suppression now depressingly commonplace in the music industry, artists like CQ Wrestling, Hongza and Speit, who will perform at Monday’s Grassroots For Gaza show, are demonstrating that principle and courage will always defeat the dark forces who want to sow division, stoke fear and deny complicity in the worst atrocities known to man.
In the coming months, our campaign will evolve into its next phase and set about untangling the seemingly symbiotic relationship between financiers of war, genocide profiteers and climate criminals, and our cultural events such as music festivals, art exhibitions and sporting events.
Our movement is growing and we will never accept genocide, genocide complicity or genocide denial as a geopolitical or societal norm.
This is music for the many, by the many.
- Find out more about the inaugural Grassroots For Gaza concert here
- Samuel Sweek is the Media Co-Ordinator for the Peace & Justice Project and lead campaigner for Music for the Many. You can follow Samuel on Twitter/X here; and the PPJ on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
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