I was browsing through electronic intifada when I found the following letter written to the Black Eyed Peas (a group that has blown up commercially of late but were much better back in the day) regarding their recent performance in Tel Aviv.

Apparently, BEP thought Israel is “one of the most fun places on the planet” and the authors rightfully point out that for Palestinian BEP fans, “life under the thumb of Israeli occupation is anything but fun.” They point out that in the week leading up to the concert, Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinian people, including one child.

What makes this worse is that prior to the Tel Aviv concert, BEP had performed in South Africa with South African musicians as part of the celebration of 10 years of freedom from apartheid.

I saw Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, where I saw how music and culture played such a critical role in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Musicians helped build the movement there, they used their music as a medium and brought more and more people together, building up the base that would eventually rid South Africa of apartheid.

Now, in 2006, we have musicians celebrating the anti-apartheid movement one day, and the next, calling a nation responsible for the gradual decimation of the Palestinian people one of the “funnest” places in the world.

BEP probably just goes where the money is and where their corporate backers tell them to go. Maybe they go with whatever is “in.” When apartheid still existed (not to say it doesn’t now) in South Africa, it was in then; now celebrating anti-apartheid there is the new black (or white?). Deeming neo-colonial Israel “fun” is BEP’s flippant way of avoiding the issue, of seeing things at the surface, of not understanding what it means to be in Tel Aviv while a whole people are living under occupation not too far away.

I thought musicians and artists made it their life’s work to deal in metaphor and meaning. Maybe I was wrong.

Posted by Vivek on Wednesday, June 14th, 2006 at 11:18 am.