Strange Bedfellows: Socialism and Free Expression

From Roger Waters’s concert in Berlin

Reading Jack Marshall’s piece on Ethics Alarms about the Gallup poll that suggested an increase the percentage of Americans who self-identify as conservative, my first thought was, “so where do I fit in this model?”. 

There are so many variables: Curmie is quite liberal on some issues, staunchly conservative on others. I took a couple of those online quizzes: according to Pew, I’m “Ambivalent Right” (whatever that means); according to politicalpersonality.org, I’m a “Justice Warrior” (erm… no); ISideWith has me as a Green (I’m not, really, although I’ve been accused of worse). 

Moreover, such things are always relative: there’s no doubt that I’m well to the left of most people in my Congressional district, for example, but I’m a fair distance to the right of many of my colleagues in academic theatre. Moreover, times change. My once-radical position on gay rights, for example, is now rather mainstream: my belief system remained virtually unchanged, but it’s now no longer “very liberal,” and may even be “moderate.” 

Most importantly, distinguishing between left and right isn’t always the appropriate axis. Sometimes it’s the continuum from authoritarian to libertarian that really matters. Political Compass places me solidly to the left of center, but even further into libertarianism. 

In other words, my longtime assertion that, to quote the title of a piece I wrote a few months ago, “The Left and Right Both Hate Free Expression—They Just Do It Differently,” ought not to surprise us overmuch. What might is a casual observation I made while doing a little research for my second of my two posts on the Roger Waters controversy. 

Something clicked in my mind when I read a denunciation of the US State Department’s weighing in on the subject. An article entitled “Oppose the State Department’s slanders against Roger Waters!” appeared on… wait for it… The World Socialist Web Site, under the auspices of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). 

Given that site’s previous condemnation of “bourgeois politicians and the media” and the “shabby political elite” who denounced Waters’s concerts in Germany, this may be understandable. From the perspective of the WSWS, the opposition to Waters comes, in fact, from the right, because, as a WSWS review of the Detroit stop on the American tour argues, “Virtually every song is directed toward pressing issues of our time: imperialist war, fascism, the poison of nationalism, the plight of refugees, the victims of state oppression, global poverty, social inequality, the attack on democratic rights and the danger of nuclear annihilation.” 

The photo you see above suggests that the socialist defense of Waters may be founded at least in large part on political rather than free speech grounds. Were one of a cynical disposition (ahem), one might also suspect that such displays may also underlie the State Department’s intrusion into the kerfuffle. To be clear, every US President since Reagan was thus labelled: it’s not just Biden who got this treatment. 

So perhaps the socialists are defending Waters because they see him as one of them. Some of their rationale is, to say the least, rather strained, even to the eyes and ears of someone (like Curmie) more likely than the average person to see their argument in a positive light. That said, they are very specific that the attempt “to destroy Waters and intimidate other artists, performers and intellectuals from speaking out… is a desperate and systematic attack on freedom of speech and artistic expression.” Curmie agrees. 

More to the point, it doesn’t, or rather shouldn’t, matter if Waters is “right” about the issues. Do I think he’s absolutely accurate about some issues? Yes. About all issues? Hell, no. Is he antisemitic? I don’t think so. Is there any reason he ought not to be able to perform even if he were? No. 

What really caught my eye in all this was the fact that a Socialist organization was willing to take a stand for freedom of expression, but I can find no evidence that any other government official or political party has been willing to do so. There are politicians in the US, the UK, and Germany ready to condemn him for what I believe to be utterly imaginary offenses that tell us more about the spectator than the artist. But to the best of my knowledge, there’s not a single defense by any politician or political organization… except the Socialists. 

Anyway, I then recalled the case of Bright Sheng, the University of Michigan professor who got into hot water a couple of years ago for showing his class the Laurence Olivier film version of Othello.  

In that case, the Censorious Asshats (the usual hat-tip to Ken White of Popehat for the felicitous phrase) were clearly on the left, with the (alas!) usual genuflections to grad students (!) who were “hurt” by the incident. Eventually, sanctions against Professor Sheng were dropped, but the damage to his reputation was both undeniable and irrevocable. 

At the time, I’d either never seen the film in question or seen it so long ago I’d forgotten it. I watched it a couple of months ago, and no, I wouldn’t show it to students except if it were heavily contextualized… but not for the reasons that got Sheng into trouble. The casting of a white man in very dark makeup is a little unsettling at first, but what was really appalling was the Olivier himself was furniture-chewingly awful: bad enough that strong performances by Derek Jacobi as Cassio, Maggie Smith as Desdemona, and especially Frank Finlay as Iago weren’t enough to save the film from being, well, bad. 

This, of course, is only a matter of opinion and ultimately neither here nor there with respect to the Sheng case. What matters in the present circumstance pertains to the reaction to the brouhaha. Whereas commentators on such right-leaning sights as Newsmax and The National Review took up the cause, there was no uproar that I could find from politicians or mainstream parties of any description. 

You know who did write a scathing denunciation of the university’s violation of both academic freedom and First Amendment rights? Ah, you’re ahead of me here, aren’t you, Gentle Reader? That would be the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at the University of Michigan, whose self-description includes the following: “Equality is a fundamental right of humankind, denied almost universally to the people of this earth under the economic system of capitalism. While our organization encourages various means of promoting equality, our program aspires towards a socialist transformation of society.” 

The IYSSE (don’t make me try to pronounce that acronym) posted to (where else?) the WSWS page, arguing that “The actions taken against Professor Sheng… may well rank as the most shameful episode in the University’s history.” They argue further that the university’s initial capitulation to “poorly read, miseducated and disoriented students,” not Professor Sheng’s showing of the film, is what is helping to sanction “a thoroughly toxic environment on university campuses.” Those socialists aren’t pulling any punches! 

None of this is to suggest that socialists are universally champions of freedom of expression. Far from it, in fact. But at least we might start considering that other axis on Political Compass’s map. The libertarian streak missing from too many pols on the left and right alike seems not (yet?) to have been abandoned by self-identified socialists.  (Leftist Democrats are, of course, a different story.)  In these two instances, at least, they not only supported someone maligned for imaginary offenses that should have been protected speech under any circumstances, they were the only voices representing a political party (as opposed to being readily identified with such a party) to do so. 

That struck me as odd. Perhaps it shouldn’t have.

Note: This piece was originally intended to start as a guest post on Ethics Alarms.  Curmie's agreement with Jack Marshall, the host of that site, was that I was free to cross-post.  When, for a variety of reasons, the article didn’t appear there for a couple of days, I went ahead and posted here.  There are a couple of stylistic changes and a typo or two have been fixed, but the substance is what I sent to Jack.  Anyway, it’s now up on Ethics Alarms.  I mention this because that site has a far better track record than this one of engendering comments and debate.  If, Gentle Reader, you would like to join in that conversation, head there.  But I can’t foresee a scenario in which I would post something there and not here.

Waters Redux: The State Department Over-Reaches

So, it’s time to follow up on Curmie’s piece on the controversy surrounding Roger Waters and his performances of “In the Flesh” in a series of concerts in Germany, where Nazi symbolism is forbidden except for educational or artistic purposes. There’s also an apparently still-ongoing investigation in Berlin regarding the charge of “incitement of the people,” a perhaps intentionally ill-defined regulation intended to protect against bullying and discrimination based on demographics, but often, inevitably, employed to quash any criticism of any group that seeks victimhood. 

A comment on Curmie’s post (thanks, jvb!) linked to an article about the US State Department taking a ridiculous and potentially disastrous action, not only weighing in on an issue outside its purview, but serving as yet another example of using the authority of government to restrict free expression if it has the slightest chance of giving offense, even to the hypersensitive. 

This latest episode in the ongoing saga was initiated by one Katharina von Schnurbein, who bears the impressive title of European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life. Blithely ignoring a German court’s decision that Waters’s act may be “tasteless,” but not only must it be “viewed as a work of art,” it “did not glorify or relativise the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology,” von Schnurbein took to Twitter to accuse Waters of belittling and trivializing the Shoah. 

Taken out of context, the performance seen in the link above is indeed disturbing, even ominous. And von Schnurbein would have been a pre-teen when the film version (let alone the album) of “The Wall” was released, so she has something of an excuse for not recognizing the context. Nonetheless, it would have been a good idea to at least consider the fact that Waters is quoted as saying “the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.” 

It is also true that Waters has said some fairly outrageous things about Jews over the years: the usual crap about cabals, Sheldon Adelson and George Soros as “puppet-masters,” and so on. But he later retracted much of that rhetoric, and the overwhelming majority of what has been labeled as antisemitic was in fact criticism of the Israeli state, specifically with respect to the treatment of Palestinians, not of Judaism or Jews. 

Waters’s projecting the name of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, believed to have been killed by an Israeli army sniper, alongside that of Anne Frank, has been interpreted as “comparing Israel to the Nazis.” Well, sort of. It might be worthy of mention that George Floyd’s appeared, too. What do these three people have in common? They were members of a disempowered demographic, killed by representatives of the government. Anything more than that is a reach, but I can find nothing to suggest Waters offered any further commentary. Is it is reasonable surmise that he was being deliberately provocative? Absolutely. Anti-Israel? Probably. Antisemitic? That’s a big stretch. 

Finally, of course, there’s von Schnurbein’s job title. There’s an adage that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That saying’s first cousin is that if your job is to hammer things, you damned well better find some nails (stage whisper) even if there aren’t any real ones to find. 

Some of these explanations apply also to Deborah Lipstadt (although she’s old enough to remember the movie from its first run). Her title is the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, so that parallel to von Schnurbein tracks. But her re-tweet of her EU counterpart, complete with accusing Waters of “despicable Holocaust distortion” is more problematic for at least two reasons. 

First off, is she accusing Waters of distorting the Holocaust or of re-creating it too accurately? People who include the word “Ambassador” in their Twitter name really should show a little more facility with the language. Secondly, by using what appears to be a government account, she placed her bosses at the State Department in a no-win situation. They were inevitably going to be asked whether they supported her outburst. The least bad of their alternatives would have been to offer literally no comment, or to say something like “Ms. Lipstadt expressed her own views. The US government takes no official position on this matter.” 

But, of course, they opted to butt in, declaring in a statement not attributable to any specific individual (!) that Waters’s Berlin concert “contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust” and that “The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.” 

The Reuters article notes that “The department did not respond to follow up questions, including whether officials had viewed the concert and in what form, and did not give examples of Waters’ alleged use of antisemitic tropes.” Meow. 

An unidentified reporter at a subsequent press briefing pressed Principle Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel “to provide evidence of his past things and so on, the anti-Semitic tropes and so on? This seems to be an issue that every time there is a high-profile personality who comes out critical of Israel and in support of the Palestinians, he’s labeled as anti-Semitic.” 

Patel not only fails to do so, he proclaims that “When any officials have said hurtful, problematic, dangerous things as it relates to any community, when we’ve been asked about it we have spoken out clearly.” And here, Gentle Reader, Curmie reverts to a long-held belief: If you have to tell me, it ain’t so. This is a perfect opportunity to in fact speak out clearly, and Mr. Patel obfuscates instead. He’s either an idiot or a liar. (To be fair, any governmental spokesperson who tells the truth all the time will soon be a former governmental spokesperson.) 

Lastly, though not inconsequentially, what the hell business is it of the US State Department what a private English citizen does, especially if any response will likely enflame the situation? 

The key consideration here is that Waters’s performance is at worst ambiguous, at best anti-authoritarian and specifically antifascist. But those in power are perfectly willing to turn on even allies who disagree on the means to an end—just ask Danton or Trotsky. 

The State Department looks petulant in all this, especially in hurling what will be seen by many as scurrilous accusations against a celebrity figure openly critical of US foreign policy. The overriding concern ought to be that if you’re going to get out of your lane to smear someone, you bloody well better be certain of your facts. 

Von Schnurbein, Lipstadt, et al. could conceivably be right about Waters and his performance. But the mere fact that people like Curmie see things differently ought to give the State Department pause. It didn’t. Heads should roll for this. They won’t.

Roger Waters, Pink, Nazis, and Freedom of Speech

There are lots of more important issues than Curmie’s topic du jour: the fact that we have even contemplated not raising the debt ceiling; Texas’s attempting to wrest the title of Most Embarrassing State from Florida (Tennessee is still in Honorable Mention territory despite their best efforts); further incursions on freedom of expression from authoritarians on the left, the right, and the simply megalomaniacal; well, you get the picture. 

A disturbing but not illegal image.

Curmie may or may not address one or more of these issues in the days ahead, but for now, let’s talk about former Pink Floyd composer-bassist-frontman Roger Waters, who ran afoul of German police for wearing a “Nazi-style uniform” (that’s The Guardian’s term) at a recent concert in Berlin. 

Germany, for understandable reasons, is more than a little sensitive about anything suggestive of Nazism. They take their restrictions too far, in Curmie’s opinion, but what is, is. Any display of Nazi regalia is verboten; an exception is made “for educational purposes and in artistic contexts.” 

OK, but this isn’t Nazi regalia. It is clearly intended to be evocative, but there’s a difference between a swastika and the crossed hammers of the fictive world of “The Wall.” The latter, Waters’s creation, ranks alongside The Who’s “Tommy” as the greatest concept albums of the rock era, and is the best-selling double album of all time (yes, beating the Beatles’ White Album for that honor). 

The 1982 film version featuring Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof as Pink, the lead, makes the plotline clearer than the album might. The song at the center of the controversy, ”In the Flesh,” appears in “The Wall” as a hallucination: in a fit of despair, Pink imagines himself as a Nazi-like demagogue. When the nightmarish visions subside, Pink screams “Stop!”, suggesting that not only does he recognize what has just transpired as an illusion, but that he wants no part of it. He continues that he wants “to go home / Take off this uniform / And leave the show / But I'm waiting in this cell / Because I have to know / Have I been guilty all this time?” This is not in the same area code as a rallying cry for Nazism. 

Officials in Frankfurt attempted to shut down Waters’s show there before it happened, accusing the singer-songwriter of being “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world.” They failed; Waters would have us believe that the decision was based primarily on the recognition that the Pink persona was a “scathing critique” of the Nazis. Taken out of the context of the entirety of “The Wall’s” plotline, this isn’t abundantly clear, but the court did determine that the performance “did not glorify or relativise the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology.” 

Even more importantly in Curmie’s mind, though perhaps not in the German authorities’, was the determination that the performance, in character, of a song from one of the seminal albums of the past half-century, must be “viewed as a work of art,” and therefore exempted from sanction, despite its “symbolism manifestly based on that of the National Socialist regime.” 

Of course, there are ethical concerns that extend past mere legalities. Waters has indeed, for many years, been accused of anti-Semitism, largely because of his pro-Palestinian stance. This allegation has historically been based on a conflation of Judaism and the Israeli government. It is perfectly possible to oppose the latter without bearing any animosity toward the former, and there is little to indicate that Waters is incapable of making the distinction. 

Still, there is a segment in the show that highlights the names of those killed by government authorities, thereby linking Anne Frank with Shireen Abu Akleh, described by the Guardian as “the Palestinian-American journalist who is believed to have been shot dead by an Israeli sniper in May 2022.” 

Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, is correct that the linkage between Frank and “a journalist shot while in an active combat zone” is more than a little strained, but labeling Waters “disgracefully one of the biggest Jew haters of our time” is equally overblown. He’s a government official, so his willingness to ascribe a criticism of his government as inherently antisemitic is self-serving at best, and borders on proving Waters’s point about Israeli authoritarianism. Surely every American voter has complained in speech or print about some action of the current President or his predecessor; that doesn’t make us all unpatriotic. Neither does criticizing the Pope or an Ayatollah makes one anti-Catholic or anti-Islam. 

Waters does support the BDM (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel within the context of an “anti-war, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment movement.” Again, criticizing the Israeli state isn’t inherently antisemitic. 

That said, an article on the Hot Air website declares that “Waters is secure in the belief that a Jewish ‘cabal’ runs the world. Conservative Jewish donor Sheldon Anderson (sic.), for instance, is a ‘fascist’ ‘puppet master’ who is ‘filling the coffers and pulling all the strings.’” (It is difficult to determine the sincerity of Waters’s subsequent apology for the remarks about Adelson in particular.) 

Waters is performing back in his native England now, and there’s apparently a fair amount of opposition to that series of concerts, as well. Jewish groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the National Jewish Assembly, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism have, respectively, labeled Waters’s appearances as political rallies rather than concerts, called upon the government to condemn Waters, and launched a petition to stop venues from hosting his performances, both live and filmed. 

If Waters seeks to avoid controversy, he’s going about it all wrong. Certainly, opening his UK tour with a ten-minute screed about his mistreatment in Germany, a condemnation of the British newspapers The Telegraph and The Times, and challenging his doubters with “If you’re one of those ‘I love Pink Floyd but I can’t stand Roger’s politics’ people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar” is unlikely to tamp down any controversy. 

Waters is no stranger to the kind of whirlwind that now surrounds him, and those of a cynical disposition might suggest he likes it that way. It is not a criticism of Waters to note that the facts that he’s still performing the 44-year-old “In the Flesh” and that he hasn’t had a hit as a solo artist in over 30 years suggests that he’s living on past glory. In the spirit of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” then all this kerfuffle may well work to Waters’s advantage. 

Curmie grew up in the United States, where there’s a First Amendment that would (or at least should) guarantee Waters’s legal right to perform even potentially offensive material. Those rights are, as Curmie has suggested many times, currently under attack from both the left and the right, but to some extent it has been ever thus. 

I was just beginning to follow the news even a little when the Selma to Montgomery march took place in 1966; the first presidential election in which I took anything approaching an active interest was marred by the events at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968; I have long regarded Kent State in 1970 as a life-changing moment. None of these historical moments are shining examples of adherence to First Amendment principles. 

More recently, there have been abuses by police and protesters alike surrounding the invasion of Iraq, the tearing down of statues of Confederate leaders, the death of George Floyd, the Dobbs decision, and a host of other instances in which citizens responded negatively to something that was happening. 

No, these demonstrations were not without incident, but the spirit of peaceful protest remains, and Curmie will always regard the guarantees of the First Amendment as the most powerful beacon of American exceptionalism. 

Roger Waters, whatever we think of his music or his politics, would be on more solid legal footing on this side of the Atlantic. He should still be safe in Europe, but it’s important to note that some 52 anti-monarchists were arrested in his homeland for peacefully protesting the coronation of Charles III. 

Curmie also calls to mind a moment in his own life from 30-ish years ago. My cousin was coaching his son’s little league team. The players were just old enough to have an umpire call balls and strikes. I happened to be behind the bench when one of my cousin’s players was called out on strikes on a pitch I, too, thought was several inches high. The boy started to complain; my cousin pulled him aside and said that with two strikes, if it’s close enough that an umpire even might call it a strike, swing. The kid nodded, and rapped a double his next time up on a pitch that was a good six inches outside. 

Roger Waters might be right that what’s being thrown at him isn’t even close to the strike zone, but he needs to be aware that there’s always going to be an umpire (like this guy) who’s going to call you out just because. But coming out swinging isn’t exactly the answer, either. The best course of action would seem to be avoiding picking up two strikes. 

Controversy sells tickets, but there’s always a risk involved. Your call, Roger.