Kneecap
It would be a lie if I was to say that I knew anything about the Irish group Kneecap prior to their controversial appearance at Coachella in May and I only know a little bit more about them now several months later, but as a man who is always learning and reading I can address one of the claims their detractors often use to discredit them. The claim that they are only jumping on the pro-Palestine bandwagon in self-aggrandizement as a publicity stunt. I don’t think that could be any further from the truth.
One of the first things that a settler/colonial invader will do to the colonized is to try to destroy their culture, most notably the language. The British in Ireland tried to destroy the language of the Irish for centuries as well as impose other harsh conditions on the native population mostly of the catholic faith. Books have been written about the history of the native Irish and an in depth explanation would take books but after the Irish War for independence the northernmost 6 counties of Ireland were still held by Britain. The lasting anti British sentiment and violence led to the British army being redeployed to Northern Ireland in 1969, a deployment that lasted until 2007 and resulted in a military crackdown on the Catholic minority and republicans especially anyone suspected of being a member of the Provisional IRA, a paramilitary group dedicated to reunifying the six counties with the. It also led to tragedies like Bloody Sunday, a massacre in Derry where British soldiers killed 14 unarmed protesters and wounded 12 others.
The Good Friday agreement of 1998 ended most of the violence but not the anti republican bias that still exists in Northern Ireland. This is the atmosphere that the members of Kneecap were born into. In their early days they were in proponents of the IRISH LANGUAGE ACT, legislation that proposed to recognize Irish Gaelic as an official language on par with English in Northern Ireland. At the time of its implementation there were 6,000 native Irish speakers in northern Ireland and the members of Kneecap were in that number.
The group made the decision, early on, to incorporate the Irish language into their music and it is hard to overestimate the profound radicalness of this decision. The British colonizers, who had tried to destroy the language for centuries, still controlled Northern Ireland and there was still backlash against its use. To keep the language of the oppressed in the face of the oppressor is a profoundly radical act and this decision was made well before the current tragic genocide in Gaza. It also limited their commercial viability but their commitment to the language and Irish republicanism came first in their actions.
Their support of the Palestinian people is a natural offshoot of their support for their own people and there are striking similarities between the brutal occupation of Palestine and the brutal occupation of Ireland. An Gorta Mor, The Great Hunger where one million people died and several million more emigrated is often attributed to the potato blight that devastated the Irish potato crops for several years, the major source of food for Ireland’s poor. The often overlooked fact is that during this time there were other food crops in Ireland and British absentee landlords were exporting tons of food while native Irish died of starvation. During earlier crop failures like the one in 1782-83 food exports were prohibited but during the potato blight of the mid 19th centurythe British government did nothing to stop this practice. Their failure to act resulted in many deaths that could have been prevented. The current starvation of Palestine echoes to the Great Famine and that’s not the only comparison. The attempted erasure of Ireland’s culture is analogous to the attempt by Israel to deny that Palestine even existed prior the 1948. The brutal military occupation by both colonial powers is obviously similar.
So what I am saying is that the members of Kneecap are not some glory seeking opportunists. They come from a long radical tradition and their support for the people of Palestine is a logical extension of that tradition. You may disagree with their politics but you can’t say they are just some Johnny come latelys. Their radicalism has deep historical roots and they have shown clearly that they are willing to give up opportunities to make money to stand up for the principles they believe in.