On July 14, the Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters was the keynote speaker at a conference in solidarity with the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement in Canada, Quebec, and Montreal in particular. On the eve of his concert at the Bell Centre, he gave a shout-out to the activists of the McGill chapter of Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) who succeeded in passing a motion of solidarity with Palestine within the student association.
The conference, attended by over 200 people, was co-organized by the Canadian Foreign Institute Policy, SPHR McGill, and the International Solidarity Committee of the Montreal Central Council of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux. The Communist Party, the Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Québec, and the Mouvement québécois pour la paix were among the organizations endorsing the event.
“At 70%, it’s a crushing defeat for the Zionists,” Waters said, referring to the strong majority by which the BDS vote passed at McGill. As for the administration of this private, elitist English-speaking university in Montreal, which has spared no effort to violate student democracy and ensure that the vote is not recognized, Waters did not hesitate to point out that it is merely the voice of its masters.
Looking back on his career as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, Waters stressed the importance of the BDS movement in educating the masses. He himself, who refused to play in Tel Aviv in 2006, recalls that at the turn of the millennium he knew nothing about the Palestinian question. Today, he knows how to put into perspective the colonialist essence of the Zionist project. He adds that a few years ago, talking about Israeli apartheid was anathema. Today, no one with a modicum of awareness can avoid it.
In the question period following the lecture, Waters persisted when asked if his political stance was alienating him from some of his audience. He firmly maintains that the people are right and that it is the leaders who are lying.
When asked what conditions would make it possible for him to accept a tour in Israel, he replied with aplomb that only the end of the occupation and equal political and civil rights for all, regardless of their ethnic origin (i.e. the end of the apartheid regime) would encourage him to return. “I believe in democracy,” he said, before launching into a tirade in which he reminds us that so-called Western democracies are shamelessly flouting democracy.
This is not Roger Waters’ first appearance as a supporter of the world’s peoples in Montreal. In November 2018, he supported the International Centre for Workers’ Solidarity (CISO) conference calling on workers to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. Last May, he also signed a letter of support for SPHR McGill’s campaign. In addition to Palestine, the British rocker has not hesitated to add his voice to the opposition to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, to support striking students in Colombia, to denounce the concert in support of usurper Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, and to call for the right to sovereignty of Latin American nations in general.