“If speech is silver, silence is gold.”
Who was this instruction meant for, or written for? For the discreet? Or for the accomplice, the one you tell: shut your mouth, or it’ll cost you the stage?
As of yesterday, Ed Sheeran, one of Britain’s most successful musicians, has found himself in the media spotlight. Ed has had an unusual career, one that catapulted him from YouTube and the smallest of stages in 2011 to world fame.
So what has good old Ed done wrong, that social media and the rest are tearing this topic apart?
Sheeran is on tour, and as expected, in big stadiums. He had booked the rapper Macklemore and an Irish folk band. Then came the offending words — in front of ninety thousand people — and criticised the genocide in Gaza.
Ed Sheeran wanted no politics on stage. Now he has no band and no opening act on that same stage.
The stadium stage belongs to someone. A man with a lot of money. And where a lot of money gathers, power — and the display of it — grows even bigger.
Now, the owner of some of these stadiums is named Robert Kraft. His profession: billionaire. Apparently this Robert called up the musician Ed and demanded that Macklemore no longer be allowed to perform in his stadiums.
The ultimatum apparently worked, because Ed Sheeran uninvited Macklemore from the tour. And then the famous dominoes started to slide, and fell over.
The Irish drew their own conclusions. No opening act, no band for the middle set. Everyone quit.
When the media start tripping over their own headlines, I always get a little suspicious.
Too loud. Too accusatory. Too clear-cut.
Too much undigested stuff gets posted out into the world.
Or so it seems to me.
Palestine.
Is that the word of ill will?
A state that isn’t one?
A country never recognised?
Palestine is a loaded word with a tragic history. Way at the back of my mind still lingers the memory of Yasser Arafat, who founded the PLO, and above all the images of the plane hijackings. Through an attack, and claimed 47 lives in Würenlingen, Switzerland.
Solidarity, and the Palestinian people.
Free Palestine.
These two words are the stumbling block.
Why?
Because they seem to carry more than one meaning.
Either the call means that Israel’s occupation since 1967 should end.
Or it simply means the end of the State of Israel.
The slogan already houses the conflict within itself.
This isn’t a story about a musician and his stance. It’s about much more.
There’s also a money question.
Israel receives nearly four billion dollars in military aid every year. The owners of the stadiums hold powerful positions they want to defend.
With that much structure on one side, the other side becomes a risk.
Canada and Switzerland decided differently.
Last September, Prime Minister Carney officially recognised the State of Palestine, together with Britain and Australia.
Switzerland is home to the Geneva Conventions, but also to Würenlingen — and above all, the country that negotiated with the PLO back in the 1970s.
Yes, Ed Sheeran bowed to the ultimatum in silence.
His fellow musicians did not.
Did Ed cash in his silence for silver?
I don’t know.
