Massive Attack Banned from Singapore After Displaying Palestine Flag Onstage

I had to reread that headline a few times before I remembered Massive Attack is a band 😑

Ever since the first Gulf war.

They kinda did tricky dirty. But over all yeah.

They just released a song with Tom Waits called Boots on the Ground, great song highly recommend

When publicly stating alignment with Israel or Palestine, you have to choose if you want to be hated by the government, or the actual people on the street.

It always amazes me how different people and entities are held to different standards.

Possibly, but unlikely.

Singapore has a lot of very strict laws, and they apply them rigorously. Famously their drug possession laws have a ton of prison time, and often the death penalty for trafficking.

From the article, it is a very narrow but all encompassing law, originally passed in 1949 and the last update in 2021 predates the most recent conflict…

The decision is tied to Singapore’s policies on public speech, which prohibit publicly displaying foreign national emblems without a permit or exemption.

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/FNECDA1949

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Well, theres this really insane military power that they’re close trading partners with that really cares about their little ethnostate vassal.

Dictatorships will have their obsessions.

Don’t they have other things to worry about on the other side of the planet?

Palestine-Singapore is not that far away compared to, say, Palestine-USA.

I haven’t listened to to that song since I started listening to Cocteau Twins. Didn’t even realize Elizabeth Fraser was on it, makes sense in retrospect.

I visit Singapore quite often and it’s dystopian despite all the pretty parks and malls. The thing is it’s dystopian but boring so people don’t really notice it. The entire “country” is a tax and school haven for Asian billionaires, there’s absolutely nothing else there.

They’ve only had 1 party rule, it’s technically a democracy but it’s as rigged as it can be without crossing the line into actual rigging.

The German government is apparently blocking EU Sanctions to Israel but that’s because it’s pretty easy to block things in the EU.

Making the EU actually do things (such as banning this band from entering the Schengen zone) on the other hand is way more difficult since the other ones can block it (which Spain would almost certainly do it on this subject and many others would do simply because they’re against blocking people to enter the EU just because one EU nation’s government discords with them politically - the bullcrap about criticism of Israel being anti-semitism has very little traction in most of the EU and apparently judging by recent news it has no traction even in the German Justice system).

I doubt it actually, they’re just real serious about their crazy laws and there’s a crazy law about no foreign flags.

A subtle control many feel is the risk of conflict. The local church near us was our boxing location for boxes for the hungry and unhoused, and when they found out that the lead person on the food boxes program was also attending pro palestine rallies, they cut off their participation in food boxes. They arent a jewish temple, and they obviously have no jewish members, but they fear conflict with the jewish community or some backhanded impact from funders or their spouses. So they will have nothing to do with anyone who endangers a cent of their funding. In a way I get it, but its not great and we were disrupted for a bit so some people suffered. 501c3 boards dont deal with pressure or risk very well, and they avoid conflict at all costs.