Death to the IDF! Long live punk!

As the genocide in Gaza intensifies, punk is back with a vengeance. Colin Revolting explores how Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set signals a revival of punk’s radical political roots.

Never mind the greying and balding generation who’ve been banging on about punk for decades, at last with Bob Vylan hitting the big stage and the headlines, it’s true… Punk’s not dead! Punks are disruptors. Raging against the war machine. Puncturing the lies of the system. Rocking against the irrationality of racism. 

Think of the Sex Pistols sarcastically singing “God Save the Queen” in the face of the right wing press drumming up subservience to the royal scroungers at the time of the Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977: 

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
A potential H bomb
God save the queen
She ain’t no human being
And there is no future
In England’s dreaming   

Think of The Clash calling for white people to join black people in riots against police racism: 

Black men gotta lotta problems

But they don’t mind throwing a bric

White people go to school

Where they teach you how to be thick.

White riot, I wanna riot 

White riot, a riot of my own.

While their lyrics could look ambiguous, lead singer Joe Strummer made it clear where they stood in their very first interview, ‘We’re anti-fascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist and we’re pro-creative. We’re against ignorance.’

All this was in the face of growing racism of the 1970s – from Nazi National Front’s provocative marches to Margaret Thatcher’s blatant dog whistles about fears of an alien culture of immigrants swamping Britain. Punks and punk bands embraced reggae, which was going through a particularly militant and politically conscious phase. 

Punks did benefit gigs against hospital closures and for striking workers. The Sex Pistols did a concert for the families of striking firefighters feeding them on Christmas day in 1977. Punks joined the Right to Work marches calling for workers and unemployed to unite against the Labour government’s attacks on jobs. 

This developing culture was given a focus and developed into a movement through the intervention of revolutionary socialists. A letter to the music press called for Rock Against Racism. At first this had limited impact with a couple of gigs featuring lesser known rock bands. 

But then the instigators, who were reggae fans already, recognised the anti racist soul of punk rock and the dangers of the swastika wearing part of punk fashion. They began to organise Rock Against Racism gigs where punk bands would play alongside the first generation of British reggae bands like Aswad, Steel Pulse and Matumbi. This coming together instigated a grassroots movement, which helped much of a generation express anti racist politics and solidarity across cultural divisions. 

And now punk’s alive again! Splurged across social media, howling from mainstream media headlines, spat out by both the sympathetic and the cynics.  

As Bob Vylan explained from the stage at Glastonbury, ‘We want to dedicate this song to every single band that is using their platform to speak up for the Palestinian people. And speak against the crimes that the UK and the US and much of the western world are complicit in. We must pray, hope and wish for the day when the Palestinian people are liberated from the torment of the Israeli government. Free Palestine!’ and then… ‘Death to the IDF!’

The media went wild proclaiming Bob Vylan to be antisemitic. The band immediately issued a statement to clarify their position. 

‘We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use “unnecessary lethal force” against innocent civilians waiting for aid. a machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.

We are being targeted for speaking up. … And if you care about the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up, too.’

The IDF (Israel Defense Force), part of the Israeli military, killed hundreds of Palestinians on each day of the Glastonbury Festival. This is precisely why it was ESSENTIAL that Bob Vylan was talking on stage about Palestine and getting everyone chanting in unison, “Death to the IDF!” And even if it makes some people squirm, even some well-meaning folk, this shitshow of a system won’t be ended without “death to the IDF.” 

And who instructs the bomb droppers and snipers of the Israeli killing machine? We need an end to Netanyahu, Trump and Starmer who send the soldiers to do their dirty work.  

Irish rap act Kneecap embodies a punk spirit that most punk bands could only dream of. Facing an onslaught of condemnation, attempted censorship and brutal legal threats Kneecap have played things brilliantly and have gained greater support for doing so. But as both Bob Vylan and Kneecap say, we are not the story the genocide is the story. 

Watching Bob Vylan followed by Kneecap we have to celebrate their righteous rage and concede… This lot are more punk than punk… MORE PUNK THAN PUNK!  

And they have to be, because the shitshow of a world today is even worse than it was in the punk past. We all need to rage against the genocide.  

While others were at Glastonbury, I was at a raucous party in Brixton and met someone who’d been active at his British university protesting against South Africa’s apartheid system in the 1980s. He was arrested with other students for confronting a Tory minister visiting campus and faced five years in jail. We discussed why the movement against Israeli apartheid is even bigger and more deeply political. How it lays bare imperialism wreaking havoc across the planet. 

‘This time we’re watching it happen day after day’ – his 20 year old son joined in the conversation, revealing how he’s not only active against genocide but also organising as a young worker in the NEU (National Education Union). The son smiled and mentioned he’s invited all his mates to his 21^st birthday party…  outside the next Kneecap court case! Now that’s what I call punk!  

The best of punk had an emphasis on the audience as active participants and DIY culture. Even those dreary tax dodgers U2 chose their name under punk influence to mean You Too can do this. So when Bob Vylan moved from chanting, “Free free Palestine” to “Death death to the IDF”, there’s no surprise that people in the crowd, many who’d probably been on the huge Palestine demonstrations, responded loudly, “DEATH DEATH TO THE IDF.” 

With all the Palestine flags flying, and crowd chanting, the scene became another inspiring Free Palestine demonstration. The liberals, right wingers and the lying politicians hated it. And what did these self proclaimed defenders of free speech do? Call for Bob Vylan to be deprived of their career opportunities and ability to travel and tour – an end to their livelihood. Of course the media campaign to ban Kneecap, to outlaw peaceful protest group Palestine Action, and to call for criminal prosecution of Bob Vylan, are about attempting to distract from the genuine outrage of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The 30 – 40 000 people in the Bob Vylan crowd at Glastonbury is, tragically, roughly the same number as the Gazan children, murdered by the IDF in the name of Israel and western imperialism.  

There are at least two souls of punk rockism. The more nihilistic version, emphasising individualism, and the more politically conscious, calling for kinds of collective protest. This current burst of punk and rap from Bob Vylan, Kneecap, Amyl and the Sniffers and more expresses the more protest engaged end of things and that’s the punk soul worth encouraging and cultivating. There have been calls for a new movement of Rock Against Genocide channelling Rock Against Racism. It’s especially needed in the face of culture wars where the right are posed as the rebels challenging power and the powerful elites!

Of course it’s not just punks who are good at challenging the horror and brutality of war and imperialism. Near namesake Bob Dylan – himself a problematic figure who expressed Zionist politics in the 1970-80s – wrote some of the most significant songs in the fight for civil rights in the US in the 1960s. At the beginning of the Vietnam war he wrote ‘Masters of War’

And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
And I’ll stand over your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead.

And he sang this at Glastonbury in 1998 without any media comment. Bob Dylan was no punk rocker but in his early years he had a similar righteous anger and determination to see the truth and ring out a warning that the times are changing. As hopefully they are now.  

It’s not just anger and outrage with which music can speak truth to power. During the South African apartheid period punk-inspired ska band The Specials sang “Free Nelson Mandela!” A joyous, uplifting passionate demand for justice and an end to that apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela was labelled as a terrorist by the western governments and indeed was a member of the African National Congress’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. 

Like with the crowds at Glastonbury this year, music can have a unifying and empowering effect. With the brutal horror of neoliberalism in general and the genocide in Gaza in particular, culture can express in artistic and lyrical ways solidarity with the victims of this slaughter alongside outrage and anger at the perpetrators. 

‘FUCK KEIR STARMER’, as the crowd chanted along with Kneecap.   

‘DEATH TO THE IDF’. Echoed from the stage and the chant has already been heard around the world movement for a free Palestine.