On Friday 16th November Wire will host a tribute to Muslimgauze, a one-man band masterminded by late Mancunian Bryn Jones; both prolific and pioneering, Jones released over sixty records of experimental electronic music before his death in 1999. Jones’ uncompromising sound could never achieve mainstream popularity but his work has garnered a cult following – though not one without controversy: the charge of anti-Semitism is one that Muslimgauze cannot shake off.
Jones was a passionate supporter of the Palestinian people, and whilst it is very important not to conflate opposition to the very real brutality of the Israeli regime with a hatred of Jews, Jones espoused views that would make most shudder. “Arafat, Khomeni, Gaddafi, Hussein” were hailed as sources of “interest and inspiration”, Israeli citizens were described as “legitimate targets” of suicide bombs, as “disgusting” and “vile”, and “total support” was offered to organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Whilst Jones always denied charges of anti-Semitism, he flirted with an extreme anti-Zionism that went far beyond the legitimate criticism of Israeli policy towards Palestinians, celebrating violence and invoking a conspiratorial power to the role of Israel in world affairs. In the language of classical anti-Semitism, for example, Jones claimed his music was not heard because of Israeli control over the media and music industry.
However the issue is not whether it is right or wrong for Wire to hold this event; if we only listened to or celebrated artists with perfectly politically correct views we would have to disregard some incredible music. Rather it’s important to question the lack of criticism the event has received, and the absence of any reference to Jones’ politics in any of the event’s promotional material, despite his own explicit statement that all his music “is motivated by a political fact”. Muslimgauze for Jones was not simply a vehicle for producing sounds, but also for spreading a political cause – can these politics possibly be ignored?
Since the horrors of pogroms, of Nazism, of attacks on “rootless cosmopolitans”, are no longer a reality, it may seem strange to suggest an atmosphere of anti-Semitism still pervades modern society, and yet it still raises its head. In late September Naz Khan, Women’s Officer of the Respect Party, bemoaned the fact that children are “brainwashed” into thinking “the bad guy was Hitler”, and then asked “[W]hat have the Jews done good in this world??” (sic). In October the Morning Star published an article by Israel Shamir, a man who defends Holocaust denial and claims that Jewish people “rule over the minds and souls of Europeans”. On an international scale, in Greece members of both fascist Golden Dawn and PASOK, the Greek equivalent of the Labour Party, have attempted to draw blame to Greek Jews over the financial crisis. In all these cases, as with Wire’s Muslimgauze tribute night, there was little to no outrage or condemnation, and where there was it was quiet and contained: Naz Khan kept her position in the party after issuing a quick apology, for example.
None of this is to say that Respect will turn into a British Golden Dawn, fuelled by a hatred of Jews, nor that a tribute to Muslimgauze will become a frenzied celebration of anti-Semitism, but it is important that these views are challenged, especially in the current climate of recession and austerity. Anti-Semitism is not simply a hatred of Jewish people, but a conspiratorial world view that places “the Jews” at the centre of all the negative phenomena of modern life, particularly in the realm of finance. At its core it is populist, reducing complex economic – or in some cases geopolitical – arguments to the theory of a clandestine group hell-bent on world domination. We know of the barbarism that has been unleashed under the influence of such views, and so it is imperative that we never allow them to take root again.
By Benjamin Conway