On Talking Straight to the People

Mashrou’ Leila in a recent performance

The question to ask is not whether what the Lebanese indie band Mashrou’ Leila did was right or wrong. The real question is whether or not they were bullied into taking a position they didn’t believe in.

Of course by “bullying”, I don’t mean threatening the band with Hezbollah’s weapons as some people are saying. That’s just silly. The bullying can simply be a media and online campaign to unfairly smear them as supporters of Israel and baby killers just because they opened the concert of a world famous band that will also play in Israel.

Many people in Lebanon believe that Israel is the enemy. But they don’t believe the theory that we should stop breathing because the Israelis are breathing the same air. Are bands supposed to let go of lifetime opportunities simply because they were bullied into it? For those who support the boycott, is it really such an honorable achievement to force someone to take part of a cause they don’t believe in? Isn’t it your duty to persuade them instead of forcing their hands?

Talk to us

Which brings me to the point of this post. Mashrou’ Leila has a blog and a facebook page with 52,000 likes. And yet all they could come up with was a terse, one-line statement announcing their decision?

Why won’t they elaborate directly to their fans why they made that decision? The debate about the boycott is a very important one, and it would be great to get the band’s position straight from the source. Is the issue so big of a taboo that we can’t even talk about it? Is it so electrical that we can’t reason it out? To be clear, they may convince me that what they did was right, but if they keep mum, I will just assume that they were bullied.