Fatoumata Diawara - Don't artwash Israeli apartheid!
The venue the Malian musician will play, Barby, is notorious for upholding Israel's colonial violence
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the global BDS movement, calls on Fatoumata Diawara to refrain from art-washing Israel’s regime of apartheid, military occupation and settler-colonialism.
Diawara has announced two shows at Barby club in apartheid Tel Aviv, a venue just as notorious for its public celebration of Israeli occupation forces massacring Palestinians as for its vitriol and insults towards artists who do not subscribe to its far-right ideology.
From its branded “f— you we’re from Israel” t-shirts – given to armed Israeli forces engaged in massacres that killed over 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children – to its labeling of musicians who support Palestinian rights as “spineless”, Barby’s complicity in upholding Israel’s colonial violence is irrefutable.
We urge Fatoumata Diawara to heed appeals and join hundreds of #MusiciansForPalestine, including many African artists, in refusing to perform at complicit Israeli cultural institutions like Barby. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once wrote in a joint letter, “Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over.”
