On Kneecap
And on Canada and genocide
Towards the end of the film Kneecap there’s a prophetic line:
No publicity like getting banned from something, is there lads?
This could be the band’s motto. Kneecap rose to fame a few years ago as the first hip-hop group to sing in Irish, a language English rulers prohibited from official use for centuries. Over the past year the band has had gigs cancelled in England, Scotland and Germany, and been barred from entering Hungary; one member was arrested in Britain, accused of terrorism offences.
All these attempts to silence Kneecap are based on reports of what the band has said and done on stage – in particular, their uncompromising support for Palestine and mince-no-words denouncements of Israel and its allies, including the UK.
Last Friday authorities in Canada threw their hat into the ring, barring the Belfast-based trio from entering the country ahead of series of gigs scheduled for October. The rationale? Kneecap is accused of “glorifying terrorist organisations.” According to the Canadian parliamentary secretary for combatting crime, the band “has engaged in actions and have made statements that are contrary to Canadian values and laws.”
Just which values the parliamentary secretary was referring to are anyone’s guess. Canada has its own history of suppressing Indigenous languages; children in the country’s notorious Residential Schools were forbidden from speaking their mother tongues. Over the past decade two official reports have concluded that the Canadian state has committed genocide and cultural genocide against Indigenous people. The very fact that the current Canadian government has the power to decide who can and cannot cross its borders is derived from the country’s violent history.
It’s also surely no coincidence that the Kneecap ban came just two days before a bigger pronunciation: Canada, alongside the United Kingdom and Australia (and years, even decades, after most countries in the world) has finally recognised Palestinian statehood. Perhaps the government offered Kneecap as a sop to its critics, anticipating that the Israeli government and its allies would accuse Canada of rewarding terrorism.
Meanwhile, unlike the United Nations, Amnesty International and countless human rights organisations – including Israeli group B’Tslem – Canada and the United Kingdom have refused to recognise officially that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Kneecap, on the other hand, refuses to shut up about the genocide. Just as they refuse to shut up about the legacy of British imperialism in Ireland, or to pile shame on the world leaders who are aiding and abetting the destruction of Gaza – including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Donald Trump, who was jetting out from his one-day state visit to the UK as Kneecap’s gig at London’s Wembley arena started last Thursday.
Maybe it was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s fear of being told to where to stick it in front of thousands of cheering fans in Toronto and Vancouver that pushed his government to ban the band.
The Wembley show was filled with Kneecap’s signature jibes and satire, much of them aimed at useless politicians. Yes, the arena was awash in Palestinian and Irish flags and there were cheers of “Free Palestine”. We all delighted in dancing to the kick-ass sounds of international solidarity.
But the real political threat posed by Kneecap is not the flag flying or the chanting. It’s that the band’s onstage performance is backed up by their offstage activism – organising with other artists to promote the cultural boycott against Israeli apartheid. Before their Wembley set, Kneecap gave the stage over to the English group Massive Attack, who screened a short antiwar film, featuring scenes from Gaza and the 1980s boycott against apartheid South Africa. Ben Jamal from the Palestinian Solidarity Committee then spoke about the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement.
BDS has been going for two decades, but there are serious signs that its impact on the music industry is picking up speed. Kneecap and Massive Attack are among 400 signatories to No Music for Genocide; the latter group has announced they’ve removed their music from Spotify in protest at the streaming app’s financial links to the defence industry. There’s a serious possibility that the annual Eurovision contest – widely boycotted by fans this year because of Israel’s participation – will not go ahead as usual in 2026 as country after country has said it will not participate if Israel is allowed to take part.
As Kneecap has come more and more into the public eye over their support for Palestine, the band has said repeatedly that the focus on them is a distraction. They made the point again at the end of their Wembley show last Thursday: “We’re not the story!”
They’re right. This is not about them. But the more politicians in countries like the UK and Canada try to make the news about Kneecap, the more they draw attention to the real story: the genocide in Gaza and the moral bankruptcy of Western governments that deny it and allow it to go on.
Pen in Fist is written by me, Carrie Lou Hamilton. You can find my other writing and projects here. If you like what you read, please leave me a tip.
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Thanks Carrie. I only knew of Kneecap because Ailsa was at the Wembly show. Then Friday learned that they were being banned from Canada. The hypocrisy. They are right, they shouldn’t be the story.