This is what the "Trotskyite" actually said. Can't disagree with it myself. Of course being a "Commie" he's bound to come out in support of the Chinese etc etc
MORRISSEY HAS also had a relationship with LMHR in the past. Back in 2008, he gave several thousand pounds to the group to help out with one of your carnivals. With his recent comments, though--calling the Chinese a "subspecies"--do you think there will be any kind of relationship in the future?
NO, I think it's gone now.
I'm a lot older than many of your readers will be. I was around the punk scene in the late '70s in Britain and was part of Rock Against Racism. At that time in Britain, we had a much more serious problem with very big bands--punk bands--flirting with fascism. The Sex Pistols wore swastika armbands--well, certainly Sid Vicious did and so did Siouxsie Sioux from Siouxsie and the Banshees.
We have a famous case of Elvis Costello saying about Ray Charles, "Can you get that n***** offstage?" when he was performing. You had David Bowie coming back to England after a tour of Germany wearing a Nazi uniform and going through Victoria Station like Hitler. You had British Movement skinheads hanging around bands like Sham 69 or Madness--gigs were being disrupted.
Some of the bands had quite a dubious record on this: Bowie certainly was flirting with fascism, Madness defended their road crew who were fascists, Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69 had lots of hardcore fascist fans following him around.
We had a policy, though, which was try to engage with these artists, win them away from racism and certainly get them to distance themselves from the people associated with fascism. We were accused at the time of being soft, but we never thought that. We thought you had to win the hearts and minds of the artists.
You shouldn't just say, "If you make a racist comment, you are forever doomed." I think it was really successful because of the people I've mentioned, all have subsequently completely and utterly dissociated themselves from fascism and racism. In fact, many of them have become quite left-wing artists in their own right. David Bowie has both given money to the Anti-Nazi League and completely condemned his views from the '70s. Madness are very friendly to Love Music Hate Racism. Elvis Costello, too.
We were very nervous about Morrissey from the beginning when we launched LMHR because of some of the songs he's sung, like "Bengali in Platforms," hanging around the Madness gig wearing a Union Jack flag and all that. Now, when he made the comments about immigration [in the NME in 2008], he made quite a strong case that he didn't say them, and he wanted to make a statement against racism and come out in support of an anti-racist cause.
I would have been more suspicious, but before that, he was starting to hang around LMHR concerts. He came to one of our very first gigs with the Libertines. He was there, he signed T-shirts, and he really wanted to support us. He was already beginning to hang around with anti-racist bands, and we thought, "Come on, let's give the man a chance." He sponsored the carnival, gave us $44,000, and he also wanted us to put stalls up at his gigs to make a strong anti-racist statement. We thought that was worth doing.
But this time...you know, everyone's entitled to be wrong or change their mind once. I think the problem we've got with Morrissey is that he's done it several times.
I don't believe it's a mistake. I think it's conscious, and I think he's gone too far. In our organization, some of the bands have already met and talked about it, and we don't want to be associated with him. We feel it's not helpful to anybody.
Of course, he could come out and make a clear denunciation, saying he didn't say it--he hasn't done that so far. And he hasn't contacted us to say he wants to distance himself from his statements. I think really he has to grow up at minimum.
These are much more serious statements than he's made before. "Subhuman" is crude racism, to put it mildly. If someone like Adolf Hitler said that, you'd talk about biological racism, which everyone knows is genocidal. So I feel he's really crossed the Rubicon on it really.