Wish You Weren't Here? Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters on Russia-Ukraine war and other political controversies

Russia has reportedly asked Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters to speak at the United Nations in a meeting to discuss the delivery of arms to Ukraine. “Let’s see what he will say. He has a position and you will hear it tomorrow,” Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “Perhaps he will sing to us, too,” Nebenzia added in jest. The 15-member Security Council has met dozens of times since Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine last February. But it is unable to take any action because Russia is a veto power, along with the United States, China, Britain and France. “Russian diplomacy used to be serious. What next? Mr Bean?” a UN Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. This comes on the same day that Pink Floyd star David Gilmour and his wife Polly Samson reignited their long-running feud with Waters and a week after he took aim at Pink Floyd for recording a protest anthem against Russia. Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and has largely maintained his distance from his former bandmates since. Samson tweeted, “You are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”

Gilmour retweeted his wife, with the text: “Every word demonstrably true.”

Waters responded to Gilmour and Samson’s tweets by posting that he was aware of the “incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him” which he “refutes entirely.” “He is currently taking advice to his position,” the statement added. But this isn’t the first time Waters has weighed in with his opinion on political matters. Let’s take a closer look: Takes aim at former bandmates over anti-Russa anthem Perhaps what brought about this latest eruption was Waters in an interview with German newspaper Berliner Zeitung slamming Gilmour and Nick Mason teaming up with Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk to record a protest anthem against Russia. Waters, saying he had seen the video released under the Pink Floyd name, said, “… I am not surprised, but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me, this action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this… proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, ‘Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!’ It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag.” Waters also described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “probably the most provoked invasion ever.” Letter to Ukraine’s First Lady This comes months after Waters on his website published an open letter to First Lady of Ukraine seeking her support to ‘stop the slaughter’ by persuading her husband to accept a ceasefire. Waters in September in an open letter took aim at Olena Zelenska, NATO and Ukraine for the war.

In the letter, Waters pointed the finger at “extreme nationalists” in Ukraine for having “set your country on the path to this disastrous war.” Waters opened the letter by saying, “My heart bleeds for you and all the Ukrainian and Russian families, devastated by the terrible war in Ukraine”. However, he then argued against the West supplying Ukraine with arms. “BBC quotes you as saying that ‘If support for Ukraine is strong, the crisis will be shorter.’ Hmmm? I guess that might depend on what you mean by ‘support for Ukraine’? If by ‘support for Ukraine’ you mean the West continuing to supply arms to the Kyiv government’s armies, I fear you may be tragically mistaken,” Waters wrote. “Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a fire fight… won’t work now, particularly because, in this case, most of the fuel is (a) being thrown into the fire from Washington, DC… and (b) because the ‘fuel throwers’ have already declared an interest in the war going on for as long as possible.” Waters further accused Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy of failing to fulfill his campaign election promises including bringing peace to the Donbas. “One can only assume that your husband’s electoral policies didn’t sit well with certain political factions in Kyiv and that those factions persuaded your husband to diametrically change course ignoring the peoples’ mandate,” Waters added. Zelenska on Twitter clapped back at Waters, saying that it was Russia which had invaded Ukraine and is now destroying its cities as well as killing thousands of civilians.

“Roger Waters, you should ask for peace from the president of another country,” she added.

Letter to Putin After the letter received a hostile reaction online and the city of Krakow cancelled two of Waters’ gigs in light of his sympathetic stance toward Russia, the Pink Floyd co-founder then published a letter to Vladimir Putin. [caption id=“attachment_11973832” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Russian president Vladimir Putin. AP.[/caption] Waters in his letter wrote, “Would you like to see an end to this war? If you were to reply and say, ‘Yes please.’ That would immediately make things a lot easier. If you were to come out and say, ‘Also the Russian Federation has no further territorial interest beyond the security of the Russian-speaking populations of The Crimea, Donetsk, and Lubansk.’ That would help too.” Waters said if Putin and his troops wanted to “overrun the whole of Europe, starting with Poland and the rest of the Baltic states” then “we might as well all stop playing the desperately dangerous game of nuclear chicken that the hawks on both sides of the Atlantic seem so comfortable with, and have at it. Yup, just blow each other and the world to smithereens.” Calls Biden war criminal In August, Waters labelled US president Joe Biden a ‘war criminal’ in a contentious interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish. “Well, he’s fuelling the fire in the Ukraine, for a start – that is a huge crime,” Waters said about Biden. “Why won’t the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, the [Ukrainian] president, to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war that’s killing… We don’t know how many Ukrainians and Russians.” “You could say it started in 2008 – this war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border, which they promised they wouldn’t do when [the final leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from the whole of Eastern Europe,” he continued. This isn’t the first time Waters attacked Biden. In April 2020, when Biden was still a candidate, he called him a “f%^&&^% slime ball”.

He added that Biden is “so weak, and has no appeal to anybody”.

Accuses Israel of genocide Waters in the same interview accused the Israelis of ‘committing genocide’. “In my opinion, Israel has a right to exist as long as it is a true democracy, as long as no group, religious or ethnic, enjoys more human rights than any other,” Waters said. “But unfortunately that is exactly what is happening in Israel and Palestine. The government says that only Jewish people should enjoy certain rights. So it can’t be described as democratic.” Backs China on Taiwan Waters also came to the defence of China during the interview when Smerconish pointed out Beijing was ‘encircling Taiwan’. [caption id=“attachment_12090872” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] There have been growing fears in the region over a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the island democracy that China claims as its territory. AP[/caption] “Taiwan is part of China. That has been absolutely accepted by the whole of international community since 1948. If you don’t know that you aren’t reading enough…. You are believing your side’s propaganda. You can’t have a conversation about human rights and Taiwan without actually doing the reading.” When Smerconish pointed out that China has been accused of persecuting the Uyghurs, Waters dismissed it as ‘bollocks and absolute nonsense’. ‘Trump is a pig’ In 2016, Waters slammed the then Republican presidential candidate at the Desert Trip music festival. Trump’s face appeared on the massive video screen above the stage with the word “Charade” across it as Waters performed the Pink Floyd song “Pigs (Three Different Ones).” Subsequent images showed Trump wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood. Meanwhile, a parade-sized balloon shaped like a pig floated above the audience. It had Trump’s face painted on the side with the words “Ignorant, lying, racist, sexist pig.” And in case that wasn’t straightforward enough, giant letters flashed across the big screen reading"

“Trump is a pig.”

Voices support for BDS movement At the end of the performance, Waters voiced his support for the Palestinian-led BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against the Israeli government. “I’m going to send out all of my most heartfelt love and support to all those young people on the campuses of the universities of California who are standing up for their brothers and sisters in Palestine and supporting the BDS movement,” he said. “In the hope that we may encourage the government of Israel to end the occupation.” Waters also brought up the Black Lives Matter movement in front of the overwhelmingly white audience. As he performed “Us and Them,” the big screen showed pictures of protest signs. “White silence is violence,” read one. “I cannot believe I still have to protest this (expletive),” another said. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .