Features
Ziggy Marley Won’t Play Austria
The son of the late, legendary Bob Marley, was scheduled to perform June 17 at the annual Spring Vibration Festival in Wiesen, in the eastern province of Burgenland.
Festival spokesman Alexander Swoboda said Marley’s agents informed organizers of his cancellation. Marley “does not want to play in a country with a Nazi in the government,” Swoboda said, citinga statement from the agents.
Marley is one of dozens of musicians and performers — including Lou Reed, Counting Crows, and Henry Rollins — who have canceled appearances in Austria to show their opposition to the Freedom Party and its hardline policies on immigration.
During a Bush show earlier this year in Graz, Gavin Rossdale recited a Jewish prayer to make a statement against the new government.
Classical music has not been exempt from the controversy, either. The artistic director of the prestigious Salzburg classical music festival resigned to express his viewpoint. In March, demonstrators clashed with police outside Vienna’s State Opera House, where leading artists and heads of states attended the annual opera ball.
Austria has been widely criticized since Joerg Haider’s far-right Freedom party joined the government. Haider’s past comments in praise of the Nazi era and Adolf Hitler’s policiescontributed to a decision by 14 European Union countries to impose sanctions on Austria.
He has since apologized for those remarks but continues to attack opponents in language that is considered less than conciliatory.