On December 4th, at the Olympia in Montreal, we’ll welcome Freeze Corleone on stage, a French rapper who claims that he “don’t give a damn about the Shoah” and who associates Jews with money in addition to his obsession with the Nazis.
The theater defends its decision by claiming “freedom of expression”.
OK. But would we accept the same freedom of speech when this rapper spreads the worst stereotypes about Muslims?
ANTISEMITISM 101
Here is a small anthology of Freeze Corleone’s lyrics: “Every day, (don’t care a damn) about the Shoah”; “Fuck Israel everyday like I live in Gaza”; “Everything for the family so that my children can live like Jewish pensioners”; “I have to keep the money flowing in my church like a Jew”; “Fuck a Rothschild, fuck a Rockefeller”; “Determined like Adolf, 40s bitch”; “I arrive determined like Adolf in the 1930s”; “I arrive in 1921 as a German”; “I have Goebbels’ propaganda techniques”; “We arrive in German cars like SS”; “I am in Dakar, you are in your center in Sion” (a pun referring to the concentration camps).
In 2020, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) in France filed a complaint against the rapper. The Interior Minister had denounced the rapper on Twitter: “Sorry for National Socialism and anti-Semitism … These statements are unspeakable”.
But an investigation into “incitement to racial hatred” and “racial insult” ultimately did not result in any charges.
The fact remains that even if Freeze Corleone hasn’t been brought to justice, one can morally object to his cliche-ridden lyrics.
In June of that year, Freeze Corleone performed in Geneva. But when his show was announced, she outraged the organization Coordination intercommunautaire contre l’antisémitisme et ladiscrimination. Director Johanne Gurfinkiel told Swiss newspapers: “While Freeze Corleone does not call for aggression, it promotes a certain perception of people of the Jewish faith and thus fuels anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic and racist hatred has no place in our democracy. In history, as in today, we must never forget that words precede deeds. Quiet “.
In France we have witnessed a series of anti-Semitic events over the years: terrorist attack in the Hyper Kosher; Assassination attempt on Jewish families in front of a school in Toulouse; Murder of Ian Halimi…
Recently, on the literary show La Grande Librairie, I heard Rabbi and writer Delphine Horvilleur regret that anti-Semitism in France is trivialized as if nothing had been preserved since the Holocaust.
DUTY TO REMEMBER
I was able to see the French film Simone, le voyage du siècle last week as part of the Cinemania Festival (it will be released in Quebec later this year).
The film tells the life of Simone Veil, known for her progressive laws (abortion, prisons, family support). But a large part of the film tells how Simone Veil survived the German concentration camps where her brother, father and mother died.
Simone Veil asked that 78651 be written on her grave in the Pantheon, the service number tattooed on her arm in Auschwitz.
So that we never forget the Shoah. She certainly didn’t expect that a rapper would sing “Fuck the Holocaust” one day…
