Interfaith Association Condemns Ye Antisemitism

Tuesday December 20 2022

Edinburgh Interfaith Association (EIFA) has issued a strong official statement opposing the racist and antisemitic statements of the rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West).

The statements expresses 'disappointment and disgust' at Ye's recent statements, which have included expressing admiration for Hitler, and have seen him dropped by sponsors and banned from social media sites. It calls on music providers to remove his material and consider banning him.

It adds that "We do not need to look back too far in history to recognise what can happen when racist and antisemitic ideas are allowed to spread unchecked, uncriticised, and without condemnation by people of good hearts."

The EIFA brings together representatives of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hebrew, Sikh, Baha'i, Pagan and other communities in Edinburgh, and is Scotland's oldest interfaith association.

The full statement reads: 

As faith community members of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association, we wish to express our disappointment and disgust at the racist and antisemitic comments and social media posts of the musician Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. We condemn this egregious and dangerous behaviour and demand that all electronic and social media providers and music distributors remove his racist and antisemitic comments and consider banning him temporarily or permanently to prevent further harm to protected groups. 

Ye has just released a track entitled “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” The title ironically is contrary to his recent outbursts expressing anti-Black, white supremacist, antisemitic language, referring to slavery as “a choice” and declaring that “there’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler – a lot of things.” For the many millions of victims of enslavement and the Holocaust, “Someday We’ll All Be Free” was a hope that they never saw fulfilled.

However, Ye continues to share hate filled views about Jewish people, declaring that he planned to “go death con 3” on Jewish people, and he has tweeted an image of a swastika inside the historic symbol of Judaism, the star of David.

We do not need to look back too far in history to recognise what can happen when racist and antisemitic ideas are allowed to spread unchecked, uncriticised, and without condemnation by people of good hearts. Hate speech, sadly, leads to the dehumanisation of others and provokes acts of violence against them.

Ye has a following of over 30 million people and is therefore able to reach and influence many others with these hate filled views. With rapidly rising antisemitism statistics at  an all-time high in both the United Kingdom and in America with a total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment, and vandalism reported, now is the time for action to counter this evil behaviour.

Following the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, leaders and citizens throughout the world proclaimed loudly “Never Again.”  Nearly 80 years later, as the last Holocaust survivors vanish from our midst, we believe it is time to once again unite in global humanity to bring an end to this horrific behaviour.

In order to build a world where such atrocities may “Never Again” be committed, the Edinburgh Interfaith Association is determined to work with others to take action against the evil views expressed by Ye and others, to immediately call out, and continually stamp out racism, antisemitism and all other forms of abuse and violence based upon race, faith, spirituality or individual beliefs.

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