EXCLUDED FRANCE 3 – The identity group Patria Albiges, the RN deputy for Tarn and an LR regional councilor are demanding the cancellation of the concert on April 1 in Albi by rapper Médine. The latter, accustomed to this kind of controversy, answers them.
Medina is not his first concert cancellation request. In 2018, the rapper had to give up performing at the Bataclan under pressure from the far right. Le Havrais does not intend to give in this time after the campaign launched against his concert in Albi on April 1, by the identity group, Patria Albiges.
Medina answers questions from France 3 Occitanie. • © Pierre-Jean Vergne – FTV
France 3 Occitanie: Médine you are performing on Saturday April 1 in Albi (Tarn). Policies call for the cancellation of your concert. How do you react to this situation?
Medina: I’m a little used to being the target of politics “sympathizers of identity ideas”, small groups that are more and more violent, intimidating with municipalities, with concert organizers. I want to say that it’s an honor to be the target of this kind of people who don’t even check their sources, who use 5 sentences, supposedly mine, people who call themselves Charlie but who absolutely do not respect not freedom of expression in every sense of the word. Once again, I’m used to it, it’s an honor to be their “political enemy” because I’m used to flushing them out in my texts. They simply feel targeted by the contradictions that I can highlight in some of my songs.
France 3 Occitanie: isn’t it tiring to always repeat the same thing and have to justify yourself?
Medina: it is not tiring to lead a political fight against the ideas of the extreme right. I knew full well when I was writing some of my songs that they were going to hit a target, people who probably didn’t live together, they wanted to separate, essentialize categories of people. What is exhausting are those who observe the fight among them, certain journalists, certain politicians who are not necessarily sympathizers but who allow themselves to be irradiated by fake news, false information and who do not even take the time to check their sources.
France 3 Occitanie: you have always claimed to be Charlie, why years later do you always get the same arguments?
Medina: we are at the time of the criminalization of all dissident words, all the more so when they come from racialized people or who accumulate a whole bunch of labels like me: I am a rapper, from Algerian immigration, Muslim, from popular neighborhoods. Anyone who has this typology, who has this particularity, when they want to participate in public debate or have a clear and precise political voice, immediately there is a kind of criminalization on the part of those who are opponents, who do not want to hear this voice rise. It’s part of this era, of this cancel culture where you don’t want to be in contact with the interlocutors and you simply want to consolidate your own idea, however nauseating they may be.
France 3 Occitanie: You had the opportunity to answer them on the networks…
Medina: networks are a weapon like any other. I take that with a lot of derision and hindsight because in the end, the identity groups absolutely do not represent the Albigenses and the Albigensians. Besides, I have hundreds of messages of support to tell me that they do not agree. These people are not at their first acts of intimidation, which have already been violent in the streets of Albi. The violence is more on the side of the identities than mine. I am the force of the culture, facing the culture of the force.
(With Sylvain Duchampt)
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