“This is Not a Drill”

Roger Waters, co-founder of the legendary rock group Pink Floyd, discussed the genocide in Gaza, the deterioration of the West and his new movie on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, July 30, 2025. The following are excerpts.

In addition are comments Yves Engler made in June 2023 which highlight Waters’ political activity in Canada.

There are very few artists or musicians who have stood as doggedly on the side of the oppressed as Roger Waters, the co-founder, bassist, singer, and songwriter for Pink Floyd. He has been an outspoken defender of Palestinian rights and critic of the apartheid state of Israel long before the genocide. He was one of the principal signers of an open letter called, “Artists Against Apartheid” and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement denouncing musicians who perform in Israel.

He called out the fabrications disseminated by Israel that Hamas carried out systematic sexual assaults on October 7th. He attacked Labour leader Keir Starmer for his backing of the genocide and headlined a concert for Palestine with Cat Stevens and the rapper Lowkey.

He came to the defense of the British punk rap band, Bob Vylan, who, at this year's Glastonbury Festival, led the chant of “Death, death to the IDF,” referring to the Israeli Defense Force. After the British government banned Palestine Action, labeling it a terrorist group in the UK under the Terrorism Act of 2000, and then arresting 100 people for expressing their support for the group, he posted a video to X in which he praised Palestine Action as “a great organization,” noting they were non-violent and “absolutely not terrorists in any way.”

Membership in or public support for the group is now classified as a criminal offense and is punishable by up to 14 years in prison and/or a fine. In the video Roger can be seen making a sign from a piece of cardboard, “This says Roger Waters supports Palestine Action. Parliament has been corrupted by agents of a genocidal foreign power. Stand up and be counted. It's now,” the musician read. “This is the moment I am Spartacus.”

Israel and its Zionist allies have mounted vicious and sustained assaults against him, producing slanderous documentaries, engaging in a stream of defamatory attacks and character assassination, blocking publicity for his “This Is Not a Drill” concerts, pressuring music companies to cancel publishing agreements, forcing concert venues to blacklist him, even denying him hotel rooms while on tour. But Roger has never wavered.

He helped launch the campaign called “Countdown to Close Guantánamo”. He stood fast with Julian Assange during his long persecution, once performing outside the UK Home Office just miles from Belmarsh Prison where Julian was incarcerated singing Pink Floyd's iconic song, “Wish You Were Here.” The behavior of the British government towards Julian Assange is a disgrace, he said, a profanity on the very notion of human rights. It's no exaggeration to say that the treatment and persecution of Julian Assange is the way that dictatorships treat a political prisoner.

He backed the attorney, Steven Donziger, who won a $10 billion settlement against the oil giant Chevron on behalf of the indigenous peoples in Ecuador, whose land was poisoned and who suffered serious illnesses from toxins dumped by Chevron. Donziger endured a prolonged and savage campaign by Chevron that led to him being disbarred and placed under house arrest.

Roger, who a year ago released the songs, “Resist This Genocide” and “Stand Up for Palestine,” has launched a giant inflatable pig with Donald Trump's face on it at concerts in Mexico City, where Pink Floyd's “The Wall” is not an abstraction. He showed images of Trump dressed as a Nazi. And before the 300,000 fans in Mexico City flash the words, “Trump eres un pendejo,” “Trump is scum.”

He calls out Trump along with Joe Biden as war criminals. He endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, calling him, “A beacon of hope.” In short, his is an example of the moral life, which is always a life of confrontation. His courage is a reminder that standing against the forces of oppression comes with a cost. The global theatrical release of his new concert film, “This Is Not A Drill - Live From Prague,” the movie has just been released by Trafalgar Releasing and Sony Music Vision. Joining me to discuss our rapid descent into authoritarianism and the imperative of resistance is Roger Waters.

Roger Waters

Yeah, well, this morning I woke up and the first thing I read, I think it was in the FT [Financial Times], is that some NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] general this morning or yesterday stood up and said, we must prepare for a world war in 2027, because Russia is going to try and steamroll its way with armored divisions across Europe and it won't stop until it reaches the English Channel.

Why they would stop at the English Channel, God only knows. But this is what this bloke's saying. And so he's really, he's drumming up support for taxing all the people of Europe, which they're now talking about trying to raise 4% or 5% of GDP to spend on weapons. And they're talking about importing many more nuclear weapons, so on and so forth.

And saying his great concern is that at the same moment that the Russians invade Paris or march into Paris, the Chinese will be invading Taiwan. So it's absolute baby talk, warmongering, but we shouldn't be surprised because they've been doing it ever since I was alive, practically. We had one or two years after the Second World War, which I don't remember too well because I wasn't old enough to really be taking notice, but we did.

We got a national health service and we sort of pretended that we were gonna look after one another and that we weren't gonna have any more wars. And look at us now. They're like, they're absolutely going gangbusters to make certain that war is permanent. Because that's how they make their living and they're entirely happy about it. And if they have to starve babies in Gaza, so be it. They couldn't care less. They have no interest in human rights.

This is what I always say when they say, what's the difference between like the bloke who owns the Four Seasons Hotel who won't let you stay in any of his hotels ever anywhere in the world again, and you, the difference is that I believe in human rights. It's very, very simple.

My platform is tiny. It's the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the 10th of December, 1948. I believe in it. I support it. They don't. They never have. I live in America. In America since 1776, they've been absolutely clear that they have no interest in human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, any of the things that they pretend to support. They don't. And we know it, but what can we do about it?

All we can do is go on encouraging ordinary people all over the world and there are billions of us to stand shoulder to shoulder and resist them and say no, you may want to devote your entire life to making Raytheon and [Northrop] Grumman and Palantir richer and keeping Jeff Bezos in $50 million weddings, but I don't.

I want to live in a world where my children can go to school and we can talk to one another and maybe go for a swim in the river. That's the world that I want, where we look after one another and we look after the weakest amongst us and so on and so forth. I am a socialist. Oh my God, no, wow, what could be, that's awful. You mean look after people?

….Instead of stealing from them and spending all the money on weapons so that we can kill people.

Yves Engler (June 2023) - The Toronto Star’s recent attacks against Roger Waters are shameful. The founder of Pink Floyd is a rare megastar who uses his fame and talents to challenge injustices, including pro-empire and corporate Canadian foreign policy.

In recent days Canada’s most liberal English language paper has published two columns attacking Waters headlined, “Shame on those who treat antisemite Roger Waters as rock royalty” and “Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters needs some education”. The smears by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre CEO Michael Levitt and columnist Rosie DiManno are part of a remarkable wave of attacks against the musician instigated by the fascistic, Jewish-supremacist, new Israeli government.

Unlike Levitt, DiManno and even many Canadian leftists, Waters has been an ally of those struggling for a more just Canadian foreign policy. On the eve of his show in Montreal last summer Waters rallied in support of McGill students who convinced 71 per cent of undergraduate voters to support a Palestine Solidarity Policy committing the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) to divest from and boycott “corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” In response the apartheid lobby attacked the university administration, which threatened SSMU’s financial arrangement. Under significant outside pressure, a divided SSMU invalidated their members’ democratic vote. Waters spoke alongside a young Palestinian woman representing Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill in an event that drew significant media attention to the university administration’s undemocratic and anti-Palestinian actions.

A week later B’nai Brith announced a lawsuit against Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and SSMU for asking students to vote on Palestinian rights. Amidst his touring Waters immediately penned a powerful retort to B’nai Brith’s bullying.

Waters is being smeared largely because he’s one of the highest profile critics of a country Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say is committing the crime of apartheid. But Waters has also challenged Canadian foreign policy more broadly.

In 2020 he signed the public letter that initiated a campaign opposing the Trudeau government’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. The letter criticized Canadian climate and mining policy as well as Ottawa’s role in Bolivia, Palestine and Venezuela. Waters even took time out of his busy schedule to make a video on why the international community shouldn’t support Canada. His profile and engagement boosted a campaign, which contributed to an embarrassing defeat.

Waters has supported initiatives critical of Canada’s disastrous role in Haiti. He signed the 2021 public letter “End Canada’s Support for Haiti’s Dictatorship” and a similar initiative supporting mass protests two years earlier. These letters were designed to push back against Canadian policies that have contributed to the Caribbean nation’s recent downward spiral.

Three years ago Waters spoke in a webinar with Venezuela’s Foreign Minister critical of Canadian interference in the South American nation. Popular with the media at one point, Ottawa’s effort to overthrow Venezuela’s government has been disastrous. Eighteen months ago Waters also signed a letter calling on Ottawa to stop recognizing Juan Guaidó, leave the Lima group, end its sanctions and normalize relations with Venezuela.

On Saturday Waters criticized the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’ odious effort to have the Toronto Public Library cancel a talk on “The War in Ukraine and How to Stop It”. He tweeted, “‘Hey Canada leave free speech alone’. The war in Ukraine is important, talk about it.”

Sycophants for the US empire, particularly anti-Palestinian groups, are angry Waters continues to sell out arenas and stadiums with performances steeped in struggles for social justice. Over one million will attend one of 100 performances on his current This Is Not a Drill tour. The May 25 livestream of his concert in Prague was screened at 1,500 cinemas around the world. Millions more will watch the concerts or read reviews of them.

If more rock stars and celebrities were engaged like Roger Waters the world be a fairer place.