F = Federico, J= Johnny, both members.
http://www.angelfire.com/il/deiryassin/peinter.htm
Q: Why did you choose the name Dir Yassin? Maybe you can explain the meaning behind it.
F: The idea was to bring up the subject of Zionist history and to raise the question of the legitimacy of Zionism itself and also the indoctrination which is being perpetuated in this country. Deir Yassin was the place of a massacre in 1948 in which around 150 Palestinians were killed by right wing Zionist troops during the so-called War of Independence. This was a really traumatic event in our eyes, but here it’s regarded as an isolated event, an unfortunate mistake by an extreme group which doesn’t represent Zionist ideas.
J: In a sense, it doesn’t even exist officially because nobody takes responsibility for it.
F: You have to keep in mind that people who later became central in Israeli politics were involved or knew about this. Just by using this name, we wanted to bring the subject into the public realm, to say that things aren’t the way they taught us. Just for a kid to ask us about the meaning of the name is already raising the issue again. I see the importance in that. Picking the name was not just for the purpose of shocking or provocation, it was meant to raise interest in this event.
J: I think the provocation aspect also shouldn’t be underestimated. We didn’t want to be a typical punk band with an obnoxious name like some bands in Israel called Breast Cancer or Obnoxious Rectum [actually, their name is ‘The shocking Rectum’ - ed]. That’s just being stupid and cliched. We want to have some sort of positive provocation to inspire interest.
F: There are things going on beneath the surface of this country. The way the Arabs were treated in this country, the Palestinians in the territories are being treated even now, is an issue the people here have to deal with. So this is our small effort to bring it up. Maybe some people who are into the music and don’t know much about politics can find a good starting point just by knowing the Deir Yassin happened.
J: Especially here in Israel, although there’s so much politics in everyday life, even in the punk scene there’s often a real disinterest in politics or things going on around you, so we try to force people to have an awareness of what’s going on. You can’t escape it and it won’t do much good if you pretend that it doesn’t exist. Most punk bands sing about things like getting drunk which is fair enough, you have that in every country but I think here the situation is so politicized, it’s shocking that punk here is so unpolitical. In theory it should be a real fertile ground for punk bands but most bands don’t want to dwell too much on the political events taking place here. All of our songs are very politically conscious, dealing with where we stand. We want to force those punks that don’t care about politics to at least deal with reality.
[...]
Q: You’ve been talking about propagating not going into the army, maybe you can explain how you managed to stay out of it even though it’s mandatory.
J: Being a male in Israeli society, the only way not to join the army is basically mental reasons. You don’t have a conscientious objector status here, you can’t do civil service or something like that. You have to pretend to be crazy or otherwise go to prison. F: Well, I don’t think those are the only options. The way I see it is that they already have too many people in the army. A lot of people who join have to work in the bureaucracy. Only a part of the people do armed service, a lot of people are just part of the military mechanism. they don’t want people in there that will cause trouble. you need to find a way for them to have a reason to let you go, they need to stick to some sort of army procedure where they see that you will not fit into the army. It doesn’t have to be mental reasons, or even ideological. Sometimes it might not work. But I think most of the time, if you’re going to be honest that you have anarchist or anti-militaristic beliefs and if you really know what you’re talking about, I don’t think they will draft you.
Q: You were already saying how Israeli society is dominated by Zionist and religious ideas. How do you think punk fits into this society? Did looking like a punk have a serious shock value?
J: In the beginning it was. But now, with all this techno trance culture you have a lot of people pierced, having dyed hair, etc. It’s all become meaningless.
F: I think society can eventually absorb every different dress style but it’s much harder to absorb ideas. You can commodify all the superficial aspects of the culture, but they can never commodify the ideas.
J: Well, I guess they can. People buy punk records because they think they are getting the ideas for the price of an LP. Just because you know Crass lyrics by heart doesn’t mean that you understood them! There used to be all these people back in the day, they could sing “Bloody Revolutions” by Crass by heart and they were singing it with their uniforms on and their guns around their shoulders. It’s really weird, maybe they didn’t know English.
Q: I’m sure Crass would be proud to know of such devoted fans! HaHa!
F: Coming back to what I was saying, of course even Crass can be commodified to a certain extent. in this society, even social uprisings can be commodified into social democratic garbage. You can have Che Guevara on T-shirts but it doesn’t mean anything anymore. But in Israel, they can’t deal with different ideologies because of the authoritarian manner of society.
J: Anything that is not in tune with the militaristic culture is basically considered anti-Zionist. So, I think punk has more relevance here than almost anywhere else in the world. I think there’s more work to do for the punk scene than almost anywhere else. It’s funny for Swedish bands to be singing about war and religion. We actually live this nightmare, it’s not just a cliche'. I guess it’s relevant everywhere in the world because there’s injustice everywhere but for most punks it’s a really abstract thing. Anywhere else you can make a zine against the army and it probably won’t have much effect. Here you’ll have mainstream politicians talking about wanting to lynch us, that we should be interrogated by the police, that we should be put on trial, that we should be put away because we’re a menace to society. In a sense it’s crazy that we can be so few but have such a big effect in delivering our message.
[...]
Rest at: http://www.angelfire.com/il/deiryassin/peinter.htm