“You can gather as many f***ing morons together as you want to repeat your lie but it remains a vicious lie,” says Roger Waters in a no-holds-barred monologue on an alternative news media outlet, Double Down News in response to accusations that he is anti-Semite.

Piers Morgan, Andrew Marr, The Daily Mail, Guardian and Labour Party leaders feature among an extensive list of names that the bass player and lyricist of the iconic rock band Pink Floyd has called out in this interview, dubbing them as "scum" who are actively trying to cancel him and his career with allegations of anti-Semitism.

“Ignore all the newspapers because that's all fake news, they are not printing the story in any way that is even-handed,” Waters says.

Often described as the creative spark behind iconic Pink Floyd albums such as ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’, Waters has been mired in controversy for quite sometime now over his vocal support for the cause of Palestine and a stance on the Russia-Ukraine war that is at variance from the general anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine political sentiments reigning in Europe.

Leather jacket controversy

More recently, Waters was called out by a number of European and US politicians over the use of his Nazi-era imagery in his concerts in Germany, most notably his wearing a leather jacket with a red armband, which is reminiscent of the Waffen-SS uniform.

The US State Department had earlier denounced Water’s theatrical act as anti-Semitic saying that the concert contained imagery that is “deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust.”

Waters denies the accusations vehemently. He has said that the leather jacket and the crossed hammers, which is not a Swastika, are part of an act based on one of the most political albums of Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’, which he has been doing for over 40 years since 1980. He questions the sudden shift of narrative and why people are suddenly mislabelling his act as a glorification of the Third Reich and Nazism.

The meaning of the album 'The Wall'

Waters goes on to clarify the political thought process behind ‘The Wall’ where the main character Pink, played by Bob Geldof, is imagining himself as a fascist leader and later on realizes that he has made a terrible mistake by wanting to become the powerful demagogue and rule the world.

Waters asks, “How can you transmogrify this work of theatre into me glorifying the Third Reich and Nazism?”

Waters also cites the recent order by a German court, which lifted the ban on his Frankfurt concert initially imposed by city officials under the garb of hia alleged anti-Semitism. The order states Water’s use of symbolism as being in poor taste but should be viewed as a work of art.

Germany’s guilt about the Holocaust

Waters points to Israel and Zionist groups behind the vapid attempts to label him as a Jew-hater. “The Israeli government sees me as an existential threat to their settler colonial racist apartheid regime. That is why now they've done everything that they can think of to discredit me and try and destroy my career.”

The former bandmate of Pink Floyd also thinks that he is being vilified due to his attempts to convince the German people to compel their government to not just stand by and do nothing while injustice is being meted out to Palestinians by the Israeli government.

“You are blinded by the fact that you are German and your guilt about the Holocaust is so great that you've accepted the mantra that Israel can do no wrong and anybody that says anything against Israeli policy has to be silenced and will be by the German government and the German people because we support the Israeli government in whatever they do and we couldn't care less about the Palestinian people”, Waters adds.

'An insult to my father'

Notwithstanding the aggression with which he flays his critics, Waters appears distraught as he explains how mislabelling him as a Nazi supporter or Jew-hater is not just an insult to him but also an insult, particularly to his mother and father.

The founder of Pink Floyd explains how his father was a pacifist and rather than joining the army during the Second World War, he volunteered to be an ambulance driver as being a staunch Christian, it was against his religion to kill anyone.

“It was there in London during the blitz that he became politicized and eventually joined the Communist Party. By 1941-42 he had changed his mind and he decided that the need to fight the Nazis trumped his pacifism,” Waters says.

Roger Water’s father was ultimately killed by the Germans in Anzio during a military clash. Hence, Waters says, “They're attacking my dad when they attack me.”