Serj Tankian to Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds: “I Draw the Line at Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide”
An ideological conflict between two modern rock frontmen continued to simmer online as System of a Down‘s Serj Tankian fired back at recent comments made by Imagine Dragons‘ Dan Reynolds’ in a Rolling Stone interview.
Up until recently, the tiff between Tankian and Reynolds remained pretty one-sided, with the former taking issue with the fact that Imagine Dragons refused to cancel a show in Azerbaijan while that country’s regime was committing what’s been described as the “second Armenian genocide” last year. (It’s still ongoing, by the way.) At the time, Tankian asked in a letter to the band that they not “help whitewash the dictatorial regime’s image” by performing there.
Unsurprisingly, Imagine Dragons not only played the show in Azerbaijan, but they also played a show in Tel Aviv, Israel, which drew the ire of fans and activists as well. Up until yesterday, Tankian’s most recent response to all this was that he had “zero respect for those guys.”
Enter Reynolds’ Rolling Stone interview, where he responded to Tankian’s criticism by stating that not playing the show would be a “slippery slope” since “there’s corrupt leaders and warmongers all over the world, and where do you draw the line?”
In a tweet yesterday, Tankian fired back at Reynolds’ assertion that not playing Azerbaijan while the country was engaging in what’s been would be a “slippery slope.” In his statement, the Armenian-American vocalist hammered Reynolds for what he said was a “farce moral equivalency.”
“Respectfully, I draw the line at ethnic cleansing and genocide. Azerbaijan’s dictatorship with popular support was already into a 9 month starvation blockade of Nagorno-Karabagh qualified as Genocide by former [International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo] when they decided to play Baku.
“Would they play in Nazi Germany? Why don’t they want to play in Russia? Because it’s not popular? They support Ukraine but not Armenians of Artsakh? The only ‘slippery slope’ is the farce moral equivalency at the heart of this hypocritical attitude.
“I have nothing against this guy nor his band. I just hate artists being taken advantage of to whitewash genocidal dictatorships. Thanks for reading.”
I don’t know about you, but there’s something about the “thanks for reading” bit at the end that feels like the kindest “fuck you” you can hit someone in a tweet.
