After Friday’s horrifying Paris attacks, repercussions were feared among refugees with a number of US States deciding to close their borders against migrants and a resurgence of Islamophobia. To express their solidarity with the refugees, Russian activists Pussy Riot have just released a powerful and angry video called “Refugees In”, shot by Ralf Schmerberg at Bansky’s Dismaland.
The footage captures the violent clashes between the police and the crowd from the band’s performance at the artist’s UK installation last September, completed with an unnerving mix of electronic music, drumming and furious lyrics:
The eerie music video channels the anger of the activists, who violently accuse the European governments of being “fucking liars” and meeting refugees with “razors wires”, repeating on a loop: “Refugees in, Nazis out, governments here, should feel the shame, fucking liars, you’re to blame”.
According to Nadya Tolokonnikova’s interview with Noisey, the song was written in only two days in collaboration with London-based Mike Snelle and produced by bretonLABS and Ten Ven. Tolokonnikova, said the song theme was inspired by a meeting between Pussy Riot and a young refugee from Sudan and added the following inspiring words: “The time of grief for the dead should not become a time when we betray the belief of hundreds of thousands in the humaneness of the European world. Our grief should not teach us to aim for revenge, war and hate. It should teach us to help and show real compassion to each other.”
