Glastonbury 2025 wasn’t just music - it was a loud call for hate, as radicalism and Islamist rhetoric took the stage.
Stefan Tompson
Aug 6, 2025 - 7:48 AM
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What happened at Glastonbury 2025 was more than a music performance, it was a spectacle of radicalization. Bob Vylan, a self-proclaimed "violent punk," led a crowd of 200,000 in a chilling chant: “Death to the IDF.” The crowd followed with the energy of a war cry, turning rebellion into incitement.
This was no protest, it was a performance steeped in hatred, wrapped in the aesthetics of solidarity. Amidst this, a banner read: “I don’t see any borders. Do you?” - ironically displayed inside a festival secured by a multimillion-pound anti-tunnelling fence.
Last year, it was Banksy’s boat of fake migrants, mocking British border concerns — applauded by a crowd who’d each paid hundreds to enter a heavily policed event. The spectacle of demanding borderlessness from behind razor wire laid bare a hypocrisy so stark it barely needed pointing out.
The Radical Left and Islamism
It might seem strange that a British punk would echo Islamist rhetoric, but this alliance between the radical left and Islamism has historical precedent. In 1979 Iran, Marxist students helped the Ayatollah rise to power—only to be betrayed, imprisoned, and executed once their usefulness ended.
The West risks repeating this mistake, importing Middle Eastern theocratic ideologies under the guise of social justice. Vylan’s words justified aggression against Israel and, by extension, the Jewish people. This fusion of violence as a necessary tool lies at the heart of both jihadist and revolutionary Marxist thought. Vylan overlooked that those who truly understand violence are the Islamists he defends - the perpetrators of terror attacks in Berlin, Nice, Paris, and London.
That same contempt for Western society was on display when Vylan turned his fire inward, mocking the very country that raised him: “You want your country back? Shut the f up.”* The predominantly white, middle-class crowd cheered, unaware they were applauding their own erasure. His lyrics were clear: “You want your country back? Haha, you can’t have that.” This was mockery and a cruel dismissal of legitimate concerns about cultural change, disguised as activism feeding on guilt and shame.
The West’s Crossroads
Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set is a symptom of a growing ideology merging radical progressivism with Islamist rhetoric - one that despises borders, tradition, and Western values. Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed warned in 2017 that more radicals would soon emerge from Europe than the Muslim world. He was right. As the West imports Islamism and gives a platform to voices that glorify hate, it invites its own collapse.
If hatred and chants like “Death to the IDF” and “You want your country back? Shut the f* up.” continue to be legitimized, there may be no turning back. Such rhetoric not only fuels violence abroad but also accelerates the cultural erasure at home, taking away the country people once called their own.
The West must remember what made it great: truth, beauty, freedom, and courage. These timeless foundations are worth defending. Bob Vylan has made his views clear. It is time for us to listen, and reject them.
