Bono Tells CNN: ISIS Is a ‘Death Cult. We’re a Life Cult’
U2 lead singer Bono, appearing on Sunday’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” said that the band’s return to Paris after last month’s attacks reflects defiance on the part of residents of the city against ISIS.
“They’re a death cult. We’re a life cult. Life force,” he told Zakaria, in which he was joined by The Edge. “You know, as Edge was saying, the celebrating, all the things we love, food, soccer, they’re trying to, you know, they’re trying to destroy those things. They don’t like women. What else is there?
“You know what I mean? Music, women… We’ve sensed that defiance in Paris and the word from our fans is — I think there was 300 tickets not taken up coming back — I mean something — [that’s a] really small figure.”
U2’s concert was canceled in the wake of the attacks in Paris last month, but were rescheduled for Sunday and Monday, when HBO will air “U2: Innocence and Experience: Live in Paris.”
Bono and The Edge compared the current situation to other authoritarian movements that have sought to restrict cultural freedoms.
“There’s only been a couple of political movements in the history of the world that have targeted music specifically — the Taliban banned music and during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, also, music was banned,” The Edge told Zakaria. “And we think of music as the sound of freedom. We think that rock and roll has a part to play, and so going back to Paris, to us, is not just symbolic; I think we’re actually starting the process of resistance, as it were, and defiance against this movement.”
Bono also cautioned the United States to be “very, very careful” in the response to ISIS, noting that they are “not really after the lives. They’re not trying to take lives. They’re trying to take away our way of life.”
He warned of calls to accept only Christian refugees, noting famous figures like Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs’ father, a Syrian. He said that “if they change the nature of the United States and the way people think and the pluralism and inclusiveness, then they win.”
The full interview airs Sunday at 10 a.m. ET/PT on CNN.
Clips of the interview below:
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