In a new interview with Brazil’s Wikimetal, NAPALM DEATH frontman Mark “Barney” Greenway spoke about the rise of right-wing populism around the globe, including the election of Donald Trump in the United States, the Brexit vote in Britain, as well as the ascent of populist parties in countries such as Austria, Brazil, Italy, India, Indonesia and Poland.
“The thing is that the world has always been a shitty place, and it’s also been a fantastic place,” Greenway said (see video below). “You can go back periods in history — even if you take the last hundred years, you can point out time periods in every decade that were really shit for people in general, or more smaller groups of people. So this is nothing new.
“There was always a possibility it was gonna go this way, because populism and the idea of protectionism… More people want for themselves, or they’re told, they’re conditioned to believe that they should want more for themselves than that person down the street who looks different or is different in other ways,” he continued. “There was always a possibility. And it was repelled in the 1930s, and hopefully it will be repelled again — for the sake of the human race. This is actually really important stuff.
“To my mind, it should be that the human race learns from its mistakes in the past and doesn’t repeat the same things or go backwards; we should be moving forwards.”
Greenway added: “The people who espouse all these really inhumane ideas, it almost seems like they don’t care if the human race goes completely to shit, because that’s a very real possibility, if you increase that whole sort of dynamic and you go down that road.
“I want human beings to have a better future; I want human beings to live in dignity. Not just a few — everybody. That’s the only way things are gonna be sustainable into the future.”
NAPALM DEATH will release its new studio album, “Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism”, on September 18 via Century Media Records.
