40 years ago, John Lennon received his green card (on July 29th to be exact) and for the occasion U2 frontman and Yoko Ono showed up on Ellis island for a weird ceremony … Are we celebrating dead people’s citizenship day now? Apparently!
Bono made the V sign at the exact same location where Lennon paused for this iconic picture in front of the Statue of Liberty, but that was only the beginning of Bono’s appropriation of Lennon….then he started a little speech of course:
‘That’s why it is fitting to do this here, because John Lennon was an immigrant,’ said Bono, in front of a small audience including The Edge and Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International.
‘He didn’t sail across the Atlantic in an ocean liner or a yellow submarine. He didn’t come in on a third-class ticket looking for a job in Hell’s Kitchen. He didn’t climb up out of steerage with all his potatoes in a single suitcase. But John Lennon was an immigrant all the same.’
And if you though this discourse was already kind of ridiculous, Bono didn’t stay there. He continued by describing Lennon as ‘one more Irish immigrant on an island full of Irish immigrants’, making allusion to the fact that the first immigrant was indeed Irish, and added: ‘Let’s claim him, in fact let’s claim all the Beatles not as immigrants but as Irish.’
Did Bono have a few drinks before going to this event? Okay if you look very hard, Lennon had a father of Irish descent but why does this even matter? Why all the Beatles should be Irish? Why does he have to make the connection with the first Irish Immigrant? Why is Bono bringing up this Irish thing to celebrate Lennon’s green card? Why this sudden Irish pride? Why is that even relevant for this celebration? okay I will stop there, may be it’s because Bono is Irish? Lennon was all for abolition of frontiers and countries by the way… Hello Bono do you remember about ‘Imagine’?
Then, you know what I am gonna say, Bono should pay his taxes if he is so proud to be Irish!