Pussy Riot has returned with a new song and accompanying video, "Refugees In," which addresses the current European refugee crisis. The Russian punk activist art collective has dedicated the politically-charged song to displaced refugees arriving in Europe from Syria, Afganistan, Sudan and other war-torn countries in the region, Rolling Stone reports. The video was filmed inside Banksy's Dismaland, the artist's dystopian "Bemusement Park" that was set up on the oceanfront in the UK for about a month earlier this fall.
The new video was created with help from director Ralf Schmerberg as well as music producers BretonLABS and Ten Ven. Musically, it is an eerie electronica track with a fierce, mosh pit-inspiring thrash crossover beat. Backed by the occasional sampling of a large chanting crowd presumably marching in solidarity, the punkers sing-speak most of the song in the creepy fashion of an old nursery rhyme.
The lyrics leave no room for misinterpretation: "Cage me in cage me out/ Refugees in, Nazis out/ Governments here should feel the shame/ F*cking liars, you're to blame/ You're to blame." To further elucidate the band's stance on the issue of refugees and migration, Billboard points to a recent op-ed Pussy Riot member Nadia Tolokonnikova penned for The Guardian in which she states "we face a new challenge, a new injustice to fight: the refugee crisis, which has become the defining issue of our generation."
The video comes with a statement from the group that explains why the European refugee crisis is "not a question of politics or nationality, but of saving human lives." In the statement the collective explains the refugee crisis in layman's terms, reminding fans that "750,000 refugees have arrived in Europe so far in 2015. Many more are coming. They are mostly escaping from war or persecution in Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Sudan. Thousands are dying on the way. In the UK refugees cannot apply for asylum from outside the country - so they are forced to travel there illegally." They point out that the problem isn't the global population but instead the regulations and policies of different governments. They pose the ever-relevant question "Why can't we live in a truly global world, not one with one with locked borders, razor wires and refugee camps?"
Watch the "Refugees In" video below:
