BOB GELDOLF HAS spoken about his decision last year to hand back his Freedom of Dublin City, calling Myanmar’s leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi a “pig”.
In an interview with RTÉ’s Ryan Tubridy, which will be aired on the Late Late Show tonight, Geldof said he had not wanted to hand back the award, but felt he had to because he did not want to be associated with Suu Kyi, who had also been given the Freedom of Dublin City.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to, it’s a lovely thing… It’s on my wall [and] not many things that I have are on my wall. It was on my wall. I took it off and undid the frame and rolled it up and thought ‘Jaysus we’ll do it anyway’. I gave it back to the person who gave it to me, who was the Lord Mayor at that time,” he said.
“I just said it is a gesture, I know it is embarrassing and it is small but I don’t want to be part of this. Everyone resorts to the Nazis, but if Hitler was on our roll of honour he’d have been long gone, there is no question of it.”
Geldolf told the audience that Ireland had originally welcomed Suu Kyi, but it turned out she was an “accomplice to rape” and a “handmaiden to ethnic cleansing”. She has been widely criticised for her failure to take action on the violence against the Rohinya people.
Burning people alive, raping women as they held their babies, and [then] in front of the women when they finished raping them they burned the babies alive. That’s a fact and it is on film. I don’t want to be associated with this pig once.
He said he handed back the award in protest to draw attention to the issue in the hope that councillors would do something about it.
“Fair play, they shouted at me – grandstanding and that, and I know it is, and I don’t mean it to be, I really don’t but I don’t know what I can do personally to register my disgust. Not at Dublin, not at the roll of honour, I understood what a great honour it is but I just don’t want to be associated with those people in any way and so they did, they took her name off,” he said.
In December, councillors voted to strip Suu Kyi of the award. However, they have not given it back to Geldof.
He told Tubridy that he would like to have the honour back, but it is not in his hands.
The interview airs on the Late Late Show on RTÉ One at 9.35pm.
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