Shakira is the latest musician to add her support to the anti war movement. At the end of her current live show a short film is projected on giant screens depicting puppet caricatures of President Bush and Saddam Hussein playing chess. Mixed in with violent war footage the camera pans out on the puppets to show them being controlled by the Grim Reaper. The footage has actually appeared in Shakira’s show since November, but as war looks more and more likely it is getting more attention.
The singer explained: “I think that we see war as a virtual thing and we even get to believe that bombs fall on top of cardboard cutouts and stuff like that. They don't. They kill real people, real children, real mothers and millions of innocent people. I come from Columbia, which is a country that has been under the whip of violence for more than four decades, so I've seen the consequences of war and I've seen the psychological damage that it does in a society. And I think that we're never ready for war. I just feel that there are always pacifist solutions, and I think that the leaders know the exit to the conflict, it's just that sometimes they don't want to use them. They just want to continue playing their little game of power. And I feel that us people have the responsibility and also the obligation to demand to our leaders to give us the pacifist solutions. To give us a world in peace."