Serj Tankian has been a vocal contributor to the discourse surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and political crisis these past few weeks.
The System of a Down frontman recently featured on Vahe Berberian Live, an appearance that saw him reflect on the political climate amid the coronavirus pandemic and the failing leadership of America.
During the interview, Tankian highlighted that the countries with the weakest leadership were that copped the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. He also praised German political Angela Merkel and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for their swift and effective response to the health crisis.
“There’s not a lot of reasonable leaders left,” Tankian shared. “I was thinking of [Germany’s] Angela Merkel being one of the few. Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, and [Armenia’s prime minster] Nikol Pashinyan, he’s reasonable.”
Tankian continued, “There’s a lot of leaders that are unreasonable. And it’s kind of interesting because — I hate to put it this way, but if you look at the top 10 countries with the highest coronavirus infections, it’s a lot of countries with unreasonable leadership, or inadequate leadership.
“And it’s a scary thing to see, how one is affecting the other and how it could affect so many people’s lives, innocent lives taken. It’s really a horrible human tragedy in that sense. And there are people to blame, obviously. But that’s not the important thing.
“I think there’s a lot of polarization happening in the United States politically. I think it’s gone really crazy, [and] it’s dangerous.”
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Tankian mused that the lockdown period has given civilians the opportunity to reflect on the failing, oppressive leadership they endure under.
“We’ve come to a time to where, coming out of this lockdown and looking at this lockdown and what it’s taught us, what we’ve seen through it, we’ve come to a place where we can no longer withstand stupid leadership, we can no longer withstand brutal, oppressive leadership anywhere in the world,” he explained.
“We don’t have time for that. Our civilization, based on unsustainable constant economic growth, will not last the way that it is, with our exploding, accelerated population rate. So we have to rein in our consumption. We don’t have time for fucking brutal leaders.”
There’s just not enough time to deal with them and the climate issue. So they’ve gotta go — they’ve all gotta go.”
Honestly, as we’re already in the business of making unqualified celebrities government officials, I vote we put Serj Tankian in power. The man has more brainpower and empathy than the republican and democratic parties combined.
Check out Serj Tankian with Vahe Berberian:
