The age of internet and globalisation means that music and musical inspiration has ceased to respect national borders. But, as the Roskilde Festival can testify, this doesn't apply to the people behind the music. When booking a non-Western artist, fitting a gig into a tour plan and agreeing on economic terms is of no avail, if no visa is attained.

Peter Hvalkof, long-time booker of acts from around the world, tells that last year, Congolese band Kasai Allstars were to perform, when their European tour was cancelled, as they weren't allowed entry. This year Telmary from Cuba was prevented from leaving Canada, as she has applied for asylum and thus had to await the results of the formal proceedings.

For some of those actually getting the required documents, the process might have been so costly, that it barely leaves them anything for a living, lest for developing their music. An example of that was a band from southern Morocco, playing at the 2003-festival, that had to travel twice to the Danish representation in Rabat in the North to get their papers.

Record companies, festivals and other players from all over Europe, working with non-Western artists, met last October to discuss these problems. In order to take the discussion to the political and administrative level, cases are at the moment collected by Freemuse - the World Forum on Music and Censorship, an independent international organisation which advocates freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide. But as the rigid visa regime is a corner stone in controlling immigration to Europe and the US, Peter Hvalkof sums up: “If the solution could be a 'green card' for artists will show. The only thing certain is that it will take a long time before an applicable solution has been found.”

Source: Orange Press, 4 July 2008