I UNDERSTAND why people think of artistic organisations as symbols, particularly ones considered part of "Brand Israel", but I'm against cultural boycotts, mostly because I don't feel they achieve anything, but also because I don't think a country's artists, writers, musicians or dancers should be held responsible for the actions of their government.
I disagree with the concept of Brand Israel, especially in a week when the UN reports that by 2020 Gaza will be unliveable but then, I am also deeply uncomfortable with Brand Britain, something we, the Scottish public, have been encouraged to support unquestioningly in recent weeks at the time of our Olympics. (The Chinese public were expected to do something similar in 2008, despite their country's human rights record.)
This has been considered an advert for a state that, others may remind us, was responsible for the British Empire and recently invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. So I find it amazing anyone in our country feels like we have the moral high ground here.
I prefer positive, pacifist activism, and encourage people on all sides of the Middle East divide to find ways to work together, and not judge each other by the country in which they happen to be born. Should we also be boycotting the fine Israeli writers Etgar Keret (I shared a stage with him in Edinburgh this year) or David Grossman, whose son died in the Lebanon war of 2006 but who speaks out regularly against the Israeli government's actions?
Boycotting Israeli figs and dancers will change nothing. Outspoken engagement with issues relating directly to the horrors currently normalised in Israel-Palestine has a better chance.
In James Kelman's recent interview in the Scottish Review of Books, he draws attention to the work of the British Council, which is directly answerable to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and which openly says it is there to advertise British culture and the English language all over the world. He cites this as a reason he's uncomfortable with much of the work they do.
I am also uneasy about art which is dependent on the support of governments, but less so as long as the actual art is not curtailed or influenced in the name of the aims of that government. Essentially what we are dealing with here is nations advertising themselves, accentuating the positive, hiding away the negative – which is what all nations do. If we are to punish the Israeli government for doing that then we should also be doing the same for Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, the United States and about 150 other countries. But then who would be left to perform at the gloriously international Edinburgh Festival, that fantastic advert for Scotland?
Novelist and academic Rodge Glass organised and hosted a fundraiser in Glasgow for the Alliance for Middle East Peace last Wednesday, featuring writers and musicians including Alasdair Gray, Alan Bissett, Ewan Morrison, Emma Pollock of the Delgados and Rick Redbeard of The Phantom Band.
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