Innovative Minds © 2014. All Rights Reserved. www.inminds.co.uk
|
[Boycott - Cultural] Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Tariq Ali, Counterpunch 5 February 2008 When I agreed to participate in the Turin Book Fair, which I have done before, I had no idea that the 'guest of honour' was Israel and its 60th birthday. But this is also the 60th anniversary of what the Palestinian call the 'nakba' the disaster that befell them that year, when they were expelled from their villages, some killed, women raped by the settlers. These facts are no longer disputed. So why did the Turin Book Fair not invite Palestinians in equal numbers? 30 Israeli writers and 30 Palestinian writers (and I promise you they exist and are very fine poets and novelists) might have been seen as a positive and peaceful gesture and a positive debate might have taken place. A literary version of Daniel Barenboim's Diwan Orchestra, half-Israeli, half-Palestinian. Such a move would have brought people together, but no. The cultural commissars know best. I have argued vigorously with some of the Israeli writers visiting the fair on other occasions and would have happily done the same again if conditions had been different. What they decided to do is an ugly provocation.
It would appear that culture is increasingly bound to the political priorities of the US/EU nexus. The West is blind to Palestinian suffering. The Israeli war on Lebanon, the daily reports from the Gaza ghetto do not move official Europe. In France, we know, it is virtually impossible to criticise Israel. In Germany, too, for special reasons. It would be sad if Italy went the same way. How many times do we have to stress that criticism of Israel's colonial policies is not anti-semitic. To accept this is to become willing victims of the blackmail the Israeli establishment uses to silence its critics. There are some courageous Israeli critics like Aharon Shabtai, Amira Hass, Yitzhak Laor and others who will not permit their voices to be muffled in this fashion. Shabtai refused to attend this fair. How could I do otherwise.
It is one thing to support Israel's right to exist, which I do and always have done. But from that to extrapolate that this right to exists means that Israel is given a blank cheque to do what it wishes to those it expelled and whom it treats like untermensch is unacceptable. Personally I favour a single Israel/Palestine in which all citizens are equal. I am told this is utopian. It may be but it is the only long-term solution. Because of the subject matter of my novels I am often asked (most recently in Madison, Wisconsin) whether it might be possible to recreate the best times of al-Andalus and Sicily when three cultures co-existed for a long time. My reply is the same: the only place today where it could be recreated is Israel/Palestine.
We live in a world of double standards, but it is not necessary to accept them. It is sometimes the case that individuals and groups to whom evil is done, inflict evil in return. But the first does not justify the second. It was European anti-semitism that tolerated the judeocide of the second world war of which the Palestinians have now become the indirect victims. Many Israelis are aware of this fact but would rather not think about it. Many Europeans regard Palestinians and Muslims today as they once regarded the Jews. That is the irony visible in press comments and television coverage in virtually every European country. It's a pity that the Turin Book Fair bureaucracy decided to pander to the new prejudices sweeping the continent. Let us hope their example is not followed elsewhere.
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq02052008.html
Also Of Interest
Page URL: http://inminds.com/article.php?id=10239
|
|
Support Us
If you agree with our work then please support us.
INMINDS Facebook Live Feed
Featured Video's
You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video.
Featured MP3 Podcast "1763 in the Ohio river valley you got Lord Jeffrey Amherst committing to written order an instruction to his subordinate Henry Bouquet, having been defeated by Pontiac Ottawa confederacy in the field. The order essentially says that they have been defeated militarily and is therefore necessary for Amherst forces to request a peace, to sue for peace from Pontiacs people. He instructs Bouquet to convene a parlay with the Indian leadership for that purpose. And as is the custom, as is common courtesy among native populations as was known to the Brits at that time, it would be necessary for those who requested the council to give gifts to those requested to attend. Make those gifts, Amherst says, items taken from a smallpox infirmary in order, I'm going to quote directly now, this isn't a paraphrase: 'in order that we may extirpate this execrable race'. Now key is on this last word, had he said that we might eradicate the opposing combatants, their military capacity, their warriors.. what ever term he wanted to use, it would have been biological warefare. But he didn't say anything about that, he said the 'race'. His intent was to use biological means, to use disease, quite explicitly so, to eradicate an entire population group. And Bouquet was also kind enough to commit to writing in his response the next day, I have done as instructed, dispersing three blankets, two handkerchiefs and sundry other items, hopefully, he says, they will have the desired result. They did.. the lowest estimate of the number of people who died of smallpox as a result of that little gesture of friendship and goodwill is a 100,000!" American Indian scholar, activist in the struggle for liberation of Indigenous Peoples in America On the publication of the book 'A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present', 1997 [29min / 10Mb] [need flash]
Boycott Israel Campaign
|
|