From the Executive Director
Repression and How to Fight It
By Teresa Eyring
Just as we were ending 2010, several troubling events transpired in the U.S. and abroad that highlighted the tenuous intersection among politics, religion, artists and free speech. In response, there were compelling displays of activism—efforts that combined the use of conventional and new social media to express and advocate for specific points of view. Blogs, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, online petitions, along with print media and in-person protests, were all at play. As a result, a new level of awareness and activism spread across the global stage.
In December, the Smithsonian Institution pulled the David Wojnarowicz video A Fire in My Belly from the exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery in the nation's capital. The controversy began when Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, came across a blog posted by Penny Starr on the conservative website CNSnews.com. Starr described the exhibit as the Smithsonian's "Christmas Season Exhibit" and repeatedly made reference to an "ant-covered Jesus" that appears in the video piece. (In fact, the 1987 video, shot partly in Mexico, is a highly imagistic lament about the death of Wojnarowicz's partner and the impact of AIDS; one image shows ants crawling on and around a crucifix.) Donohue enlisted the support of a few members of Congress to prevail upon the museum to remove the video—under the threat of losing federal support. The Smithsonian was harshly criticized for its decision. Protests sprung up across the country, including marches and showings of the video at museums and convenings. And the video went viral on YouTube, so it is likely that more people have now seen it than ever would have without the controversy. A Change.org petition posted by People for the American Way garnered more than 21,000 signatures protesting the censorship.
Meanwhile, in Hungary, a new media law was passed by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban to place major restrictions on all media, including blogs. A new Media and Communications Authority has been formed to regulate newspapers, television, radio and the Internet, and to levy severe penalties for any reportage that isn't "balanced." This law has raised concerns all over the European Union, particularly since Hungary has heretofore been a model of democracy. On Dec. 1, reports noted, one of the parties of the Parliament, Jobbik, "organized a demonstration next to the National Theatre's building with the sole purpose of replacing the director. Artists, writers, critics and theatregoers—organized by a Facebook group—also gathered in front of the National marking their sympathy for this theatre and artistic freedom and its artistic director."
Also at year's end, a high-profile attack on human rights and free speech occurred in Belarus, following the landslide reelection of Belarus's authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. Protests ensued, during which Lukashenko cracked down on opposition candidates who questioned the election process. Much of our awareness of the political situation there has come from theatres and artists, particularly the Free Theatre of Belarus, which is considered dissident, even non-existent, by that country's repressive regime.
A late December e-mail from Free Theatre co-founder Natalia Kolyada reported, in rough English: "Today there are 600 people who are in jails. Twenty-one of them could get up to 15 years. Three-year son of our friends is planned to be take from grandparents because he is son of Andrei Sannikov and Irina Khalip, one of two main oppositional candidates and his wife is the most famous journalist. Another candidate Vladimir Neklyaev is terribly beaten up as well as Sannikov. Searches in apartments are going on all over the country."
International pressure—particularly diplomatic pressure—is helpful and necessary in situations such as these. One initiative responding to the crisis in Belarus has been readings by U.S. theatres of the play Being Harold Pinter, a work of the Free Theatre that utilizes Pinter's Nobel Prize speech, excerpts from political dramas and letters from political prisoners. (Kolyada and company performed the show themselves last month at NYC's Under the Radar.) Artists have also organized the Global Artistic Campaign in Solidarity with Belarus, an effort that involves such luminaries as Tom Stoppard and Václav Havel.
We know that we are in (and in for) interesting times, and that our discourse about art, free speech and human rights will increasingly involve and activate people across the globe. The Smithsonian incident gave some arts leaders a moment of déjà vu: Are we seeing early signs of a new "culture war" similar to that experienced in the early 1990s, when the NEA was under harsh attack? Many have pointed out that we weren't prepared then in a way that we can be now—to coordinate our position and to recognize the power of bipartisan efforts in fighting these types of challenges.
With a newly seated Congress, we have the chance to begin forging fresh relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, in the House and in the Senate. We also have new organizing and communications tools brought to us by social media. And, perhaps most important, artists and arts organizations have the ability to utilize every performance and every encounter with an audience to reinforce the importance and the value of art, of the artists who make it, and of arts organizations within communities across the U.S. and around the globe.
blog comments powered by DisqusView our comments policy