Where Does It Stop?

The scene of the protest.

Here in peaceable Canada (hockey riots excepted), word has reached my ears about protesters at the Proms concerts, in Royal Albert Hall, over in London. It seems that last night they disrupted a performance by the Israel Philharmonic because they’re opposed to the Israeli government’s policies. They didn’t succeed in preventing the performance, but they did manage to halt the BBC’s live broadcast of it. (You can read an account of the incident here.)

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What a fine development in public discourse! And the beauty of it is that it can be applied broadly to so many of the world’s problems! In my enthusiasm, I’ve assembled a partial list (in alphabetical order) of countries that someone, somewhere, might want to protest against in this excellent way.

• Australia (Aboriginal issues)
• China (human rights)
• India (poverty)
• Israel (conflict with Palestinians)
• Japan (whaling)
• just about any African country (government corruption)
• just about any Latin American country (more government corruption)
• just about any Muslim country (women’s rights)
• NATO countries (intervention in Libya)
• Russia (Chechnya)
• UK (Northern Ireland)
• USA (the War on Terror)

If it ever became commonplace to ruin performances by touring artists with demonstrations against their governments, then we could pretty much say goodbye to most international cultural exchanges – until such time as humanity is perfected and the planet is purged of all injustice. Many concert presenters are skittish where politics is concerned. It doesn’t take much to make them say, “We’d better not book anyone from that country – there might be some trouble.” Unfortunately, this makes the arts a soft and easy target.

I write these words not to trivialize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or human rights, or wars, etc.), but because concert disruption is a slippery slope – and at the bottom of the hill lies nothing good or productive. I believe we stand a better chance of healing what’s wrong with the world by strengthening cultural ties, not severing them.

Those who feel the need to boycott this or that ensemble are of course free to do so. And those who feel the need to demonstrate can make themselves heard outside the hall. But there’s a crucial line to be drawn between protesting a cultural event, and trying to physically prevent it from happening.

© Colin Eatock 2011