From the archives: The power of offence

(This is an old piece, written and published in August 2007. Posting it chiefly for my personal records.)


When an author, artist or a film-maker is attacked, the assumption most people make is that the assailants hate the person in question. This is not true.



Most assailants, whether they are bigots, religious fundamentalists, old-world conservatives or merely unemployed, have good reason to love the objects of their wrath. Without an M F Husain to offend their sensibilities, entire cadres of a certain political party would be out of business. Without a Taslima Nasreen, obscure Muslim clerics and little-known political organizations would never get their 15 minutes of fame.



The assault on Taslima Nasreen happened at a book launch in Hyderabad on 8 August, when three MLAs from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) disrupted the event by shouting threats and attempting to physically attack the author. This has been followed by a general baying for Nasreen's blood by Muslim clerics in Calcutta, the revival of a fatwa against her, and the offer of sums ranging from Rs 50,000 (for anyone who can blacken Nasreen's face) to Rs 1,00,000 and "unlimited", but unspecified, rewards for anyone who kills her.



Nasreen, who has been unsuccessfully seeking asylum in India ever since her writings provoked the wrath of religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh, has remained calm. Her tourist visa has just been reissued, allowing her to stay in this country for another six months, and she has announced that she is contemplating a sequel to Lajja, the book that turned her into a permanent exile.



Think of similar incidents of this nature--an assault on a filmmaker (the attack on Deepa Mehta, the recent disruption of a screening of Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace) or the banning of a book (Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses) and look at the manner in which we react in India.



The first reaction is a furious debate over the work itself. After sixty years of Independence, we are not yet comfortable, in our democracy, with the idea that freedom of speech is an absolute freedom, and that artistic freedom is essential. So our reactions, even "liberal" reactions, are nervous, often tentative. There's nothing wrong with Deepa Mehta's film on Hindu widows, but what if it provokes violence, how can we be responsible for that? Of course Salman Rushdie has the right to think freely as a novelist, but his work has after all offended religious sentiments, shouldn't he have been more responsible? Taslima Nasreen is free to suggest that religions oppress women and that the holy book of the faith she was born into is obsolete, but shouldn't she have expected strong reactions?



"Responsibility" is seen as an authorial function: few people see that those who may be offended have an equal responsibility, which is to set out their arguments in a way that at the very least, does not include physical violence.



All of this sends out a very strong message to writers and other creative artists: you are free to write whatever you want, provided you are willing to bear the consequences alone and unprotected by the might of the state.



The way we really feel about writers—our own and those who have come to a free, democratic country in search of shelter—can be seen in what we do not do. The people who make death threats are often powerful. They may be religious or political leaders who wield considerable force and influence. But they are also citizens of this country, and in theory at least, subject to the laws of this land. If you make a death threat in a public forum, you should be arrested. If you attack another citizen who has done you no physical harm, you should be arrested. If you threaten to hold an entire country to ransom by declaring that you will unleash violent mobs if a particular painting is not destroyed, if a particular book is not banned, if a particular author is not silenced, you and your mobs should be arrested as a danger to common citizens.



How often, in these sixty years of this independence that we pride ourselves on, have we seen the real culprits punished? How often, instead, have we effectively licensed and condoned the right of those whose "sentiments have been offended" to extract retribution?



The weakest argument, not from a moral but from a logical standpoint, is that of the religious fundamentalists—of any religion. If you believe as a matter of faith that a certain book is blasphemous, and therefore dangerous for the faithful to read, then you have a simple solution. Tell the faithful that they must not read it. If they are truly faithful, they will obey, and be saved from the perdition you fear for them. If they are not of the faith, or have lapsed in their faith, then to read a blasphemous book will only damn them a little bit further. That is really, as a mindful officer of the faith, none of your business—your only concern is to ensure the obedience of the faithful.



Leave the rest of us, writers and readers, alone.

The BS column: The high cost of neutrality

(Published in the Business Standard, May 18, 2010; image from Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza)










Highway 443 connects Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and remains one of the most visible symbols of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is, in effect and even after recent rulings, a segregated highway, inaccessible to Palestinians without work permits and accessible in highly limited ways to Palestinians who possess work permits. For those who’ve driven down Highway 443, there is an understanding that you are on one side of the road or the other—there is no middle ground.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has no room for middle ground, either, and in recent years, more and more observers, including UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, have begun calling Israel an apartheid state. This is, roughly, the background to the running controversy over the Dan David Prize, administered by an Israeli philanthropic foundation and awarded to Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh last week. It’s also significant that Israel denied Noam Chomsky a visa two days ago—the writer and intellectual was scheduled to speak at a Palestinian university, and said that in his opinion, Israel was becoming a “Stalinist” regime.

As a loose coalition of intellectuals, academics and activists banded together to ask—and sometimes, rudely demand—that Atwood and Ghosh refuse the prize, the arguments on both sides were impassioned. In different ways, Atwood and Ghosh are politically astute writers: Atwood’s work has taken on gender inequities and the complex machinations of climate change, Ghosh’s writings have explored fractures in history, the legacies of colonialism, and the hidden forms of oppression. Neither of them is unaware of the situation in the world’s most bitter blood feud. (The debate is too complex to be summarized: I have some links up on my blog, http://akhondofswat.blogspot.com.)

The question of whether these two writers, both respected and admired, were within their rights to accept the Dan David Prize is easily answered: yes. Prize boycotts by writers have ranged from the lofty—Sartre turned down the Nobel on the grounds that writers should belong to no institutions whatsoever—to the political, as with Ghosh’s withdrawal of The Glass Palace from contention for the Commonwealth Prize, because of his personal disagreement with the term “commonwealth literature”.

Atwood and Ghosh have both made the argument that they personally don’t believe in cultural boycotts. “Writers have no armies,” they said in a shared speech of acceptance, explaining why they refuse to join the campaign of cultural isolation against Israel. They believe that it is perhaps even more important now to come to Israel, and to keep space open for literary discourse. This is in keeping with PEN International’s refusal to endorse cultural boycotts—and Atwood is a leading, and active, member of PEN.

But there is a larger question here, and that question is hard to duck. The Dan David Prize is not a specifically literary prize—it rewards achievement across many fields, and carries a $1 million purse (shared in their field between both writers). Previous recipients have included Zubin Mehta, Al Gore and Peter Brooke, but in its decade-long history, the prize has rewarded achievement rather than creating it. It doesn’t add to the literary haloes around Atwood and Ghosh; they would not have suffered by turning it down.

Many observers, not all of them hysterical or inflamed by unthinking zeal, believe that Israel has reached a critical point in its history. If its current policies are not technically apartheid, they come so close it’s hard to tell the difference.

You may or may not endorse this view of Israel, but it seems clear that the last ten years have changed the shape of the conflict radically. It’s at the turning point of history that writers, specifically, are called upon to make a choice, to take a stand. Atwood and Ghosh had an opportunity here to look more deeply at the Israel-Palestine question. By not giving in to what Ghosh called the “campaign of admonition”, they have upheld a principle that is dear to both writers—the idea that it’s unfair to penalize ordinary citizens, or even large foundations, for the crimes their state may commit in their names.

There was another principle involved, though, and this was the basic principle of taking a stand against a regime that, according to unbiased observers, is effectively practicing apartheid. It’s ridiculous to argue that by accepting the Dan David Prize, Atwood and Ghosh have endorsed all of the policies of the Israeli state. But they have missed the chance to stand up and be counted; and I think while they have the moral right to opt out, history might make both writers wish that they had acted differently on this occasion.

Joe Sacco, chronicler of the conflict in graphic novels from Palestine (2001) to Footnotes in Gaza (2010) would say there’s time to change your mind and take positions, as long as the violence continues. As every apparently neutral observer knows and as Sacco writes, “Peace won’t pay the rent.”

Atwood, Ghosh, and "empty gestures"

Just a quick round-up of the controversy over the Dan David Prize--chiefly as an aide-memoire for myself. Funded by an Israeli philanthropist, the Dan David Prize was offered to Amitav Ghosh and Margaret Atwood this year for their literary achievements. Both were urged to refuse the Prize, as a way of showing solidarity with the Palestinian cause, and as a gesture of protest against Israel's current policies.

Atwood was the first to respond:

"The Dan David Prize is a cultural item. It is not, as has been erroneously stated, an “Israeli” prize from the State of Israel, nor is it a prize “from Tel Aviv University,” but one founded and funded by an individual and his foundation, just as the Griffin Prizes in Canada are. To boycott an individual simply because of the country he or she lives in would set a very dangerous precedent."

Antoine Raffoul and others condemned her decision, and asked her to reconsider.

Amitav responded to similar appeals:

"I do not see how it is possible to make the case that Israel is so different, so exceptional, that it requires the severing of connections with even the more liberal, more critically-minded members of that society. Is it really possible to argue that there is in that country such a unique and excessive malevolence that it contaminates every aspect of civil society, including private foundations and universities?... A boycott of Israel would not serve any tactical purpose."

A group of Indian intellectuals wrote an open letter to Amitav Ghosh--addressed to him, but apparently not sent directly to the author, in his account--which is available over here, asking him to reconsider his acceptance of the prize.

Amitav's latest response has been posted on Atwood's blog. He and Atwood have both accepted the Dan David Prize, and having gone through the arguments on both sides, I think they had excellent reasons not to give into the demands for a boycott.

Update:
Having said that, I've been thinking about the issues involved and would like to share this set of links, sent by Dilip Simeon:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-schweber/israel-in-gaza-three-wron_b_156801.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/gaza-doctor-who-lost-daug_n_159760.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/israel-gaza-war-crimes-guardian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html

http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Israel_Separation_Barrier.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/self-deception-and-the-as_b_158486.html

http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Escape_from_Entrapment.html

http://www.mylinkspage.com/israel.html

And in related news, Israel denied entry to Chomsky yesterday:

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-denied-entry-to-west-bank-chomsky-likens-israel-to-stalinist-regime-1.290736