Fancy a bit of culture this week? Shakespeare perhaps? Or an art exhibition? Or maybe your thing is a talk, ideas, argument, debate; something a bit controversial? Then I suggest you conduct a thorough health and safety inquiry, wrap yourself in a fire blanket and have at least two buckets of water beside your chair… this stuff is “incendiary”! The police have been informed.
Warwick Students’ Union banned a speaker over the weekend for being “highly inflammatory”. Maryam Namazie, a women’s rights activist was due to speak at the Warwick Atheist, Secular and Humanist Society. This may have “disappointed, confused, and hurt” an unspecified number of students who were not in the atheist, secular, humanist club and could have had “Other” opinions on the rights of women. The ban was lifted after a thorough health and safety audit was undergone. The humanists agreed to wear hard hats, secularists promised to slow down to an appropriate speed, all the atheists swore they’d not throw stones, and the nice lady speaker guaranteed to tidy up afterwards. I’d still avoid events like this. An idea might spark without prior approval of the appropriate authorities. And there’s always a risk of spontaneous human combustion.
Sadly, in the visual arts, the situation is not so easily resolved. An exhibition curated by Passion For Freedom, who describe what they do here
had to pull a piece of art that, according to the Metropolitan Police’s Chief Inspector of Artistic Expression, had “potentially inflammatory content”. Here’s the piece. I hesitate to show such vile, reactionary, hateful garbage, but consider that a Trigger Warning…
You can see the police’s problem, can’t you? Imagine the constabulary man hours they’d have to waste (an estimated £36,000 worth) defending the “right” of an artist to show such a stinking, putrid pile of offensive, and frankly lazy, nonsense. The “artist” didn’t even make those figures herself, she bought them in Toys R Us. What are they teaching at art school these days?
Anyway, I’m off to see Richard the Third tonight. Hopefully, this is the new, safe, government approved version, for “sensitive times”. The King doesn’t kill the kids in the tower, he just says something really mean that damages their self-esteem, and then calls in a specialist in non-violent mediation to sort out the differences between Lancaster and York. Wicked!
You’re not getting much response to your latest blogs Phil.
So for what it is worth – a few random thoughts
Glad to see you have been reading Trigger Warning
Anticipation is clearly what underlies a number features of contemporary “security” and policing. I include not here only “potentially inflammatory material” likely to cause offence and potential disorder but a raft of other aspects besides free speech and artistic expression where civil liberties /human rights are being infringed e.g. such as the stopping of vehicles travelling to a place where public order offences may occur and of course the whole of the Prevent/Channel strategy.
Clearly the desire to anticipate leads to increasingly intrusive downstream surveillance in the name of community safety, national security etc etc. The ultimate end of all this is of course to create a climate of fear and anxiety where we all self censor ourselves in accordance with what are propounded as British values.
The relationship of this “anticipation” to any actual events occurring in the future is of course problematical see for instance the recent example of a student on terrorism course being interviewed by Staffordshire University security officers having been found in the library reading a set book for the course. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he might of have looked “Islamic”. I should say the university have apologised but the student nonetheless has left the course.
Anyway on the specifics of your blog – you could perhaps have mentioned your previous local example of book posters being removed by the council in anticipation of a non-existent complaint. But more worrying still you could have referred to the recent of the self censorship by the national youth theatre of their play Homegrown which was withdrawn even before there was any police involvement.
What about Exhibition B lionised at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 shut down at the Barbican after a day in the face of local protests?
Fortunately, however, you can rest assured that everything is under complete control when the state broadcaster gives us a sex-free version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Regards
Sour
I certainly have not read Mick Hume! He once called me a rude name on a demo 25 years ago and until he apologises and agrees to a session of mutual sensitivity training his writings are banned in my house.
Agree with you though… And as an amusing aside, I was arguing with a lefty friend a few weeks ago (we were both members of a certain Fourth International outfit in our distant past – great posters, crap politics) who revealed she was in favour of banning “that London play” as it was racist. She was talking about “Exhibition B”. Didn’t know it’s title, wasn’t aware of its genre, and certainly hadn’t bothered to actually go see it, she just knew it was “racist”… This sort of nonsense makes Mary Whitehouse look like Walter bloody Benjamin.
And I remember we used to argue against state censorship as it was obvious the state would use it against the Left. Maryam Namazie is a card carrying Commie… I hope the irony is not lost on her.