For July’s Draw the Line event, Index hosted a workshop in our offices to debate the question, “Can art or journalism ever be terrorism?” This daunting question provoked some interesting answers, delving deeper into the subject matter the group began to question how do we define art, journalism and terrorism? What do we expect the role of artists or journalists to be in society? And who decides this?

Looking at both sides of the argument we presented the group with several different situations where artists or journalists had been censored and invited them to take part in a role-playing exercise where they had a go at playing both the person being censored and then subsequently the censor.

By playing out these situations from either side of the debate, the group found that it became more and more difficult to say who was definitively right and wrong in each of these situations? Who had the more legitimate right to express themselves? We all agreed the bottom line, of course, should lie in the guarantee of basic human rights for all sides – perhaps as laid out in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, Article 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights or America’s First Amendment.

These discussions all finally lad into a formal debate with two teams arguing for and against the statement ”This house believes that art and journalism can be terrorism’.

There was in the end no clear answer, but all of the group came away with many more questions of their own. As one participant said “there’s no black and white answer as I’d previously assumed”. All agreed that a wider debate was needed on the role art and journalism play in society, as well as more information on how that can and does differ all over the world.

Keep up with the debate on Draw the Line here and keep an eye out for our next event where we will be facing a new question and asking where do you draw the line on free speech?