13 Nov 20 | Europe and Central Asia, France, Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”115559″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]In the last month, as the world has been preoccupied with the US elections and the ongoing ravages of the global pandemic, the people of France have turned on the news to learn of deadly terror attacks on their soil. Seemingly designed not just to murder and incite fear but as a direct attack on the core values of the French state.
In a Parisian suburb, Samuel Paty was beheaded by an extremist for teaching his students about the principle of free speech. In Nice, three people – Vincent Loques, Simone Barreto Silva and Nadine Devillers – were brutally murdered inside the ultimate sanctuary: a place of worship, the Notre-Dame basilica. Their ‘crime’? Attending church.
As ever in our interconnected world, a terror attack in one country has repercussions across the world and this has never been truer. Our choice of language and vocabulary when discussing such emotive issues can have untold consequences and when you combine the issues of national security, religion, extremism and politics, people rarely look beyond the headlines.
But it is unforgivable for national leaders to exploit the pain and anguish of others to promote their own world view and to shore up their own political standing. And beyond the pandemic that’s what we’ve seen. Rather than acknowledging the pain felt by the people of France and the fear that now lurks in many communities, not least French Muslims who now face a wave of hate for acts that had nothing to do with them, some national leaders are exploiting these horrendous events for their own benefit.
The actions of the presidents of Turkey and Pakistan to sow division and attack the French state have done little more than incite even more hate and anger. I’m choosing not to repeat their claims – as I don’t believe any good comes from dissecting their words – although others have.
There is not nor ever can be any excuse for murdering innocent people. This is all the more true in a democracy, such as France, where people have the legal right to protest, to challenge their politicians in court, to campaign against them and to write daily in national newspapers. We have legal ways to challenge the status-quo – violence is never a legitimate tool of protest and there can be no excuses made for its use.
Index’s raison d’etre is to defend our collective rights to free speech and free expression. That doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate the tensions that exist between all of our basic human rights as outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There can be a tension for some between the right to free speech and the right of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. These tensions should be considered and discussed in every home, school and institution in every country. There should be a national conversation about how we find a balance as a society, we should use more words and have more debate about the type of world we want to leave in. And we should do all of this without the threat of violence.
We stand with the people of France, as they mourn the loss of Samuel Paty, Vincent Loques, Simone Barreto Silva and Nadine Devillers – may they rest in peace.
And we stand for the values that they represented.
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23 Oct 20 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”115302″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Samuel Paty
An educator.
A father.
A martyr.
An inspiration.
Last week Professor Paty was brutally murdered in a Parisian suburb for teaching his students about the basic human right of free speech. A right that is protected by both the French constitution and the European Human Rights Act. A right that we cherish and celebrate.
Our hearts bleed for the pain and sorrow that this tragedy has visited upon his loved ones and the people of France. We stand with them.
Samuel Paty, photo: Ville de Conflans Saint Honorine
No context is or should be required to try and understand this horrendous act. There are no excuses, justifications or mitigations. Professor Paty was doing his job. He was a citizen of the world, educating the next generation about the importance of speech, of language, imagery and art, and their protected place in society. This was a public service undertaken in a public space. He was doing his duty and he was assassinated for it.
As we mourn Samuel’s loss, 14 French citizens are on trial for the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices. A further seven people have been arrested related to Samuel’s murder. These people do not represent France. Samuel Paty represents France. These people represent extremists. Samuel Paty represents the mainstream. Those arrested represent hate and fear. Samuel Paty represents hope.
There will be lots or recriminations in the months and years ahead: politicians attempting to exploit people’s fears for their own gain, others trying to excuse or apologise. Neither is acceptable. As a society, it is vital that we come together to celebrate our shared values, in spite of every effort made by some to undermine and attack those values.
In the months ahead Index will continue to report on the Charlie Hebdo case. We will highlight the efforts of French leaders who, in the face of terror, stand tall and use their free speech to protect ours.
And most importantly we will remember.
Samuel Paty, 1973-2020.
He will never be forgotten. We mourn his loss together and we must remember his legacy every time someone tries to undermine or restrict our free speech.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Oct 20 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
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Nelson’s Column, photo: Steve Bidmead/Pixabay
I love journalism. I am addicted to the news and honestly anything that isn’t about the appalling pandemic we are currently living through is usually welcome. But, and it’s a big but, there are some news stories which we know are designed to inflame, to spark a reaction, to act as click-bait and they may or may not always tell the full story. To the uninitiated, they can serve as an excuse to launch a new campaign – to protect our free speech, to launch a ‘culture war’, to drive divisions in our country, so it is incumbent on all of us to explore all sides of a story and try and unearth the truth before we get caught up in the latest clicktavist campaign…
That was definitely the case at the beginning of this week, when Lord Nelson entered the fray – apparently, his role in our national story was under threat, his hero status revoked – because of his links to colonialism and support for slavery. Defence of his reputation would now be the front line in the culture wars. However, it seems that the reality is, as ever, a little more complex.
No one, not even some of our greatest heroes and heroines, is perfect. Those that did extraordinary things for our country may also have held personal views that we would rightly find repugnant today. It serves no one for us to venerate our national heroes as saints; they weren’t, they were just people, extraordinary people. People who we should study in the round and understand their full contribution both good and bad to our national story. And many of them knew that in their own lifetimes:
“Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me.”
When Oliver Cromwell commissioned his portrait from Sir Peter Lely, he was clear that it should bare a true likeness to him and show him for who he was – good and bad.
Many heroes, heroines and villains of history have complex and subjective legacies. A saviour for one will be the oppressor for another and debating and exploring the rights and wrongs of those who are lionised or vilified is key to understanding both our own history and the current composition of our society.
Unfortunately for some this isn’t the case. We seemingly now live in a world where the phrase ‘culture wars’ has, for some, become a proxy for those seeking not to engage in debate but to silence disagreement or dissent. Individuals and self-organised groups have proclaimed themselves the sole arbiters of truth. They decide what the ‘correct’ view is and any attempt to deviate from that singular set of ordained truths is denounced and deplored by those for whom the complex nature of individuals and historic events are just too difficult.
Which brings me back to Lord Horatio Nelson. When a freedom of information request to the National Maritime Museum discovered that the curators of their exhibitions had discussed reflecting the contemporary issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement in their exhibits, the world exploded. One MP decried in response: “We are fighting this left-wing ideological nonsense every single day in this country.”
And the newly formed “Common Sense Group” of MPs took to their social media to denounce any deviation from the national narrative as an affront to all things British. Their intent was clear: to prevent a museum from publishing or promoting something that they didn’t agree with. This is a form of censorship and it wasn’t even based on fact.
Beyond the anger, the truth about this exhibition was a very different story. You only had to spend three minutes listening to Paddy Rogers, the director of the Royal Museums Greenwich to realise, as he said, that this was a “storm in a tea clipper”. Nelson remains a much-loved figure at the museum and the main exhibits will do nothing to undermine that, rather they will use his persona as a mechanism to explore our current identity and British values.
But the reality isn’t the key aspect here; Nelson’s legacy isn’t the issue, but rather the concept of “culture war” is, with some people trying to build a narrative which sows division and instills a chilling effect on our public space. History is not set in stone. After all, many people’s stories are never told and our perceptions rightly change as we discover more about people’s journeys. Museums and libraries are temples of education and learning. They should be homes for debate and exploration, free from political interference and able to examine every aspect of history and culture without reprisal.
This is especially the case when you consider how some repressive regimes are using their ‘soft’ power to try and launch a real culture war in Europe – using their money and influence to try and re-write history.
In Nantes, France, the Chinese government has intervened to stop an exhibition on Genghis Khan and the Mongols – an issue we’ll be covering more in the weeks ahead. But if we allow one group of people to dictate what should happen in museums, we open the floodgates to all kinds of interested parties to do the same and that is not a path we want to go down.
Here in Britain, we thankfully live in a free society. People are entitled to not go to an exhibition if they think it will offend them, or they can take to social media to write negative reviews of it, but they aren’t allowed to ban it because they don’t agree with the facts presented to them.
Thankfully that isn’t acceptable in a free and tolerant society.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Oct 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”115253″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“I was expecting some reaction,” artist and activist Paolo Cirio told Index on Censorship referring to his installation, Capture, which is made up of publicly-sourced photographs of police officers during protests in France. “But this reaction is much more than expected.”
The installation was due to open on 15 October at Le Fresnoy, a public institution for contemporary art in the north of France, but it was withdrawn following pressure from France’s Minister of Interior. In a tweet on 2 October, Minister Gérald Darmanin called Cirio’s work an “unbearable pillorying of women and men who risk their lives to protect us” and demanded that the exhibition be “deprogrammed” under threat of legal action.
Cirio did create a separate online platform to crowdsource the names of the police officers as part of his wider campaign against facial recognition, but the photographs in the installation at Le Fresnoy were to appear without names, dates, times or locations. He insists that the exhibition would have posed no risk to any of the police officers’ privacy.
“I have stated many times that I have done it even to protect their privacy and to show that [facial recognition] is a potential danger to them,” Cirio explained. “It’s dangerous for everyone even for the police.”
Cirio had hoped that Capture would highlight the asymmetry of power related to facial recognition by showing how the technology can be used “against” the same authorities that urge its use. “During protests police are always trying to cover their mask more and more, and cover their identification number or anything that can identify them, while they use facial recognition against the protesters,” Cirio explained.
“The reaction from the general public is also much more than I expected,” Cirio said. “It’s actually pretty tense – every day I get up and I receive very nasty or scary messages”. But he has also been receiving some messages of support. “Of course there are all the antifa or more left-wing people in France who consider me a hero in a way.”
Since his installation was removed from the programme, Cirio said that Le Fresnoy have offered to show just one of the videos from Capture, but none of the photos. “Basically they’re saying ‘we can still show your work but only this video’,” Cirio said. “They are trying to hide the entire part of the project about police by not showing it, by not even discussing it, which of course is not something I am going to accept.”
In a statement, Le Fresnoy’s director Alain Fleischer said that they had told Cirio that they “could never support a project [linked] to a digital platform where the public would be encouraged to identify and name policemen [sic]”. He said that the decision to remove Cirio’s exhibition was prompted not necessarily by the pressure from the interior minister but by the risk of legal prosecution arising from their association with his work.
“[T]hey were two different things,” Cirio said referring to Capture and the online platform crowdsourcing the names of police officers, accusing Le Fresnoy of linking them in order to justify their decision to censor the installation. “The truth is that they feel the pressure to show no photos of police officers at all.”
“Anyway, again I think it’s appropriate to say that the censorship is from the government, not from Le Fresnoy. I don’t have bad blood against them,” Cirio said. “I understand their position. Too bad they couldn’t stand up with me a little longer.”
Cirio is now discussing the case with three French lawyers, who agree that his installation does not violate French law. “They’re actually suggesting that I file a complaint against the interior minister for censorship,” he said.
“It’s very shocking that this is happening in France. Anyone would think that France is the cultural capital of the world and it’s where all the artists are and there’s total freedom of speech and instead it’s not really the case anymore I would say,” Cirio said.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
