It's always struck me as odd how some of those who love to falsely proclaim Israel to be "the only democracy in the Middle East" also seem to be rabidly engaged in stifling free speech - ya know, one of those "tenets of democracy" things - in the U.S. when it comes to Palestine. But they've done it again, this time in Miami, where:
My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the controversial play about a young American activist who died after she was run over by an Israeli-operated bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has been pulled from the lineup at Plantation's Mosaic Theatre after protests from some of the theater's subscribers and outside individuals.
Mosaic, a professional company that presents its shows in a black-box theater space at the private American Heritage School, had planned to offer the one-woman Rachel Corrie in repertory with Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire, a solo show about Iraqi women.
But Mosaic's board of directors agreed to drop the play after phone calls, e-mails and comments on a special Rachel Corrie blog -- which has now been removed from the company's website -- made it clear that an impassioned, vocal minority strongly objected to the play.
Everywhere this play goes in the U.S. the pro-Israel crowd tries to shut it down. Even my cynical self still gets baffled at how threatened these people are of a dead 23 year old and her words. The irony of course is that those working to shut down these productions likely have never seen the play nor read Corrie's words. They simply reactively clamor with sickening zeal to squash or discredit anyone who may claim that Palestinians are human beings and as such are deserving of, and indeed have, rights.
But as Robert Jamieson writes in the Seattle P-I, where the play has met with broad acclaim,
News flash: The best art, whether it deals with war or love in the time of AIDS or dark family secrets, touches political, social and moral nerves. If done well, a production can compel audiences to think.
That's lost on folks so blinded by their cause they would rather see the stage dark than a ray of light shine on one of the most contentious issues of the day.
PS - I'm leaving technology land for a few days, so any comments may not be published until Sunday.
Recently, black lesbian activist Jasmynne Cannick got a comedy act shutdown in several cities by white gay comedian Charles Knipp. Knipp did a blackface routine as a character named Shirley Liquor, of a black woman with 19 children on welfare. Kind of racist, no?
Shouldn't people have the right to lobby private business owners against giving a platform to speech that they object to? That doesn't seem to rank as censorship.
If the Rachel Corrie play was banned from a public space like a public university I would call it censorship
Not trying to start a fight on this point, just trying to hash out a clear principle.
Posted by: drydock | April 07, 2007 at 07:18 AM