AUSTRALIA
OPINIONBoycotts are an essential and necessary part of public life
Osman Faruqi
Journalist and podcaster
January 13, 2022 —
In 1880, in the west of Ireland, an English land agent had become notorious for the exploitative and mean-spirited way in which he treated the farmers on the property he managed. On this particular estate, negotiations over rent had turned sour and 11 of the farmers were threatened with eviction.
In protest, other farmers withdrew their labour and stopped harvesting the farm’s crops. Townspeople also shunned the land agent and shopkeepers refused to serve him. At the end of the year he fled Ireland as a result of the sustained social and economic ostracism. This particular land agent’s name was Charles Boycott, and it’s thanks to him and his actions that we use the term “boycott” to describe an organised campaign of non-participation.
January 13, 2022 —
In 1880, in the west of Ireland, an English land agent had become notorious for the exploitative and mean-spirited way in which he treated the farmers on the property he managed. On this particular estate, negotiations over rent had turned sour and 11 of the farmers were threatened with eviction.
In protest, other farmers withdrew their labour and stopped harvesting the farm’s crops. Townspeople also shunned the land agent and shopkeepers refused to serve him. At the end of the year he fled Ireland as a result of the sustained social and economic ostracism. This particular land agent’s name was Charles Boycott, and it’s thanks to him and his actions that we use the term “boycott” to describe an organised campaign of non-participation.
The story of Charles Boycott has a particular resonance in Australia right now.
CREDIT:ILLUSTRATION BY DIONNE GAIN
The story of Charles Boycott has a particular resonance in Australia right now. Not only due to the current boycott of the Sydney Festival by dozens of artists opposed to the festival’s financial relationship with the state of Israel – a state that Human Rights Watch has found committed crimes of apartheid, a claim that the Israeli government for its part described as “preposterous” – but also due to fresh calls to ban the very act of boycotting.
Opposition arts spokesman, Labor’s Walt Secord, has called on the NSW government to introduce legislation to cut off funding to arts organisations that participate in a boycott of Israel. The proposed law mirrors legislation, resolutions and executive orders that exist in more than 30 US states.
If it seems extraordinary that a politician affiliated with the Labor Party, a party formed out of the union movement, is attempting to use the levers of the state to dissuade artists from collectively withdrawing their labour by threatening them with financial punishment, that’s because it is.
The Australian labour movement has a long history of deploying boycotts to achieve social change. In the late 1930s Australian dock workers refused to load pig iron onto ships because it was going to be used to aid the Japanese invasion of China. Throughout the 1970s, during the “green ban” movement, building workers refused to work on projects they believed were socially and environmentally destructive.
NSW shadow arts minister Walt Secord.
The story of Charles Boycott has a particular resonance in Australia right now. Not only due to the current boycott of the Sydney Festival by dozens of artists opposed to the festival’s financial relationship with the state of Israel – a state that Human Rights Watch has found committed crimes of apartheid, a claim that the Israeli government for its part described as “preposterous” – but also due to fresh calls to ban the very act of boycotting.
Opposition arts spokesman, Labor’s Walt Secord, has called on the NSW government to introduce legislation to cut off funding to arts organisations that participate in a boycott of Israel. The proposed law mirrors legislation, resolutions and executive orders that exist in more than 30 US states.
If it seems extraordinary that a politician affiliated with the Labor Party, a party formed out of the union movement, is attempting to use the levers of the state to dissuade artists from collectively withdrawing their labour by threatening them with financial punishment, that’s because it is.
The Australian labour movement has a long history of deploying boycotts to achieve social change. In the late 1930s Australian dock workers refused to load pig iron onto ships because it was going to be used to aid the Japanese invasion of China. Throughout the 1970s, during the “green ban” movement, building workers refused to work on projects they believed were socially and environmentally destructive.
NSW shadow arts minister Walt Secord.
CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
Workers were also the vanguard of the anti-apartheid boycott movement targeting South Africa. Shipping unions refused to load ships trading with South Africa. Unionised Qantas staff refused to fly the South African rugby union team, the Springboks. In 1971, a general strike was declared in Queensland after the Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen implemented a state of emergency in an attempt to crush protesters organising against the all-white Springbok tour in the state.
The organised boycotts during the era of South African apartheid are the most analogous to the current situation around the Sydney Festival, which is precisely why it’s so bizarre to see a Labor politician not only condemning collective action but demanding a punitive state response.
Workers were also the vanguard of the anti-apartheid boycott movement targeting South Africa. Shipping unions refused to load ships trading with South Africa. Unionised Qantas staff refused to fly the South African rugby union team, the Springboks. In 1971, a general strike was declared in Queensland after the Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen implemented a state of emergency in an attempt to crush protesters organising against the all-white Springbok tour in the state.
The organised boycotts during the era of South African apartheid are the most analogous to the current situation around the Sydney Festival, which is precisely why it’s so bizarre to see a Labor politician not only condemning collective action but demanding a punitive state response.
The call for artists to boycott the festival was made in response to revelations that it had secured a $20,000 sponsorship deal with the Israeli embassy in Australia, to help conduct a dance performance. Organisers of the boycott have described the arrangement as an example of “art-washing” – where the Israeli government uses its resources to patronise the arts and receives public support for doing so (Israel is described as a “star” partner on the Sydney Festival’s website). This association with the arts, generally seen as a radical and progressive space, helps distract from Israel’s policies targeting Palestinians.
An anti-apartheid demonstration is held at Perth airport as the Springboks arrive for their Australian tour on June 26, 1971.
CREDIT:TED GOLDING
Whatever any individual person, patron or politician might think about Israel, its settlements or its bombing of Gaza, it’s completely fathomable, and in fact quite likely, that a number of artists associated with the Sydney Festival, might feel uncomfortable being associated with an event that is partly sponsored by the Israeli government.
Withdrawing from the festival in response is an entirely rational decision, one that is understandable on both the individual moral level of the artist, and as part of a broader collective effort to make a statement about these kinds of partnerships.
The call to financially punish artists or organisations who choose to take this kind of action smacks of desperation. The idea that a dancer, a singer, a writer, or a comedian should be compelled, by government edict, to stand on a stage and perform is absurd. No artist should be forced to perform in collaboration with an organisation whose values don’t align with theirs.
Federal Liberal MP Dave Sharma has also criticised the boycott, describing it as “fundamentally at odds with the purposes of art and culture”, a statement that is completely ahistorical. According to Sharma, “cultural and artistic exchange is seen as a way to promote peace and coexistence”.
It’s true that art can be used to bring people together and help forge a common sense of purpose. But it’s equally true that deciding when and on what terms to perform is also a lever artists have to spark discussion and advocate for social change. That’s been the case throughout history.
Sydney Festival
New arts minister says Sydney Festival boycott is ‘censorship’
Sharma is a member of a government that has no problems withdrawing funding from all manner of institutions and initiatives based on ideology. Just recently the federal government has been heavily criticised for vetoing research funding, approved by an independent agency because it didn’t believe the research projects were in the “national interest”. Some of those projects included research into climate change attitudes and Australia’s relationship to China.
These kinds of policies are far more stifling of discussion, debate or cultural learning than a boycott of one arts festival could ever be.
Whether it’s through the frame of labour rights, the right to free expression, or even more fundamentally the right of people to do, or not do, whatever they want, for whatever reason they choose, boycotts are an essential and necessary part of public life.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
Opinion
Sydney Festival
‘It’s not about peace’: The endgame behind the boycott of the Sydney Festival
Alex Ryvchin
Of course it’s likely that both Secord and Sharma actually know this. Their opposition to this boycott probably has more to do with their pro-Israel politics (Secord is the deputy chair of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel, while Sharma is a former Australian ambassador to Israel) than any actual coherent theoretical position on boycotts themselves.
But if that’s the case, that’s the argument they should be making. If they want to defend Israeli government policy then they should do so, rather than hiding behind a smokescreen and pretending as though artists making decisions about how and when they perform their art is some kind of nefarious activity.
Whatever any individual person, patron or politician might think about Israel, its settlements or its bombing of Gaza, it’s completely fathomable, and in fact quite likely, that a number of artists associated with the Sydney Festival, might feel uncomfortable being associated with an event that is partly sponsored by the Israeli government.
Withdrawing from the festival in response is an entirely rational decision, one that is understandable on both the individual moral level of the artist, and as part of a broader collective effort to make a statement about these kinds of partnerships.
The call to financially punish artists or organisations who choose to take this kind of action smacks of desperation. The idea that a dancer, a singer, a writer, or a comedian should be compelled, by government edict, to stand on a stage and perform is absurd. No artist should be forced to perform in collaboration with an organisation whose values don’t align with theirs.
Federal Liberal MP Dave Sharma has also criticised the boycott, describing it as “fundamentally at odds with the purposes of art and culture”, a statement that is completely ahistorical. According to Sharma, “cultural and artistic exchange is seen as a way to promote peace and coexistence”.
It’s true that art can be used to bring people together and help forge a common sense of purpose. But it’s equally true that deciding when and on what terms to perform is also a lever artists have to spark discussion and advocate for social change. That’s been the case throughout history.
Sydney Festival
New arts minister says Sydney Festival boycott is ‘censorship’
Sharma is a member of a government that has no problems withdrawing funding from all manner of institutions and initiatives based on ideology. Just recently the federal government has been heavily criticised for vetoing research funding, approved by an independent agency because it didn’t believe the research projects were in the “national interest”. Some of those projects included research into climate change attitudes and Australia’s relationship to China.
These kinds of policies are far more stifling of discussion, debate or cultural learning than a boycott of one arts festival could ever be.
Whether it’s through the frame of labour rights, the right to free expression, or even more fundamentally the right of people to do, or not do, whatever they want, for whatever reason they choose, boycotts are an essential and necessary part of public life.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
Opinion
Sydney Festival
‘It’s not about peace’: The endgame behind the boycott of the Sydney Festival
Alex Ryvchin
Of course it’s likely that both Secord and Sharma actually know this. Their opposition to this boycott probably has more to do with their pro-Israel politics (Secord is the deputy chair of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel, while Sharma is a former Australian ambassador to Israel) than any actual coherent theoretical position on boycotts themselves.
But if that’s the case, that’s the argument they should be making. If they want to defend Israeli government policy then they should do so, rather than hiding behind a smokescreen and pretending as though artists making decisions about how and when they perform their art is some kind of nefarious activity.
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