2024-02-16 02:58:44
Musician and filmmaker Laurie Anderson has resigned from her professorship in Essen, Germany. The university wanted her to explain why the American supported the call of Palestinian artists to boycott and “dismantle” Israel in 2021. In recent times, calls for the isolation of Israel on the international stage and one-sided criticism of the Jewish state have been more forcefully affected by Germany’s culture.
The DPA agency reported on the case. It refers to the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. The school, named after Norse mythology, is associated with the famous dancer Pina Bausch, who studied here and later worked as a choreographer. It is in her name that the visiting professorship awarded by the institution to the seventy-six-year-old Laurie Anderson a few weeks ago is protected.
However, the situation was affected by an attack by the Palestinian terrorist movement Hamas, whose members entered Israel on October 7 last year, murdered around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200 others. During the retaliatory military operation in the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas, more than 26 thousand Palestinians lost their lives. The number cannot be independently verified.
Germany supported Israel, which, in addition to increasing anti-Semitism, provoked criticism from some artists and opened up a debate about the limits of freedom of speech. Since then, German organizers of cultural events and universities in particular have taken a tougher approach towards supporters of the BDS movement, which calls for a boycott of Israel and which the German parliament already labeled as anti-Semitic in 2019.
It was this association’s appeal to isolate “colonialist” Israel and “dismantle apartheid” that, in addition to artists Nan Goldin and Kara Walker, also supported multimedia creator Laurie Anderson. The renowned member of the New York avant-garde is known for the hit O Superman from 1981 or the film Heart of a Dog, which she dedicated in 2015 to her late husband Lou Reed. Czech audiences know her well, she last gave a concert in Prague’s Arš last year. On Monday night, Laurie Anderson accepted the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
When the University of Essen now learned of her support for the 2021 pro-Palestinian letter, it asked her if she had since reconsidered the position.
Laurie Anderson at Monday’s Grammy Awards. | Photo: EPA / Profimedia.cz
Laurie Anderson responded by announcing that she would decline the professorship in that case. “I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not my political views have changed since then. It’s a matter of why we’re even asking about them,” she said. “Due to the circumstances, I have decided to resign,” she added.
According to the university, the academic environment should be open to discussion. “However, we fundamentally reject anti-Semitism, misanthropy or racism in any form,” explained the school’s spokeswoman.
The professorship, named after the famous dancer, is financially supported by the Pina Bausch Foundation and the government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has been in place since the 2022/2023 school year, Laurie Anderson was due to take over on April 1st. Before her, the same honor was given to the Serbian artist Marina Abramović.
According to the British newspaper Guardian, this is another shard in the debate in German culture regarding Israel. The last time American journalist Masha Gessen caused a stir in the country was in December when she compared the Gaza Strip to the Jewish ghetto under Nazi Germany and described the current situation by saying that now “the ghetto is being liquidated”. The Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Bremen Senate, which award the Hannah Arendt Prize, distanced themselves from the author because of this. The author finally accepted it in Germany despite criticism, but the ceremony took place elsewhere and was more modest.
Recently, the German organizers have also canceled the concert of the Irish band Lankum or the performance of the American rapper Mykki Blanco. The Irish wrote that the Israelis are “murdering children and civilians”, while the rapper claimed that Israel is carrying out “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip.
Czech audiences also know Laurie Anderson, she last gave a concert last year in Prague’s Arš. | Photo: Stephanie Diani
At the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, the Palestinian writer Adaníja Šiblí did not receive the prize, as opposed to the original plans. According to critics, her novel demonizes Jews, on the contrary, an open letter in support of the author was signed by over 1,300 personalities, including Nobel Prize winners for literature Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux and Olga Tokarczuková.
Berlin’s Volksbühne theater canceled a planned debate with former British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn in the fall, who refused to distance himself from anti-Semitism.
In Germany, the six-member board that was supposed to select the artistic director of next year’s Documenta art show in Kassel also resigned. This case was started by the discovery that one of the members signed a letter to the BDS movement requesting a boycott of Israel.
Criticism in Germany was also provoked by a joint paper by philosophers Étienne Balibara, Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler, who did not condemn the attacks on Israel, and instead called for an “academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions” and a “fight against apartheid”. For example, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it an “intellectual failure”, while the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote about the evidence that “political philosophy has failed across the board and led us into the quagmire of anti-Semitism”.
According to AFP, German Culture Minister Claudia Roth said in December that Israel’s security is a priority for the German government. At the same time, however, she spoke out in order to ensure that freedom of speech does not disappear even from the field of culture. Canceling awards or concerts should be “the last step”, she said. “I hope we can move from fear-mongering to dialogue,” the minister said.
Last month, the Berlin Senate tried to legislate that only cultural institutions or projects that sign the so-called anti-discrimination clause continue to receive financial support from public sources. It also includes the condemnation of anti-Semitism in the definition already recognized by the federal government.
However, the proposal was opposed by over 6,000 cultural workers, including the well-known German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans or the South African artist Candice Breitz, according to whom it would threaten freedom of speech. At the end of January, Berlin’s state culture minister Joe Chialo withdrew the proposal.
Video: Hamas does not have exclusive support in the Arab world
Support for the terrorist movement Hamas is not something to be taken for granted in the Arab world, foreign reporter Pavel Novotný said in the program Spotlight. | Video: Martin Krepindl