Overtly xenophobic posters featuring graphic design with Gestapo influences were used to successfully lobby against one of the world’s more impressive forms of architectural expression last week: the minaret. Maybe the Swiss government was trying to appeal to Geert Wilders, the nearby Dutch politico whose wet dream seems to be to see star-and-crescent armbands on every Muslim’s coat sleeve.

Now, as an atheist, all your faith-based pointy sky thingies have roughly the same spiritual connotation to me. Nevertheless, one cannot help being in awe when visiting either the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca or the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, and if it weren’t for these structures, I don’t think I’d have a use for religion at all. But if I could actually live inside one of these buildings around the clock, I could see how they might inspire belief in a divine what-have-you of some sort.

So it’s interesting that on the one hand, there was a debate about “free expression” in Switzerland over whether some hate posters should be taken down or not (some cities said yes, while others said no), but a law banning the minaret isn’t considered censorship in the same vein. Because as long as you have a building code that allows for tall sky thingies with religious connotations to exist, you’re censoring people if you tell them what their own sky thingy has to stand for. As long as this rule is on or near the books in Switzerland, it cannot claim to be either a place of free speech or real democracy, and that should cause some problems in the EU neighborhood. And if it doesn’t, that will signal which direction Europe is again headed.

Now, over to Brian:

The demo services that Opera offers are great, but they really are just demonstrations. It’s generating a lot of excitement and “wuh?” in equal measure on the discussions I’ve seen, which is something I recognise from my attempts to proselytize the edge to those already excited by the cloud.

It occurred to me (encouraged by Stef) that a great and timely Opera Unite application, just for the next few days, would be a web proxy  for Iranians. Run it on your Opera service, post your machine’s Unite URL onto twitter with a tag #spartacus, and Iran would be drowning in potential proxies to use.

‘The Cut’, directed by award-winning director Joe Wright, was first aired early this month at which point it was planned to be released only in cinemas. The decision to take the advertisement, which features a £2-a-month donation request, onto television appears to have been made following the cinema and online release.

The Advertising Standards Authority reported that it has received two complaints about ‘The Cut’, but that the complaints came not from people who had seen the advert itself, but had read news stories about its content.

Apparently I can watch serial killers hack women up for entertainment on television, but if the matter is treated with any sort of seriousness, it’s deemed a threat to the public. Maybe they felt it was to biased in favor of abuse victims or something.

via CharityComms

This Hybrid car site also hates Sachs, and uses cardboard to say so

The site’s aim is to be “an open forum for facts and discussion about what part Goldman Sachs and their executives played in the current Global Economic Crisis.” Florida investment adviser Mike Morgan started the blog just a few months ago, but ran afoul of Goldman Sachs, who allege the criticism, “violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights” and also “implies a relationship” with the bank itself.

The site states in several places that it’s not affiliated with the bank, and really, common sense would hopefully prevail in a court of law that the investment bank wouldn’t be opening up a Google-owned push-button publishing operation to criticize itself. Most of the posts are a collection of items which can be around around the web and also cover other banks’ scams as well, leading one to wonder just what is so damaging on this blog that some corporate hack felt the need to sic Chadbourne & Parke on someone who is essentially an angry typer.

Could it be that Sachs doesn’t like the particular collection of reposts? Or is there actually something there specific that could bring down an investment giant?

Could it be the combination of publicly accessible tools that Mike Morgan is taking advantage of to build momentum against Sachs? Blogger is easy, public and instant publishing. He’s also using Go To Meeting Dot Com to hold a webinar and solicit information and volunteers on May 15.

It”s not the only anti-Sachs front. Goldman Suchs Blog is another offering from the chagrined side of investment banking bailouts.

From a quick perusal of both blogs, I’m at a loss at what’s so potentially damaging here, but if a person’s effectiveness can be measured by the reaction they generate in the enemy, Mr. Morgan is on to something.

Porn?

You know, I admit I’m a sucker for a censored work, or even an attempted-censored work. Film, movie, music whatever. It just makes me want to know so much more about what the message was when there’s someone trying to keep me from accessing it.

More so when the intimidating group comes from religious circles. It’s not likely I would have waded through Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses if there hadn’t been a fatwa issued. Tough for Salman, but I can just imagine the the publishing house’s marketing team clicking their heels over the noting that a religious nutter had done their work for them.

No, I suppose it’s not a cool admission. sort of like admitting you weren’t into some punk band back when they were with Sub-Pop Records.

Similarly, with other media, The Last Temptation of Christ, wouldn’t have watched that unless there was a bible-thumping drumbeat trying to ward people off of it. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s an Ayatollah or a vice presidential candidate with penchant for trying to get books tossed out of the local library, these people have no background as literary critics.

So it’s interesting to me that an author of a book that is the subject of attempted censorship by religious zealots is herself turning on critics of her work, accusing them of stocking violence, just by criticizing her work.

Sherry Jones apparently wrote her novel, The Jewel of the Medina, from the vantage point of one of the prophet Mohammed’s wives, A’isha, without any notion that there could be a controversy around it. No, her self-described “feminist historical novel” which she said came to her because of the events of Sept. 11, was supposed to be a “bridge-builder between the West and Islam.” A doubtful prospect and a dubious assertion. It’s the sort of apologetic claim that is sually made only after the criticism mounts.

Not even on the bookshelves yet, the backlash has begun. Random House dropped the book in an utterly stunning case of cowardice. The controversy loving publishing house Beaufort Books (bhind OJ Simpson’s If I Did It) has picked it up and the home of Martin Fynja, of Gibson Square (the UK publisher of the book) was firebombed. And what has the author spent her time doing? Going after academics and book critics.

Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas, reviewed the book, including her thoughts that, “I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.” The author now wants the professor to retract her comments and apologize, saying she’s inciting violence by “using the most inflammatory language she could possibly have used.”

And enough with the recap. I’d be more likely to support Sherry Jones’ efforts as a novelist expressing herself if she wasn’t so eager to shut everyone else down. She wrote a book. By their very nature, books are repositories of ideas. And here’s where a lot of writers of books meant to be more than just books want it both ways. By her own admission, Sherry Jones wants her work to impact and alter how people interact with one another. The problem with that is, you don’t get to have a choice in how people receive your work or respond to it. You don’t get to control the interaction.

By saying your work is for people to come together, but that a negative write-up of it will spur violence is more than slightly hypocritical. I was more likely to support publication of the work when it was merely being derided as soft core porn, something I can get behind. But if it’s somethign that must be consumed only in a narrow, limited context of “bringing us all together,” then we can quickly assume it is a failure before it’s even hit the stands. It’s stopped being literature and has become propaganda.

The thing is, a lot of writers want it both ways. They want to get out controversial writing that sparks debate, protest, a change of mindset. But they don’t want to take the blame when it goes off message. Upton Sinclair was expressing his outrage over the treatment of laborers when he penned The Jungle. The result didn’t do as much for the blue collar worker as start a consumer rights movement, though, as people reacted to the grotesque, vivid descriptions of the meat processing plant processes. In the end, The Jungle is far more referenced by vegetarians, animal rights groups and consumer advocates than organized labor. Once the book is written, the author has to concede that it has a life of its own, and that the reactions are basically beyond control.

And that’s fine.

While ideas spur action, the people who make those actions are still responsible for what they do. If a review of Sherry Jones book can be held accountable for causing violence, then we may want to consider Sherry Jones guilty of that firebombing of the publisher’s house. That would be ridiculous, of course. The people who created the bomb, crept to the house and ignited it are guilty. More so than even the people who told them that was the thing to do in this sort of situation. Citing them as a reason for critics not to talk about your work is ridiculous.

Whatever happens as a result of publishing Sherry Jones’ book shouldn’t be taken into account when deciding whether to publish it. If that were to become a precedent, then the book publishing industry may as well call itself dead. How many so-called “dangerous books” wouldn’t have been published under such a scale?

If literature is to be the engine for discourse, though, authors can’t be using the same weaponry that the censors seek to use against them.

More than retract her stupid remarks against Denise Spellberg, Sherry Jones should apologize as well. Not because Spellberg is right or wrong, but because Sherry Jones is lowering the level of discourse to a Sarah Palin standard when she claims that honest, forthright criticism could be responsible for actual violence. But then again, maybe that’s part of her new publishing house’s marketing strategy.

Well, at least a clone of it is, anyway. Drew3ooo is now the home of a BoingBoing mirror. Why? Because we on the d3 development team (which is me in the editorial sense) hate censorship. Also, we’d (still just me) like to learn more about the Distributed BoingBoing tool and mod it for a couple other projects that are either live or under development that might benefit, such as this, this, this or this.

BoingBoing is one of my favorite blogs, worth checking in on daily. But it has found itself on the wrong side of a few firewalls when it comes to corporate and government censorware. As a website developer who works with organisations that also run into the potential of these sorts of jams, this idea has some appeal. Installing this mirror took seconds. Far less time than it took to write about it. drew3000.net/dbb.php.

This is a very cool tool and a neat way of utilizing the true people power of the internet to beat censorship. Created by Mark Christian, it requires absolute URLs, which can be easily added into a WordPress theme and css file, but doesn’t really work with the WordPress system (that I know of), so I’m looking to somehow mod it, or find something that does that and plays nice with WordPress. Not that I really think my site is being blocked, or even paid attention to, but I’ve created some other WordPress installations and am working on others that could benefit. Anyone have any clues on mirroring WordPress in this manner for beating censorware, drop me a comment.

• • •

UPDATE: So it does work with WordPress, kind of. To see it in action, click here. You’ll notice if you click around enough that there are some problems with it working with WordPress. The footer doesn’t format well, comments, pingbacks, archives, searching and that sort of thing aren’t really working, but I think that better minds than mine could probably come up with a mod of this file that would work.

To get Mark’s Dristibuted BoingBoing, file, click here. To get my highly in-progress, semi-working version, Distributed drew3ooo, click here.

I’ll continue to tinker with this, but if you come up with a mod that works with WordPress, drop me a line and I’ll be your biggest fan.

Distributed BoingBoing | Drew3oooBoingBoing | Random mirror of BoingBoing | Classic BoingBoing | WordPress forum topic on the subject | Distributed Drew3ooo in semi-action

Mahmoud Nimir Musa, president of ODSPI, wrote on the website, and in emails posted to lists operated by actual freedom-loving organizatons such as riseup.net, “We have suffered a case of sabotage by Yahoo. They closed our discussion yahoo group without notice, and two days later they closed our e-mail account.” ODSPI is one of scads of organizations made up of Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners who support a single-state solution to the conflict, which would actually tackle the current geography instead of ignore it.

As for Yahoo, it’s cleary more the place to trade snarky remarks about celebrity nipple slips, but if you’re interested in protecting your rights, privacy and freedom, head elsewhere.

— Link to the ODSPI site with more info

^{Tag Suggestions (Courtesy of Yahoo!)}

So how am I able to sit here in Rabat and watch videos cats falling off of TVs, kids hurting themselves on homemade BMX bike ramps and show pro-Western Saraha independence propaganda to anyone around here who wants to see it? Well here’s a handy dandy guide to beating the bad guys: It’s BoingBoing’s Guide to Defeating Censoreware.

Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call “VC” or “communists”? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of “aggression from the North” as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

From the site creators:

In its first week, it received thousands of visitors from around the world; was featured by the editors at Buzzfeed, one of the web’s top blog aggregators; and was mentioned in 2 different media stories. More importantly, we broke our first story about Joel Beinin’s talk (see post below) getting cancelled at the Harker School, which was subsequently picked up by the San Jose Mercury News, directly from our blog. In addition to emails from many readers, we’ve heard from reporters who read the blog and have requested tips in the future.

Keep an eye on this group. You know AIPAC is.

Joel Beinin
San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, February 4, 2007

Last Sunday in San Francisco, the Anti-Defamation League sponsored “Finding Our Voice,” a conference designed to help Jews recognize and confront the “new anti-Semitism.” For me, it was ironic. Ten days before, my own voice was silenced by fellow Jews.

I was to give a talk about our Middle East policy to high school students at the Harker School in San Jose. With one day to go, my contact there called to say my appearance had been canceled. He was apologetic and upset. He expected the talk would be intellectually stimulating and intriguing for students. But, he said, “a certain community of parents” complained to the headmaster. He added, without divulging details, that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon Valley had played a role.

The fact is that “Jews” are not suppressing speech. Michael Himovitz certainly didn’t suppress my father’s attempts to explain the Palestinian perspective to his fellow citizens. Many American Jews hold views not dissimilar to my father’s — supporting peace, reconciliation and equal rights for Palestinians and Jews.

Yet, a minority of Jews, backed by some non-Jewish supporters, stridently protests any unflattering portrayal of Israel, often with unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism. Indeed, insinuations of anti-Jewish bias are now being unfairly raised against Carter. And some supporters of Israel, apparently, are willing to exploit economic clout to punish those who, like my father, buck the trend and defend Palestinian rights.

A VICIOUS SMEAR campaign attempted to destroy Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund’s reputation and charity work—but, instead, the tables may be turning. PCWF provides help—including food, clothing, educational tools and health care—to needy Palestinian children in refugee camps. A non-political, non-religious enterprise, PCWF was established in 2002 to promote arts and crafts made by Palestinian men and women artisans. Craft sales abroad help the Palestinian economy and teach U.S. and European buyers about the rich Palestinian culture.

Perhaps many of you have already seen this advertisement. It is a full page ad in today’s NY Times. It was paid for by an organization called CAMERA, which many are familiar with. (CAMERA as an acronym is a genius piece of ironic DoubleSpeak, standing for “Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America”). People have been attempting to call the publishing company to offer support to CEO Jack Romanos (who is named in the ad by CAMERA as the person to call and lodge complaint against), but the voice mail for him was full.

I’m passing this along from others who have been emailing people to show support for Simon & Schuster and offer gratitude for the publishing of this book. While not everyone will
agree with everything Carter writes writes in the book, it’s still exists as a powerful call for engagment and a just resolution to a conflict that’s gone on far too long. Call Simon & Shuster’s CEO, Jack Romanos, to offer your support at 212-698-7000, or better yet, buy a copy of Carter’s book. It deserves to get a reading and contains some information that the pro-occupation lobby doesn’t want you to see.

Co-hosts: Amy Goodman and James Zogby

Participating: Anthony Arnove, Huwaida Arraf, Brian Avery, Nirit Ben-Ari, Leila Buck, Kia Corthron, Suheir Hammad, Leonard Hubbard from The Roots with A. Marcy Francis, Brian Jones, Liz Magnes, Malachy McCourt, Betty Shamieh, Jonathan Tasini, Zafer Tawil, Tom Wallace, Ora Wise, and Maysoon Zayid.

Appearing via video/statements: Maya Angelou, Kathleen Chalfant, Eve Ensler, Mariam Said, Patti Smith and Howard Zinn.

“My Name is Rachel Corrie” is a powerful one-woman show based entirely on the diaries and emails of Rachel Corrie. Rachel was a human rights activist and gifted writer. She was crushed to death by an Israeli Army bulldozer as she tried to protect the home of a Palestinian pharmacist from demolition in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on March 16th, 2003. Rachel was 23.

The play was scheduled to open at the New York Theatre Workshop on March 22nd. It has been postponed indefinitely, sparking an escalating controversy. Rachel’s words will still be heard on that day. Rachel wrote about issues that concern us all. Come hear an array of academics, activists, performers and playwrights read selected writings of Rachel Corrie, honor her through poems and songs, and discuss the context in which her words were written and the pervasive climate of fear in which they have been suppressed.

For updated information or to buy advance tickets: www.RachelsWords.org

Maya Angelou: acclaimed poet, historian, author, and civil rights activist.

Anthony Arnove: editor, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People’s History of the United States.city of Jenin.

Nirit Ben-Ari: an Israeli citizen, and was a soldier in the Israeli military radio station. She worked for the United Nations Department of Public Information, Africa section.

Leila Buck: founding member of Mixed Company, a bi-cultural theater collective.

Kathleen Chalfant: Tony nominated actress.

Kia Corthron: is an award-winning playwright.

Eve Ensler: performer, activist and award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues

Amy Goodman: host of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! program.

Suheir Hammad: poet, who has appeared in award winning anthologies, and in zines stapled together by queer youth collectives.

Leonard “Hub” Hubbard: band member of grammy award winning “The Roots”

Brian Jones: has toured across the country as Marx in Howard Zinn’s one-man play Marx in Soho since 1999.

Liz Magnes: celebrated Israeli jazz pianist

Malachy McCourt: actor, author and writer. He has performed on Broadway and off-Broadway.

Mariam Said: the widow of the late Edward Said.

Najla Said: a founding member and the current artistic director of Nibras, the Arab-American theatre collective,

Betty Shamieh: Palestinian-American writer and actor. Her play “Roar” was the first play about Palestinians to appear off-Broadway, and was selected as a New York Times Critic’s Pick for four consecutive weeks.

Patti Smith: American musician, singer, and poet.

Jonathan Tasini: New York Democratic candidate for the United States Senate

Zafer Tawil: New York based oud player born in Jerusalem

Tom Wallace: American peace activist and media coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement at a crucial time following the killing of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall.

Ora Wise: is an Israeli-American peace activist. (reader)

Maysoon Zayid: is an actress and professional stand-up comedian.

Howard Zinn: historian, playwright, and social activist.

Dr. James J. Zogby: founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI)

In June of 1937 the federal government slapped chains and a padlock onto the doors of Maxine Elliot Theatre in New York. It was an attempt to halt a performance of “The Cradle Will Rock,” a Marc Blizstein musical the feds found far too full of dangerous ideas for public consumption. The show’s director, Orson Welles, rushed back from Washington, D.C., on opening day after a failed attempt to convince the government to lift its ban. He found about 600 people waiting to see the performance idling in front of the theater, along with his cast.

Welles got on the phone that day and eventually led the throngs of theater goers and his cast through the city’s streets to the Venice Theatre where, due to fear of reprisals and potential loss of work, the performers belted out their songs and spoke their lines while staying scattered amongst the audience under dimmed lights. Blizstein was the only one to take the stage that night to provide piano accompaniment.

Times change: it’s 2006. I scrutinize airline prices between Priceline, Expedia and JetBlue. I use online pull-down menus to dither between low-calorie, vegetarian and kosher in-flight meal options. Things stay the same: I head to New York in support of a play that — due to the weight of its content, not the merit of its art — suddenly lacks a home.

“My Name is Rachel Corrie” is that play. Rachel left her childhood home of Olympia, WA, to work as a human rights observer and peace activist in the Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, with the International Solidarity Movement. She was killed there on March 16, 2003, by a giant bulldozer operated by an Israeli soldier. The play consists of her words, beginning as a young girl. Her private journals and e-mails to family were edited into a narrative monologue by Guardian newspaper reporter Katherine Viner and actor Alan Rickman, who also directs the play. Bringing Rachel’s words to the stage is actress Megan Dodds.

I saw the play last October as it began its second sellout run at the Royal Court Theatre in London. “Surreal” fails to adequately describe what it was like to sit in that theater packed with British patrons watching a Californian actress vocalize the writings of this Oly Girl as comfortably as if they were her own. I live in Olympia, my adopted home for almost a decade. I had arrived in London that fall after spending the summer working as the media coordinator for ISM in the West Bank. Sitting next to me were Rochelle Gause and Serena Becker, women from Olympia who would be in Rafah a few weeks later working on behalf of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, an ambitious though not yet officially sanctioned group.

I went to the performance with a little trepidation. Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig, are friends. What if I hated it? I’m not usually a big fan of theatre featuring beat-you-over-the-head, overt political messages. I like some nuance and a trace of ambiguity. I knew the play had met with the Corries’ energetic approval. In the bar before curtain call I thought about how I’d respond to questions from folks back in Oly if I decided it tanked.

Ultimately, happily, I didn’t see it as a one-trick political piece. It was — and I realize I’m not the most objective reviewer out there — a stunning, simple piece of work with humor and sadness mingled throughout. There certainly is politics; It does address why a person might step outside the cozy environs of a rainy Northwest town to see what’s happening in the world, specifically relating to the business end of U.S. foreign policy. But these things are incorporated into a module of an entire person who refused to blindly accept party lines or to see other people as anything less than human and worthy of equal treatment. The script also sketches her relationships with an ex-boyfriend, her family, job, experiences at college and walking around downtown in “slutty boots.”

The descriptions of places in this play work like Star Trek transporter technology. Without a set change, you’re just instantly there. Half the play takes place in Olympia; the other happens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I had not seen Palestine in weeks or Olympia in months, yet Dodd’s performance left me conflicted about which place I missed the most. It wasn’t just me. After the play a number of people asked me about Olympia and said they felt like they’d paid it a visit. Others said it made them want to visit.

The play ends somber, but not in despair. This isn’t anything that could be described as a cautionary tale. By introducing the audience to this young woman through her words, they get to see the rest of a person who since 2003 has been immortalized, but often as one-dimensional, distant and small, in an orange vest in front of an armor-plated Caterpillar bulldozer the size of two tanks stacked on top of one another.

After the play, we talked with Rickman and Dodds about plans to bring the play to the United States. He was cautiously optimistic about it getting here, but said it would be rough going to find the play a home in New York. I hoped it would come to Olympia first, or at least the Northwest. But New York was set as the launching point for the play’s journey in the New World. Still, I regarded Rickman’s skepticism skeptically. I didn’t see anything remarkably controversial that would keep it out of New York. There are tons of offerings in the New York theatre scene for anyone specifically looking to be offended by something. Consider “Red Light Winter” with all it’s naked actors simulating awkward sex at the Barrow Street Theatre. In light of that, a young woman standing on a stage in jeans and a vest talking about playing with Palestinian kids, her dad’s neoliberal capitalist job and breaking up with her boyfriend just didn’t seem to me all that controversial.

So I was dismayed to learn that the play, which was set to open at the Making Theatre in New York on March 22, was “postponed indefinitely” by the New York Theatre Workshop, which brought the world the musical “Rent.” After all, this is the year a Palestinian film about suicide bombers wins a Golden Globe and gets nominated for an Academy Award. It’s the year Steven Spielberg also gets an Oscar nomination for a film that portrays Israel as caught in — and culpable for — an endless cycle of violence and revenge. On March 16, the first museum-quality U.S. showing of contemporary Palestinian art opens at The Bridge Gallery in New York, and two Arab hip-hop groups, the Philistines and The N.O.M.A.D.S, are being hosted that same night by the Coda Lounge in a benefit to raise funds for “Slingshot Hip-Hop,” a documentary about Palestinian rappers in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

With all this going on, what’s the big threat posed by a one-act, one-person, one-set play?

In the New York Times, James Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop, said: “We were more worried that those who had never encountered her writing, never encountered the piece, would be using this as an opportunity to position their arguments.”

One can seldom control how people “position their arguments.” I don’t really think people should attempt to. For an art director, I don’t even think it’s in the job description. In fact, the best thing to do is give folks more access to information to allow them to better “position their arguments.” Nicola had the ability to let more people encounter Rachel’s writing and see what her life was about. He and the NYTW chose against offering people that chance.

In The Guardian, Nicola said this: “In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation. … We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn’t want to take.”

Consider this: The conflict over the Occupied Palestinian Territories is not one of religion or of politics. It’s one of human rights. That’s a stand. I just took it right now in this paragraph. We all take them, even in our decisions to remain silent. Nicola and the NYTW, whether they admit it or not, took a stand when they chose to cancel this play. Unfortunately, it’s a stand against NYTWs own audience, and against open artistic expression on potentially touchy subjects. Even on such weak knees, it remains a stand.

And let’s not inflate the situation. Whether Sharon lives or dies or Hamas maintains its slim amount of control of the Palestinian Authority, this one-woman performance about an American peace activist — whether it’s in a British or a New York playhouse — isn’t likely to have much of a ripple amongst those living this conflict every day. Its message isn’t aimed at them. They already know about the issue, at some great cost. This show is geared toward the sort of audience that might end up at the Making Theatre during a month, such as March, when its protagonist was being discussed more in the U.S. media. These are the people who stand to be affected. That’s as edgy as it gets.

None of what Nicola said in the press made much sense. I liked “Rent” so I hastily pecked an e-mail to Nicola encouraging him to reconsider his decision. I didn’t expect a reply minutes later.

“From the first moment I read the text … I was under the spell of this extraordinary person (Rachel),” Nicola wrote. “I still am.” He added that he’d “very much like to see her represented here on our stage.”

He continued: “As you well know, there are many sinister and perhaps not-so-sinister forces out there that want to use Rachel’s life and writing to further their own ends.”

Who are these sinister forces he refers to? Mossad or Hamas or Homeland Security? The Sith? How is it that the likes of the Coda Lounge, The Bridge Gallery and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are somehow immune to these mysterious forces while the New York Theatre Workshop isn’t? Does Nicola need help with them? Folks working against illegal military occupations have a good amount of experience in dealing with such forces. He could ask some of them for advice. I asked him for more detials about these forces, but received no response.

He also told me the play “was offered to us at the eleventh hour, and it meant trying to get it on the stage in an INSANELY short period of time. Making theatre is very old-fashioned–it’s inefficient, labor-intensive and time consuming.”

This didn’t jibe with what I knew about the play. It comes with the one set that consists of a chair, a table with a computer on it, a mattress and a wall. It’s all put together to be used by one actress with a single wardrobe change that happens mid-monologue. Everyone involved in it was given enough of a go-ahead from NYTW that they booked flights to New York. At one point, it must have seemed immanently doable.

“We asked our collaborators for some more time,” Nicola wrote me. “Somehow they turned that simple request into cries of ‘censorship.’ This has puzzled and bewildered us.”

I was bewildered by much of what Nicola wrote to me. But perhaps I can help clear up his puzzlement over the “censorship” allegation: This is censorship. NYTW invited people to bring this play to the United States for a March 22 performance, around a time when many other Palestinian-oriented events were to place in New York. After the fact, Nicola took the political temperature among a narrow segment of the population, and based on the results, called off the performance. NYTW stopped a play based not on the merit of the content, but rather on what certain people in the group thought the political and possibly economic response would be.

I was pleased to read in Nicola’s e-mail that he was so enchanted by Rachel’s writing. He’s going to get the opportunity to hear a lot of it. In response to the NYTW’s decision, people will be doing public readings of Rachel’s journals and e-mails. On March 16, the International Day of Action against the occupation, Rachel’s words will be heard around the world, from New York to Olympia, from Rafah to Tel Aviv.

Times change: It’s 2006. The U.S. government didn’t shut a play down this time. Rather, it was the work of overzealous fear-mongering. Things stay the same: like the folks performing “The Cradle Will Rock” proved in 1937, just because a theater kicks a play out, that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t go on.

I no longer think the play needs to come to the Northwest first. Here it will find an easy audience and a theater space that will readily act as host in short order. Since the weird political drama surrounding this stage drama started, it’s become evident that it’s back east that the play offers the most challenges. It should linger there for a while before coming home.

Still, as I prepare for a week in New York, I wonder what makes “My Name is Rachel Corrie” such a risky endeavor. A number of people in London a few months ago said the play made them want to see Olympia. And some, just a few, mentioned it made them want to see Palestine for themselves. Maybe that’s the threat.

Kids in Rafah protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
Photo courtesy of PunchDownDotOrg.

Plans for the production of MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE were definite. Representatives of the Royal Court Theatre met with NYTW in New York to finalise arrangements seven days before learning that Mr. Nicola wished to postpone the run indefinitely. The production schedule had already been laid out by the NYTW on January 31st,with the first preview scheduled for March 22nd and closing night for May 14th; a budget had been set; a press release had been mutually agreed; flights had been booked and paid for, all with the knowledge of the New York Theatre Workshop. Furthermore, ticket information was already listed on the site of the U.S. ticketing agency Telecharge on February 23rd, 2006 with the correct information about dates, times, original creative team and casting.

Asking for a postponement at this stage in the planning can hardly be described as “a rather routine question, so we thought, of our colleagues” as Mr. Nicola says in his statement on the NYTW website.

In the same statement, and in a letter to the L.A. Times of March 5, 2006, Mr. Nicola claims that “With a schedule largely driven by Alan Rickman’s pre-existing film commitments, we had less than two months to consider mounting the production.” In fact, Alan Rickman first visited the New York Theatre Workshop to discuss the possibility of staging MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE in November 2005. The dates of the production were determined by availability at the theatre, and Mr. Rickman’s film schedule was to be ordered around this. He held back from making any film commitments until after the dates were offered and confirmed by NYTW.

In the New York Times on February 28th, 2006, in an article titled, ‘Play about Demonstrator’s Death is Delayed’, it is reported that Mr. Nicola decided to postpone the work “after polling local Jewish religious and community leaders as to their feeling about the work.” This much he had explained to Diane Borger, General Manager of the Royal Court, during a phone conversation on February 17th, in which he asked to “postpone indefinitely” the production. In a later conversation, he said he would be willing to reassess the political climate in a year’s time and decide then if he could produce the piece with a companion work that would offer an alternative perspective. As explained to Mr. Nicola, this was not acceptable to the Royal Court, as he gave no commitment at this time to revised dates for the production at NYTW. The Royal Court and the Corrie family have always believed that the play speaks for itself. In the words of Rachel’s father, Craig Corrie, “No one should have to take a poll to do
this play; it is a work of art.”.

A postponement at any time, but especially at this late stage, is not the action of an organisation committed to producing MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE. The Royal Court cannot be confident that the political climate will have changed in a year’s time and we are deeply saddened that the New York Theatre Workshop feels unable to let the play be seen now. However, the Royal Court Theatre remains committed to bringing MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE to a U.S. audience at the earliest opportunity.

By VANESSA REDGRAVE

I am urging the Royal Court Theatre to sue the New York Theatre Workshop for the cancellation of the production of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie”. Not because I donated money for this production, which the Royal Court have been fundraising for–a target of 50,000 pounds, underwritten by Alan Rickman.

This is censorship of the worst kind. More awful even than that.It is black-listing a dead girl and her diaries. A very brave and exceptional girl who all citizens, whatever their faith or nationality, should be proud and grateful for her existence. They couldn’t silence her voice while she lived, so she was killed. Her voice began to speak again as Alan Rickman read her diaries, and Megan Dodds became Rachel Corrie.Now the New York Theatre Workshop have silenced that dear voice.

I shall never forget the glimpse, at the close of Alan Rickman’s production, of Rachel when 10 years old, shot on a little family movie camera, making her speech about world poverty and the urgent need to end the misery. The New York Theatre Workshop have silenced that little girl, as well as the girl who confronted the Israeli army Caterpillar bulldozer.

There has to be a court case on the sheer fact of the cancellation of this production. I suppose lawyers were consulted about the word “postponed”. We in the theatre know however what cancelling a production means, whatever words are used. Megan Dodds, and a crew lose their jobs. The Royal Court Theatre lose a production that was a few weeks from opening in New York City.

For the Royal Court Theatre were producing “Rachel Corrie”, with the New York Theatre Workshop, and putting up a lot of money–$100,000 dollars.

I hope that all theatre artists, writers, designers, actors, directors, independent producers and artists’ representatives will make their protests known publicly as well as directly to the New York Theatre Workshop management. I hope that American Actors Equity will be asked to take up and support the Royal Court Theatre producer, Elyse Dodgson, the director, Alan Rickman, and the actress Megan Dodds.

If this cancellation is not transformed into a new production, somewhere in New York, immediately, we would be complicit, all of us, in a catastrophe that must not be allowed to take place. This play is not about taking sides. It is about protecting human beings.

In this case, Palestinian human beings who have no protection, for their families, their homes or their streets.

Rachel Corrie gave her life to protect a family. She didn’t have or use a gun or bomb.

She had her huge humanity, and she gave that to save lives.

“My Name is Rachel Corrie” was scheduled to open at the New York Theatre Workshop on March 22nd. It has been postponed indefinitely, sparking much debate. Director Alan Rickman said, “Rachel Corrie lived in nobody’s pocket but her own. Whether one is sympathetic with her or not, her voice is like a clarion in the fog and should be heard.” Rachel’s mother Cindy wonders, “Why are people so afraid of Rachel’s words?” We ask the same question and are determined to give people the opportunity to hear those words. — Read the rest at Electronic Intifada.

Meanwhile, an arts exhibit in New York will boast Palestinian art in a first official, professional showing of its kind. No word yet on whether what the Palestinian-haters out there will do to get that canceled. So much happening. We’ll try to catch up now.

Apparently some people love free speech when a bunch of Danes get together to scrawl racist pictures for a newspaper, but hate it in just about every other respect.

Meanwhile, the American-funded seige on Palestine continues with an onslaught of military invasions in the Balata refugee camp.

For those of us finding it hard to figure out where we stand on the Danish cartoon conflict, one difficulty in the US is a lack of information on how anyone other than US media pundits is thinking about this issue.

To help, below are links to five articles posted on ZNet on Tuesday by Maher Ali, Omar Barghouti, Harsha Walia, Tarek Fatah and Ramzy Baroud, and the first paragraph of each to give a sense of the author’s perspective.

Maher Ali, Nothing to Kill or Die For
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=9681

AT the start of this week, the death toll stood at three and the situation seemed likely to deteriorate, even as commentators throughout Europe tried to hose down suggestions that what we have been witnessing is a clash of civilizations. It is harder to allay the impression that it is a clash of cultures, exacerbated by inordinate degrees of obduracy on both sides.

Secular Arabs Detest Hypocrisy Too
By Omar Barhgouti

As a rule, I hate to generalize, but I’ll make an exception this time. It seems westerners simply do not get it. Editorials all over Europe have bellowed in unison to defend the right of publishing anti-Islamic cartoons as an embodiment of the untouchable status of freedom of speech, one of the foundations of the democratic, secular ideal that has informed the west since the enlightenment. Even some non-conformant writers, who chose not to join the no-obligations-free-speech chorus, merely highlighted the need for “responsibility,” “wisdom,” and other pragmatic considerations that ought to take into consideration, besides the revered freedom of expression, the just as sacred beliefs of European as well as non-European Muslims, particularly to avoid the current backlash. What both groups do not understand is that what most Muslims and Arabs are accusing the west of is hypocrisy, not indulgence in their cherished freedoms per se.

The Row Over the Danish Cartoon
By Harsha Walia

From the burning of its flag to a boycott of its brands of butter and cookies, Denmark is feeling global outrage over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Danish paper Jyllands-Posten first published the cartoons on Sept. 30, 2005. The drawings included one showing Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a lit fuse. Another portrayed him with a bushy gray beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. A third pictured a middle-aged prophet standing in the desert with a walking stick, in front of a donkey and a sunset. The purpose of the cartoons, the chief editor said, was “to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues.” The paper insisted that it meant no offence.

What Would the Profit Have Done
By Tarek Fatah

Keep to forgiveness (O Mohammed), and enjoin kindness, and turn away from the ignorant. /- The Koran, Chapter 7, Verse 199

During his lifetime, Prophet Mohammed endured insults and ridicule on a daily basis. His opponents mocked his message and used physical violence to stop him from challenging the status quo. At no stage during this ordeal did the Prophet lose his temper or react to these provocations. Tradition has it that he would, instead, offer a prayer of forgiveness to those who showed contempt for him. Today, however, many followers of Prophet Mohammed are acting the exact opposite. Reacting to the provocative Danish cartoons about the Prophet, they are burning newspapers, threatening journalists, issuing bomb threats, yet claiming they are standing up for the Prophet himself.

Taking on the Wrong Enemy
By Ramzy Baroud

Only an irresponsible and intellectually inept individual would sketch such insulting images as those depicting Prophet Mohamed by a cartoonist in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper. And no self-respecting newspaper would allow itself to run such filth. However, the backlash in the Muslim world highlights a much more serious issue.

While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov’s vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He – and they – are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?

UK’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan knows what Web is for…

… You know, besides porn and gambling and bitching about movie adaptations of comic books. If someone were inclined, if he or she felt like it, a person could post Foreign & Commonwealth Office legal opinions detailing that U.S. policy (backed by the United Kingdom) in Uzbekistan — which is more about scoring mad oil loot rather than pushing democracy or human rights — relies on the use of torture to maintain control of the energy market.

I just read about Craig Murray over at BoingBoing and became an immediate fan.

A forthcoming book covering his time as ambassador is currently being blocked by the (UK) Foreign Office, which has demanded he remove references to two documents from the book and his web site. Murray has responded by publishing the documents in full there, and by encouraging bloggers to disseminate the documents as widely as possible.

-BB