Open Letter to Professor Nalin Thakkar
‘Your Decision to Censor a Statement Supporting the Palestinians at the Whitworth Cloud Studies Exhibition is Shameful and Cowardly’
Below is a letter that I sent earlier today to Nalin Thakkar, Manchester University’s Vice President for Social Responsibility, n.thakker@manchester.ac.uk.
Together with the refusal of Forensic Architecture to allow its Exhibition to continue,
the vast number of messages they received and the Manchester Palestine Action/PSC
demonstration outside, the University caved in.
The
far-Right UK Lawyers for Israel [UKLFI], who have no standing in this matter
whatsoever, responded by saying that they were ‘“considering all options”. In other words their bluff has been
called and they have no options other than to slink away.
Like
the affair of the Stretford High School whose head tried
to divert an appeal for the Palestinian victims in Gaza to Israeli ‘victims’,
it shows that concerted mass action and campaigning can make a real
difference. It also shows that the effect
of Israel’s attack on Gaza is to change the political climate on Palestine.
Open Letter to Professor Nalin Thakkar
Dear Professor Thakar,
Your decision to remove a statement in support of the Palestinians from the
Whitworth Gallery Exhibition of Forensic Architecture is both shameful and
cowardly. It demonstrates Manchester University’s contempt for freedom of
speech and academic and artistic freedom.
In 2017 Manchester University bowed
to the demands of the Israeli Embassy when it censored the title of a speech by
Marika
Sherwood, a Jewish holocaust survivor, who compared life in the Budapest
Ghetto to those of the Palestinians.
In one of the most infamous incidents of murder in 2014 an Israeli plane machine gunned 4 children playing on Gaza's beach - according to Regev it was 'a tragic accident'
It might be thought that the experiences of a historian, who
was a child survivor of the last Jewish community to be destroyed by the Nazis in
Europe might trump the opinions of Israeli Ambassador, Mark Regev. Regev is
infamous for justifying
Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, which in 2014 killed 2,200 people, including 551
children.
As a diplomat Regev was sent to Britain in order to lie on behalf of his
country. It speaks volumes that Manchester University’s Administration preferred
a diplomatic liar, whose job it was to explain away war crimes, to that of a
Jew who lived through the holocaust.
It is not as if Sherwood was alone in comparing Israel and Nazi Germany.
Professor Ze’ev Sternhell of the Hebrew University wrote
in Ha’aretz that in Israel there was a ‘Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin
to Early Nazism’. Sternhell
was a child survivor of the Nazi ghetto Przemyśl in
Poland. Fortunately he wasn’t invited to speak at Manchester University.
Professor
Yehuda Elkana, Rector of the Central European University, which was forced
out of Budapest by Israel’s anti-Semitic
friend, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, was a child survivor of Auschwitz. Elkana too compared Israel to
the Nazis speaking of ‘the tragic and
paradoxical victory of Hitler’ in the lessons that Zionism draws from the
holocaust. Quoting Thomas Jefferson Elkana concluded that ‘democracy and worship of the past are incompatible.’ It would seem that democracy and Manchester University
are also incompatible
Sternhell
and Elkana would also have been censored by you and your fellow academics in
your desire not to offend the Zionists. The fact that in Israel today mobs chant
‘death to the Arabs’ just as in
Poland and Nazi Germany they used to chant
‘death to the Jews’ is irrelevant
since power not truth is what determines your decision making.
The Exhibition, Cloud Studies,
shows how the environment and atmosphere are polluted by man-made clouds, to
the detriment of those living underneath them. The use of poisonous gas and
white phosphorus against civilian populations, from Palestine to Chile are
inevitably political since it is impossible to avoid asking which political and
economic interest groups are to blame.
Of course the statement at the entrance to the Exhibition
would offend supporters of Israel and Zionism. It was your duty to stand
up to the voices of censorship. Unfortunately Manchester University, once
again, has failed abysmally in this respect.
Unsurprisingly
Forensic Architecture’s director, Eyal Weizman, a British-Israeli professor, has
demanded
that the exhibition be closed. What you lack in integrity others have to compensate
for.
composite image of spatial analysis conducted by Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International in relation to Rafah 1.8.14
What is particularly disturbing is your attempt to
justify what you have done. Free speech is meaningless unless it includes the
right to offend. As George Orwell wrote:
“If liberty
means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not
want to hear.”
Your response to those who have written to you has
been that
artistic
freedom, freedom of speech and expression and academic freedom ‘must be
considered alongside other rights and obligations, including those under
equality laws.’
This is disingenuous. There is nothing in the Equality Act 2000 that
prevents criticism of Israel or states that commit war crimes. Would you have
suppressed criticism of Apartheid in South Africa if there had been a domestic
lobby of White South African expatriates?
You talked of the Statement’s
‘potential impact on some communities in the city, community cohesion and
fostering good relations.’ These are weasel words employed to hide your desire
not to offend the rich and powerful. You
are quoted
in the Jewish Chronicle as saying that
“We are very sorry for any distress which has been
experienced by members of our Jewish community in connection with aspects of
the Cloud Studies exhibition, particularly the accompanying written statement.”
This is not only outrageous but in itself anti-Semitic.
What you are saying, whether you realise it or not, is that British Jews have
an investment in Israeli Apartheid and Israeli war crimes. The lack of self-awareness
of Zionism’s apologists never ceases to amaze.
‘Anti-Semitism’ as per the OED
is ‘hostility to or prejudice against
Jews.’ The Jerusalem
Declaration on Anti-Semitism defines anti-Semitism as ‘discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews’.
These are simple concepts, even for an academic.
Being a professor I think we can assume you
possess a modicum of intelligence, despite acting as the ventriloquist for racist
lobbyists. Can you find even one mention of Jews in the statement you
censored? The criticism is directed solely against the Israeli state.
There were 4 groups who lobbied you. UKLFI, Manchester
Jewish Representative Council [MJRC], North West Friends of Israel [NWFI] and
the Manchester Zionist Central Council.
UKLFI is a group of
far-right lawyers who provided
a platform for Regavim, an NGO that spends its time trying to secure the
demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
NWFI is a group that has demonstrated with and
organised with the fascist English
Defence League and Tommy
Robinson.
The MJRC is the Manchester Zionist Central Council
under another name and does not represent secular or left-wing Jews. But even
were that not the case, criticism of Israel is none of its business. British Jews
are British not Israeli.
Instead of meeting with these groups (or Regev)
they should have been told them that censoring an artistic exhibition was none
of their business. Instead you went out
of your way to appease them.
Your behaviour reminds me of those German academics
who took the cowards way out when they refused to stand by their Jewish colleagues
as they were forced out of their posts. At least they could plausibly justify
their behaviour out of fear for their own safety.
Tony Greenstein
Below are extracts
from articles on the exhibition of Forensic Architecture that Manchester University
censored.
Cloud
Studies is filled with hope not hate
Media and activist criticism of
Cloud Studies
An article critical of the exhibition, with one (anonymous) commenter
describing the exhibit as “hate-filled”, was published in the Jewish Chronicle. The commenter was quoted as saying
“The information is totally
decontextualised and there is no mention of Hamas or the reasons for the
conflicts.”
This appears to suggest that art should conform to some sort of BBC
balance standards. But this is an exhibit in an art gallery, art does not need
to be balanced, and the BBC balance standards for years allowed equal footing
to climate deniers, often financially backed by powerful fossil fuel interests,
in debates against those fighting against climate change who had the backing of
99% of the scientific community.
For me the concept of balance has to be weighed against the evidence available and the power invested in both sides of an argument. And in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there is no doubt that the power lies with Israel and the weight of evidence shows that Palestinians overwhelmingly suffer the most human rights abuses in this conflict.
The Jewish Chronicle article also takes issue with the phrases of the “struggle against apartheid” and “settler colonial violence” used in the
exhibit, as if this were unacceptable language. But when you look at the
evidence of oppression and violence against the Palestinians by the Israeli
state since “the
Catastrophe” in 1947, the only rational conclusion is that Israel and the
occupied territories are an apartheid state, with different rights for Arab and
Israeli citizens, in which Palestinians are regularly subject to discrimination
and violence.
Activists at UK Lawyers for Israel have written to the University of
Manchester saying that they are concerned about “the impact of the inflammatory language and representations contained in the exhibition on the Jewish people in
Manchester”.
The director of Forensic Architecture, Israeli-born Eyal Weizman,
replied to the allegation that the exhibit could inflame discrimination by saying, “I
disagree with those that say so: like anti-Palestinian racism, we oppose and
condemn antisemitism, and wrote it in our statement.”
It would be a backwards step for the fight for human rights across the
globe, if Whitworth Art Gallery and the University of Manchester succumbed to
the pressure being exerted against this exhibition, by curtailing its run or
refusing to host similar exhibits in the future.
The use of an Israeli drone over Gaza to drop multiple
canisters of teargas over Palestinian protestors, depicted briefly in the Cloud
Studies film, brought to mind that Oldham is home to an Israeli owned Elbit arms factory. While the drone in the film was not an
Elbit drone, the company is a primary supplier of Hermes drones to the Israeli
military, and components manufactured in Elbit factories in England are used in
Hermes drones. These drones have taken part in the attacks on Gaza in 2009, work carried out by Elbit
factories across the UK contribute to the oppressive clouds over Gaza.
Meta-data and drones in Cloud Studies also took me back to
the UK’s involvement in the US drone strike assassination programme, where suspected
terrorists are identified not by evidence, but by meta-data, which is acted on
to execute them by lethal attacks from military drones.
Carbon Cloud and the sources of fire, 2015
What Cloud Studies showed me, with the wide-ranging studies
presented at this exhibition, was that meta-data and the wealth of digital
information out there can be used progressively. It has restored my faith in
the potential of the silicon revolution to steer humanity in the right
direction, and away from the path dictated by state and corporations, which
leads to an Orwellian future.
Big Brother is getting bigger, and increasingly connected.
With this exhibit Forensic Architecture have provided a
growth spurt for the little brother, the one who believes in human rights and
creating a fair society where everyone has the opportunity to reach their full
potential, and not be surveilled and stamped on by those that abuse power.
Cloud
Studies shows that you can find beauty and hope in man-made clouds, including
the rapidly expanding digital cloud created by human actions and utilised by
Forensic Architecture to such strong effect in this exhibition.
Investigating
toxic clouds and environmental racism with Forensic Architecture
On Juneteenth last year, a day commemorating the emancipation of African
American people from slavery, members of St James Parish gathered at the Buena
Vista burial site in Louisiana. A video posted to
YouTube shows mourners clutching bouquets of flowers whilst others hold
black umbrellas to protect them from the hot sun. The group had gathered to
honour their enslaved ancestors buried there. A placard resting on the ground reads:
“Formosa: You are NOT welcome here”.
Formosa Plastics Group plan to build a factory on the banks of the Mississippi
which would include the burial ground. RISE St James, a local community group,
have organised against the development.
“We’re going to stand up for St
James Parish; this is our home and we’re not going anywhere”, founding director Sharon Lavigne says defiantly in the YouTube video.
RISE say the factory will contribute
to the poisoning of the air and water supply with toxic
chemicals. Formosa disputes the accusations about health issues.
An extract from the video is featured in Cloud Studies, a new exhibition
being shown at the Whitworth as part of Manchester International Festival. The
exhibition situates the struggle for clean air in Louisiana within a wider
investigation into how toxic clouds are weaponised by states, corporations,
militaries and police forces around the world.
Samaneh Moafi is a senior researcher at Forensic Architecture (FA) – the
organisation behind the exhibition – and has oversight over the Cloud Studies
project. FA is a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London,
known for its use of architectural techniques to expose human rights
violations.
She tells
me that ‘toxic clouds’ was a common theme across multiple investigations they
had previously carried out, such as the use of tear gas in Hong Kong,
herbicidal warfare in Gaza and chlorine dumping in Syria. “We realised that we had been able to develop new investigative
techniques in order to map these clouds [and] bring liability around them”,
she says.
The
exhibition’s central film is shown on a huge curved screen which cuts across
the gallery space. It demonstrates the techniques and technologies FA uses to
investigate toxic clouds and draws comparisons between these human rights
violations through narration voiced by Moafi.
The
section on Louisiana charts the connection between air pollution caused by petrochemical
companies and high cancer rates in the area. It also highlights the fact
that the area, known as the petrochemical corridor or ‘cancer alley’, was once
known as ‘plantation country’ because of the large number of fallow sugarcane
plantations that stood there.
“The
petrochemical industry has inherited the spatial logics of settler colonialism
and slavery […] it is the latest phase of a continuum of environmental racism
spanning 300 years”, Moafi says in the narration.
Olukoye
Akinkugbe, an assistant researcher at FA, explains how the team built on
existing research and technology to chart the spread of emissions. “We have been working with a scientist [who]
has simulated particles in the air which represent particle emissions from
sources that we map, and we’ve been able to build a 3D model”, he says.
“You see the extent and volume of something you can
never really see with your own eyes; you get a very spatial understanding of
the extent”, he says. This research is then combined with interviews with local
people to create a more detailed picture.
A room in
the exhibition explores the ‘cancer alley’ investigation in more detail with
videos and models visitors can engage with. A sign at the entrance reads: “If toxic air is a monument to slavery, how
do we take it down?”
Imani
Jacqueline Brown, an artist, activist and researcher from New Orleans who
worked on the project, explained the meaning behind this statement at a panel
talk prior to the exhibition.
“If we remove all the monuments to slavery, to
slave masters and to colonists, what then? What else is actually a monument to
slavery?” she says. “[This region is called] ‘cancer alley’ because people living
there have one of the highest EPA determined risks and rates of cancer in the
US because they’re breathing some of the most toxic air produced by over 200
petrochemical plants […] that occupy the footprints of fallow sugarcane
plantations”.
The exhibition is one platform FA are using to share their
investigation, or one “forum” as they put it. It will also exist as an advocacy
tool in court cases, a lobbying tool for changes in laws and regulations and as
evidence in claims for reparations.
FA’s recognition by the art world is not something that has always sat
comfortably with founding director Eyal Weizman. After FA was nominated for the
Turner Prize in 2018, Weizman told artnet that “it’s very unexpected: we don’t consider ourselves to be artists”.
It was telling that one of the first questions he considered at the panel talk
was “why are we doing exhibitions at
all?”.
It’s something I also talk about with Moafi when I ask why they chose to
showcase their findings at an art gallery. “I
think the question that had come up at the time of the Turner was a question of
discipline – whether our practices were in the discipline of art or something
else”, she says.
“To ask this question of
discipline is a bit archaic because if anything the work that we’re doing is
precisely on the intersections of different disciplines. A third of us come
from the discipline of architecture, but we also have journalists, artists,
software developers, legal activists and so on”.
Another researcher I spoke to, Omar Ferwati, hopes the field of architecture more broadly can learn from FA’s activism. “I think there is great potential and desire amongst individual practitioners to be engaged in politically aware and sensitive work that is responsive and be agents of change, rather than agents of normalcy”, he says.
Moafi hopes that people come away from the exhibition with an
understanding that the struggles for air across the world are all connected. “How can we protect this universal right to
breathe if not by locking arms?”, she asks.
It takes time to fully appreciate Cloud Studies. This is not an
exhibition where you can flit from room to room because you will miss Forensic
Architecture’s key message: struggles against toxic air around the world are
interconnected. Whether you can call it art or not is beside the point; it’s
challenging, purposeful and deserves to be seen.
Please write to the following apologists for Israel’s war crimes and
ethnic cleansing:
Alistair Hudson, Director of the Whitworth alistair.hudson@manchester.ac.uk
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
of The University of Manchester nancy.rothwell@manchester.ac.uk
Nalin Thakkar, Vice President for Social
Responsibility n.thakker@manchester.ac.uk
Patrick Hackett, Registrar, Secretary and
Chief Operating Officer patrick.hackett-REGISTRAR@manchester.ac.uk
Exhibition | Forensic Architecture: Cloud Studies (Whitworth Gallery)
From
Gaza to Grenfell, Forensic Architecture’s latest exhibition, Cloud
Studies, documents the perpetration of, and resistance to, slow violence as it
is enacted by states and corporations, writes Esther Kaner in her review.
Ceasefire
Magazine 13.8.21
Artists
pull work from Whitworth gallery after Palestine statement removal
The
Democratisation of Art? Manchester International Festival 2021 – Review
Artists
pull work from Whitworth gallery after Palestine statement removal
UK
university censors title of Holocaust survivor's speech criticising Israel
On Friday, June 19th, 2020, members of RISE St. James assembled on the site occupied by Formosa Plastics, formerly the site of the Buena Vista plantation, to honor their enslaved ancestors buried on the property. keep up with RISE on facebook here:
