“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
Nelson Mandela
Dear organisers of the Ravenna Festival,
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) calls on the Ravenna Festival to cancel the performance of Batsheva Dance Company scheduled for the 6th of July. Batsheva consciously contributes to the whitewash of Israel’s regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid. Welcoming Batsheva in your festival normalizes Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and disregards the Palestinian call for a boycott of complicit Israeli cultural institutions.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) refers to Batsheva as "the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture.” [1] Batsheva artistic director Ohad Naharin admitted in a 2005 interview, for instance, "I continue to do my work, while 20 km from me people are participating in war crimes.” [2]
In 2009, Arye Mekel of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) stated that the ministry "will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theatre companies, exhibits . . . This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.” [3] Batsheva receives funding from the Israeli MFA to promote “Brand Israel”. Indeed, Batsheva has not once taken a stand as an institution against the oppression of the Palestinian people.
These attempts to “Brand Israel” with an image different from its reality of occupation and apartheid are designed to distract from Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinians, including its hundreds of Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land and its apartheid wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. [4] This is in addition to Israel’s repeated assaults on Gaza and war crimes against its residents. In addition, Israel has also enacted over 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel to enshrine their status as second-class citizens. [5]
A disservice to Mandela’s legacy
This year’s Festival will honor Nelson Mandela. We join our South African partners to denounce the cynical use of Mandela’s legacy by inviting Batsheva, a supporter of Israel’s own brand of Apartheid.
Like the people of South Africa, we refuse to submit to our colonial oppressor. Palestinian artists, intellectuals and academics issued a call in 2004 urging people of conscience to boycott Israel academically and culturally. [6] In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to be imposed against Israel until it ends its oppression and apartheid. [7] BDS is largely inspired by the South African people’s struggle against apartheid and the international movement that sought to isolate the apartheid regime and its complicit institutions. South Africans, including prominent leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle, have supported a cultural boycott of Israel.
During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, no respectable festival around the world invited South African dance or music groups that were complicit in justifying or whitewashing apartheid. Taking no position on apartheid was rightly regarded not as an expression of “neutrality” but rather as a form of complicity. As Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu says, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Israel and its complicit institutions, including dance companies and orchestras, should be treated according to the same principles that were applied to apartheid South Africa.
As Mandela once said “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” In this spirit we call on the Ravenna Festival to cancel Batsheva’s performance in this year’s edition of the festival. Hosting Batsheva makes the Festival complicit in normalizing Israel’s apartheid and therefore a potential target of boycott.
Regards,
PACBI
1] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/culture/pages/culture-%20dance.aspx
[2] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1362
[3] www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1362
[4] http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=4&case=131&p3=4
[5] http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/database-discriminatory-israel/
[6] https://bdsmovement.net/activecamps/cultural-boycott
[7] https://bdsmovement.net/call