An open letter by Turin artists to Gigi Cristoforetti, Director of TorinoDanza

Dear Gigi Cristoforetti,

We realize this is a sensitive subject, but please do not become an accomplice to a rebranding operation, specifically commissioned and financed by the Israeli government, aimed at hiding the crimes the State continues to perpetrate against the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people behind a reassuring image. We write asking you to revoke the decision to host the Batsheva Dance Company in Moncalieri (Turin) for the following reasons.

Many colleagues, artists and intellectuals, openly opposed to Israeli policies, even willing to discuss the boycott of Israeli products, reject the idea of academic and cultural boycotts of Israel.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that a cultural boycott is basically considered a form of censorship, and art is censored only in totalitarian systems where they fear the message of freedom. The second is that art spans boundaries of nations and conflicts and with its universal ideals reconciles men, feeds mutual understanding and builds bridges between cultures.

In the abstract, these colleagues are right. In practical terms, however, they fail to take into account a central characteristic of the age in which they live: the key role of communication and the utilitarian relationship between culture and spectacle on the one hand and politics on the other, between art and power.

In the age of the Internet, the global village and virtual reality, a cultural event, just as a sporting event, is of utmost importance in promoting the international appeal of a country, in order to intercept financial flows and at the same time promote its public image. It could not be otherwise, and certainly not for those who truly want to understand the reasoning behind the BDS movement’s extension of the boycott to artistic and cultural realms.

Several centuries have passed since Machiavelli suggested that those in power carefully manage their public image.

Companies that invest in art do so with the legitimate aim of associating their brand to the work being financed, for reasons of prestige and image (ultimately to increase sales). States behave no differently.

Israel knows well it must invest a great deal in order to present itself in way that casts a shadow over the reality of a country that has illegally occupied the West Bank for over forty years, holds the Gaza Strip under an enduring military blockade, launched bloodbaths in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2009, with thousands of civilians killed, practices a system of apartheid within its borders, denies Palestinians every last square meter of land, forcing them to leave, ignores UN resolutions and violates international law.

The attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, with the associated death and destruction, defined as disproportionate even by some European politicians close to Israel, reminded world public opinion, distracted by many wars and the economic crisis, that there continues to exist in the Middle East a reality unacceptable to the ideals of justice and freedom that inspire the democratic world.

In order to counter growing unpopularity following the two massacres of 2006 and 2009, the Israeli government launched an across the board public relations campaign called "Unexpected Israel", which is also articulated in a specific cultural and artistic image campaign called "Brand Israel."

This campaign, financed with public funds, has mobilized available national artistic energies, writers, filmmakers, musicians, dancers, etc., in order to convey a positive image of the country to the world. Israeli artists who accept ministry funding are required to sign a contract that commits them to support the government campaign.

These are artists that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs refers to as "the best ambassadors of Israel in the world." The work of diplomacy consists of looking after the interests of the nation throughout the world and convincing other countries to accept the policies that the government in power considers effective in achieving an end. For example, diplomacy can be mobilized to convince western countries about the need for Apartheid, for reasons of national security.

As you can see, in the specific situation it is not the content, the message of the artistic work, which might also be of high value and that we respect, that decides its political significance, but the context in which it operates. At the very least, the latter augments the effectiveness of the artistic message considered, so to speak, in vitro.

The target of the boycott, therefore, is not the art, much less our Israeli colleagues, but the political significance it takes on in the context at that particular moment.

Finally, a few words about one of the most common objections to academic and cultural boycotts, also made by Umberto Eco, which is an objection of apparent common sense. Why boycott Israel alone, one wonders. What about China in reference to Tibet? And Russia in reference to Chechnya? And so on. We should boycott them too, as well as half the world, though doing so would ultimately build walls between cultures, making dialogue more difficult.

Better not to do anything, with the exception, of course, of the embargo on Saddam’s Iraq following Desert Storm, pity the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, and the sanctions against Milosevic's Serbia and Ahmadinejad's Iran.

Yet there is a radical difference between Israel and China, for example, so evident that it’s surprising it isn’t immediately grasped by an intellectual such as Eco.

China is not a democratic country. We can consider it "normal" that a totalitarian country does not respect the values of freedom and self-determination of peoples. The anomaly lies in the fact that Israel is instead a country that refers to itself as democratic, and as such wants to be and is accepted by the free world, to which it belongs for all intents and purposes.

We will not make war on China, it is hoped, in order to guarantee the Tibetan people’s right to self-determination (who are not subjected to an Apartheid regime as are Palestinian citizens of Israel), but we can and must apply all necessary pressure, using strictly non-violent methods, to demand that a democratic country (or one that wants to be) respect and apply the principles by which it claims to be inspired, starting with the abolition of apartheid, under penalty of virtual expulsion from the free world and suspension of trade and military agreements in force.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who along with Nelson Mandela was one of the architects of post-Apartheid South Africa, addressing those who declared themselves neutral with respect to the conflict that pitted the white minority against the black majority in that country, said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

With this open letter, we call on you not to be neutral, and instead publicly assume your own political and intellectual responsibilities.

Anthony Salerno (musician)
Lucia Citterio (dancer)

Marco Gobetti (actor, director)

Emanuele Cisi (musician)

Enzo Zirilli (musician)

Maurizio Redegoso Kharitian (musician)

Francesco Varano (actor, director)

Aldo Mella (musician)

Riccardo Ruggeri (musician)

Manuela Celestino (actress)

Claudio Lodati (musician)

Gemma Nocera (teacher, writer)

David Liberti (musician)