cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/487403
The French organizers of the Festival Off Avignon, one of the biggest performing arts festivals in the world, said that they received protests and threats from China after selecting Taiwan as its guest of honour country for this year’s event.
According to Harold David and Laurent Domingos, co-presidents of the Avignon Festival & Compagnies (AF&C), China’s embassy in Paris threatened to withdraw from the event if Taiwan was not dropped as its guest of honour country (‘pays invité d’honneur’).
Domingos said that they had anticipated such a reaction. “We are not stupid, we understand geopolitics,” he said, adding that they have to bear the responsibility for their choice. While the festival’s board has not made a final decision, David and Domingos said they believed the event, which began on Wednesday, should maintain its independence, autonomy, variety and freedom, and keep Taiwan as the guest of honor.
Domingos said that the festival is also planning events for the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and the People’s Republic of China. The two developments do not conflict with each other, he said.
Taiwan first participated in the Festival Off Avignon 17 years ago, and the country’s selection as a guest of honor was a tribute to its past contributions to the event, David said. The traits Taiwan shares with the festival include diversity, openness to the world, creativity and freedom of speech, he added.
Domingos also lauded the creativity that Taiwan has brought to the festival, which runs until July 21. “Taiwan identifies itself with its culture. It is not recognized by the United Nations and many countries as a ‘country,’ so it defines itself with its cultural identity,” he said, adding that the festival itself was a field to exhibit cultural identity.
As with so many things, Shaq said it perfectly.
“We as American people, we do a lot of business in China, and they know and understand our values, and we understand their values. And one of our best values here in America is free speech. We’re allowed to say what we want to say, and we’re allowed to speak up about injustices, and that’s just how it goes. And if people don’t understand that, that’s something that they have to deal with.”
Yeah or a protestor at Columbia or a teacher in Oklahoma or working for the CDC or New York Times or fuck me what the fuck is happening
(I mean it is clear that Florida and Oklahoma and the administration at Columbia are rebelling against the American system. I think their tendencies are universal which includes American governing bodies too. I think part of the good sense of the American system is recognizing that people of every nationality and supposed-allegiance have certain tendencies when you put them in charge, and it isn’t at all a bad thing for them to get scared that if they act on them, someone might carry them out of the building and throw them in the harbor and find someone else to put in charge instead.)
Way too many terrible examples. And yet conservatives decided to focus on Facebook and the like as if they have the right of free speech in a non-governmental context.
Government taking away speech? Fine. But how dare they get a 24-hour ban from Facebook for calling 12 different black people the N-word in 5 minutes?!
They are going to protest by not attending? Fucking good. Don’t go.
Did they expect China to react differently?
Better get used to fascists running the show, France.
