From my girl Shallom in Canada:
an open letter from one of the great Canadian playwrights Wajdi Mouwad to Prime Minister Harper.
Here is the text of a masterpiece - a letter from playwright Wajdi Mouwad
to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was published in Le Devoir a few days
ago. The translation below is thanks to John van Burek.
the text is here:
http://www.thewreckingball.ca/
I've also pasted it below. Please disseminate it far and wide. A call to
arms.
*
An open letter to Prime Minister Harper:
Monsieur le premier ministre,
We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are
Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a
writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the
National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state,
working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues.
Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to
another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in
the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook.
Indeed, having followed this matter closely, I have arrived at a few
conclusions that I would like to publicly share with you since, as I'm sure
you will agree, this debate has become one of public interest.
The Symbolism
Firstly, it seems that you might benefit by surrounding yourself with
counsellors who will be attentive to the symbolic aspects of your
Government's actions. I am sure you know this but there is no harm in
reminding ourselves that every public action denotes not only what it is
but what it symbolises.
For example, a Prime Minister who chooses not attend the opening ceremonies
of the Olympics, claiming his schedule does not permit it, in no way
reduces the symbolism which says that his absence might signify something
else. This might signify that he wishes to denote that Canada supports the
claims of Tibet. Or it might serve as a sign of protest over the way in
which Beijing deals with human rights. If the Prime Minister insists that
his absence is really just a matter of timing, whether he likes it or not,
this will take on symbolic meaning that commits the entire country. The
symbolism of a public gesture will always outweigh the technical
explanations.
Declaration of war
Last week, your government reaffirmed its manner of governing unilaterally,
this time on a domestic issue, in bringing about reductions in granting
programs destined for the cultural sector. A mere matter of budgeting, you
say, but one which sends shock waves throughout the cultural milieu
–rightly or wrongly, as we shall see- for being seen as an expression
of your contempt for that sector. The confusion with which your Ministers
tried to justify those reductions and their refusal to make public the
reports on the eliminated programs, only served to confirm the symbolic
significance of that contempt. You have just declared war on the artists.
Now, as one functionary to another, this is the second thing that I wanted
to tell you: no government, in showing contempt for artists, has ever been
able to survive. Not one. One can, of course, ignore them, corrupt them,
seduce them, buy them, censor them, kill them, send them to camps, spy on
them, but hold them in contempt, no. That is akin to rupturing the strange
pact, made millennia ago, between art and politics.
Contempt
Art and politics both hate and envy one another; since time immemorial,
they detest each other and they are mutually attracted, and it's through
this dynamic that many a political idea has been born; it is in this
dynamic that sometimes, great works of art see the light of day. Your
cultural politics, it must be said, provoke only a profound consternation.
Neither hate nor detestation, not envy nor attraction, nothing but numbness
before the oppressive vacuum that drives your policies.
This vacuum which lies between you and the artists of Canada, from a
symbolic point of view, signifies that your government, for however long it
lasts, will not witness either the birth of a political idea or a
masterwork, so firm is your apparent belief in the unworthiness of that for
which you show contempt. Contempt is a subterranean sentiment, being a mix
of unassimilated jealousy and fear towards that which we despise. Such
governments have existed, but not lasted because even the most detestable of
governments cannot endure if it hasn't the courage to affirm what it
actually is.
Why is this?
What are the reasons behind these reductions, which are cut from the same
cloth as those made last year on the majority of Canadian embassies, who
saw their cultural programming reduced, if not eliminated? The economies
that you have made are ridiculously small and the votes you might win with
them have already been won. For what reason, then, are you so bent on
hurting the artists by denying them some of their tools? What are you
seeking to extinguish and to gain?
Your silence and your actions make one fear the worst for, in the end, we
are quite struck by the belief that this contempt, made eloquent by your
budget cuts, is very real and that you feel nothing but disgust for these
people, these artists, who spend their time by wasting it and in spending
the good taxpayers money, he who, rather than doing uplifting work, can
only toil.
And yet, I still cannot fathom your reasoning. Plenty of politicians, for
the past fifty years, have done all they could to depoliticise art, to
strip it of its symbolic import. They try the impossible, to untie that
knot which binds art to politics. And they almost succeed! Whereas you, in
the space of one week, have undone this work of chloroforming, by awakening
the cultural milieu, Francophone and Anglophone, and from coast to coast.
Even if politically speaking they are marginal and negligible, one must
never underestimate intellectuals, never underestimate artists; don't
underestimate their ability to do you harm.
A grain of sand is all-powerful
I believe, my dear colleague, that you yourself have just planted the grain
of sand that could derail the entire machine of your electoral campaign.
Culture is, in fact, nothing but a grain of sand, but therein lays its
power, in its silent front. It operates in the dark. That is its legitimate
strength.
It is full of people who are incomprehensible but very adept with words.
They have voices. They know how to write, to paint, to dance, to sculpt, to
sing, and they won't let up on you. Democratically speaking, they seek to
annihilate your policies. They will not give up. How could they?
You must understand them: they have not had a clear and common purpose for
a very long time, for such a long time that they have no common cause to
defend. In one week, by not controlling the symbolic importance of your
actions, you have just given them passion, anger, rage.
In the dark
The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is
but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in
motion: an incalculable number of texts, speeches, acts, assemblies,
marches, will now be making themselves heard. They will not be exhausted.
Some of these will, perhaps, following my letter, be weakened but within
each word, there will be a spark of rage, relit, and it is precisely the
addition of these tiny instances of fire that will shape the grain of sand
that you will never be able to shake. This will not settle down, the
pressure will not be diminished.
Monsieur le premier ministre, we are neighbours. We work across the street
from one another. There is nothing but the Cenotaph between our offices,
and this is as it should be because politics and art have always mirrored
one another, each on its own shore, each seeing itself in the other,
separated by that river where life and death are weighed at every moment.
We have many things in common, but an artist, contrary to a politician, has
nothing to lose, because he or she does not make laws; and if it is prime
ministers who change the world, it's the artist who will show this to the
world. So do not attempt, through your policies, to blind us, Monsieur le
premier ministre; do not ignore that reflection on the opposite shore, do
not plunge us further into the dark. Do not diminish us.
Wajdi Mouawad
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