As I wrote on these pages yesterday, the decision of Irish musical acts not to perform at America’s SXSW music festival is entirely their own business and should be respected.
The stated reason for those artists choosing not to allow the citizens of Texas not to hear their cutting musical insights about the romantic struggle of the IRA or the dangers of the “far right” is that the festival in question is sponsored in part by the United States Army, some of whose unused purchase orders for weaponry have been known to end up in the service of the Israeli Defence Forces. To play at a festival sponsored by the US Army would, these contemporary musical poets declare, legitimise the dreadful goings-on in the Gaza Strip. As such, they are going to deprive American festival goers of their performance in protest. Fair enough.
One is apparently supposed to imagine that the prospect of some people in Texas not hearing some tunes from Kneecap will help to bring the war in the middle east to a swift conclusion. I confess myself a sceptic on that front. Nevertheless, not performing is their right.
However, there’s another wrinkle to this story.
It turns out that some of these musical acts, rather than being the successful high-flyers you might imagine them to be, are actually substantially reliant on the Irish taxpayer to fund their trip to the United States to spread the message of peace and anti-imperialism. The state funded these trips on the basis that it was promoting Irish culture, which is, having listened to some of the music in question, probably a very expansive definition of “Irish culture”. Nevertheless, if you squint, you can probably see a vaguely coherent justification for it: The IDA does the same sort of thing for Irish business.
But what happens when people are funded by the taxpayer to perform their Irish culture for the expectant Texans, and then decide that Texans must pay the terrible price of not hearing them on account of the actions of Bibi Netanyahu? The Irish state might reasonably think that its investment in a performance that did not happen was a bad idea.
If you’re worried about this, then, well, so are some of the people supporting the artistes. I publish below in full a statement circulated to Irish TDs and Senators from a group calling itself “Apartheid Free Arts”. The statement was signed by a collection of artists, some of whom, no doubt, are in receipt of Catherine Martin’s basic guaranteed income scheme for artists:
Apartheid-Free Arts contacted Catherine Martin today (see copy below) and have not yet received a response.
We are also deeply concerned that Culture Ireland will not honour the payments of travel and accommodation costs to the artists who have boycotted the event. Can your department urgently seek a statement from Culture Ireland, and/or the Department of Arts on this?
The statement to Minister Martin, urging her to boycott SXSW herself (she will not, she says) reads as follows:
We implore you to recognise and respect the artists you represent and to desist from all further engagement with the SXSW Festival
We are deeply concerned that your attendance will directly benefit arms companies, normalise Israeli brutality and further Ireland’s complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. The US Army is listed as a ‘Super Sponsor’ of SXSW and will host nine events. Weapons manufacturers RTX and BAE Systems, who supply Israel with the weapons that have killed over 30,000 people, are linked to the festival and are sponsoring events. Now that these nefarious links have been revealed publicly, we believe it is unconscionable for representatives of the Irish Government to attend.
Apartheid-Free Arts is a movement of artists, arts workers, arts organisations, venues and festivals on the island of Ireland committed to an apartheid-free Palestine and apartheid-free arts everywhere. Your attendance and participation in the festival does not represent us, or the views of artists in general, and we believe you do not have a mandate to do so. Please do the right thing, withdraw and make a statement which represents and supports the views of Irish artists.
We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues, and with Palestinians at large, who are suffering under the brutality of Israeli genocide and apartheid. We also stand with the Irish artists who have taken the brave and just decision to withdraw from SXSW at great personal cost.
One might be inclined to register a note of skepticism that the attendance of Catherine Martin at a music festival in Texas would, quote, “normalise Israeli brutality”, but we live in a world where free speech exists, and these people are entitled to their opinion. The obvious question is whether artists who travel to Texas to attend a festival are entitled to taxpayer funding for their flights and accommodation when they then decide not to bother playing at the event – the whole reason we were funding them to go in the first place?
This is not a matter of policy or principle, but a matter of the use of taxpayer’s money and whether the state is going to permit artists to breach the apparent terms of their funding agreement and then receive that funding anyway. We’ll be following up with the Minister to find out if that’s the case.
In the meantime, I wonder how many taxpayers were even aware that the state was picking up the tab to send Irish bands to SXSW. It’s not as if those bands are ever particularly voluble about that – instead, the general custom is to pretend that going to a big international festival is evidence of their success, rather than a behind the scenes push-job from the Irish Government.
Most people, I suspect, even if they’ve no problem with that, will be very surprised to learn that the money deducted from their wages is expected, by some on the left, to fund musicians to travel the globe not playing music, but playing politics instead.