Last month the 37th annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival took place in Austin, Texas, sponsored by the U.S. Army and welcoming numerous defence contractors. The U.S. Army Delta Force has assisted the Israeli regime in their territorial aggression against Gaza, and the U.S defence contractors present at the festival, namely Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Collins Aerospace, have provided the IDF with weaponry used to kill civilians.
SXSW displays its military sponsorship on its website
Because of these ties, over 100 musicians and panellists, endorsed by the official BDS movement, withdrew from the festival and encouraged others to do so, urging them to chose solidarity with the Palestinian people regardless of the resultant financial losses. As Belfast-based band Kneecap put it, the financial loss "isn't an iota of hardship when compared with the [unimaginable] suffering being inflicted every minute of every day on the people of Gaza."
The Palestinian BDS movement salutes those who chose to boycott SXSW
While our Hibernian cousins boycotted unanimously, Welsh musicians chose instead to display exactly how reliant on corporate-governmental funding our arts landscape has become. Music QUANGO Focus Wales hosted a showcase of Welsh musicians at the festival, funded directly and indirectly by the Welsh government via public and publicly funded bodies, including Creative Wales, Arts Council of Wales, and Wales Arts International. As is always the case, the Welsh people weren't consulted on how their taxes were being spent.
Poster for Focus Wales' showcase at SXSW, featuring government regalia
Of the Welsh musicians billed to play, only Gruff Rhys chose to boycott the festival. The rest; Aleighcia Scott, HMS Morris, Minas, Lemfreck, Otto Aday and Islet, decided to be a bunch of Paul Simons and chose commerce over solidarity. Some gleefully accepted the opportunity, perhaps imagining themselves as 'non-political' despite taking an inherently political course of action. Others chose to take to social media in an attempt to justify their refusal to boycott; claiming that in spirit, while not in action, they did care about the Palestinian plight. In a performative display of conflicted feelings, they spoke the language of a boycott while explaining away their decision not to take part; paying the lip service necessary to commodify politics as branding.
Cardiff-based musician Minas gives an obligatory shout-out to the PRS foundation who did not facilitate his professed desire to boycott the festival
Financial loss was the reason given for their refusal. Exactly what the cost would've been is difficult to discern given that the financial relationship between artists and their benefactors is by no means transparent. Only allusion is provided, and one can only guess what's behind it. For musicians so consistently in receipt of corporate/governmental funding, the loss of future revenue could indeed require adjustment. Had they joined the boycott, they wouldn't only be spurning the organisers of SXSW; they'd also be spurning their consistent paymasters; the Welsh Government, its arts bodies and QUANGOs, and the PRS foundation. They'd also risk irking the state broadcaster that consistently provides them with exposure, that elsewhere spreads misinformation about Palestinians and their supporters that parrots Israeli state propaganda.
The Draig Goch flies low
Therein lies the problem with artists becoming reliant on governmental and corporate entities; in order to secure their positions as continuing beneficiaries of funding, artists must align themselves politically with corporate/government positions, in practicality if not semantically. These artists may condemn the industry that they are a apart of, but do nothing to break their ties with it. They themselves know they can do better, and this article is partial inspired by their own expressions of the predicament they find themselves in.
But they make it so difficult (art by Raymond Pettibon)
The Welsh arts scene is perhaps more reliant on government funding than any other. Little wonder artists have a hard time staying true to their own professed politics when those politics contravene government positions. It's also not surprising that the musicians in question haven't received the slightest hint of criticism for their actions let alone estrangement from the pro-Palestinian contingency within Welsh arts. The band Islet chose to bar anyone except approved followers from their viewing their X account, perhaps as a means to shirk from any potential criticism.
For those who aspire to receive a slice of the funding cake, it is best to be cushty with the crachach and to keep shtum. It's about who you blow, and whether or not you jerk circular, and so the Welsh arts landscape has succumb to unthinking positivity, where what English-owned media tells us is 'subversive' could be a national symbol with one slight adjustment; a daffodil in a bandana, for example. Artists seem to risk nothing by refusing to participate in a boycott, but voicing real criticism of the government and it's artists may get you on some unseen, privately-spoken blacklist. Personally I wouldn't recommend it.
Of course the failure to boycott has consequences outside of Wales. The boycotts against South Africa were integral to the eventual collapse of apartheid. Perhaps because of the mechanisations of an industry which is now more intricately woven with the military-industrial complex, artists and musicians now present a much less united front when it comes to breaking ties with the Israeli regime. And so it continues its genocide against the Gazan people with little consequence.•
1 comment
Solid read, well written, thanks.