Posted on 02/05/2024 1:19:03 PM PST by nickcarraway
This past weekend, Ai Weiwei, a prominent artist whose gallery delayed his show after he tweeted about the war in Gaza, compared censorship in the West to forms of political oppression he experienced in China under Mao Zedong, describing the situation as “sometimes even worse” that what he faced growing up.
“Today I see so many people by giving their basic opinions, they get fired, they get censored,” he told Sky News. “This has become very common.”
By way of example, he spoke about the case of two New York University professors who were fired after making Gaza-related comments. The situation is “a cultural revolution, which is really trying to destroy anybody who have different attitudes, not even a clear opinion,” Ai said. “So I think that this is such a pity, that it happened in the West, so broadly in universities, in media, in every location.”
Related Articles A close-up shot of a smiling man. Ai Weiwei Says Lisson Gallery 'Effectively Canceled' Show After Israel-Hamas War Tweet Ai Weiwei Talks Money, MOCA Detroit Gets Artistic Director, and More: Morning Links for April 4, 2023 In November, Ai said that Lisson Gallery had called off a London solo show after he tweeted about Palestine.
“The sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people has been, at times, transferred to offset the Arab world,” he wrote in the tweet, which has since been deleted. “Financially, culturally, and in terms of media influence, the Jewish community has had a significant presence in the United States. The annual $3bn aid package to Israel has, for decades, been touted as one of the most valuable investments the United States has ever made. This partnership is often described as one of shared destiny.”
The gallery said it had postponed the show via mutual decision with Ai; Ai said the exhibition had been “effectively canceled.”
Ai spoke once more about the matter in the Sky News interview, saying that “basically I was talking on Twitter, just answering someone’s question.”
As usual, Ai did not mince words when it came to criticizing his colleagues. Asked if Western artists were working hard to defend the right to freedom of expression, Ai said they were not. “They are just seeking money and also to be famous,” he said.
A select few famous artists have publicly discussed the matter since the October 7 Hamas attacks. Shortly after the event occurred, photographer Nan Goldin described a “chilling period” in which art-world figures have been fired, exhibitions have been canceled, and collectors have rescinded purchases of artworks, all because those involved had expressed support for Palestine.
There is certainly a Cultural Revolution going on in this country, especially in the Universities.
I agree.....getting fired by a private company for an opinion verses being killed for not liking “Mao” are not even close.
Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: Ài Wèiwèi, English pronunciation: (help·info); born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father’s exile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei
Mao died in 76 when Weiwei was 19.
He’s conflating the censorship by private actors with the censorship by the government.
Although the US has some of the latter too, when the government worked with the major social media corporations to sensor individuals.
He was born in 1957. He himself was there and lived through it. Moreover, his father, who was a pre-1949 communist party member, was declared a dissident and "counter-revolutionary," and was exiled during Mao's years, when he spoke out against Mao's excesses.
So he's hardly "ignorant" of what went on. You may not like him, but he's speaking from experience people on FR will never have.
It isn’t ignorance, FRiend.
This is deliberate.
Weiwei is overseen by the CCP. This comment does not show up anywhere unless it has been vetted by the CCP, and it is not only vetted, it is deliberately contrived to make people outside of China think there is freedom of expression there.
There isn’t. This comment was made for a specific CCP approved propaganda reason.
I've spoken to people who were imprisoned there for decades, people who fled, and people who had to live through it. If you are saying he's deliberately lying, maybe. But otherwise, I don't know what to tell you, because what he is saying differs from many, many independent sources.
Heh, okay. That’s not even funny...I had a brain cramp and saw that as Huawei, and my mind did a phonetic overlay of it.
What I said is true, but relating to this, may not be, so...I retract it.
It could be true.
I got warned and put on restrictions on FB during the covid days because I dared present alternative theories that the virus might have been lab leaked or even GE. The great James Watson, of DNA fame, got fired at Cold harbor U because he dared speculate that race and IQ might he connected. Many other examples.
Actually why I’m here now. I started thinking if of other more conservative sites and remembered FR that I used to frequent back around 99-2000.
No, it isn’t. The West, especially the US is really censorious. It is just carried out in different ways and by different people.
There is hardly an issue where the PRC or Russia are not more righteous and more free than the US.
Though he exaggerates, he makes a good point. Ai Is a good man.
I made the same mistake when I saw the headline, until I read the article. But I think what you said is still accurate.
Welcome back—the censorship on other sides has gotten absurd—my favorite was the site that banned me when I gave foreign travelers links to US city official crime maps.
I guess the site wanted them to learn about US crime up close and personal—the hard way.
Yes. The cancel culture here is execrable.
But if this artist did not protest the regular and repeated cancellation of mainstream American opinions by the radical left for the past decade, he has no credibility.
So he can stew in the cesspool he helped create by his silence. I hope he loses his gallery and goes bankrupt.
Ai Ku Ku can be his new name.
愛哭哭
Ai Kuku is using a poor example.
He made a simple statement: Censorship in the West is sometimes even worse than Mao’s China.
He didn’t say the USA is now more totalitarian than china.
He didn’t say he wants to live in China
He didn’t say propaganda in the USA is always worse than China.
I’m not sure why you’re arguing with his statement.
Go ahead and ask your many Chinese contacts - do they see some similar sprouts of marxist, PC, cancel-culture nonsense in post Obama America?
There is a Cultural Marxism going on in many of our universities and in lthe eft-wing media narrative. And in that effort there are quite some censorship going on. It’s unfortunate.
However, Mao’s rule of terror evidently was FAR worse. You would be killed or tortured to death if you didn’t repeat the official narrative.
There is censorship in every country today, to a certain degree.
In Russia, people are not allowed to protest.
Political opponents are all either assassinated or thrown into political prison camps in Siberia.
Only Kremlin-approved “news-outlets” and TV stations are allowed to operate. Zero competition.
A russian citizen pushing for peace between Ukraine and Russia will be sent to prison. He will be considered as a “Foreign Agent”!
Not only Freedom of speech has been abolished in Russia, but freedom of assembly as well.
Thus we have certain level of censorship in the West, yes. But compared to what’s happening right now in Russia, we are very lucky.
This map says it all:
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-09-at-9.52.05-PM.png
bkmk
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