Mar 27, 2024
“The prominent Austrian literary organizations Literaturfest Salzburg and Literaturhaus NÖ have cancelled Lana Bastašić’s upcoming residency and reading…” Earlier in the month, the Bosnian-Serb writer had cut her links with her German publisher – S.Fischer – because of their silence in the face of the attacks on Gaza.
Ms. Bastasic responded to the actions of the two distinguished Literary bodies as follows:
“For the sake of truth and transparency, I would like to remind you that the interest was yours, given that you invited me. Your decision to uninvite me is a clear positioning on your part. Let it also be clear that this is a cancellation of a residency and an event we previously agreed on, based solely on my decision to leave a publisher. It is my political and human opinion that children should not be slaughtered and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide. You should also know that you have now added yourselves to the long and infamous list of cultural institutions which cancel artists who refuse to stay silent when the world is screaming.
I do not know what literature means to you outside of networking and grants. To me it means, first and foremost, an unwavering love for human beings and the sanctity of human life. Given that you invited me to your residency and festival, you must have been acquainted with my work, which deals closely with the consequences war has on children. Perhaps to you literary works are divorced from real life, but then again you probably have never known war fist hand.
Thank you for uninviting me. I would not want to be part of another institution which not only cancels artists because of their activism, but seems to think silence and censorship is the right answer to genocide. While I am aware of the fact that the funding you receive within the system you inhabit must have made you forgetful of what art really is about, I still want to remind you that (fortunately for precarious writers like myself), you are not Literature. Your money is not Literature. S. Fischer is not Literature. Germany is not Literature. And we, the writers, will remember. Lana Bastašić
Nov 12, 2011
report by USACBI
12 November 2011
Original article at USACBI
Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada led a protest at Carleton University on November 7, 2011 against the University’s official sponsorship of a fundraising dinner for the Jewish National Fund, including Carleton’s president, Roseann Runte, serving as honourary co-chair of the dinner.
The students pointed to the JNF’s major role in the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, and its ongoing involvement in ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The JNF, owner of 13% of the land in the State of Israel, officially refuses to rent, lease, or sell its land to non-Jews – most centrally, in this case, Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel. The JNF has been involved in ongoing ‘settlement’ activities to displace Palestinian villages and towns inside Israel, as well as its notorious tree-planting campaigns, which installed thousands of non-native, European and North American trees such as pine trees over large swaths of land, covering and hiding Palestinian villages destroyed by Israeli military forces in the Nakba. The students particularly targeted Canada Park, a JNF-implanted forest installed over the ruins of two Palestinian villages destroyed by the Israeli army in the 1967 war, to which JNF Canada committed millions of tax-exempt dollars.
Runte, who has in the past stated that she cannot “take sides” on political issues, continued to maintain that her participation as an official co-chair and endorser of the JNF dinner was somehow an apolitical event. At the same time that the University’s administration is listed as a sponsor of the Jewish National Fund, and its ethnic cleansing projects in Palestine, it simultaneously has prevented students from bringing their divestment campaign to the Carleton University governing board and threatened students with punishment if they disrupt the meeting to make their silenced voices heard. Carleton has also, in the past, prohibited the distribution of a poster advertising Israeli apartheid week, deeming it offensive. The poster, linked here, includes a widely distributed cartoon depicting Israel’s war on Gaza, for which the University’s administration saw fit to accuse students of violating human rights codes.
Runte refused to remove her name, or the university’s official sponsorship, from the JNF dinner, but the students’ protest has made it clear that Carleton’s students do not stand – or dine – with apartheid.
For more information:
– Carleton University Students Taking Sides on Israeli Apartheid
– Students Against Israeli Apartheid – Carleton
