Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

The Beautiful Soul of Rachel Corrie

In the world of theatre, the writers of Rachel Corrie, Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner are very upset that they cannot show American audiences the beauty of Rachel Corrie's soul.

As James Nicola, the theatre's artistic director, said yesterday: "In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation." Rachel was to be censored for political reasons.

This translates to the fact that the usual suspects, otherwise known as patrons of the arts - white liberals, likely of the Jewish persuasion - wouldn't cough up the dough this time around for a project which for whatever reason - probably because of the puerility of its subject matter - didn't interest them enough to fund.

Yes, it's an egregious case of censorship!

By the way, Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner have been out all weeks manning the barricades leading the fighting against the censorship of the European Press when it comes to publishing anti-Muslim cartoons.

Just kidding.

That is to say, they would be crusading for that noble cause, except 1) crusading is a verboten term because Christians and Imperialists are evil and 2) this week they were too busy preening and whining in the pages of the Guardian.

In Katherine's own words:

I'd heard from American friends that life for dissenters had been getting worse - wiretapping scandals, arrests for wearing anti-war T-shirts, Muslim professors denied visas. But it's hard to tell from afar how bad things really are. Here was personal proof that the political climate is continuing to shift disturbingly, narrowing the scope of free debate and artistic expression. What was acceptable a matter of weeks ago is not acceptable now.

Can we snicker yet at this vast political obtuseness?

Ah yes. America is narrowing the scope of free debate and artistic expression. Not the cowering press in Britain, none of whom printed the Danish cartoons for fear of an Islamic response. No problem there.

Secondly, she wants to convince us to show it here by pointing out how horrible and narrow American society now is. That's her idea of a persuasive argument for Americans as opposed to Brits - whose elite class loves to wallow in anti-Americanism?

On the other hand, it might just be the thing to convince a liberal - someone like George Clooney say - that his rights are being trampled unless he does underwrite this production financially.

Prepare for a major financial loss.

Meanwhile, the IDF has now seen fit to ban all military officers from entering Britain for fear they will be charged with warcrimes and arrested. But if you are Hamas - no problem.

Senior Israel Defense Forces officers are outraged over the army's decision to prevent one of their number from traveling to Britain for fear he might be arrested as a war criminal, charging that leading Hamas terrorists now enjoy more freedom of movement than IDF officers.

On the advice of the military advocate general, Avihai Mandelblit, the IDF decided to bar Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, the commander of the Gaza Division, from taking courses at Britain's Royal College of Defence Studies, lest left-wing activists seek an arrest order against him. ...

..."An absurd situation has been created here," one senior officer told Haaretz. "Senior Hamas figures - Khaled Meshal, and soon, certainly, Ismail Haniyeh as well - can roam the world at will, but Kochavi has to stay home for fear of being arrested. These are people who have given direct orders to carry out attacks against civilians, but now they are politicians who enjoy protection."

And if Britain did arrest a member of the IDF for warcrimes, I bet Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner would be fulminating against him as attractively as Rachel Corrie fulminated and agitated against Americans and Israelis, as in this picture.



But, ah yes, she had a beautiful soul.

posted by Alcibiades @ 8:45 PM