Performer Seeta Patel in DV8’s Can We Talk About This? Photograph: Oliver Manzi
Perhaps one of the most dangerous ideas today is not being discussed. While artists decry external censorship, we are quick to self censor, avoiding any reference to race, gender or sexuality that might be viewed as offensive.
British choreographer, dancer and DV8 verbatim theatre producer Lloyd Newson believes that we are in peril of our ever heightening “PC” monitor getting in the way of freedom of speech.
He demonstrated the point at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) at the Sydney Opera House on the weekend by starting his talk What don’t we want to talk about in the Arts? with the question: ‘Do you feel morally superior to the Taliban? Hands up who does.’
A sheepish audience barely responded, wondering, “What has this got to do with the arts?” and “Is this a trick question?” We had immediately censored ourselves in the fear of not being seen as cultural accepting.
Newson posed that same question to audiences at his award-winning theatre work Can we talk about this? (2011-2012) which discussed Islam, censorship and freedom of speech.
‘I was interested in asking whether well intended multicultural policies in UK inadvertently ended up betraying the very minorities and freedoms they sought to be protecting.’
Confrontation as a catalyst
Can we talk about this, draws on verbatim interviews that cover the period from when Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses came under attack through to 2012, when the 57 countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation countries censored the United Nations Human Rights Council from discussing human rights abuses if Islam or Sharia Law were mentioned.
‘The trouble with us in the West is we have succumbed to a pious paralysis where we can’t even say we are superior to the Taliban. Why can’t we?’ Newson argued through the production.
Newson asked the Sydney audience, ‘Why do so many of us censor ourselves? Of course I feel morally superior – I support equal rights for women, I don’t believe gays should be killed, I believe women should be educated…’
Newson accepted that the invasions into Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan (2001) have made answering such questions more difficult. But he also believes this problem was well in track prior to that benchmarks.
He cut to a video documentation from the production Can we talk about this? where the company stood on stage, each holding a ream of black and white portraits, reciting real dates, real people, real persecutions suffered for speaking freely about Islam.
DV8 promo trailer for Can we talk about this? on YouTube
The double standard
To demonstrate the double standard in sexual and religious criticism and censorship, Newson adapted songs calling for the killing of gay people – all widely available – in his production To be straight with you (2008).
‘In order to make people more empathetic I decide to swap the term gay for “black” in one of these songs. We projected the lyrics … and towards the end of the song one of the performer crosses out gay to read black.
‘It is a hard way to make a point but remember it was only that – to make people think about hierarchies of hate,’ said Newson.
I was starting to understand why we were searched by security before entering this talk about ‘dangerous ideas’.
DV8 Preview of To be Straight with You, via YouTube
The problem with thinking people
Newson also relayed an anecdote from the World Dance Alliance Global Summit in Brisbane (2008), a forum that celebrated cross-cultural exchanges in dance.
Speaking to the conference delegates on a panel with colleague, Indonesian choreographer Boi Sakti (Artistic Director of Gumarang Sakti), Newson recounted his swap of the word gay with black in To be straight with you, and made public an exchange he’d had with Sakti, who said that he would ask a dancer to ‘change’ if he was to find our he was gay, describing ‘homosexuality as a sickness’ and referencing sections from Koran to support his views.
Newson relayed: ‘After some passionate exchange, a woman stood up and said the conversation had to come to an end as I was “highly articulate” and as English was not Sakti’s first language, he was unable to defend himself, despite that Sakti had spoken English for the week.’
‘What struck me as ironic was that there was a perverse sense of colonialism here – some white members of the audience had taken it upon them selves to speak for, and on behalf of, Sakti and he remained silent.
‘Should I have raised the issue publically? Should I have censored myself as the audience might have liked?’ asked Newson.
A New Zealand dance critic further came to Sakti’s defense in an article following the conference, saying that homosexuality was not illegal but celebrated in Indonesia, a claim Newson contested with extensive figures demonstrating the persecution of gays in Indonesia.
He said the defensiveness, denial and misinformation of both that audience member and NZ critic are emblematic of so many “liberal thinkers” he has encountered.
‘Why is there this head-in-the-sand mentality from supposedly smart people when it come to talking about extremism in Islam? Islam is not a race – it is a religion and unlike race, gender and sexuality, religion is a set of ideas and therefore should be open to questioning and criticism, including through art,’ concluded Newson.
Self-censorship is escalating
Newson wrapped up his talk by quoting two voices. Gita Sahgal, Head of Amnesty International’s Gender Unit, said: ’If you say anything of importance someone somewhere will be offended.’
And Ed Husain, co founder of the British counter-extremist organisation The Quilliam Foundation. He quoted: ‘We Muslims would not be practicising religious freedoms in the West building mosques … creating cemeteries without those liberties – in other words we do not burn the bridges that let us, and other communities, be free people here. In short, we need thicker skins. Just as we are can be critical of other faiths and ideologies, others are free to do so about us,’ said Husain.
Since 2011 when Can we talk about this? was first performed, we have witnessed the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January 2015 over a cartoon; the month later an attempt on cartoonist Lars Vilks’ life in a café in Denmark, and last year the Bataclam Concert Hall massacre in 2015, a music event.
The Marseilles Festival (France) and the BBC withdrew their interest to present Newson’s work.
Newson’s last work JOHN, had nothing to do with religion. But, ‘the theatre body-scanned each audience member coming into the venue,’ he said.
‘I wonder whether my performers (from Can we talk about this) would be willing to perform it today just four years on, and in light of recent events – my guess is not.’
Newson concluded: ‘At what point do you stop saying things publically, especially when you are not provided 24 hour protection?
‘I endorse the quote, “free speech is the single most effective weapon for exposing bad ideas” and, yet, I find myself restricting my speech today. I am unable to discuss things with you that I would have openly and freely spoken about four years ago, even two years ago, because of Islamist threats and because to do so would put others at risk.’
DV8 has won more than 50 international awards, and in 2013 Newson was awarded an OBE for his contribution to dance.
Lloyd Newson: What don’t we want to talk about in the Arts? Was presented on 4 September at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House.
