EXCERPT
Banning art, blaming the victim and rewarding Canadian war exporters
Review by Richard Sanders / April 23, 2009
Posters have been banned on two university campuses in Ottawa because they used a cartoon image depicting an Israeli AH-64 attack helicopter firing at a Palestinian child. The poster’s artwork, by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, is based on reality. U.S.- made AH-64 gunships were among the major weapons used by Israel during its recent bombardment of Gaza. More than 1,380 people, including some 430 children, were killed in those attacks against densely populated civilian neighbourhoods.
This is a war crime.
But according to Carleton University’s administration, it is the artwork — not the Israeli attacks — that deserve condemnation. The posters, Carleton authorities say, may “incite others to infringe rights protected in the Ontario Human Rights code” and are “insensitive to the norms of civil discourse in a free and democratic society.”
So, when students put up artwork depicting AH-64s targeting a Palestinian child, Carleton President Roseanne Runte said the posters “were deemed ... to incite hatred,” and university authorities threatened students with expulsion. But when 56 Carleton professors asked Runte to join them in condemning violations of human rights caused by Israel’s bombing of a Gazan university, she bluntly refused.
This is a double standard.
Source:
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/banning-art-blaming-the-victim-and-rewarding-canadian-war-exporters