Flanders Festival Ghent says it made decision over lack of ‘clarity’ about incoming conductor Lahav Shani’s views.
While Shani had spoken in favour of “peace and reconciliation” in the past, his attitude towards the “genocidal regime in Tel Aviv” was unclear given his role as the chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the festival organisers said.
It’s not meant to be a gotcha, it’s just to try and help people see things from different perspectives.
And sure: how about your version of the question? And extend it to sports coaches and players, movie producers, directors and actors? Store owners and employees?
It would be fully righteous to go hard core here, but probably too inconvenient for most. And many would say that such politics don’t have a place in … whatever they don’t want to deal with the repercussions of having politics have a place in.
There’s also a component of self preservation. It might be unsafe to publically go against one’s own government or it might at least be very bad for one’s career. So damned either way and better to stay apolitical.
At your job do you make a point of stating that you hate Trump and think he’s a moron. Or is that likely to get you unemployed so you keep quiet?
He’s in a position of leadership at a national organization bearing the name of the country doing the genocide. And it’s too much to find out what he thinks about it before allowing him to perform at an event they themselves organized?
That’s a bullshit argument - this story is about one guy, and your attempts to generalize it into something that applies to everyone are dishonest.
All of this protracted benefit of the doubt you’re giving him, this moralizing, bleating “but he might be secretly a good person!” - why?
Your answer doesn’t matter. I know why, and the rest of us do too. Goodbye.