Emotional haze of Saharan proportions typically hovers over and permeates the season just ended - conditions under which it is best to be patient about many things. For example, few there may have been to have been discomfited by the Cro Cro judgment and now, regional political rulings on some musical content. But there should there be many more to consider measured caution on such matters.
For certain, crass,
artless content is far less likely to engender open empathy once assaulted,
than craft bearing subtle, instantly undetectable daggers aimed at the heart. Yet,
even so, the application of justice and politics is capable of both rendering and
rending fine coats of insulation over otherwise protected products of creative
imagination.
The fine points
of justice – an uncloistered virtue open to the outspoken comments of ordinary folk
such as I – often crave fineries not easily found in the crudities of daily
life. “People,” James Baldwin once famously said, “evolve a language in order
to describe and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be
submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate.”
This is rather difficult,
clumsy stuff that marks all areas of art. And we may note that literature and
art have at times connoted aggressive subversion and revolutionary intent. Guyana’s
President Ali, for instance, invokes Marley’s ostensibly benign messaging - even
in the face of Marcus Garvey’s subversive anti-colonial inspiration woven into
most of what the Jamaican artist had to offer.
Within “Trinibad”
there are traces of Baldwin’s formulation of an alternative language to both
understand and to describe current realities in what is being offered by these
performers. It has been the same in other jurisdictions represented by
different musical and artistic genres.
This is not to
deny law its proper place. Incitement to acts of criminal violence is
unacceptable under any circumstance. So, too, the willful defaming of people,
or breaching of their (relative) right to privacy.
Most of us in
the movement to promote freedom of expression globally agree this right is subject
to permissible limitations – hate speech and defamation among them. But the boundaries
to be drawn between such a right and acceptable exceptions invoke a variety of difficult
considerations left in the hands of wise legislators and judges.
Surely, the Law
Association is currently hard at work deliberating on such matters in the
public interest and must be considering accompanying public debate and
discussion. However, those of us who have been active on the question of removing
all traces of criminal defamation from the statutes understand general ambivalence.
When the
subject was debated in our parliament ten years ago, there was rare bipartisan agreement
on the applicability of jail when sentencing for acts of criminal defamation.
What followed was a half measure referencing “malicious defamatory libel known
to be false.”
This is important
to remember amid recent developments that have cast the subject of freedom of
expression, through creative content, under the spotlight. There is not likely
to be strong opposition to the imposition of criminal penalties for specified creative
and other expression.
We are already
used to “banning” as a coping mechanism. But this has become somewhat anachronistic
as an option, since the arms of official prohibition are difficult to extend
beyond the sitting ducks of traditional, domestic media.
There is also a
certain nonsense associated with repeated references to “airplay”, and its
bearing on the popularity of contemporary music, that belies the fact that
young people are more abundantly keyed into online platforms than any other
medium.
References to “airplay”
also invoke notions of official control through outright banning, ill-advised content
quota restrictions, and what I have long considered to be our ready resort to
prohibition. In some countries we know well, such an instinct extends to other
institutions such as libraries, schools, and art galleries.
There is also
an opportunity for science to determine psychological triggers and impacts and
the factors that predispose people differently across socio-cultural divides. This
goes beyond amateur intuition.
Don’t get me
wrong, though. Nonsense is nonsense. I however reserve the right to listen to,
read, or view the nonsense of my choice. Additionally, people in government always
want “positive” messaging to counteract the “negatives” they paraded while being
out of office. In some instances, the “negatives” are the outcomes of their own
inaction or incompetence.
Meanwhile, look
around you and note instances in which books and art and music are giving the middle
finger to the status quo. I say keep them coming!
