There was a
demonstration outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh yesterday against one of the commercial
sponsors of the Edinburgh International Festival. The target of the demonstration was the oil
company BP, but the thrust of the demonstrators’ argument was that the arts
should not be accepting funding from an oil company. If that seems superficially odd, bearing in
mind that the arts need every bit of funding they can get, the reasoning seemed
odder still: the arts are a force for good, while oil is a force for bad. The former is perceived by many as enriching
mankind while the latter pollutes and destroys the environment.
Quite why
those in the arts feel they should have a special affinity with environmental
preservation does not stand up to too close scrutiny; the vast majority of the
hundreds, thousands, of artists performing at this year’s Edinburgh Festivals
do not live in Edinburgh and have, collectively created a massive carbon
footprint with their travels from all corners of the globe. Had they stayed at home, the Edinburgh Festivals
could never have taken place, but the natural environment would have been
preserved a little longer. But then, in
a straight fight between preserving the environment and promoting the arts,
which artists would dare abandon the latter in favour of the former?
Of course,
BP is a particular target amongst Americans and those whose thinking is bounded
by the indoctrination they receive from American media. BP was, after all, responsible for a
catastrophic accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010; small loss of life (11),
huge impact on the natural environment and incalculable financial gain made by
American legal firms acting “on behalf” of those affected. Of course, by directing their environmental
ire against the British company BP, the Americans were gleefully diverting
attention away from their own Union Carbide company’s guilt in creating “the
world’s worst industrial disaster” (in the words of Wikipedia) in which 3787
people died and the environmental impact continues to this day. Of course, most of the deaths were of Indian
people; cynics might suggest that in American eyes 1 American/European life is the equivalent of
345 Indian ones; but perish the thought that I should ever be accused of
cynicism!
The
Edinburgh demonstrators were claiming that the damage the oil companies’
activities wreak on the natural environment rendered them “unethical” as
sponsors of a Festival (which, to be honest, has never really put any kind of
ethical dimension at its heart). The Herald, a Glasgow-based paper,
quoted one as saying “BP has a business plan for the end of the world, and the
Edinburgh Festival is endorsing it”, while a certain Ric Lander claimed to
speak for all artists at the Festival when he claimed “World class performers
haven’t come to Edinburgh this August to make the oil industry look good”. He’s right.
World class performers have gone to Edinburgh this August to further
their careers and to make money – and very few really care where that money
comes from. Perhaps they should, but is
money for the arts from oil companies any more “unethical” than money from
governments (against whose policies artists often protest) or, indeed, from
insurance companies (who make their profits out of scare-mongering hapless
folk). I could go on; but frankly no
sponsor can be 100% ethical in everybody’s eyes.
There is,
though, a very unhappy relationship between oil companies and the arts; and
those of us who have been involved in the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
would be the first to acknowledge this.
It’s been four years since my connection with the MPO was severed and,
despite a number of veiled threats and personal attacks, my silence on the
matter has been occasioned more by an unwillingness to give more publicity to a
very sorry state of affairs than by fear of reprisals. Suffice it to say that, much as it hurt at
the time (and continues to hurt), I am glad I am no longer involved in an
orchestra I helped, in my very small way, establish and about which I have
incredible feelings of both loyalty and love.
The MPO tale
is, though, the ultimate example of why oil companies should not dabble in the
arts.
The late Tan
Sri Azizan, a former CEO of Malaysia’s national oil company, Petronas, loved music
and had long cherished a wish that Malaysia should have a proper western-style
musical environment. With enormous
wealth at his disposal (through the oil company) and with the support of a
Prime Minister who, while cynics might suggest he saw in Azizan’s vision a
chance to promote his own artistic and cultural credentials on the world stage,
actually was hugely supportive of the idea, he set in motion the wheels which,
oiled by seemingly limitless finance from Petronas, led to the creation of a
full professional symphony orchestra in Kuala Lumpur and a wonderful, matchless
concert hall in which to perform. It
was, in the manner of the great Classical-era orchestras, a personal plaything
of a couple of benign rulers, one wielding total political clout, the other
unlimited finance; and while both men remained in power, all went well.
The death of
Azizan and the departure of Dr M (the Prime Minister, that is, not me) unfortunately
let in the incompetents, the ignorant and the aesthetic apostates. With a succession of impossibly inept
managerial appointments, including some CEOs who not only knew nothing about
music but cared about it even less, the mentality moved away from creating a
healthy musical environment into destroying anything which did not immediately
make money or promote Petronas to the widest possible interest-based Malaysian
population group. The environment
Petronas have utterly and completely destroyed is an artistic one.
I’d love to
see a demonstration at the next Formula One race where a group of drivers stand
outside the pits protesting against an oil company’s “business plan for the end
of the arts”; but somehow I don’t see it happening. Perhaps it’s the real job of artists to
concentrate on what is destroying their livelihood rather than nebulous if
well-meaning demonstrations about wider issues.
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