Talk about burying the lede. From a Haaretz article on the boycott movement in Ireland comes this tidbit:
Uri Dromi, the manger of Mishkenot Sha’ananim that hosts the festival said that “there is an increasing feeling of cultural siege and despite our success in attracting major writers, some of them, particularly from Britain, have come under huge pressure not to participate.” He said that he had tried to invite South African writer and Nobel Prize laureate J. M. Coetzee “but he told me that he would come when the peace process goes forward.”
I’m trying to find more on Coetzee’s decision. In the meantime, for more on the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem see here and here.
Somebody else who knows firsthand what apartheid is.
“[W]hen the peace process goes forward?”
What’s that mean? How about: when wall comes down and the settlers are removed OR IN THE ALTERNATIVE when a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine is signed and RATIFIED. (I’ll pass on what that last means w.r.t. Palestine. does PLO still exist? still speak for all the Palestinian diaspora?)
I would expect nothing less of the author of The Life and Times of Michael K. Has someone come up with a “washing” term for this yet? What colour is freedom?
What a nice plug for BDS!!! Which are the other two countries?
It gives other nations something to aspire to.
Juxtaposition just happens, but it’s also tool to make a point, and often a tool to deceive. In this case, the ‘writers being pressured’ is juxtaposed with Coetzee not coming leading to a spontaneous suggestion that Coetzee was under pressure. I can’t tell if that’s deliberate. It could even be my dirty mind!