Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has shocked the civilized world, but another kind of evil has diminished the already scarce glimmer of humanity in this slaughterhouse. Conductor Valery Gergiev, due to his silence regarding the invasion, has had his performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra and Wiener Philharmoniker at Carnegie Hall cancelled, resigned from his position as music director of the Verbier Festival, and had his position as chief conductor of the Münchner Philharmoniker terminated by the Mayor of Munich. Furthermore, he has been urged by institutions such as Teatro alla Scala in Milan and Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest to publicly condemn Vladimir Putin. The artist has thus become a political puppet, a manipulated object, and a tool for politicians to profit from. This is not only a trampling of basic human rights but also an insult to music and art.

The situation is taking an even more grotesque turn: the Polish National Opera cancelled performances of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, the Royal Opera House in London cancelled the summer residency of the Bolshoi Ballet, theaters worldwide cancelled the touring of the Siberian Ballet, and the Venice Biennale removed the Russian pavilion. Russian participants have even been banned from participating in the Eurovision Song Contest… (the news of the University of Milan cancelling courses related to Dostoevsky is false).

One must ask, are the soloists of Boris the instigators of war? Do ballet dancers control the capital and interests behind the war? Do Russian artists bear deep responsibility for the crisis in pre-war Ukraine? One must ask why this witch hunt targets individuals and groups based on their race, and why non-Russian individuals are spared from punishment for exercising their right to remain silent. One must also ask, why persecute only those visible in the public eye? Such choices inevitably lead to the question: is this the righteous execution of justice on moral high ground, or a cheap performance using art as red herring and artists as pawns? This postmodern authoritarian identity politics, this neoliberal hypocrisy that establishes a self-righteous image through violating human rights, this political correctness trick of punishing the innocent to absolve the guilty, is a crime no less heinous than murder because it tramples not only on human life but also on the life of art. It is a hailstorm that falls while we gaze at the stars in the gutter, a crime under the daylight witnessed when we turn our backs.

The tyranny of political correctness has long plagued music. Conductors and other musicians, due to their minority group identities, have been granted opportunities that do not match their abilities, and a significant amount of precious artistic resources have been allocated to individuals who do not fully utilize them. The relationships between conductors and orchestras, composers and their audiences, have been politicized. Conductors not only lose access to talented musicians but also their authority in front of the orchestra, while composers find it increasingly difficult to truly challenge the ears of the listeners. Political correctness has, is, and will continue to permeate and obstruct the development of human music and art in various ways, and this is unacceptable for artists and everyone else.

After World War II, the Allied forces launched a large-scale denazification campaign in Germany, in which conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler became a key target solely due to his participation in two official Nazi concerts in 1938. For a full 25 months, the maestro was deprived of his right to step onto the podium, and faced pressure from both the Soviet Union and the United States, needing to defend himself on both fronts. At that time, just like now, individual artists were torn apart by political discourse. They not only lost their basic right to engage in artistic activities but also became undignified and flattened pawns in the Cold War game, descending into the puppetry of political competition. In 1945, as the visible war had just ended, more profound crimes began to cycle on the ruins of the land. In 2022, beyond the burning sky of Kyiv, Israel carried out indiscriminate airstrikes in Syria, and the US conducted bombings in Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, and other countries ravaged by internal conflicts. War has long left this world riddled with wounds, and another kind of evil has never ceased…

Today, we are not discussing the political crimes of the artists themselves. If Valery Gergiev is truly an accomplice to Putin’s tyranny, there will be a day of reckoning and judgment for him. While “standing with Ukraine” may seem like a western cliché, we must express our deepest sympathy for the people in the fires of Ukraine and offer whatever help we can provide. But we must also see the true faces of those who commit evil in the name of justice. If symbols like anti-war, peace, freedom, and justice are used by politicians and capitalists as tools for stability and profit, if art is abused to manipulate and deceive the masses, it will be a nightmare even more terrifying than directly facing the atrocities of war.