Swedish artist sentenced for 'racist' art

[ingemann]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/swedish-artist-sentenced-racist-art-dan-park

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[ingemann]

While the art he was imprisoned for have been destroyed. Here is a example of one of his earlier works.

It may not be safe for work.













http://denfrie.blogspot.dk/2014/08/not-only-ns-have-dreams.html

[dead0man]

If you jail somebody for art (that doesn't hurt anybody physically) then YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. 

[Diouf]

Dan Park in Sweden has now been jailed for longer than Ai Weiwei in China

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

That example was in poor taste, not well done, and includes a gratuitous use of the n-word, but there actually is a kernel of a good idea there in contrasting the dreams of someone like MLK with someone like Hitler.

[ingemann]

That example was in poor taste, not well done, and includes a gratuitous use of the n-word, but there actually is a kernel of a good idea there in contrasting the dreams of someone like MLK with someone like Hitler.

I do in general don't like the idea of art needing to provoke, but at least this is a real provocation to the artistic community rather than pseudo-provocation, where all your arty friends tell you, how brave you are for sticking it to the "Man".

[Cory]

I always thought that those European speech bans and bans on symbols were absurd.

[njwes]

And are most Swedes ok with this? I find it deeply disturbing

[Simfan34]

The fact he intended this to be considered art in the first place is probably criminal in its own right.

[Indy Texas]

European free speech laws are generally terrible and borderline fascist, so this really doesn't surprise me.

They basically amount to an American Yahoo! News commenter's interpretation of what the First Amendment implies.

[njwes]

The fact he intended this to be considered art in the first place is probably criminal in its own right.

I know you probably mean that in jest, but it is absolutely not government's place to dictate what does and does not constitute art, especially in a supposedly free society. This should give Swedish liberal democrats chills.

[ingemann]

The fact he intended this to be considered art in the first place is probably criminal in its own right.

There seem a common ideology among many modern artist, that art is to provoke, making people think, breaking borders and attacking power that be. Of course by that, they usual mean things like making thing like Piss Christ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ), or other things which attack traditional values in vague liberal way. Dan Park seem to have made sought the logical conclusion of this way of thinking, and have broken the most holiest of Swedish taboos especially the ones the Swedish artistic community keeps.

Of course I myself are something of a rindalist, so I don't hold this ideology, but that doesn't keep me from finding the reaction of the Swedish artistic community hilarious.

[politicus]

Danish author Jens Martin Eriksen has some points about this in today's edition of the daily Information, that I very much agree with. Its a bit hard to translate, but hopefully his points are clear:

"The verdict is consistently ignoring the fact that Dan Parks pictures are in the form of caricature. The descriptions in the verdict of the works vividly describes their 'degrading and smear campaigning' content, but it comes in an oddly detached way. To make fun of the (things) caricatured is the whole essence of the works of Dan Park that I have seen, all inscribed in a current context. Caricature as a genre is by definition a comment on local political battles. And therefore one can not read a caricature, if you decouples any knowledge of its context".

"Let's take the drawing entitled Hang on Afrofobians. We see the faces belonging to three black men sitting in the gallows. One of them belongs to Yusupha Sallah, a Swedish-Gambian, who was attacked in Kroksbäck in Malmo by a group of racists when he went on a walk with his son. A hate crime that nearly cost him his life, and which caused a stir in the media and sparked anti-racist demonstrations. With good reason.

It so happens, however, that one finds out that the perpetrators were Muslim Arabs - everyone automatically assumed that it was white Swedish racists who where responsible. Suddenly the entire Swedish public debate shuts completely down. The matter is hushed up. Hushed up in the same way as it apparently happened with a gang of Pakistani pedophiles longtime sexual abuse in the middle of the English provincial town Rotherham.

This is where Dan Park comes into play, because he is the only one to comment, and his drawing is a sarcastic comment. He says "Hang on Afrofobians", for it is the call he believes belongs to the perpetrators while a politically correct Sweden claps. What he in fact does is to provide a spite filled comment on the relativism in the so-called anti-racism: racism and racist hate crimes can only be recognized as such if it has ethnic Europeans who stands as the aggressor and all other ethnicities who are victimized. But if your aggressors are of other ethnic origins, their assault is deideologized. Then the episode is relegated to a random day to day event that is not worth mentioning on the political agenda and does not call for mobilization."

- Why not?

"Motivational research is a marshy affair, but probably because you have said: 'Oh no, focus on this case, are likely to benefit the Sweden Democrats". The incident follows a broader trend of shutting these cases completely down.

The consequence of this is that anti-racism in this dominant variant today has lost all credibility because it actually promotes and protects racism which, for example, comes from the Muslim Arabs. Anti-racists are simply unable to think along the lines, that there may exist racism in all cultures, including the cultures of immigrants coming to Europe. They have gotten the idea that racism is an endogenous phenomenon in European culture. This means that they can not recognize the immigrant community's severe sanctions against immigrant women who have had ethnic European guys as boyfriends - at worst killings - as racist hate crimes. Although the exclusion, which is the response to that kind of courtship, is just as racist as the reaction to a "n lover" in the American South in the old days."

- Anti-racists are selective?

"Yes, and it does not work. Either you are anti-racist all the way or you are not at all. You can not be relatively anti-racist. One has to be it on a universal basis. You can not say that some may get to be racist, while others may not."

"Back to the sentencing of Dan Park: The relativistic anti-racist movement in Sweden has assumed the character of state-supporting ideology, and now the challenge is to get it to assert its validity as superior morality, for that you have to periodically be tamping racist cases out of the ground, there is simply not enough of them to go on. Therefore we see that counter-demonstrations against small sectarian Swedish right-wing parties can mobilize thousands, such as that which recently took place against the Swedes' Party. Here were 2,500 anti-racist demonstrators against a pitiful threat in the form of seven snotty right-wing extremists. Racism becomes a phantasm, an evoked phenomenon that anti-racists need to inflate to come into their own. They conjure up a ghost to be allowed to be who they want to be. If they were really anti-racists, they would have to go against all forms of racism, and so they would also have to go against immigrant racism against ethnic Scandinavians."

- What is the explanation of why white Europeans can not empirically recognize that they too can be victims of racism?

"The fact that you can not recognize any other racism than white racism is because you - in a very subtle way - are racist yourself. Because you think that anti-racism is based on the outstanding characteristics of the goodness and mercy of human qualities by themselves. And the reason for people being anti-racist, is that they are such specially merciful humans. Anti-racists do not understand this and therefore seeks not to promote anti-racism with a universal basis on which to judge people. According to them, antiracism is an act of self-staging - not a recognition action. I can not think of any other explanation as to why the relativistic anti-racists do not realize that racism is something that can come from any ethnicity against any other".

[MaxQue]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

[politicus]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

You too? I thought we were cool.

Eriksen is a left winger and human rights advocate by the way (author of books about the genocide in the Balkans like "The Anathomy of Hate"). What is "far right" and racist about what he says? Its about the universality a racism and against antiracism as a relativistic and selective state supported ideology detached from the actual realities of society.

[MaxQue]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

You too? I thought we were cool.

Eriksen is a left winger and human rights advocate by the way (author of books about the genocide in the Balkans like "The Anathomy of Hate"). What is "far right" and racist about what he says? Its about the universality a racism and against antiracism as a relativistic, state supported ideology detached from the actual realities of society.

The beginning is good, but the end is coming off the rails, which is mainly "the evil anti-racists care about far right, they shouldn't, the real threat is the racism of immigrants".

[politicus]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

You too? I thought we were cool.

Eriksen is a left winger and human rights advocate by the way (author of books about the genocide in the Balkans like "The Anatomy of Hate"). What is "far right" and racist about what he says? Its about the universality a racism and against antiracism as a relativistic, state supported ideology detached from the actual realities of society.

The beginning is good, but the end is coming off the rails, which is mainly "the evil anti-racists care about far right, they shouldn't, the real threat is the racism of immigrants".

He doesn't say that, just that racism exists in all cultures and should be combated regardless of the perpetrators, which was Dan Parks point.

[SNJ1985]

The beginning is good, but the end is coming off the rails, which is mainly "the evil anti-racists care about far right, they shouldn't, the real threat is the racism of immigrants".

Well, first off, given the fact that immigrants are statistically more prone to crime than natives in many European countries (including Sweden); there is a good chance that immigrant crimes against natives in these countries are more common than the reverse. I'm not saying that is a definite fact, but it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#Europe (Yes, it's Wikipedia, but the information here is sourced.)

Second, I would argue that it IS worse for non-European immigrants to be racist against native Europeans than vice versa. These immigrants are guests in someone else's land, a land which generously took them in on its own accord. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. If you hate Europeans so much, then go back to where you came from. It doesn't make sense to move to a country if you hate the people who live there and have called it home for more than a thousand years, unless your intention is to conquer it.

[dead0man]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

You too? I thought we were cool.

Eriksen is a left winger and human rights advocate by the way (author of books about the genocide in the Balkans like "The Anathomy of Hate"). What is "far right" and racist about what he says? Its about the universality a racism and against antiracism as a relativistic, state supported ideology detached from the actual realities of society.

The beginning is good, but the end is coming off the rails, which is mainly "the evil anti-racists care about far right, they shouldn't, the real threat is the racism of immigrants".

What an odd take...it's almost like you WANTED to read that so much that you thought you actually did read it.  Weird.

[MaxQue]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

You too? I thought we were cool.

Eriksen is a left winger and human rights advocate by the way (author of books about the genocide in the Balkans like "The Anathomy of Hate"). What is "far right" and racist about what he says? Its about the universality a racism and against antiracism as a relativistic, state supported ideology detached from the actual realities of society.

The beginning is good, but the end is coming off the rails, which is mainly "the evil anti-racists care about far right, they shouldn't, the real threat is the racism of immigrants".

What an odd take...it's almost like you WANTED to read that so much that you thought you actually did read it.  Weird.

Why it goes on attacking the antiracists, then? Both problems (white racism and immigrant racism) can be tackled on the same time, but the author insists to ramble and complain about antiracists protesting far-right parties.

[dead0man]

Because that was the entire point of the article?  Many (most?) anti-racists only think whitey can be racist and that's one the stupidest things a person can say.  (sadly, my artsyfartsy, slowly turning into a liberal caricature, half-white stepdaughter that only gets her news from Tumblr truly believes this to be a fact)  The author is saying if you're truly anti-racist (as are all nonracists, most of us don't feel the need to label ourselves as such because it's stupid) you would fight racism wherever you see it and not only when it comes from whitey.  If they ignore racism from non-whites, they are, in fact, racist.

[ingemann]

Again, politicus acts as a relay of far-right and racists.

Clearly posting a article from a socialist newspaper founded by anti-Nazi partisans by a left wing author, are a sign of a person acting as a relay of the far-right and racists.

Or maybe it's just a sign that some people (specific you) should take their head out of their ass, and try to use the grey matter.

[ag]

Irrespective of the content and artistic value, this is horribly wrong. The laws that allow this are truly fascist.

[Gustaf]

Yeah, pretty embarrassing for Sweden.

A black friend of mine was really offended when her white male friend told her she couldn't be racist due to her skin colour, mansplaining to her that she didn't understand how racism works.

[Lurker]

Yeah, pretty embarrassing for Sweden.

A black friend of mine was really offended when her white male friend told her she couldn't be racist due to her skin colour, mansplaining to her that she didn't understand how racism works.

Wouldn't that be whitesplaining in this case?