Friday 25 September 2015

The Shock Absorber: Twitter Reax





































3 comments:

Patrick Warner said...

Michael Lista is right to report that the Conservative Government negotiated a possibly illegal arms deal with Saudi Arabia to the benefit of Canadian companies. He is also right to report the serious case of the Saudi writer Raif Badawi, imprisoned and tortured in his own country for simply stating his opinions. Less newsworthy to me (and to Lista) is the idea that sponsorship of the arts and of public institutions often exists in a grey area. Both sponsors and recipients sometimes have to put up with the strong smell of carbolic soap—it transfers handshake to handshake. Citing the Pulitzer and the Nobel, Lista makes the case for the rehabilitative effects a literary prize can have on reputation. Lista contends that the Griffin Poetry Prize gives Scott Griffin social legitimacy, i.e. it acts as a shock absorber to cushion him and us from the hard realization that Canadians are profiting from doing business with a notorious human rights violator: Saudi Arabia. No doubt the Prize does work for Griffin in this way, but it offers neither the compression nor extension that Lista implies. And even the addition of Margaret Atwood to the mix (that notorious CanLit buffer) adds only a fraction more protection against impact. Perhaps this is why Lista works the case against Atwood so vigorously that he ends up in the ditch. It is true that Scott Griffin’s business dealings in regard to the LAV contract with the Saudis are morally shaky and may even be legally questionable, but it does not follow that that the Griffin Poetry Prize and those associated with it can be questioned on the same grounds. In doing so, Lista confuses the issue and almost succeeds in making us lose sight of what is important: the possibly illegal contract negotiated by the Conservative Government with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the desperate fate of the imprisoned Saudi writer Raif Badawi.

Nyla said...

It's not impeding an interrogation of the legitimacy of the Canadian arms deal, nor the general moral vacuity of doing business with SA, for Lista to argue for the moral bankruptcy of associating with the Griffin Prize.

Jim said...

Keep in mind degrees of separation here: Canadian citizens in general > Canadian government > arms deal with state violating human rights (that's 3), versus Canadian poets in general > those vying for or winning a Griffin Award > the Griffin Awards > Scott Griffin and his company > General Dynamics > arms deal with state violating human rights (that's 6). Perhaps fewer links indicate more direct moral responsibility.