Here's my story about the connection between the Griffin Prize and a $15 Billion Saudi arms deal http://t.co/4QRIcqlU3B
— Michael Lista (@michaellista) September 23, 2015
Now a new reason to support @CANADALAND. Powerful longform writing with meaning. Marvel at the changing media world! https://t.co/WpcxHZL2Rq
— Paul Watson (@wherewarlives) September 23, 2015
Holy shit this is an incredible piece. https://t.co/ZE2HvZ5PpI
— Michael Stewart (@m_r_stewart) September 23, 2015
We should be talking about this: links between Canada's largest poetry prize and largest arms deal http://t.co/dgfKWQlBVz
— Suzannah Showler (@ZanShow) September 24, 2015
This is a great piece of journalism, in the sense of something huge and terrifying and inescapable. https://t.co/W0usaR4WHT
— Model JLN 2000 (@a_man_in_black) September 24, 2015
Is the @griffinpoetry Prize part of a Military-Industrial-Literary-Complex? @michallista's piece gnaws the soul: http://t.co/yzPeZh6c8y
— Culture of Cities (@CultureofCities) September 25, 2015
How the Griffin Prize, Margaret Atwood, and Canada's questionable Saudi Arms deal are linked, a remarkable piece: http://t.co/IRfj0jqAQG
— Ian Brown (@BrownoftheGlobe) September 24, 2015
A brave, honest and fair assessment of Canadian literature's connection to the brutal Saudi regime by @michaellista. Well done sir.
— Reid Neufeld (@ReidNeufeld) September 23, 2015
Oh, boy. The pressure is now on the next winner of the Griffin Prize. https://t.co/WzgrN4nxPl
— Stephen Henighan (@StephenHenighan) September 23, 2015
. @MargaretAtwood joins the grand tradition of saying the word "Hitler" to win an argument: http://t.co/7ZEk9wwfUQ @michaellista
— Jason Guriel (@JasonGuriel) September 23, 2015
Didn't expect to read a rousing defence of arms dealers from @MargaretAtwood today: http://t.co/WCvR7IMWn1 pic.twitter.com/vCfswWHw4P
— Stuart Thomson (@StuartxThomson) September 23, 2015
Lista brings up big moral questions and here's Atwood accusing him of just being bitter he hasn't won the prize: pic.twitter.com/nyNB2ugRzr
— Stuart Thomson (@StuartxThomson) September 23, 2015
.@MargaretAtwood in @michaellista's amzng @CANADALAND piece rmnds me of Chomsky talking CDN role in Vietnam w/Gzowski pic.twitter.com/XUaWOiKbu0
— Simon Liem (@srlie) September 24, 2015
1. If you read @michaellista's epic @canadaland essay as a takedown of Scott Griffin or the Griffin Prize, you read it glibly.
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
2. The greatness of the piece is that it floodlights the amoral or immoral structures that house goods like lit awards.
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
3. It asks: Which contradictions can we live with? Realism's fine, but where are our red lines? Who draws them?
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
4. @MargaretAtwood isn't a villain in this story. Her equivocations aren't unreasonable.
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
5. They're helpful b/c they imply the crucial question: when does a tragic worldview become a complacent evasion?
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
6. That question's much bigger than Griffin. @michaellista
— Daniel Karasik (@daniel_karasik) September 25, 2015
3 comments:
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.
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.
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.
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