[Devongone]

Should we destroy art because it disturbs or threatens us?

Mear One is a serious artist. He's not a one-off tagger. All his work is political, threatening and at the very least challenging. It is deliberately full-on and right in your face.

Jeremy Corbyn has accidentally made him famous by something he said in in 2012.

The work in question certainly does employ tropes commonly seen as anti-semitic. It portrays bankers playing monopoly on the bowed heads of the "enslaved?". It certainly refers to the Bilderberg group and the conspiracy theory of the Jews taking control of Freemasonry. It contains a banner for New World Order. The bankers portrayed do resemble the Warburgs and Rothschilds. But then Jews were bankers .........

What the work actually portrays, other than the back of the dollar bill, is open to discussion. What it means, what is subject is, would be interpreted in different ways by different groups of people. I can see why people say it is antisemitic, though the artist denies it. Look at his other work and you will see this is a man keen to shock, who challenges all religion and portrays neither religion, nor god as things of beauty.

Even if we are offended by it, this is art. Should we destroy it because it hurts? Should we burn books? Should we silence dissent because it opposes our world view? Should we say and ask the hardest things in the world even if they make us hated?

Personally I'm not sure why an LA artist like Mear One was working in Brick Lane, but I think his work should still be there for us to be hurt, challenged and even offended by.

Though some of the images within this work are beloved of the far-right, that doesn't represent the politics of Mear One from what I can see. Maybe amidst all the flak he's taking, Jeremy Corbyn was right. Even if we hate a work of art, we learn nothing by destruction.

[hibeejim21]

I have to say that when I first looked at it I didn't really see anything anti-Semitic, just a bunch of old guys sitting around a table. If i'd walked past it i wouldn't have registered it as jewish bankers. Its only when I looked more closely that you could see that the parts of the characters faces had racist depictions, but then again the mural also made a valid political point too.... the best solution would have been to change the faces a bit and it would have been a very good piece.

While I think corbyn is being smeared here and don't for a second believe he is an anti semite (and its a handy deflection from what the tories are facing currently) I think the Labour Party does have a particular problem with anti-Semitism and it's long time since cobyn should have dealt with it.

[ritchiebaby]

Admittedly I've not studied the artwork, but at first glance it is a "cartoon" lambasting capitalism. To me, Jeremy Corbyn should have no need to apologise for his original comments. In fact, he should have stood his ground and defended himself.

There is nothing more "offensive" to me than people who feel obliged to apologise for things that have offended other people. Grow a set and stand up for yourself! The world is full of "offended" people looking for something to complain about. I'm certain that if I could really be bothered, I could find something that is offensive to me. Thankfully I've better, more positive, things to do with my time.

[0762]

Yep! I agree that a quick glance at this mural conveys a cartoon message against capitalism. Also why refer to a comment that was made 6 years ago? Is it politically motivated and indeed a 'deflection of interest' as Jim has suggested? I think it is and agree that Corbyn should have vigorously 'fought his corner' against some of the scurrilous insinuations that were being made! As for anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, I think there is a problem and that is what forced Corbyn 'on the back foot'. However, I'd like to know how many cases are relative to anti Zionism and the abuse of human rites being practised within the State of Israel. Note there are many prominent Jews who share similar anti-Zionist beliefs and there are some Jewish writers who have published books on the subject. I object to the extreme policies of Netanyahu and his Israeli govt cohorts and why western govts like the UK are still 'cosying up' to Israel and lets just ignore their highly questionable policies in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and illegal land-grabbing that they carry on with regardless! Why? But I am not into anti Semitism or racism at all! The issues are about non-democratic processes and abuse of human rights which seem to be spreading into countries like Turkey, Egypt, Spain and many more nations, some of whom are supported by the British govt!

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

The world is full of "offended" people looking for something to complain about.

I don't doubt that it is.

However, the world also has its fair share of people whose mothers, fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents were exterminated on an industrial scale by men who wholeheartedly believed that those they were killing were genetically predisposed to being grasping, money-hungry, power-crazed subhumans who oppressed and profited off the poor and downtrodden of the world. Indeed, one of the survivors of that genocide was murdered in France just this week, and the police strongly suspect that the motive was because she was a Jew.

So when people who have the weight of that historical hatred hanging over them happen to see a mural in their own city perpetuating the kind of stereotypes that were used to justify rape and mass-murder by the likes of the Okhrana and the SS within living memory, I don't think that what they feel is "offence", or an opportunity to get their jollies by having something "complain" about. I think they feel genuine and justified *alarm* at the kind of people who are crawling out of the woodwork right now, because they don't want what happened this week to Mireille Knoll to happen to someone they know and love. And they're not wrong to feel that way.

For those who think that the image would have been fine if only the evil, shadowy, puppet-master bankers had looked a bit less Jewish... well, perhaps consider that there's a reason why they were depicted that way to begin with, and it wasn't done by accident. In the same way that Farage and his chums, when making an anti-immigration poster, will always depict a horde of brown-skinned immigrants rather than white-skinned ones; they know *exactly* what they're doing from the word go, and are smirking behind their hand whenever anyone elects to make excuses on their behalf.

[ritchiebaby]

Well said, Ska'd, but the victims you mention are not "offended", but have been deeply affected because of persecution and hatred.

Unfortunately, your argument also tells us why some Islamists hate Christians, some blacks hate whites, and so on. The world is, and always was, a deeply divided place and, despite my innate positivity, I see no sign of change in the future.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Well said, Ska'd, but the victims you mention are not "offended", but have been deeply affected because of persecution and hatred.

Unfortunately, your argument also tells us why some Islamists hate Christians, some blacks hate whites, and so on. The world is, and always was, a deeply divided place and, despite my innate positivity, I see no sign of change in the future.

Well, yes. Human beings are tribal by nature, and one of the remarkable things about the modern world is that we manage to channel most of our tribal instincts into things that are relatively harmless; music, football, etc. Of course, that's not enough for some, and there's no shortage of blinkered idiots who spend their time grinding axes against this group or that, which is all the more reason to show solidarity whenever bigotry rears its head. And there have, thankfully, been plenty of non-Jews speaking up about this issue, including many Muslims.

I do fear that antisemitism in particular is grossly misunderstood by a large part of the general public, who learn about the Holocaust as some kind of uniquely German or fascist phenomenon, without recognizing the thousand years of prejudice and persecution that led to it, which permeated all nations and all sides of the political spectrum. Antisemitism was the first and the greatest of all conspiracy theories, and sadly, it's no surprise that in an age when so many people are buying into low-level tinfoil-hat shit about "the media" and "the elites" controlling their lives, it's making a roaring comeback.

[0762]

Aye, that end line using the word 'controlling' should really be changed to 'influencing' TBF! The 'influencing' of certain people within our population has been very evident for a long time and there are many examples of this 'phenomenon' being applied and possibly affecting the future prospects of our country.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

The media certainly exerts an influence in society, but a) it's not a monolith; there are different outlets preaching different messages, and anyone who treats them all as one entity should be distrusted, and b) it's a two-way relationship. There are plenty of instances of tabloid newspapers apologizing and/or retracting ill-judged headlines when they've had a backlash from their own readers.

So, yes. Incisive criticism of the shortcomings of specific media outlets is fair enough. But anyone wildly banging on about "the MSM" and "Fake News Media" is doing their own little bit to pave a very, very dark road to a place we don't want to visit.

[hibeejim21]

The world is full of "offended" people looking for something to complain about.

For those who think that the image would have been fine if only the evil, shadowy, puppet-master bankers had looked a bit less Jewish... well, perhaps consider that there's a reason why they were depicted that way to begin with, and it wasn't done by accident.  In the same way that Farage and his chums, when making an anti-immigration poster, will always depict a horde of brown-skinned immigrants rather than white-skinned ones; they know *exactly* what they're doing from the word go, and are smirking behind their hand whenever anyone elects to make excuses on their behalf.

No one was making excuses for him, i was merely pointing out he could have kept his critique of capitalism and the elite without resorting to anti semitism. His explanations afterwards showed he was out of order.

Maybe I'm not very well attuned to these things but i'm going to give corbyn the benefit of the doubt on this one. He's ceded on the mural being anti semitic and expressed regret he didn't examine it more closely, i kind of feel the same way. Plus Its becoming clear now that a lot of people attacking him on anti-semitism are are more interested in causing political damage to his leadership than approaching what is a pretty serious subject indeed.