Art show riot reflects religious divide in new Tunisia

[rug]

The interviewed artist agreed asked not to be named. Picking up a piece of work vandalized by Islamist zealots at a recent arts fair in a suburb of Tunis, she said: "Don't describe it or people will know who I am."

Reuters, Sunday 1 Jul 2012

Tunisian artists have gone to ground since Salafi Islamists broke into Abdeliya Palace on June 10 and destroyed a handful of works at the Printemps des Arts fair to protest against art they deemed insulting to Islam, then ran riot for days.

One of the most controversial works on display was an installation depicting veiled women as punching bags. Another showed veiled women in a pile of stones, a comment on the stoning of adulteresses in Islam. The work that caused most anger spelt the words "Sobhan Allah" or "Glory to God" in ants.

While condemning the violence, which killed one person, the culture and religious affairs ministers also criticized the artists for crossing the shifting limits of free expression.

Tempers have since calmed. But the incidents were the latest to raise fears among secular intellectuals that the freedoms won when last year's revolt ousted secular dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali are slowly being circumscribed by religious mores imposed by zealots, not the once-feared police.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/25/46586/Arts--Culture/Visual-Art/Art-show-riot-reflects-religious-divide-in-new-Tun.aspx

[Kali]

2. WTF?

hide this bigorty! are you serious?

[trotsky]

3. I believe it was a mistake to have that post hidden.

The poster said Islamists, not Muslims. Islamists specifically want society to be run by the rules of Islam, like sharia law. I don't think it is "bigoted" to want religious nuts to set up their own country where no one is allowed to offend them, and leave free society to the rest of us who can handle pluralism and different viewpoints.

[dmallind]

4. Agreed - that's an ignorance hide. The post equates to "dominionists should set up their own...

...country and leave the rest of us alone". I'm pretty sure that's passed muster. Hell I'm pretty sure I've said it myself before.

Doubtless too many on the jury who thought Islamists was a synonym for rather than a small subset of Muslims.

[LeftishBrit]

5. I suspect that the jury were influenced by the use of 'Islamists' in war-on-terror commentary

and did not pick up that this is about religious right-wingers in a Muslim country, not about Muslim minorities in Western countries, or about the neocon attacks on Islam.

May have been a bit strongly expressed, but I would equate it with 'the Christian Right should set up their own country'.

[Kali]

6. yep, I read it as all Muslims

apologies to the poster for the comment if indeed that was the point - and I was one of 5 on the jury to hide it so I imagine we all did the same thing.

a quick look at wiki does seem to indicate some difference of opinion on the definition and as a juror I might have been swayed by a further qualifier such as the word "extremist" or something else along that line.

Some observers suggest Islamism's tenets are less strict, and can be defined as a form of identity politics or "support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity, broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization of the community".[3] Following the Arab Spring at least one source has described Islamism as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world, such that "neither can now survive without the other."[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism

sorry about my slip, I am better informed now.