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Jail for a collage - anonymous speaks out

by Charles Thomson

“Anonymous” has bravely and eruditely spoken out about my last post with these words (spelling as in the original): 

About the post of Mr Tompson
 When you live in a country you must respect its laws.If you dont like it you leave.In your post it is writen: Mr Dickinson’s case has already achieved international media coverage with coverage from UK national press including The Times and The Guardian.  An I say thats why he did what he did.Artists need promotion.this is whay of getting it. 

So there you have it. It doesn’t matter what laws a country has, you must respect these laws.  They can discriminate against minorities, or gender, or race.  They can be repressive or exploitive, but they must be respected, because they are the laws of that country. The students in Tiananmen Square should not have protested – they should have left the country. The monks currently demonstrating for democracy in Burma should leave the country.  What a contemptible philosophy anonymous expresses. 

Anonymous fails to address the fact that Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations, which has a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that Turkey wants membership of the European Union. In September 2006 the European Parliament specifically called for the abolition of Turkish laws such as the one under which Michael Dickinson is being prosecuted, and "which threaten European free speech norms".  Perhaps anonymous should advise Turkey to respect the laws of the European Union, if it wants to be member. 

Anonymous also claims an intimate insight into Michael Dickinson’s motivations for creating his work.  It would be revealing to hear how this conclusion has been arrived at. 

Anonymous seems to have a very small heart and a very small brain.


yada yada

every artist that wants to make it through the papers does something totally opposite in countries that have a diffrent way of thinking.Touching soft spots like politics and religion.dont mix things.I wasnt talking about students Iwas talking about what motivates artists to make "statments"
THERE IS A WAY FOR EVERYTHING,IF YOU REALLY WANT TO ACHIEVE A GOAL YOU CAN USE OTHER ROADS THAN PROVOKING!


political art

It is also about hypocrisy – the man who finds himself victimized as a dog in the cartoon has already been in prison for writing subversive poetry – what changed here? Does power make one feel more insulted as the years go by?

Alexis Hunter


reply to yada yada

You are missing the point completely, which is about freedom of speech, a core value of civilisation.