tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post2194241254775384190..comments2024-01-07T06:59:04.212-05:00Comments on The Playgoer: Soyinka @ TCGPlaygoerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02994724588504353485noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-20177590429850917092007-08-04T18:45:00.000-04:002007-08-04T18:45:00.000-04:00Thanks, Mr. E, for the link and your eyewitness ac...Thanks, Mr. E, for the link and your eyewitness account. All these months later, I'm still shocked there's no available transcript of the speech.Playgoerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02994724588504353485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-87222754591757534172007-08-04T07:54:00.000-04:002007-08-04T07:54:00.000-04:00Looking at some old posts here...I actually wrote ...Looking at some old posts here...I actually wrote an essay about Soyinka's talk. You can read it at http://www.untitledtheater.com/havel/essays-multimedia/Soyinka.htm. I do think that Soyikna's remarks were, at best, tone deaf, and his response to Tuvia's comments right after the talk (which was only to point out Farrakhan's anit-semtism) were shocking and disappointing to me. It is unfortunate that Tuvia's later written comments were so vitriolic, however. It took the conversation to a more irrational emotional level.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-79822246925082138972007-07-11T00:14:00.000-04:002007-07-11T00:14:00.000-04:00Hi folks. Found this link from TheatreForte. I w...Hi folks. Found this link from TheatreForte. I was at the conference and imagine TCG wants to keep the remarks private because... it is a conservative institution in my experience and seems to thrive by not pissing anyone off if at all possible.<BR/><BR/>I don't think that Soyinka's comments or his intellectual "endorsement" of Farrakhan's proposals of grand world-atonement-day indicated that he is anti-Semitic in any way. I disagreed entirely with the AD who stood up and accused Wole. THEN-- it seemed like Wole's response to the AD was emotional -- he basically said "you are not the only victims" which I think clearly was meant to imply "you, Jews, are not the only victims". This may have been baiting the baiter, as it were, since the questioner's original question was basically totally off base. But I do think it was meant as a retort and as a blunt (and politically provocative) way of discouraging the questioner's motives and intentions. Wole then went out of his way to point out that several of his friends had been persecuted (and killed) by African governments supported by Farrakhan. If that doesn't distance him from the man, I don't know what would. <BR/><BR/>Soyinka's was an intellectual proposal, not a political one. A beautiful speech, and I wish TCG would have the courage to publish it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-45220195186908553242007-06-26T09:49:00.000-04:002007-06-26T09:49:00.000-04:00Really? A cover up? You think TCG is involved in ...Really? A cover up? You think TCG is involved in a conspiracy with Wole Soyinka to cover up the remarks he made at their conference?<BR/><BR/>I don't think anyone's denying what Soyinka said, but rather that taken in context, it's not anti-semetic.<BR/><BR/>Soyinka might not want to let the speech into the public sphere for all sorts of reasons (including his intent to give the speech elsewhere for money or publish it). Let's not jump to any hasty conclusions.parabasishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12476856869466695694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-66594532493843129222007-06-26T09:04:00.000-04:002007-06-26T09:04:00.000-04:00and yet another jew says:if it's all so kosher and...and yet another jew says:<BR/><BR/>if it's all so kosher and Wole didn't say what he's accused of saying, why is it that nobody's willing to release the records? tcg always publishes keynote addresses--except for this case. sounds to me like a nice cover-up...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-9088200509952959162007-06-25T17:35:00.000-04:002007-06-25T17:35:00.000-04:00Doesn's sound as if Soyinka was lionizing Farrakha...Doesn's sound as if Soyinka was lionizing Farrakhan at all and was clear about that. If anything, the affront to Jews imho was Farrakhan's pilfering (and Soyinka's apparent failure to notice) a very longstanding Jewish practice of everybody getting together to ask forgiveness. I mean, where did he get the idea Day of Atonement from? Yom Kippur, anyone? Not that this is worth rousing Abe Foxman's easily rousable fury (or anyone else's); imitation is flattery, and all that, and rituals have a way of being absorbed into syncretic practices. Tanenbom is being hysterical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-3356023473876715312007-06-25T16:43:00.000-04:002007-06-25T16:43:00.000-04:00You're in Chicago? Where will you be after the sh...You're in Chicago? Where will you be after the show?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12657288.post-8999220864885339992007-06-25T12:35:00.000-04:002007-06-25T12:35:00.000-04:00I wasn't there. I will just comment generally to ...I wasn't there. I will just comment generally to say that, as someone with a pretty finely tuned (some would say "Alvie Singer-esque") anti-semetism radar, based on the <I>reporting</I> of the incident, the claim seems totally specious. And that (as a Jew) Jews who use specious claims of anti-semetism to shut down people they don't like make it harder for others to fight real anti-semetism. Oddly enough, Abe Foxman of ADL is one of the chief perpetrators of this, so I'm frankly surprised that ADL took the press release off their site. If it had been about Israel, I think it would've been a different story.parabasishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12476856869466695694noreply@blogger.com