Anger from the Saudi Embassy

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia just now (noon EST, just an hour ago) gave an official response to international criticism of its sentence of death by beheading followed by crucifixion for a young protester, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a response for Amnesty International, Reprieve, Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron, Margaret Ferrier. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia delivered a response to the millions of petition creators and signers around the world, the tens of thousands who have marched against beheading a child for being at a protest. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has something it wants the activists working within Anonymous to know. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave a reply to the cries of anguish from a father and mother.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants us to know that it is angry about the criticism, does not like it even one bit, and would like us all to mind our own business. In more diplomatic language, it released an anonymous but official statement on Twitter that said in part: “#SaudiArabia rejects any form of interference in its internal affairs. #AliAlNimr” That closing hashtag is sickening. That closing hashtag says more than the preceding sentence does. Below the fold is the full Tweet:
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A Prize for Raif Badawi

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

BREAKING NEWS: Raif Badawi was named on Tuesday as the International Writer of Courage and PEN Pinter Prize co-recipient for 2015 by English PEN, the human rights and freedom of expression organization. The poet James Fenton was named the winner in June, but the tradition has been that the winner select a co-winner. Fenton selected Raif Badawi.
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Down with Renoir!

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Yesterday at noon, protesters began to chant: “Rosy cheeks are for clowns / Do your job, take them down.” Another: “God hates Renoir! God hates Renoir!” The number of people attending the protest in front of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts numbered in the middle-to-high single digits, according to reports.

Max Geller, a political organizer, hates Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the Impressionist painter who died in 1919 and never used anything but pastels in any of his several many famous and gigantic works. If one could type a sentence that used air quotes and then took them away and then replaced them again, one might perhaps begin to convey a sense of how completely almost serious and almost mocking and yet earnestly this hatred is felt.

Protest is important. In a free country, one ought to be able to protest anything and everything. This happens to be a free country, and the display of Renoir’s frenetically-dabbed pastel pastorals is as good an object of protest as many. (Not “any,” but many.) Two of his works have fetched more than $70 million at auction in the last quarter-century, so the received perceived wisdom in both the art world and the world world is that Renoir’s many giant works are good and valuable.
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