In this particular instance, I'm with those demanding that the play should be played and that the violent protesters are wrong.

However, those arguing for near complete artistic freedom should look at the extreme examples to see whether they would argue for artistic freedom even then.

Veit Harlan's film Jud Süß (1940) and the later film Der ewige Jude (famous for the, on the purely artistic level, impressive juxtaposition of Jews walking around on the streets of a town and of rats running in the sewage below the town) were films with a message (hardly necessary to state I don't agree with it at all) and a craftful artistry (in music, speed, cuts, lighting, acting). Nevertheless, Harlan has twice after the war been defendent in trials for crimes against humanity. He came away without a sentence each time for his line of defense that the final cut and version was not his work but someone else's could not be broken.

You are surely not surprised when I say that copies of these films have cult status among German Neonazis and also among some groups in the Arab states.

Wolfgang