Pacific Views

Special Treatment

Normally, I'd say that everyone should be treated pretty much like everybody else, even if they are celebrities. Which is to say that I don't think they should automatically get lesser sentences for committing crimes, and I don't think that celebrity entitles a person to skip to the head of the line, as it were. But recent events suggest a caveat to that general principle:

Some people, while not necessarily being considered above suspicion, should generally not be put under any more scrutiny than I was on my recent trip to Iowa and back from New Hampshire. (I got put into the extra pokes and prods line, I'm guessing, because I had one-way tickets to and from Seattle.)

It's kind of funny that even Al Gore got the full pat down and luggage rummaging treatment at an airport once, and to some extent, it prevents the rest of us from feeling exceptionally put upon.

But imagine the reaction if Gore had been handcuffed and detained for several hours because his fingerprints weren't on file. Americans would, I'm guessing, find it boneheaded to say the least. If it had happened to him in, say, France or China, we might all be uniformly outraged. Even if you hadn't voted for him, because it would reflect a shocking degree of ignorance about our country, and disrespect for accomplished members of our society. We might think that if someone like Gore could get treated that way, ordinary Americans would be particularly unwelcome.

Some individuals, by right of long careers of public service or cultural enrichment, have made enough of a track record for themselves that only a fool would consider them a threat:

In the spring of 2003, the celebrated Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi was travelling to South America from Hong Kong. He did not intend to stop in the US, but his flight path took him through New York's John F Kennedy airport. There, Panahi, a winner of the Golden Bear award at the Venice film festival who had visited the US several times, expected to while away a few dull hours. Instead, he was detained by officials; because his fingerprints were not on file, he was handcuffed and held in custody for several hours. He was so incensed at his treatment that he vowed never to return to the US.

Panahi's experience is extreme, but not rare. According to organisations connected with film, theatre, music, opera and dance, new American immigration and visa policies are making it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for foreign artists of all sorts to come to the US to perform and show their work.

No one, it seems, is exempt. Last week, at the Grammy awards, the Cuban guitarist Ibrahim Ferrer was supposed to have received an award - but he couldn't get into the country. The 76-year-old was cited as a security risk. A Peking Opera company had to cancel an 18-city tour because the American consulate in China claimed not all of the musicians could adequately prove that they intended to return home after the tour ended. The South African anti-apartheid leader and singer Vusi Mahlasela had to cancel a good chunk of a US tour because his visa took months to get approved, as did the Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia.

And in late 2002, in a disheartening precursor to the Panahi case, the Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, a Cannes Palme d'Or winner and one of the Middle East's most acclaimed film-makers, couldn't get to the New York film festival to show his latest work. "It really harms our image - not only in the Muslim world but around the world," says Richard Pena, director of the NYFF and a professor at Columbia University. "Someone like Kiarostami is not just anyone; not letting him in is going to have a negative reverberation for America's image around the world."

...The results of all this seem pretty clear. As Opera America's Scorca puts it: "These procedures are leading to diminished exposure of American audiences to great artists and making it harder for US artists to get work abroad." But the stakes, many believe, are even higher than that. "Art is cultural diplomacy," says Sandra Gibson, president of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters in Washington, which lobbies Congress and USCIS on behalf of hundreds of members. "And it's just as important as it was during the cold war. It's as important as when [pianist] Van Cliburn went to the Soviet Union to perform and changed Khrushchev's mind about the United States."

Artists of this stature represent what's best in their cultures, and our respect for them is a link to that portion of any society that values open discourse, good art, and friendly relations with the rest of the world. To say no to all of that dispirits exactly the wrong people, and strengthens the arguments of those who would try to present the US as determined to engage in a war of elimination with other societies.

By treating those like Panahi or Ferrer as goodwill ambassadors for their nations, we would enhance our standing in the world. Disrespecting them is, albeit indirectly, a threat to national security.

Thanks to vsync for the link.