JOHANNESBURG: Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu has urged a South African opera company to boycott Israel, comparing its treatment of Palestinians to his own country's era of racial apartheid.
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The Nobel peace prize laureate said it would be ''unconscionable'' for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel while millions there were denied access to culture and education.
But the opera company insisted that it would go ahead with next month's tour of the American classic Porgy and Bess, and Archbishop Tutu's stand was condemned by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
The 79-year-old, who this month announced his retirement from public life, issued a statement that said: ''Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel.''
Archbishop Tutu, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and campaign to free Nelson Mandela, said: ''Only the thickest-skinned South Africans would be comfortable performing before an audience that excluded residents living, for example, in an occupied West Bank village 30 minutes from Tel Aviv, who would not be allowed to travel to Tel Aviv…
''The Tel Aviv Opera House is state sponsored. By luring international artists to perform there, it advances Israel's fallacious claim to being a 'civilised democracy'.
''To perform Porgy and Bess, with its universal message of non-discrimination, in the present state of Israel, is unconscionable.''
But the plea was rejected by Cape Town Opera. ''Cape Town Opera respects the views held by retired Archbishop Tutu, said its director, Michael Williams.
''We are, however, first and foremost an arts company that believes in promoting universally held human values through the medium of opera, and we are accordingly reluctant to adopt the essentially political position of disengagement from cultural ties with Israel or with Palestine.''
Archbishop Tutu caused controversy last month when he supported Johannesburg University's decision to sever links with Ben-Gurion University in Israel, accused of actively supporting the Israeli military.
Guardian News & Media
