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Civil Rights Group Sues Troy, New York Over Exhibition
by Christian Nutt [PC, Serious]
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June 12, 2009
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In a story that shows the complexities in the blurring of the line between games and art, The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit due to the closure of an exhibition that featured artist Wafaa Bilal's game Virtual Jihadi.
The game, a shooter which its official site depicts as a "skin" of Quest For Saddam -- a game which was retailed in the U.S. -- has the player hunting down George W. Bush, who was president at the time of its exhibition.
Bilal, an Iraqi-born artist who is a faculty member at New York University's Tische School for the Arts according to a Guardian report, originally planned to exhibit the game in a show at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute until objections from the college's Republican Club reportedly resulted in its exclusion from the show.
The game found a new home, in March 2008, at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, but that gallery showing was shut down by Troy, New York's public works commissioner, Robert Mirch. NYCLU contends that this was done to suppress Bilal's free speech and not for legitimate reasons -- "purported [city] code violations," per the NYCLU -- hence the suit.
In the NYCLU statement, Melanie Trimble, director of the union's Capital Region chapter, said, "City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful. Mr. Mirch abused his authority to suppress the free speech rights of people he disagrees with -- an unconstitutional act that must be challenged."
The full text of the complaint is available at the above NYCLU link.
Albany, New York newspaper, the Times Union, offers this statement from Mirch: "Since I haven't seen [the suit], I can't comment on what I haven't seen. Obviously there is a political motive since they chose not to address RPI."
The NYCLU maintains that the exhibit was an art piece designed to promote thought and dialogue about the 2003 - present Iraq war.
Bilal's site describes the concept behind the game, reproduced here in part: "Virtual Jihadi is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam; along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq."
The form this work takes, a shooter, is no doubt the intrinsic to this particular controversy.
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The way it was explained to me, only the government is in violation when they suppress speech. What makes it merky is that a city official closed it down for building code violation. I wasn't there, nor do I know anything about New York building codes. This official does not have authority to ban anything so that makes the argument a little weak.
Bottom line, NYCLU will have to have a bunch of evidence to prove the conspiracy.
I'm sure someone knows more than me, but it's an interesting story regardless.
IANAL or even American, so I don't know about the illegality of those actions you mention. However, is it also illegal just to *portray* the assassination? I'm sure there's been plenty of movies in which the President of the United States is attacked or assassinated. Of course, they would be portrayed as being *the* President, just *a* President. Seems like a thorny pickle of a question, but then the concept of freedom of speech is really good at spawning thorny pickle questions.
I think it would be more acceptable to protray both sides of a conflict and let the player make a choice instead of only showing a single extreame.
Here's an example of a film about someone assassinating George W. Bush:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President , which is excellent.
[A good article on it is at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/call-of-jihadi-interview]
Bilal modified that version to add more of a context to it to show, "the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians, highlight racist generalisations and stereotypes promoted in videogames, and demonstrate how British and American foreign policy is pushing Iraqi citizens into the arms of violent groups like Al-Qaeda".
All in all I would be very interested in playing it.
Question for you John Smith what would you consider a mature portrayal of the insurgents? In what ways do you find the current protrayal as immature?
If the exhibit was curated by a state-represented entity, then yes, this would be a violation of free speech, and the artist should have his work removed. But if it was a privately owned venture, then the ACLU doesn't have a case, and nobody's going to face the rap for it.
If that bothers you --and it should--
and hunting Bush doesn't --and IT should too--
Ask yourself why one is acceptable and the other isn't. If I can do "art" that deals with the planned assassination of one president,why not another?
From what I have read there was a game called "Quest for Saddam" made by an American game designer that had you shooting pretty stereotypical enemies. Al-Queda then modified that game to "The Night of Bush Capturing". All they really did was replace the Iraqi skins with stereotypical American soldier skins and Saddam's image with Bush's. What the person in question (Wafaa Bilal) then did was take that Al-Queda game and modify it further to cast himself as a suicide-bomber in the game. The backstory for this was that "after learning of the real-life death of his brother in the war, he is recruited by Al Qaeda to join the hunt for Bush. This work is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam, along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq. The work also aims to shed light on groups that traffic in crass and hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with games like Quest for Saddam and other media".
That long quote from above is from the first link in the story.
> If that bothers you --and it should--
> and hunting Bush doesn't --and IT should too--
Why? Because you say so? Perfect example of the problem most people have with freedom of speech. Say anything you like as long as it doesn't offend ME. That's _not_ the way it works - in fact it's the opposite of the way it's supposed to 'work'.
Also illustrates the misunderstanding many people have between something which is 'distasteful' (or for example 'inappropriate for minors') and something whose purpose is to incite violence/ratial hatred/etc.
Someone killing Bush --> bothers me
Someone playing a game about killing Bush --> Meh. Is it any fun? Is it worth playing?
Someone playing a game about killing Obama --> Meh. Is it any fun? Is it worth playing?
I've tried to highlight a distinction there that lots of people seem to miss...