You Choose!
Image by ClevelandSGS via Flickr
"Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. .. The battlefield is everywhere, there is no sheltered rear..... Fascism fights to destroy the culture which Society has created; created through pain and suffering, through desperate toil, but with unconquerable will and lofty vision . . - What matters a man's profession or vocation? Fascism is no respector of persons. It makes no distinction between combatants and non-combatants... The artist must take sides; he must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I have no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterised by the degradation of my people; despoiled of their lands, their women ravished, their culture destroyed... I say the true artist cannot hold himself aloof. The legacy of culture from our predecessors is in danger. It is the foundation upon which we build a still more lofty edifice. It belongs not only to us, not only to the present generation, it belongs to posterity and must be defended to the death." - Paul Robeson, 1937
You choose.
Chris
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, I have just enjoyed the two songs, great quote by Robeson, it puts into perspective why so many on the left invested such hope in the Soviet Union.