ABFE Speaks Out on Youth Symphony Censorship, Open Government

The American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE) has joined a protest over an orchestra’s decision to cancel a performance of a piece that includes a very short excerpt from a Nazi anthem. In a separate issue, ABFE is urging President Obama to take important steps to give the public greater access to government information.

The New York Youth Symphony commissioned a piece by Jonas Tarm, a 21-year-old junior at the New England Conservatory of Music, which was scheduled for a performance at Carnegie Hall on March 8. The nine-minute work, “Marsh u Nebuttya” (“March to Oblivion”) took as its subject “conflict ... totalitarianism ... and polarizing nationalism,” Tarm told the New York Times. It includes 45-second excerpts from the Nazi song “Horst-Wessel-Lied” and a Soviet anthem.

An unidentified person heard the work when it premiered on February 22 at Manhattan’s United Palace Theater and afterwards wrote a letter of complaint to officials of the Youth Symphony. The letter was signed a “Nazi survivor.” The Youth Symphony subsequently cancelled the Carnegie Hall performance. Following media reports of the decision, the Youth Symphony defended its action in a prepared statement, noting that it is illegal to play “Horst-Wessel-Lied” in Germany and Austria and that it was “problematic for a student orchestra such as ours to be asked to perform without prior knowledge or discussion.”

ABFE joined other free expression groups in a letter of protest to the NYYS that was organized by the National Coalition Against Censorship. “We understand that the NYYS was concerned about the reactions of the audience…. As organizations that work with censorship controversies on a daily basis, however, we assure you that suppressing controversial work is never a good solution,” the letter said.

ABFE Director Chris Finan noted the irony of censoring a work that protests against totalitarianism. The Nazi regime was notorious for burning books and suppressing art.

ABFE has also joined a letter urging President Obama to implement an important reform that would make it easier to monitor the federal government’s exercise of the powers it was given by the USA Patriot Act and other national security legislation. The government is currently required to report the number of orders it issues for records in intelligence investigations. However, these reports do not indicate how many people have been targeted. Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, revealed that one order issued under Section 215 of the Patriot Act was used to collect the telephone records of millions of Americans.

ABFE and OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of free speech and open government groups, are urging President Obama to issue an executive order requiring the intelligence agencies to specify the total number of individuals whose records are collected. Since many of these people are foreign nationals, the letter also asks for a count of the number of U.S. citizens who receive these orders.

The letter identifies other reforms that it hopes the administration will implement during Sunshine Week (March 15-21), which seeks public support for the Freedom of Information Act and other measures that attempt to reduce government secrecy.