BURNED TWICE IN ONE LIFETIME

The writer Arthur Koestler fought fascism in the early 1930s.  He courageously wrote against Nazism in Germany and was imprisoned on death row for his stand against fascism in Spain.  Communists hailed him as a hero.

A few years later, Koestler spoke out again, but this time against communist oppression.  His classic novel, Darkness at Noon,  exposed Stalin's show trials to the world.  Now the communists too hated Koestler, and burned his books.

German political poster from the 1950s showing Koestler being hated equally by book-burners on the left and the right.

Koestler reflected, "To be burned twice in one's lifetime is, after all, a rare distinction."

The illustrator Arthur Szyk was also burned twice.  Szyk's scathing pictures attacking Nazis during World War II were powerful tools for fundraising for US war bonds, training soldiers and rousing awareness.  Eleanor Roosevelt called Szyk a "one man army" for America.  Hitler put a price on his head.

After the war was over, members of the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee began to wonder if Szyk was sufficiently anti-communist.  Despite his obvious patriotism, the Committee suspected Szyk of once belonging to an organization that served as a "Communist front."  Besides, he had drawn cartoons about civil rights for negroes,  and wasn't that kind of communist? 

White soldier: "What would you do with Hitler?"
African-American soldier:  "I would have made him a negro and dropped him somewhere in the USA." 

The distraught Szyk protested that he wasn't connected with any Communist organization, but a few months after the investigation began he died of a heart attack at age 57.

Szyk had been burned once by America's enemies and then again by jerks purporting to be America's "friends."

Which bring us to Victor Arnautoff, another artist interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s because it didn't approve of his left wing views.  Arnautoff had drawn an unflattering picture of Richard Nixon.  He also painted prominent historical murals in the San Francisco area, some of which were critical of slavery, genocide and colonization.

Arnautoff's art survived his right wing inquisition.  Today the question is whether it will survive his left wing inquisition.

Last week, the school board in San Francisco voted to destroy Arnautoff's 1936 mural about the life of George Washington because the murals included images of African-American slaves and a dead Native American, which might traumatize high school students.

Note the slaves working the fields in the background.

Washington High School convened a  "Reflection and Action Group" to consider the issue. That group ruled that the mural “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy [and] oppression"-- a grossly ignorant mischaracterization of Arnautoff's work.

Speaking of ignorant, School Commissioner Faauuga Moliga defended the destruction, saying his concern was that "kids are mentally and emotionally feeling safe at their schools."  The school board's vice president declared that destroying the mural counted as "reparations."

Koestler wrote that having your work burned by extremists on both sides is comparable to "a professional diploma, certifying that its owner has passed his examination and is entitled to exercise his craft." It seems that Arnautoff has passed that test.

It's ironic that extremists fail to recognize themselves in their opposite extremes.  There are legitimate questions about dealing with art that glorifies abhorrent content, but no meaningful answer can result from such blatant ignorance.  As the great Seneca wrote, "If you would judge, investigate."