Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer/Autumn 2018 | Page 51

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
or direct mediation between conflict parties: Barenboim aims at transforming the representations
of “the others.” Not surprisingly, Paul Smaczny’s 2005 Emmy Award-winning
documentary on the Divan was entitled Knowledge Is the Beginning (Smaczny 2005):
“We Middle-Easterners are all great artists when it comes to abusing historical knowledge
in order to demonstrate our victimhood and wallow in self-pity. It would be far
more productive to allow our curiosity and knowledge to help us imagine and create the
conditions for a better future” (Barenboim 2009:vii). But intentionally or not, the orchestra
operates in the area of informal cultural diplomacy (not directly led or initiated by
governments) as a dimension of multi-track diplomacy. How does the WEDO concretely
relate to this extension of traditional diplomacy?
The Orchestra as a New Political Body
An orchestra can be qualified as a society in miniature. In the history of European
thought, this society embodied a strategic figure, as collective musical performances
have been compared to military struggle. But it also referred to the “will to live together,”
especially during the eighteenth century: tracing back the etymology of the term
“orchestra,” we might not only identify a crucial shift from a purely geographic denomination
of the place in a theater where musicians or singers performed, to the use of
“orchestra” for the musical ensemble itself in the era between 1650 and 1750 (Spitzer
and Zaslaw 2005:14–18). Beyond this evolution, an orchestra is also related to the
constitution of a political body. For instance, Rousseau uses numerous musical metaphors
to make sense of the functioning of the volonté générale and the idea of integration
(Rousseau 1966:50). It is also not a coincidence that, during the French revolutionary
period, political leaders created large orchestras which offered new forms of concerts.
By focusing on quantity (the sheer number of participating musicians) and open spaces
(outdoor performances), these orchestras echoed with the political system transformation.
Both in the substance and the form, the orchestra embodied a new political body
(Kaltenecker 1999:75f.).
Without referring explicitly to these experiences, Barenboim promotes a similar design
since the Divan embraces the same idea by focusing on integration or an “organic whole”
(Barenboim 2011). Accordingly, the orchestra is regarded as the “sovereign independent
republic of the West-Eastern Divan” (Barenboim 2008a:182, 2008c). Living together
several weeks, playing together during musical performances, learning together to listen
to the other instrumentalists (which is indeed the essence of the musical practices)�
all these actions created links that allow them “to hear” the narration of other peoples
and how they perceive the political situation. The body of the orchestra is based on the
recognition of an equality of votes and voices. Without such basic principles which provide
the same conditions of the aesthetic act, a dialog in music is impossible: “[ ... ]
The circumstances on the ground in the Middle East create too much inequality, and
the prerequisite for any dialogue is equality. Without equality one cannot speak of dialogue,
but only of soliloquy, which produces an excellent dramatic effect in the theatre
but causes irreparable damage in daily life” (Barenboim 2008a:182, 2008c). By this way,
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