Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer/Autumn 2018 | Page 62

THE BARENBOIM CASE: HOW TO LINK MUSIC AND DIPLOMACY STUDIES
an expression of Palestinian nationalism, play a crucial role in Arab popular culture and
clearly exclude the idea of peaceful coexistence with Israel (see McDonald 2013).
Conclusion: Barenboim versus Disintermediation,
Toward a Diplomacy of Links?
“I have always believed that there is no military solution to the Jewish
Arab conflict, neither from a moral nor a strategic one and since a solution
is therefore inevitable I ask myself, why wait?” (Barenboim 2004b).
A
striking discursive ambiguity arises in the way Daniel Barenboim described his action
through the Divan as an intermediary: Initially, he distanced himself from the
idea of a peace project and considers the orchestra’s character “more humanistic
than political” (Barenboim 2008a:61); nevertheless, he indicated a path toward peace.
Beyond this tension, it is rather the two characteristics of the action carried out that crystallize
the paradoxes: the claim for autonomy from politics (which is debatable in view
of Barenboim’s regular political statements, but also and above all because of his philosophical
conception of music as a metaphor for life), and symbolic action (which weaves
one new imaginary relationship with another while bumping to factors that prevent its
realization). Nevertheless, essentializing judgments such as Beckles Willson’s display of
two contrasting features in WEDO, that is “a highly politicized, semi-public platform on
which specific identities (Spaniards, Arabs, and Jews) interact” versus “a conventional
youth orchestra playing highlights from the Western classical canon” (Beckles Willson
2009b:322), are not inclined to meet the unique complexity of Barenboim and Said’s
project, nor is it the interpretation by ethnomusicologist Kate Wakeling according to
whom the organization of these musical structures is “more as [a] Euro-American fantasy
of cooperation and a vehicle for individual musical ambition, than a positive contribution
to Middle Eastern social dynamics” (Wakeling 2010).
Precisely in view of such unsatisfactory conclusions, it is necessary to localize and specify
the level of Barenboim’s intervention as a musician acting in the public space: if his
actions’ repertoire differs from celebrity diplomacy, Barenboim cultivates an indirect
form of multi-track diplomacy at the grass-root level. Indeed, his cultural activism can be
neither located at the macro level (political restructuring of the regional agenda focusing
on involvement in government-wide action to prevent war) nor at the meso level (which
would imply the organization of concerts between different countries). The scale Barenboim
favors is finally a micro level (that of individual trajectories) with a focus length devoted
to music education. On the one hand, he provides local audiences, especially the
Palestinian one, with another way of satisfying their primary needs (insofar as, beyond a
purely material dimension, free participation in cultural life is internationally recognized
in article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). This is what a resident of
the Gaza Strip raised after a Divan concert in 2011: “The world has forgotten us. Those
who remember us bring us medical care and food and we are grateful. But you would do
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