Rattle and Jurowski lead stop-the-war petition

Senior conductors have launched a petition to, in their words, Stop the war against Ukraine and stop the blanket boycott against Russian and Belarusian artists.

Admirable though this is, joining the two objectives weakens the main thrust of the initiative, which is to shame Russia into putting an end to its illegal war. The signatories seem to be aware of this dilution, but there is nothing they can do to avoid it.

Sample text:
The unconscionable war that Putin’s totalitarian regime has unleashed against sovereign Ukraine, where Russian tanks and missiles are targeting innocent civilians, cannot be justified in any way. Bombing and assaulting civilian objects, such as hospitals, schools, theatres, universities, libraries, or churches, are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and must be unequivocally condemned without exception….

The suffering of all those affected by this atrocious war is beyond measure. We understand that in these circumstances our appeal below may not be considered of the highest priority and, perhaps, even seem somewhat irrelevant or offensive to some – the paramount issue is, after all, to stop the war now and rebuild lives – but nevertheless, we would like to share our point of view.

We fully endorse the sanctions and diplomatic pressure being brought against Putin’s regime and its henchmen, against its advocates, propagandists and information-manipulators whose links to Putin and his government are clearly documented. However, not all Russians and Belarusians, and certainly not all cultural figures of these two nations, support this terrible invasion. Therefore, we find it unjust to condemn Russians or Belarusians for the actions of the dictator and his supporters without any direct evidence of their collusion. …

Join the petition here.