Artists are mined,
Identities extracted.
Relations are skin-deep,
A safe distance from reality’s creep.
There are platforms and prizes:
Are we filling their cup,
Or shutting them up?
Nice to look at,
And oh so easy to cancel.
Diversity box we tick
Before we give them the flick
When the man who signed the missile
With the felt tip
Gets invited.
No one
Wants to hear
The artist then.
Street prayers are bashed and dragged.
A bomb is thrown into Mr Forrest’s place.
We must not talk of
Starving people shot at food collection points.
No settlers to be criticised,
Not here, nor there.
I used to wear a turban.
While some saw a threat,
One kid saw a genie
And asked me for three wishes.
Wish one:
That innocence lasts longer than prejudice.
Wish two:
That belonging isn’t something we fight for,
But something we’re born into.
Wish three:
That leaders
REAL leaders
Grow spines as tall as Nishan Sahibs,
And courage as wide as community halls.
The world is getting small.
Mirror facing mirror,
Algorithms turning debate into hate,
And comment sections that bite.
Fear in a tie,
Fear with a media release,
Just fear of losing leadership,
Fear of being told you didn’t earn it.
They say they are protecting
Safeguarding
From a stage light pointed too directly
At what’s been stolen.
And I am tired.
We are tired
Of watching courage be negotiated.
Tired of artists
Being told to tone it down:
“Good vibes only.”
“Live with an abundance mindset.”
Be grateful.
Behave.
As if art was ever born from obedience.
Listen,
The state of the arts is not fragile
Because artists couldn’t hack it,
It’s fragile
Because fear is loud,
And courage takes practice.
Because backing each other
Is harder than backing down.
Because when funding gets tight,
And headlines get ugly,
And someone influential whispers,
“Maybe this isn’t the right time, love…”
It is oh so easy to fold.
But folding is how stages go dark.
Folding is how communities shrink.
Folding is how we wake up one day
And realise the only stories left
Are the safe ones:
The vanilla milkshake,
Responding to the archive,
Pleased to meet you.
Five stars.
And safe stories
Do not save us.
We save us.
By showing up.
By refusing to let fear make our daily decisions.
This isn’t just Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.
This is the arts sector’s inconvenient proof
That silence
Is policy.
Not accident.
Courage is contagious, and so is silence.
It’s up to you:
Choose
Your
Infection.
Because this moment,
This tight-throat, culture-war,
Funding-cut, headline-hungry moment
Is asking something of us.
It is asking:
Will you shrink?
Or will you stand?
Will you whisper?
Or will you sing so loud
That even the walls built to contain you
Start humming your tune?
Back the truth,
Even when it trembles.
Especially when it trembles.
At 16, courage looked like
Standing up to 26 bullying boys at Leeming High,
Where I learned very quickly:
If you don’t fit the script,
You become the storyteller.
At 18, the Roger Cook of Kwinana handed me a cheque
As I stepped
Into Youth Parliament
And gave my first roar
About my cultural curls
And revolutionary roots.
I gave my testimony on courage.
And now,
At 31,
I’m back to square one.
I drink a steaming-hot cup of discomfort
Every morning.
I walk into my Creative Workplace.
I sit in my uncomfortable chair.
Do my very uncomfortable job.
Engage in some uncomfortable meetings
With some uncomfortable people,
All while smiling uncomfortably
To make other people comfortable.
And you know what?
It will never be enough.
Immigration is not the enemy.
We are not the problem.
Art is not a threat.
Artists have to make it work,
Artists make the world work.
Courage is necessary.
Courage is community.
And we will
Not
Be
Quiet.
by SUKHJIT KAUR KHALSA OAM
