Outcry over Saudi moves on La Scala
ONE of Italy’s major cultural events of the year is the opening of the season at the Teatro alla Scala opera house in Milan.
Those who attend the spectacle are usually people of influence. But in December, nobody was paying much attention to a rare guest: Saudi Arabian Culture Minister Prince Badr bin Abdullah.
Three months later, there is an outcry throughout the land amid news that Saudi Arabia aims to invest millions in the world-famous opera house.
In return, the Saudis want a seat on its supervisory board.
After the news came out, a strange thing happened in Italy: for once, politicians both left and right agreed about something. They say that an ultra-conservative state which just recently allegedly dispatched an execution squad to murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi should have nothing to do with one of Italy’s foremost cultural institutions.
The biggest scandal is that the oilrich kingdom wants to use its wealth to immediately “purchase” its way on to the supervisory board and thereby establish its legitimacy. Saudi Arabia said it would invest million (R243m) in La Scala over the next five years.
Meanwhile in the Saudi capital Riyadh, a conservatorium for children is to be opened, and thought is being given to staging Verdi’s La Traviata.
La Scala’s Austrian director, Alexander Pereira, cannot understand what the fuss is all about. It is a positive sign when a country which for 40 years had been closed to culture now starts to open up, he told La Repubblica newspaper. He said he had followed the Khashoggi case and was well aware of the “despotic” nature of the Saudi regime. But he was convinced of the “positive power of music” and said if La Scala did not accept the money, someone else would – France.
On March 18, La Scala’s supervisory board is to meet in Milan, when a decision on the Saudi offer is expected. The question then becomes what is demanded in return. Saudi Arabia’s aim, with its financial infusion in La Scala, may be to polish up its international image, tarnished by the monarchy’s human rights violations.
The ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia has been undergoing a cultural opening-up ever since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has risen to become the most powerful man in the kingdom. After decades, cinemas have once again been permitted, and with large sums of money international stars have been lured to the country.
Last year, Saudis celebrated performers such as Black Eyed Peas and Enrique Iglesias in Riyadh. | THE PALESTINIAN Authority is scaling back wages paid to its employees in response to a cash crunch deepened by a dispute with Israel over payments to families of militants in Israeli jails, it said yesterday.
In February, Israel announced it was deducting 5% of the revenues it transfers monthly to the Palestinian Authority (PA) from tax collected on imports that reach the occupied West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
Israel said the sum represented the amount the PA pays to families of Palestinians jailed in Israel or killed while carrying out attacks or other security offences.
Palestinians see their slain and jailed as heroes of a national struggle but Israeli and US officials say the stipends fan Palestinian violence and are scaled so relatives of prisoners serving longer sentences receive larger payments.
After Israel’s deduction announcement, Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas said the PA would not accept any of the tax revenues, which totalled $193 million (R2.7m) in January and account for about half of the authority’s budget.
As a result, Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said the PA would pay full salaries only to its lowest-earning employees, or the 40% of its workforce that takes home $550 or less a month.
Civil servants earning more than that, including cabinet ministers, would have their wages cut by half, he said.
However, Bishara said prisoners’ families would continue to be paid their full allocations.
“No force on earth can alter that,” he told a news conference.
An Israeli official, commenting on condition of anonymity, said the PA had a cash-flow problem as a result of US cuts in aid to the Palestinians and the tax revenues dispute but the situation would not spiral out of control.
“The nightmare scenario of the PA collapsing, or of PA security co-ordination with Israel ceasing, won’t happen,” the official said. “No one, including us and the US, would allow that. If need be, we’ll look for ways of preventing this.”
The US has cut all aid to the Palestinians, including $360m it used to give to the UN Relief and Works Agency. The cuts were widely seen as a bid by Washington to press the Palestinians to re-enter peace talks with Israel.