I deplore the thoughtless and irresponsible decision by those who decided they had the authority and justification to cancel Lahav Shani and his concert with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in the Ghent Festival on 18 September.

Lahav is a person of the very highest standing and repute and enjoys respect and admiration throughout the world of classical music. This action has besmirched the previously excellent reputation of the Festival and will surely damage its reputation and future until some form of purgation can be achieved.

Those who were actively involved in this decision should consider their positions and commensurate amends must be made.

But this by now widely criticised action has far-reaching implications for civil societies around the world and indeed for democracy.
The best illustration that I can think of is the ever-increasing number of wildfires, which have had such devastating consequences all around the globe. So far they have been controllable even if with mounting difficulty but it may only take some storms of exceptional ferocity — and these are more and more frequent — for such fires to coalesce into a universal conflagration.

And so it is with the conflicts and wars which continue to erupt throughout the world, and even when temporarily damped down, smoulder and then rekindle as the growing power of autocracies and dictatorships and the numbing of consciences threaten our enfeebled democracies.

Music and the creative arts are widely considered to be among the finest of the achievements of humankind and their values to civil societies in nurturing the well-being of all of their citizens have been widely documented despite being increasingly neglected and treated as peripheral by those in power.

Without culture and the creative arts, we are all spiritually impoverished and our children and grandchildren are condemned to inherit a barren planet.

Truth and compassion, surely two of the most essential ingredients in a peaceful and harmonious world order where human rights and mutually respected diversity of opinion need to be protected, are massively undermined by mounting aggregations of hatred and corruption. Truth is under threat everywhere and the uncontrolled abuse of technology massively enriches the few without consideration for the benefit of the many.

Freedom of speech is now widely used to suppress and victimise those of differing opinions, and as the corrosive and violent incitement of hate and of prejudice multiplies across all channels of communication, those who uphold the fundamental right to remain silent are punished
Anyone who has lived under totalitarian or criminal regimes understands that just speaking out brings incalculable risks, not just to those who do so but to families, friends, and to ever-widening circles of innocent people perceived by those in power to be their critics.

Democracy in its essence is based on the legitimisation through the ballot box of government by the majority for a period defined and limited by law, but also with the duty to secure and protect the rights of all citizens, including minorities. By now, we are threatened with the ever-increasing abuse of these principles, including through the suppression of judicial independence by those seeking to retain their powers through the persecution and punishment of those in opposition.

The decision to cancel Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic concert may be seen just as an unwittingly thoughtless act arising from a lack of judgment, fairness, and empathy.

But it is out of small and seemingly local fires that the greatest infernos may grow, and if we do not recognise this, we may all become complicit in the consequences.

This statement is entirely my own, and in writing it, I do not claim to speak for or represent the views of anyone else.