The Current Crisis

Jan 13, 2019 by Susan Rosenbluth

In 2011, Finnish “artist,” Jani Leinonen, produced a sculpture he entitled “McJesus,” which is essentially a crucified Ronald McDonald. It seems to have been completed after Leinonen led a group calling themselves the ″Food Liberation Army″ to steal a life-size statue of Ronald McDonald from a Helsinki McDonald’s restaurant. The FLA posted videos on their website threatening to “decapitate” the clown statue unless McDonald’s acquiesced to answer questions about the company’s ethics. McDonald’s refused to “negotiate with criminals,” and the Finnish police raided Leinonen’s home, arresting two people and seizing cell phones and computers.

Fast-forward to August 2018 when the Haifa Museum of Art installed an exhibit it calls “Sacred Goods.” For reasons not entirely clear, the museum has a relationship with a gallery in Helsinki which lent “McJesus” to the exhibit.

Unbeknownst to the museum, it seems Leinonen was not informed that his work was being exhibited in Israel. When he found out, he demanded that it be sent back to Helsinki. He told the curator of “Sacred Goods,” Shaked Shamir, that, as a member in good standing of the BDS movement, he believes “Israel overtly uses culture as a form of propaganda to whitewash or justify its regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people. Therefore I do not wish to be part of this exhibition.”

The problem is Leinonen seems never to have informed the gallery, which says it is under contract with the museum for the piece to remain on exhibit for a specified length of time.  Therefore, McJesus seems to be staying in place.

The museum learned of Leinonen’s wishes last Friday, January 11, when Haifa’s Arab-Christian community seemingly had enough of the insult to Christianity. Leaders of the community complained to the museum and to Leinonen. The Christians are not interested whatsoever in Leinonen’s desire to boycott Israel; they just want the museum to boycott him and his “art,” which they see as deprecating Christianity.

The protests turned violent and the Haifa Police Department sent officers from its Special Patrol Unit to guard the museum.

According to Haifa police, a few hundred protesters tried forcibly to enter the Haifa Museum of Art, and three police officers were lightly wounded by rocks thrown at them in the course of the demonstration.

An Arab Christian protester at the museum told Walla! news that the Israeli government was not properly responding to the Arab-Christian community’s complaints because of their minority status in Israel.

“If they put up [a sculpture of] Hitler with a Torah scroll they would immediately respond,” he said, causing more than one Jewish observer to laugh at what was seen as naivete.

The museum has agreed to post a sign at the entrance to the exhibit warning visitors that some may find the content offensive.

So, here is poor Leinonen’s dilemma: does he fight to withdraw his piece from the museum, presumably showing his concern for Muslim Palestinians, or does he fight to keep McJesus at the museum, showing his disdain for Christian Palestinians and his own distorted view of free speech?

We just love it when it’s a lose-lose proposition for BDSers like Leinonen.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/BDS-threatens-to-take-down-Haifas-Big-Mac-sculpture-577248