The problem with Banksy’s Glastonbury ‘small boat’ stunt

Banksy’s latest stunt was to launch a mocked-up migrant boat, complete with dummies of asylum seekers wearing life jackets, to crowdsurf over the revellers at Glastonbury. There was an immediate backlash from people who felt that the image dehumanised and even mocked migrants and the dangers of their journeys.

I agree that the visual impact of the stunt missed the mark, although I assume it was meant as a positive signal of solidarity (though honestly, who knows with Banksy, whose art is always politically ambiguous).

This ambiguity – combined with the viscerally uncomfortable image of destitute people being bopped around like a balloon – is classic Banksy. His artistic “statements” say so little that they are easily coopted by those with an agenda.

And that’s exactly what has happened: we’ve seen the home secretary, James Cleverly, laying into the stunt, calling it “awful” and “a joke”, and the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, adding: “I don’t think this is a sort of thing to joke around with at Glastonbury.”

The problem with this whole discussion is that the debate should centre on the rights of refugees in this country, who are all too often reduced to a prop – not least in this upcoming election.

I almost can’t believe that both the deputy prime minister and the home secretary have weighed-in on the Banksy boat debacle now. In the week of an election, with poverty and inequality at record highs, didn’t they have more important things to discuss?

But, then... I can, because nothing is more important to right wing politicians and commentators than distracting from government failures – and stoking the so-called “culture wars”.

Glastonbury is a perfect target: after all, it’s young, hedonistic – even transgressive – and it positively reeks of being “woke”. Every year, there are political discussions at the Left Field stage. This year was no exception and the issue of supporting asylum seekers in our communities was one of the topics.

Banksy’s contribution has overshadowed all of that. The take away from those who seek to sow division has been flattened to an image of asylum seekers risking their lives looking like a “cheap prop” sailing over an ecstatic crowd of people who had nothing to do with it.

I’ve never been to Glastonbury, but I know that its image – of being overwhelmingly white, quite posh, with eye-watering prices for tickets – is one of “privilege”. But does that really – necessarily – mean everybody at Glasto is out of touch?

What grates is the assumption that everyone who goes to Glasto is “woke”, with the implication that their view should not be taken seriously (even when supporting refugees).

Being “woke” and willing (or fortunate enough) to spend money on seeing Coldplay or Idles play live at Glasto is a heady combination that certain sections of the media seize on with glee. It’s designed to undermine those who speak up for progressive political change. It’s about shutting them up.

Some people are defending Banksy for “provoking debate”, as art is supposed to do. But the problem with Bansky’s Glastonbury “small boat” stunt, as it seems to me, is this: there has been no debate provoked by this stunt about the needs of asylum seekers, only a debate about Glastonbury.

We deserve more. Culture war stereotypes diminish our ability to see one another as human. The dummies sitting in that Banksy boat represent this dehumanisation perfectly.

Small boats have become such a ubiquitous image that we can easily forget the humans on board – and in this debate (as co-opted by fringe parties and the likes of Nigel Farage – not to mention the government’s ill-fated Rwanda plan) we have absolutely left those humans, and our own humanity, behind.