HAVE OUR CULTURAL STEWARDS ABANDONED ONE OF THEIR OWN?

“It strikes me that instead of being ‘cautious’ not to ‘impose’ American values on a foreign culture, the museums of America should acknowledge that they have a unique responsibility to speak out on behalf of Ai Weiwei. They are, after all, trustees of the cultural heritage of mankind, which makes them by definition guardians of the universal values of civilization. Yet most of them are carefully looking the other way while China thumbs its nose at those same values by unlawfully imprisoning an artist. That’s not caution, it’s cowardice….”