The Soft Power Sector
Kind of like a hammer made from asbestos that looks like fairy floss.
Monied interests, those in power and over to the right of the Overton Window understand soft power. And yet many artists and arts organistions utlised for these means still don't seem to understand not only their complicity but also their collective power as a lever of soft power. This ones going to bounce around a bit but hopefully by the end of it you'll understand these key points, seen as we like a sloppy AI listicle;
- What is soft power and where did it came from
- Artists and arts institutions role in it
- How this all relates to the increasing McCarthyism in so called Australia.
Most importantly though, hopefully you leave equipped to reengage with what's happening and how you can utilise your own soft power to shift that narrative. Soft intro over.
As the past three years in so called Australia have shown us elected officials and lobbyists love nothing more than to directly intervene in the lives and programming of the arts across this country. Every time I write about this it seems there's a list of government interventions, funding cuts and McCarthyist policies I need to add into the conversation lest they be forgotten or lost in deluge of terrible shit happening right now.
In a certain section of people this also lends itself to apathy and its seems a majority of artists, arts workers and arts organisations find themselves in the company of the apathetic as well. Feeling powerless or scared to speak up. Some have their heads in the sand, actively ignoring what's occurring around them, rationalising their inaction and complicity with the aspirational idea that their next art work or piece of programming will be the vehicle that connects hearts and minds and subsequently changes everything.
To quote Jamila Woods from the outro of "White Privilege II" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Jamila Woods (2016);
"Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury"
Earlier in the track, Macklemore raps the lines;
Hip-hop has always been political, yes.
It's the reason why this music connects.
So what the fuck has happened to my voice if I stay silent when black people are dying?
Art broadly has also, always been political, especially contemporary art. As I began this rant with, power and money has always understood this. To really bang home the point It's the reason Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel in 1508 by Pope Julius II. Pope Julius or the 'warrior pope', undertook an aggressive campaign for political control to unite and empower Italy during his papacy. This included many military campaigns and invasions, it's even rumored he took his name from Julius Caesar, yes that Caesar. A huge part of the Pope Julius's approach to ruling was his heavy use of 'symbolism' to display his 'temporal power' especially in relation to military campaigns he led and of course in domestic politics. Beyond the usual fan fare and historical documentation around the building of gilded churches to be used as a tool for fear and obedience from the peasantry, the Sistine Chapel's ceiling wouldn't exist without the needs of Pope Julius to also project power. In this case soft power.
So what the fuck does Macklemore and Michelangelo have to do with everything that's happening now? Both artists contributions provide concise examples of the utilisition and role of artists in the maintenance and strengthening of those in power. Both are modern cliches despite every best effort they put up. Even when critiquing power. Michelangelo and Pope Julius fought. Macklemore's more recent artistic outputs seem to be the artist wrangling with their own role and complicity in the maintaining established structures of power and their profiting from that role. From 'White Privilege II' to 'Hind's Hall'. But I do hope 'Thrift Shop' is stuck in your heard for the entirety of this.
The idea of soft power is as entwined in the arts as oligarchs laundering money is, oh and brushes I guess too. The arts ability to flourish relies on the whims of those in positions of power and its utlisation of soft power as a tool to enforce their will or in many cases act like a pressure valve for channeled but toothless critique and dissent of those in power.
If you've read a few of these, you'll have picked up I'm always pretty interested in where terms come from, the origin or etymology of words can tell us a lot about how those ideas have and continue to function. The system is what the system does.
The term 'soft power' was popularised by a guy called Joseph Nye in his 1990 book 'Bound to Lead'. I haven't read it but I did read Nye's more recent reflection on the evolution of soft power published by the 'Soft Power Club'. So lets define power and subsequently soft power. To quote Nye, "power is the capacity to do things, but more specifically in social situations, the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants". Nye landed on the term of soft power while rebutting a fellow academics book about the decline of American power (Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 1987).
"The US was also able to get the outcomes it wanted because of attraction rather than just threats of coercion or payment. I called this ‘soft power’..." Nye, 2021.
Soft power is different to power based on coercion, or violence and payment or control of resources. Soft power generally utilises sectors such as education, social welfare, technology and arts and culture to achieve strategic goals for Governments, lobbyists, corporations or the ultra-rich.
Again quoting Nye, The Berlin Wall ultimately collapsed in 1989 not under a barrage of artillery but from hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by Western soft power. The same is often said of the 'Arab Spring' as well. Soft power is often associated with somewhat intangible resources such as culture, ideology and institutions. Further building from Nye, four categories of power can be broken down into; coercive, structural, transactional, and attractive.
To make a really provocative point but also from Nye, Osama bin Laden did not coerce or pay the pilots who destroyed the World Trade Center towers; he attracted them with a particular extreme form of their religion. Nations, movements and terrorists have all found the application of soft power as usual if not more than that of hard power.
Since the Western art world has moved from a patronage to philanthropic and grant funded model the levers of soft power are now being applied by different actors. Once it was the Church and monarchs now its largely billionaires and States (governments). Whenever an artist or arts institution receives a government grant, that grant is awarded based on a set of policies and the recipient is now the enactor of said policies. Some of these can be as avert as things like engaging with community or soft infrastructure while others sit more aligned with ideas such as 'building the reputation' of insert region, state or nation. While many are aware of this end of the transaction many don't connect grants or philanthropic funding with the broader idea of soft power and how that relates to the availability of funding for the arts.
This is why particular individuals or State institutions will corner or monopolise specific or regionally focused sections of arts and culture. It's also the exact same reason Elon Musk bought Twitter or Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post or most recently David Ellison has consolidated Paramount (this includes Network 10 in Australia), CNN and soon to be Warner Bros. It's not for profits but the control of levers of soft power. When those who are applying soft power are acting in good faith for the betterment of society, its usually okay and occasionally great. But as with many bastions of power, those in control are only an election or corporate merger away from landing in the control of people with their own interests in mind.
In Australia most arts funding is controlled by various levels of government, either directly or through various peak bodies with which to administer the funds and to define the rules in which those funds can be applied. The rest of funding comes from an ever dwindling but increasingly centralised pool of philanthropic donors. Particularly in the form of family trusts. Until recently, this change had been seen positively in Australia and had benefitted artists and communities supporting Australia's strong cultural contributions globally. Sporadic funding cuts aside, especially under George Brandis's rule, but he runs a library now.
Over the past few decades artists and audience goers had realised and attempted to utilise this same soft power in the form of activism and boycotts. Loosely connecting through from the antiwar and civil rights movements of the sixties and seventies, the anti Apartheid movement, to the Iraq antiwar movement of the 2000's and Occupy, to climate change activism and then speed running through the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements to the current anti genocide movement.
Similar movements were reflected in so called Australia along the same timeline but increased focus on domestic issues, specifically the anti colonial and First Nations rights movement. With many of the artists central to those movements in so called Australia now some of the most recognised and celebrated artists in the nation. Think Richard Bell or more recently Archie Moore.
Recognising that I myself also speed ran and condensed history. Many of these movements though and artists responses to them, while opposed and condemned to varying degrees, were also accepted and allowed by monied interests and States are an acceptable pressure valve for individuals to release tension and critique power.
The Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements however shifted this. Popular movements and artists utilisation of soft power through artistic responses and boycotts had a real effect on the structures of power, even if it was brief. Kendrick Lamar's 'Alight' went from being created in response to George Floyd's death and the subsequent protests to becoming a protest anthem chanted on the streets of cities all across the world. It's here post BLM, MeToo and a pandemic we arrive at the genocide in Gaza by Israel and the subsequent anti war and building anti colonial movement worldwide.
A movie based on the dramatic retelling of the murder of six year old Hind Rajab by Israeli soldiers titled 'The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025)' directed by written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania was just nominated for an Oscar. Yet the lead actor, Motaz Malhees, was unable to attend due to Trump's "Palestinian ban".
"That one can block a passport. You cannot block a voice. I am Palestinian, and I stand with pride and dignity.” Motaz Malhees.
The pro Palestinian movement in the West has largely been built out from the BDS and PACBI movements. Both movements utilising boycotts, of both consumer and cultural products to specifically target Israeli leaders, artists, institutions or corporations complicit in the ongoing genocide. Both BDS and PACBI builds on the success of the boycott movement in dismantling South African Apartheid and its more recent role in BLM and MeToo.
It's through this lens that the increasingly authoritarian and McCarthyist interventions by States, philanthropic donors and lobbyists starts to make sense. While many of those same institutions supported artists and art institutions creating and presenting work critical of things like climate change or supporting the rights of marginlised groups recent history the effective ustilisation of soft power by Zionist lobbyists throughout the arts has meant an almost overnight pivot on art of a political nature.
As we seem to speed run movements over recent years, Australia is also increasingly targeting artists and arts institutions making or presenting work critical of Israel. The most recent bout of attacks on DJ Harem at one of the opening events of the Sydney Biennale comes only months after the complete destruction of Adelaide Writers Festival and days after the review and consequences of the State Library of Queensland's programming decisions was handed down. As I write this Khaled Sabsabi will be in the final stages of install for his two Venice Biennale works, works that nearly didn't make it to Venice after Creative Australia abruptly revoked his Venice selection, only to reverse that decision after a nation wide campaign.
It was in this climate, Sydney Biennale chief executive Barbara Moore invited the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip to review and respond to an early preview of programming for the 2026 Sydney Biennale, which they initially accepted and then rejected due to claims of artists posting 'antisemitic' content on social media without censure from organisers.
DJ Harem has now been condemned by every level of government, the police, various lobbyist bodies and has subsequently been referred for a police investigation into hate speech. You can listen to at least a portion of DJ Harem's speech and make up your mind for yourself as to whether this is a fair response. Sydney Biennale organisers have also opened themselves up to investigation joining an ever increasingly lineup of arts bodies and institutions bending to lobbyists instead backing their and supporting their artists and own programming.
While coming back to finish this, I'd recently listened to the most recent episode of LAMESTREAM podcast with Scott Mitchell and Osman Faruqi. To quote Scott's response to DJ Harem's speech and subsequent fallout from the episode;
"What is the conspiracy or antisemitic trope here? It seems to be if your a reporter in a suit and talk politely about this its all very established fact. But the second your an artist, particularly a brown one and you put this into language that provocative, that distills it your branded an antisemite."
I bring this up because I feel like this succinctly illustrates the point I've been trying to make. Artists role in distilling and presenting ideas and information back to the world they live in is at the core of what makes them essential to soft power. It's not the message or facts that are generally debated but how they're presented and the potential risks that creates for specific interests. Fossil Fuel companies were able to coopt climate change activism and related artistic output into greenwashing campaigns. But there's no amount of art-washing that Israel and Zionist lobbyists can do that will make you unhear Hind Rajab's voice.
The only choice left then is to actively suppress speech and increasingly pivot to levers of hard power. DJ Harem specifically mentioned by name a number of activists just down the road from myself who were recently arrested for something you can say in NSW but not QLD. I'm not even sure if I can type the phrase here myself or risk being raided and arrested. DJ Harem is a Syrian performer from the US and news of the increasingly authoritarian state of so called Australia is breaking through the mess that is Donald Trump and US's own race to fascism. At least NSW Labor Premier has gracefully decided not to cut funding to the Sydney Biennale, as a result of DJ Harem's speech.
But the names of the arrested protestors in Brisbane are now known by a room full of people in Sydney. Governments and lobbyists are making it a point to target artists and arts organisations right now because they know the role they can play in shifting the public narrative. The more effective artists and arts organisations are at shifting societies values the more likely they are to be targeted. They see the arts as soft targets to try score political points, an easy lever of support to revoke and get their name on Sky News. But if anything what happened to Adelaide Writers Week or with Khaled Sabsabi, it showed us artists can organise and effectively fight back. Like workers in a mine controlling the means of production, artists can do the same in regards to soft power.
And I hope this where I leave you with some hope around not only your own complicity in this problem but the ease in which a small amount of risk can shift that complicity to active opposition. Whether making art or engaging with it make it loud and ensure you aren't laundering the cultural capital of power with your attendance, money or voice. What that looks like in practice is up to each individual though collectively it becomes a real power that can be directed and utilised.
Returning to our dot points, hopefully you've learnt what soft power is, what your role in its utlisation is and how this relates to the targeting of artists and arts organisations by Governments and lobbyists. For my part, I did learn in primary school, and the leak in the roof at my studio, that no amount of obstruction will indefinitely stop water. It will always find a way from the river to the sea.
LINKS:
https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-insight/arts-culture-soft-power
https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/julius-ii-warrior-pope/
https://www.libertyitch.com/p/soft-power-through-the-arts
https://art21.org/read/futurized-worldview-art-as-a-form-of-soft-power/
https://laotzu.xyz/chapter/display?id=76
https://culturalagents.org/art-as-soft-power-the-legacy-of-joseph-nye-as-we-face-the-future/
https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms20178
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/07/trump-iran-hype-videos
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-soft-power-what-means-art-world-ornela-ramasauskaite-mwamf/
https://artxchange.substack.com/p/what-is-cultural-geopolitics
