Why did we decide to boycott Boardmasters?
We were due to deliver two presentations at the Boardmasters Talks Tent. Here is an insight into why we are no longer doing so. We hope that by sharing this information we can have some form of impact, provide some transparency and importantly keep the conversation around corporate ownership, due diligence and the interconnectedness of our decisions at the forefront. This is an open conversation, one where we are all learning, hopefully this transparency can lead to greater outcomes in the future. There is a comments section below, please feel free to join the conversation if you would like to.
Who is Boardmasters owned by?
Boardmasters, along with 85 other festivals, is owned by Superstruct Entertainment, which is owned by KKR. KKR have unethical practices and is invested in the Israeli tech sector including surveillance firms and companies advertising real estate in the illegally occupied West Bank settlements, US weapons manufacturing, climate destruction through fossil fuel investments and the displacement of Indigenous people. Superstruct has actually doubled down on its own direct complicity, saying that KKR is “fully aligned with [its] values”. On top of its complicit investments, KKR recently appointed David Petraeus–former CIA Director and former Commander of US Central Command–as Chairman of KKR Middle East.
What is the BDS (boycott) movement?
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.
Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements across the world. Since its launch in 2005, BDS has had a significant impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.
Why is Superstructs ownership of Boardmasters problematic?
The connection that Boardmasters has to KKR is serious. All Superstruct/KKR festivals were asked by the BDS and The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) movement to adhere to four simple criteria in an attempt to sympathise with the difficult position any festival like Boardmasters was placed under by a change of ownership that was out of their hands.
Boardmasters had to adhere to the following principles in order to avoid calls for a boycott:
These strategic demands are realistic, morally consistent, and rooted in international law. We urge all Superstruct-owned festivals to meet them, and we urge supporters of Palestinian rights to pressure festivals to do so.
Publicly distance themselves from KKR’s complicit investments,
Adopt ethical programming and partnership policies,
Respect BDS guidelines and positions, including on the cultural boycott of Israel, anti-normalisation, priority targets and due diligence,
Engage with artists and organizers on all the above.
How have Boardmasters failed to meet these demands?
2. Adopt ethical programming and partnership policies
Boardmasters are still sponsored by Costa Coffee who are owned by Coca Cola; who own and operate a factory in illegally occupied land in Palestine and are prominant therefore on the BDS Boycott list. Boardmasters were asked early on to cut ties with unethical partnerhsips. Importantly the Instagram post before their own statement was promoting Costa at the festival. Dropping this sponsorship would be seen as the most basic demand from BDS.
3. Respect BDS guidelines and positions, including on the cultural boycott of Israel, anti-normalisation, priority targets and due diligence,
Much like the South African Apartheid movement this clearly asks that relationships with the state of Israel and Israelis are not normalised. It was ultimately the cultural and economic boycotts from the international community, the refusal of athletes and sporting bodies that forced the end of South African Apartheid.
Here, there has been no mention of the fact that at least five Israeli surfers are to compete at Boardmasters, let alone a boycott. Back in June the WSL were forced to cancel a junior event due to organisers protesting the participation of Israeli surfers- this is not happening here, it is business as usual and no mention of participants. Ultimately the surf contest legitimises the festival and makes up a large part of the cultural identity of the Boardmasters Festival. If we see the WSL as a separate entity to the festival itself, they would be required to fit these four criteria too, which they are not.
As surfers, this is a particularly important one. There are not, and could never be, Palestinian surfers able to compete in this event for so many reasons, despite their potential training ground being less than an hour down the same stretch of coast as the Israelis with the freedom to surf, travel and compete.
4. Engage with artists and organizers on all the above.
Ultimately Boardmasters completely failed here. They did not inform artists, programmers, speakers, performers and in fact the pressure instead came from the very people that Boardmasters were expected, under BDS guidelines, to inform.
In our opinion an 11th hour statement just wasn't enough to allow the discourse, informed decision making or have the impact that was needed and required.
Where do we stand?
Internally we worked hard with our direct contacts at Rising Tide to try and help them to distance themselves and remain independent working to the BDS guidelines themselves but unfortunately the lines became blurred with who we were working with and where our names were to be used and we acknowledged that our position at Boardmasters was just no longer inline with our politics, ethics and integrity.
We did not personally have a direct line to Boardmasters but through our contacts at Rising Tide we were able to put our concerns and expectations straight to the Boardmasters team. To our knowledge, we were not the only ones placing pressure on Boardmasters to seriously consider their position and take action with regards to the guidelines. Boardmasters knew about this as early as June 16th when DJ Conducta publicly pulled out from the festival for the same reasons, we know that a number of Boardmasters artists were also trying to work collectively to pressure the festival to meet the full Palestinian demands at this time.
We understand that for many, the statement that was released yesterday is a victory in itself. Please understand that in a corporate world that is largely remaining, if not wholly remaining silent, we also see the statement as a small victory. The problem we had was layered and not due to purity politics but due to very important and achievable goals that have been missed. We feel that the statement is in place of real, timely action.
Boardmasters released their statement so late in the day despite knowing that this was expected of them and importantly they ultimately failed with regards to the three other criteria expected of them.
We genuinely feel for the founders and organisers of Boardmasters, the ownership structure happened out of their control. The problem with our capitalist system is that it requires constant growth. What started as a little DIY festival has grown and grown until the point where it’s crossed a line and taken investment from exactly the type of companies we don’t need in this world, let alone in our precious culture of surfing. We take a small amount of comfort in the knowledge that we tried to work with our colleagues from the inside for the last couple of weeks since finding out, but we feel still the right thing to do is to to pull out.
We also know ultimately that just us pulling out has little to no impact on anyone but ourselves, we aren’t naive, it needed more, it needed to be bigger and it needed to happen earlier but we do feel that it is important that those who know and are inclined to care, treat the Boycott movement as a powerful one with perhaps the biggest potential to change the situation for Palestinian lives.
Right now we can only act as individuals who aren’t tied to any forms of ownership ourselves.
At the end of the day, big corporations don’t surf. Eternal growth at the cost of integrity and morality should not be the ultimate goal. Freedom to all Palestinians, whose love for the sea is no less important than any of ours; if, in fact, not more important. We are nothing without our integrity.
If you have an independent or more ethically owned event, we have prepared a half hour talk on the intersection of surfing and politics that needs a home.