OPINION: Self-sabotage for cultural ‘purity’ is only getting worse
Last month the Hay Festival caved to pressure from anti-Israel writers and celebrities, dropping its major sponsor over claimed Israel links
How far are our cultural institutions and organisations willing to go to pass a purity test? In recent days some have shown that they are prepared to inflict damage on their own industry to gain acceptance by an ideological cult, and this self-sabotage seems to be getting worse.
The Hay Festival is the largest literary event in the country. It gave in to a boycott campaign that was based on very tenuous links between their main sponsor Baillie Gifford and Israel. Hay Festival admitted their decision will significantly impact their ticket prices and scope of work, and now Baillie Gifford have pulled their sponsorship from all literary festivals.
Was the desire to please a small but vocal minority, supported by Charlotte Church and Nish Kumar, who pulled-out of the festival, worth this cultural self-harm? An entire sector that was already struggling now has a big gap to fill.
Academia has long been experiencing this intimidation, because if you allow a bully to take your lunch money once, they’ll soon be back for more.
Durham University was due to hold a debate on Israel/Palestine when a rabidly aggressive masked group blocked the venue. The university postponed the debate but didn’t get the protestors cleared in time, leaving attendees trapped.
Universities are supposed to be places where ideas are challenged, not an entry point for totalitarianism where conversation is replaced by intimidation. Universities are already in economic freefall, and episodes like this leave many wondering if they are worthwhile or even safe places for their children.
Other sectors harm their own reputation without any encouragement.
“Does the evidence of rape add up?” asked the The Times headline, using the well-known tactic of internet trolls who innocently claim they are “just asking questions”. The answer was in the subtitle “investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny.” It was accompanied by a picture of Amit Soussana, a hostage of Hamas who bravely recounted how she was sexually assaulted at gunpoint while chained in a dark room for weeks.
Universities are supposed to be places where ideas are challenged, not an entry point for totalitarianism
I dread to think what impact this article had on women, many of whom are already reluctant to speak up after being sexually assaulted. In 2022 the Victims Commissioner reiterated that the collapse in rape prosecutions meant “the effective decriminalisation of rape”.
The evidence of what Israeli women suffered echoed what we heard from Yezidi women about their experiences at the hands of ISIS — a different variety of the same deadly Islamist ideology. But the newspaper of record didn’t cast doubt on the experiences of Yezidi women.
Maybe the co-author, World Affairs Editor Catherine Philp, could only see bad things in relation to Israel. She had previously posted that gay rights in Israel were a manipulative ploy — “pink washing.” The implication being that even when Israel does good things, it is for sinister reasons.
Perhaps that is why the three experts quoted in the piece complained furiously that their comments had been “misrepresented” and “cynically exploited” for an agenda, overriding ethics and accuracy.
The arguments put forward in the article seemed contorted to fit a pre-ordained conclusion. For example, a significant part of the article implies that Israelis were reliving European pogroms and projecting them onto Hamas terrorists, now recast as the victims of Jewish hysteria and racism. In fact, most Israelis aren’t European Jews and rape was also used against Jews in the Middle East, such as the 1941 pogrom in Iraq.
Instead of objective journalism, it reads like activists twisting facts to fit their simplistic oppressed/oppressor narrative. This is the opposite of holding power to account, and further erodes trust in an industry struggling to compete with social media. After nearly 200 years, the Evening Standard recently shut its daily operation.
A week ago former Al Jazeera contributor Abdallah Jamal had an article published in The Palestine Chronicle entitled “My house will always be open”, while he was holding three Israelis hostage in his house. This sums up the issues around coverage of the conflict.
These industries all had problems before the Gaza conflict. But entertaining the zero-sum game of people whose ideological worldview revolves around the destruction of Israel isn’t fighting injustice.
It’s the fast lane to the bottom.
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