Let Kneecap and Bob Vylan speak freely

New Statesman​

21 hours ago

Photo byGetting charged with a terror offence is the best thing that could have happened for Mo Chara's career. Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, one third of Belfast rap trio Kneecap, was in Westminster Magistrates' Court two weeks ago, brought there by the Metropolitan Police for allegedly brandishing a Hezbollah flag at a London gig over six months prior.
It's the perfect formula: Kneecap have made pro-Palestine and anti-British-state stances a keystone of their product; now they can say on stage at Glastonbury that they're being persecuted for their activism by a government more interested in policing their language than looking after starving children in Gaza; and they might even be right.
Taking a leaf out of the Kneecap playbook, rap duo Bob Vylan made their own headlines at Glastonbury on Saturday. On the same afternoon as Kneecap's set at the West Holt stage, in the baking heat, one half of the pair led the crowd in a chant: 'Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]'. Somerset Police, for some reason, have got involved. Wes Streeting told Laura Kuenssberg yesterday that it was 'appalling'; the BBC – who broadcast the set live – is embarrassed; Glastonbury festival is in a pickle – how to marry their punk free-speech stick-it-to-the-man credentials with their acts who contravene such basic politeness codes? They have settled for saying they are 'appalled' by Vylan, just like Streeting.
Can you believe in free speech and be annoyed by rude and misguided people at the same time? The answer is simple: this should never have been a police matter, Glastonbury needn't apologise, and the BBC has bigger things to worry about than broadcasting bad music by admittedly unpleasant but staggeringly banal rappers. I would suggest Labour cabinet ministers also had more pressing issues to address, on this of all weekends.
Palestine flags are common at Glastonbury anyway, but this year they are ubiquitous, with too many to count in the thousands-strong crowd that shouted 'death to the IDF' back at Bob Vylan. That crowd was unusually extreme. But no matter your fealty to any cause, and no matter the political tastes of the professional Glastonbury-goers (simplistic and ugly they may be), it is hard to argue that any response to the Bob Vylan interjection beyond 'ignore them' is appropriate, or commensurate.
In this, the millennial left and the young online right are united. The pragmatic case made by both sides is simple: by investigating the duo, or charging them, Bob Vylan's campaign is elevated beyond any reasonable proportion; it brings more eyeballs to the message (totally counterproductive if you are also minded to condemn them); and hands them the argument that they are victims of an oppressive state. This is precisely how the charges against Mo Chara have cemented his career.
But the principled case is far more important: Free-speech absolutism is the only logical position in a modern democracy. In Britain the left has been hounded by agents of the state as far back as the wars against Revolutionary, and then Napoleonic France. Spies, provocateurs, and strong-armed police tactics have been used to suppress conversations and organisations for the best part of two centuries. Free speech as a societal axiom was and is the only answer to these bullying tendencies. The last ten years, when all sorts of left-liberals cowardly abandoned this principle, were a nadir for the movement, both in Britain and abroad.
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Maybe that same movement, watching Kneecap and this rapper face over-the-top condemnation will recover some of its sense. It's almost always fine for people to say things that other people don't agree with. That may be cliché to argue, but the fact that we keep having to argue this suggests the fact is neither ingrained nor obvious.
[See also: The Kneecap crossover event]
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