Cancel Culture on the Irish Left
25 June 2024
László Molnárfi.
Cancel culture is alive and well on the Irish left, a left so small and isolated the idea that there is room to cancel others is bizarre. Following the successful student protests in solidarity with Palestine which forced Trinity to dismantle its relationship with Israel, we sought and obtained an interesting interview with the TCD SU president László Molnárfi for publication on our website.
Half an hour after the interview we were contacted and told by László that he reviewed Gender Critical material on our site and requested that we not use the interview. Our position is clear. We defend women’s rights and women’s spaces, those spaces include prisons where we object to men in general and sex offenders in particular being housed in Limerick Women’s prison, as they have been. These are legitimate positions to hold and whilst some right wing and conservative forces have also made statements on these issues, it is not right wing to defend women, just like it was not right wing to campaign against the Maastricht Treaty, Nice etc. even though many conservatives also campaigned for no votes, just like the left did.
It is bizarre that a socialist would refuse an interview with a socialist website has not only given interviews to the Irish Independent on Palestine and other issues,(1) has even written an article for that same pro Zionist paper.(2) Some of these, including the article he wrote are behind a paywall and not accessible to the general public for free. So, a pro Zionist bourgeois newspaper that has also published gender critical articles, but not from a left perspective, is kosher, but a socialist site that is gender critical is not. The contradiction is glaring and utterly reactionary.
Trans ideology, the idea the men can actually change sex, rather than just express themselves in a different manner, is anti-materialist, there is no basis in reality to it, nor that behaving according to anachronistic and reactionary stereotypes of what it is to be a “woman” makes a person a woman.
Cancel culture is the antithesis of Socialism, which is based on discussion, debate, the exchange of ideas and also polemic. A brief perusal of Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin or any other historical figure would show that. Marx didn’t cancel Proudhon for his Philosophy of Poverty, instead he wrote the Poverty of Philosophy in response. Lenin didn’t cancel Kautsky but he did engage in polemic writing The Renegade Kautsky in response to Kautsky’s sell out on WWI.
László is not alone in his adherence to cancel culture. Cancel culture finds its origins in the US, where Zionists, not trans activists, first used it against the left, attempting to silence any criticism of Israel. They were initially successful with one of the most famous casualties of their onslaught being Norman Finkelstein. That the left would borrow such a reactionary tactic can only result in defeat for the left. Zionists have once again gone on the offensive against anti-Zionists, attempting to limit freedom of speech, ban organisations, ban protests and criminalise dissent on the issue of Palestine. Just recently they called for Charlotte Church and Palestinian peace activist Hamze Awawde to be deplatformed at the Glastonbury music festival.(3) They have had numerous successes in silencing voices on Palestine, including the shutting down of an event in Germany which saw British-Palestinian surgeon and rector of Glasgow University Ghassan Abu Sittah banned from Germany and then the entire Schengen Zone. That the left copies their reactionary tactics is disgraceful and self-defeating.
Ultimately what is being said is that support for Palestine only goes so far. That the rights of sex offenders, such as Barbie Kardashian who threatened to murder and rape his own mother, to be housed in the Women’s Unit is more important than a genocide occurring before our eyes. It is perhaps just as well that no Palestinian organisation has made recent statements on the issue of trans, as the left might abandon them, given the socially conservative positions not only of Hamas, but also of the Palestinian Authority.
This ideology is not a popular one. It is imposed by governments through NGOs and funding. How reactionary it is, can be seen in that the most powerful trans activist is Joe Biden and even the CIA runs “trans friendly” recruitment drives with slick videos.
We are always open to debate on any issue, including women’s rights. That sections of the left impose a MacCarthyite wall of silence and stifle debate, accusing all feminists and gender critical socialists of being far right is reactionary. In the US, Jewish Marxists who have long campaigned on Palestine have been excluded from meetings because of their gender critical positions, without any debate, something we have reported on our site. For sections of the left in Ireland, genocide seems to be a secondary issue.
Notes
(1) See Irish Independent (04/05/2024) Trinity student: Why I’m risking my €20,000-a-year education to protest as Book of Kells is barricaded ‘indefinely’. Niamh Horan. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/trinity-student-president-why-im-risking-my-20000-a-year-education-to-protest-as-book-of-kells-is-barricaded-indefinitely/a745171001.html and see
(2) See Irish Independent (16/05/2024) László Molnárfi: Trinity students stood up and won – the Palestinian solidarity movement must now escalate its actions. László Molnárfi. https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/laszlo-molnarfi-trinity-students-stood-up-and-won-the-palestinian-solidarity-movement-must-now-escalate-its-actions/a903331886.html
(3) MEE (20/06/2024)
UK group sparks outrage with letter to Glastonbury Festival over Palestinian
activist. Noor El-Terk. https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/calls-glastonbury-uninvite-palestinian-peace-activist-sparks-outrage