Cancel Culture

 

“I would like to welcome everybody to this extraordinary meeting of our city’s culture chamber. As you all may know, there are pressing reasons for having convened you here today. These reasons have everything to do with the war that is currently going on in Ukraine.”

“Putin Nazi! Putin Nazi!”

“Thank you for expressing your opinion. As you may be aware, all over the free world governing bodies are taking measures to show our rejection of Russia’s unfounded and unjustified actions against a peaceful neighbouring country.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“Your support is heart-warming. Since we felt our beautiful town could not stay behind, we convened all of you here today to determine what necessary cultural measures we are going to take. To give you an idea of what is possible, our local picture museum used to be the proud owner of two magnificent copies of works by Ilya Repin, the great 19^th century Russian painter of everyday hardship. I can hereby announce that in close collaboration with the copier, who is a locally known landscape painter in her own right, the museum has already taken these two works off the wall and sent them to the municipal waste management plant, where they will be incinerated.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“Then of course, there is the ballet. You all know how excited we were when we sealed the contract that put our humble municipal auditorium on the European tour of Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring performance for ballet and orchestra. As an aspiring provincial town we are not afraid to spend money and energy on culture and I recall vividly how our chamber played a pivotal role in securing the ballet’s engagement, for which the councillor has thanked me personally.”

“We have heard that story before, Emil, if you allow me, but it is as you say, in our heartfelt desire to show our support for Ukraine by deleting everything Russian we can impossibly allow anything by Stravinsky being performed.”

“Or sold.”

“Indeed, brother Nathaniel. I can assure you that music stores have begun sending all their Russian music back to its issuers, and in case this is not possible because we are talking about early gramophone editions, to have them destroyed.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“We need all the support we can get, thank you.”

“Let us not forget the invaluable effort our municipal libraries are making, Emil. All Russian literature, and this includes dissident literature from Soviet times, has been taken off the shelves and will be burnt this Saturday at a Special Book Burning Gala to which our town’s book shops have been invited as well. The Christian Marching Band will be performing inspiring Ukrainian folk songs.”

“Thank you, I was just going to announce this. Then there is another matter, that of the Russian imports. We understand Russian farming equipment has become quite popular among the agrarian community in our region thanks to its attractive price quality ratio. This of course must come to an immediate stop.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“Yes, thank you, it is understood.”

“But Emil, this is none of our business, is it? We are the culture chamber, I don’t think we should be deciding on matters of economy and employment.”

“You are aware, Emil, that we have quite a few members of the farming community in our midst. We can’t simply put them back financially. It’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense.

“And I think you should be aware that everything is connected. I would therefore like to express my gratitude, on behalf of this chamber, to those honourable citizens who understand their civic duty in these trying times and without being called upon come forward with denunciations of Russian paraphernalia hiding neighbours. I also wish to mention an initiative from the educational sector. A rendering of the Matthaeus Passion by Bach was planned on a local high school for Easter Saturday, but as two participating pupils have Russian sounding names, everybody thought it better to stop rehearsing and cancel the event.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“Yes, of course. What I want to say is, we cannot really congratulate ourselves on our following the science without first embracing the fact that almost everybody is feeling the same. We must always be conscious and expressive of the reality that we, as a nation, are on the right path, more than we perhaps have ever been. We are vaccinated, we support Ukraine, and we know Putin downed MH17.”

“Well, we don’t, actually.”

“We don’t what?”

“They don’t have much of a case, the Dutch, do they? It took them years to come up with an argumentation that asks an awful lot of the imagination to be convincing, while at the same time they never wanted to investigate the logical suspicion the Ukrainian air force was involved. The even gave Ukraine a veto on the committee’s findings!”

“Can we please go back to the main topic, Emil? As erudite as this discussion is, I believe we are out of our depth here.”

“You are absolutely correct. We need to talk about literature.”

“We’ve just covered that, haven’t we?”

“We have spoken about book burning. As essential as that is, we must also look at the influence many of these books have already had on their readers. Let’s be clear, here, a lot of well-read Europeans grew up on Dostoevsky as a mainstay in their foreign writers’ catalogue. And more than a few of those will have read him at tender and impressionable age. This, of course, must be considered extremely dangerous. We therefore ask our reading neighbours to step forward if they have had this experience, so they can be freed from the influence and better serve our Ukrainian friends.”

“Putin Nazi!”

“We are winning, my friend, we are winning.”

“What if you are influenced by Tolstoy? Will I equally need to be freed from having read War and Peace?”

“Yes, naturally. But you must wait, we’ll deal with Dostoevsky first.”

“So, what’s going to happen to those readers, then?”

“They will have to be reprogrammed, I guess.”

“And how are they going to do that?”

“Don’t you worry about that, young man. Their names are already known.”

“I nevertheless agree with our youthful member that we should be informed about the methods.”

“Look here, Emil, we have for two long years been swallowing an awful load of bullshit, a murderous load of misinterpretation, and now you want us to accept your Ukrainian solution in the same way? Do we really have to take this nonsense any longer?”

“Well, I don’t know what your thinking is based on, dear colleague, but your rant receives little support here, so I would like you to please be quiet or leave the room, thank you.”

“I do not wish to upset anyone, I just feel it’s time we were treated as grown-ups again.”

“Nobody ever treated you as a grown-up.”

“Now there, let’s not get personal.”

“Lady Beth!”

“Yes, it’s me. Still alive, and all that. I am of the opinion that if some of us haven’t been quite as brave and accepting of the situation as they could have been, then this is a common weakness which should be treated as such.”

“I am sure our pharmaceutical industry would find a miracle cure in no time if only we asked them.”

“Possibly, yes.”

“Make that likely. Look how few people have been dying from the vaccines so far. Just a couple of thousands. That’s almost nothing, from a percentage point of view.”

“So, it is settled, then? Those born in the twentieth century will have to show proof that reading Dostoevsky has not influenced them in any meaningful way, such to be judged by an interactive interrogation programme, in order to receive a derussianization imprint on their QR code.”

“I am sure it will not be as bad as it sounds.”

“For those who comply it won’t.”