Wrongdoers' Victims Should Not Be Elevated to Martyr Status: Reconsider the Fate of These Puppets
The brouhaha surrounding Mo Chara, of the hip-hop titans Kneecap, couldn't have happened at a better time for the ragtag brigade sporting balaclavas.
Brendan O'Neill, our brass-knuckled political scribe, penned it best:
These balaclava buffoons, ever itching to curse like sailors and vilify the police as lowlife scumbags, have received an unexpected boon from the Metropolitan Police. Charging their bandmate, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh (a.k.a. Mo Chara), for brandishing a flag supporting Hezbollah at a London gig last November, has catapulted the balaclava bores from drab mimics of rebellion into macabre martyrs.
Befitting their Provo play-acting, one-band member can be found bedecked in the tricolor tea cozy on his noggin, older than a dog, and a caller for MDMA and a cursing of Israel. Tattooed across his brawny chest lies an Irish slang term for the drug in question. Reading this mere mention makes my spine shiver like it's in the throes of the worst sciatica imaginable.
Last week, addressing a covey of 20,000 space-aged ponces at Brockwell Park in London, Kneecap labeled Israelis as "murderous, religious fanatics" and "arseholes." The crowd went wild, unsurprisingly. Nothing gets the turbo-smug wing of the English upper-middle class undulating like slurs against Israel and the occasional salty oath or two.
Even the curmudgeons at the Guardian couldn't help but cozy up to these faux Fenians. One journalist sauntered off to Belfast to schmooze with the authentic gents for an in-depth profile that read more like an anthropological study than a journalistic piece. Pictures abounded of the fellows toasting glasses of Guinness, with the helmet-wearing chap precariously balancing his pint on his noggin for a truly Jeeves-like touch.
The Irish press adored them, fawning over these lads meant to embody the Irish voice, proclaiming them the ideal representatives for the nation. However, their brand of cockiness, steeped in MDMA, Guinness, and keffiyeh, has never once uttered a view that wouldn't garner thunderous applause at a Guardian shindig. In contrast, they lament the dearth of genuine, people-powered uprisings that characterized the real Irish rebel songs.
Now, with the Met breathing down their necks, the balaclava gang has received a much-needed dash of the danger they've always yearned for. This terror charge imbues the band that's fallen head-over-heels for the British establishment with the unpredictability it craves. Despite the opposition of the courts, the cultural sphere, and the media establishment, Kneecap will savor this "persecution" by the Brits, and their fans will be thrilled.
The policing of mere speech is misguided for a plethora of reasons. Foremost among them is the transformation of blowhards into modern-day Thomas Paines when the authorities find their feathers ruffled. Suppressing speech not only insults the public's intelligence but also emboldens dunderheads to occupy the moral high ground.
O'Neill, of course, doesn't miss an opportunity to call out hypocrites. The educated but unbearable swells who champion the freedom of speech for the correct individuals vehemently oppose it for those who aren't to their taste.Case in point, the same people defending freedom of speech for this band have shamelessly deplatformed artistes from Israel. If support for freedom of speech is wholly contingent on individual preferences, then the motto "censored for your own good" might as well be engraved upon our collective tombstones.
O'Neill is the chief political writer here at our site and the host of our podcast, The Brendan O'Neill Show. He has recently published a book titled After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel, and the Crisis of Civilization. Visit Amazon UK or Amazon US to grab yourself a copy. You can also find him on Instagram under the handle @burntoakboy.
- The incident involving Mo Chara and Kneecap's support for Hezbollah has sparked a debate about free speech, with some arguing that the Metropolitan Police's actions, in charging Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, infringe on this fundamental right.
- The controversy surrounding Kneecap's brand of identity politics, which often involves provocative statements and appearance, intersects with the broader discussion on cancel culture, with some claiming that their views are acceptable in general-news and cultural circles but not when it comes to matters related to Israel.
- Brendan O'Neill, a vocal critic of cancel culture and the hypocrisy he perceives in the defense of free speech, has highlighted this inconsistency, saying that the same people defending Kneecap's freedom of speech might deplatform artists from Israel.
