The campaign to cancel the popular activist singer-songwriter has just struck again in Gothenburg, Sweden… Rovics has long been the subject of a trolling campaign led by people associated with Portland, Oregon antifa…
By David Rovics reposted from his substack
The plague of cancellation campaigning combined with a form of puritanical thinking deeply associated with identity politics has, sadly, made its way to Gothenburg.
The concert Kamala [Emanuel], and I were going to do there, at a place called the Syndicalist Forum, has been canceled by people involved with the venue.
So, I’m first of all writing here in an attempt to let people know that this is the case. Unfortunately, the event has already been well-promoted, and with word-of-mouth publicity it’s impossible to know how people have heard about it, or how to successfully let them know that it’s been canceled. It is unfortunately entirely possible that people will be traveling to Gothenburg from hours away to catch the show, and they won’t have heard about the event being canceled. This just happened recently elsewhere.
But, as you may already have surmised, there’s a lot more that needs to be said about this concert cancelation.
It happens as part of a broader trend involving suspicion and distrust, spurious notions of safety, and exclusionary, puritanical thinking that is rife in certain corners of the left, particularly in the USA, but also in other parts of the world, apparently including this ostensibly syndicalist scene in Gothenburg, Sweden.
It’s a problem with the modern left that is extremely relevant to the election that just happened in the US, with its predictable (and predicted, by me and many others) outcome. Extremely relevant to the future of our species, I’d dare say, because if the left around the world isn’t able to form a cohesive, visionary, inclusive, musical movement for a better world and an egalitarian society, then we all lose, everything.
And what has just happened in Gothenburg is a perfect illustration of the problem we face in building that kind of movement (though certainly a very minor and local one).
I know most people reading this are probably reading it on my email list and you’re already familiar with the context as I see it, but I’ll briefly set the stage anyway.
Exposing Israel’s ongoing extermination effort
A fascist state called Israel is currently in the process of exterminating 2.3 million Palestinians and a whole lot of other people as well, through a ruthless, unending campaign of dropping massive bombs, snipers shooting children looking for water, drone strikes against anyone moving outside of the destroyed buildings, and imposed famine and disease. The fascist state of Israel is doing this with the support of a very large portion of the Israeli population, who have elected the most rightwing government in Israel’s history. All this is happening with western military and economic support, especially from the US, but also from many European countries.
Having put out four albums about the genocide over the past year, Kamala and I are currently on tour in Europe, trying to raise awareness of and resistance to this ongoing genocide, with lots of gigs coming right up in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and then in the US after that.
A year ago when we were doing the exact same thing in largely the same cities in the same countries as we’re touring in now, we sang at a rally against the war on Gaza in Gothenburg, and we played for an audience of well over a hundred people at the Marx-Engels Huset in that beautiful city, under the auspices of Gothenburg’s Communist Party.
We’ve played at that venue so many times over the past two decades, I’ve lost count. This time around, the folks that run the Marx-Engels Huset were busy with other things, which happens. I’m sure we’ll play there again in the future.
But with no gig there, when someone wrote me and suggested we play at the Syndicalist Forum instead this time around, I thought that was a great idea.
I emailed the Forum email and heard back very quickly with an enthusiastic response. I was very happy about that, though not so surprised, since I have played for the syndicalist and anarchist scene in Sweden a lot over the years. I have more monthly listeners on Spotify from Sweden than from most countries. Not to brag, but I have a few fans in Sweden, particularly on the Swedish left, so if they had heard my music before and that’s what prompted the immediate positive response, that’s not surprising.
Trolling campaign…
Because I wasn’t sure how well they knew me, my music, or my politics, and as far as I knew I had not met these folks before, in the course of talking about doing this concert, I warned them that I was the subject of a trolling campaign online since January, 2021, led by one or more people associated with Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon, which is a bizarre little cult that has had a devastating impact on the Portland left since its inception in 2007.
The person answering the Syndicalist Forum’s Facebook Messenger account expressed sympathy for me in the context of this trolling campaign, and they went ahead and made a nice listing about the gig on their website, and a Facebook Event page, which had gotten great response from local people. I had, of course, also been promoting the event, along with the whole tour.
Two days ago I then got a message on Messenger from whoever manages the Facebook account of the Syndicalist Forum, explaining, out of the blue, that they had been contacted by someone who had shared information about me which they then investigated, by reading the article that was shared with them and by reading a book I recommended in an essay several years ago, and that they had come to the conclusion that although they didn’t think I was an antisemite, they thought Gilad Atzmon was, and because I recommended his book, the Wandering Who, they “currently don’t feel comfortable with proceeding with the gig” — although they also didn’t seem to want to use the word “canceled” in reference to not going ahead with the event, as I think they realize this is a bad look, to cancel stuff like that, last-minute.
Anticipating that one might say canceling events like this at the last-minute is a bad look, they went on to explain that they aren’t concerned with their reputation, but just with being a safe space. To quote:
We’re not very interested in how Syndikalistiskt Forum appears to the public. We care about taking care of our community and creating a space in which people can feel accepted and safe. When discussing controversial books it is necessary to add criticism and context to ensure a healthy discussion and the comfort of our comrades. You do not do this. Instead the book is only recommended.
Claims of “Antisemitism” strike again
So, I, a nominally Jewish guy from New York, recommended a book about Jewish history and identity written by a Jewish guy from Israel who is very critical of both Israel and various aspects of Jewish identity in some of the forms it has manifested itself in over the course of history.
People at the forum apparently either then read the book or were already allegedly familiar with its contents, and because I recommended it in an essay that was about other things, without going into details about it, I’m deemed to make someone somehow feel unsafe or not accepted.
I have written, in song and essay forms, so much more about Jewish history, identity, Israel, and so many other related subjects, but in the one article they read, which is the one the trolls always recommend people read, they found something disagreeable in my book recommendation.
I’m afraid that as I describe what has just transpired, some people reading this may be thinking that the actions of the Syndicalist Forum in this case are somehow reasonable, normal, or sensible in any way. I find this very worrying, because this kind of puritanical orientation is completely destructive to the kind of movement-building efforts we so desperately need most everywhere.
In reality, you can’t ever possibly organize a social movement or have a real forum by excluding people from your midst because they recommended a book you don’t like. The kinds of alliances and bonds we need to build if there’s any hope for our future are so much more extensive than only people who agree with the Syndicalist Forum of Gothenburg’s take on Jewish history and identity, and everyone else be canceled.
As they messaged me to inform me they were canceling the gig (while studiously avoiding the use of the word “cancel”), and informed people on their Facebook Event page that if they already bought tickets, their purchases would be refunded, there was no mention to this working musician about compensating me for the loss of this gig, for which organizing was already well underway.
Altogether very un-syndicalist and un-forum-like behavior, to say the least. The Syndicalist Forum was founded many decades ago, and my guess is this crowd running the show now have nothing to do with the people that started it. I hope the future of the Syndicalist Forum is both syndicalist and a forum, in the radically inclusive sense, and not a puritanical thought-police operation poisoned by identity politics, as it abundantly appears to be now.
May the future involve a much more inclusive left that is able to have reasonable priorities and able to overlook or accept the fact that people can work together — and play music for you — even if they have a different take on some aspects of history and politics than you do!
I am stating the obvious here, I think. What is so extremely alarming to me is there are so many people in our midst who consider themselves on the left who do not agree with me about this.
David Rovics is a Jewish singer/songwriter/activist and parent of young children who has worked for social justice for decades, often focusing on Palestinian human rights. He has put out four albums about Israel’s genocide over the past year. Rovics has shared the stage with a who’s who of the left in two dozen countries, and has had his music featured on Democracy Now!, BBC, Al-Jazeera and other networks.
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