Get a load of Billy Bragg's disgusting defence of cancel culture

Amazing response to Jerry Sadowitz's being banned by the Assembly Rooms, one of the darkest moment's in the Edinburgh Fringe's history

So we never forget this time, and how so many celebrities debased themselves by genuflecting to the mob, I’m including this post by Billy Bragg in its entirety. Were the Left always this Stalinist and I never noticed? “More heroic realism in art! More paintings of enemies of the people!”

My favourite part of this is the perfunctory mention of Rushdie at the start. A daring bit of virtue signalling as he goes on to reveal he doesn’t believe in free speech on any level. I have added an important word and done some light annotation where I could stand it, but as the whole piece is based on misrepresentation and rumour, it’s too exhausting to be completist about it. Thank you to the subscriber who sent it along!

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I remember exactly where I was when I heard that a fatwa had been issued by the Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie: listening to the BBC World Service in my room at the Hotel Under den Linden in what was then East Berlin. It was February 1989. I was shocked that an author could be given a death sentence for writing a book.

I was shocked again last Friday, when news came through from Chautauqua, New York, that Rushdie had been attacked onstage at a literary event by a knife wielding assassin. This abhorrent attempt on his life mercifully failed, although the author has suffered life changing injuries.

Over the past decade or so, Rushdie has sought to return to some sort of a normal life, despite the threat hanging over him. The fact that he continued to take the stage at literary events is a tribute to his belief in freedom of expression and he has been rightly commended for his bravery.

Of course, the world has changed immensely since 1989. Back then, free speech was a principle upheld by journalists and politicians alike as a means of guaranteeing a free society. Thirty-three years later, we find that it has become a viciously contested front line in the culture wars that define our political and social discourse in the way that rival ideologies did back in the 80s.

Freedom of expression has become the default defence of anyone accused of discriminatory language or behaviour. This reaction is particularly prevalent among media columnists, who, before the advent of social media, were able to express their opinions with virtually no questioning whatsoever.

In a febrile atmosphere where editors demand clicks, those who make their living writing in a pejorative and judgemental style about people who express empathy for others are shocked to find that their views are met with a chorus of criticism from Twitter.

Having been admonished in such a public manner, they seek to make themselves into the victims by using the ‘cancel culture’ trope, loudly claiming to have been ‘cancelled’ often from the platform of a mass circulation newspaper or a Netflix special.

However, last weekend someone did actually get cancelled because of what they had said. Jerry Sadowitz, an American-born, Scottish comedian renowned for the extremely offensive nature of his material, had the second of his two nights at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh axed because the venue said they had received an unprecedented number of complaints from audience members and staff about the first show. (Note: Unprecedented would be “one”. No-one goes to Jerry Sadowitz without knowing what they’re in for.)

In a further statement, the theatre management explained "We became immediately aware of content that was considered, among other things, extreme in its racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny. We will not associate with content which attacks people's dignity and the language used on stage was, in our view, completely unacceptable. We received an unprecedented number of complaints that could not be ignored and we had a duty to respond.”

A newspaper report quoted a member of the audience who claimed that Sadowitz called Rishi Sunak a P*** * (Note: Billy is lying again. The exact line was “I hate the Tories. I bet they all call Rishi Sunak a Paki.” Billy should apologise for making this serious accusation) and got his penis out to a woman in the front row (posters and fliers warned audience that this was not uncommon at a Jerry Sadowitz show). Although twice commenting at length on his cancellation, the comedian has not refuted these claims and other voices familiar with his material have confirmed that such language and behaviour is a regular part of his act. (So fucking what, grandad?)

The fact that news of Sadowitz’ cancellation broke on the day that the world was reeling from the attack on Salman Rushdie has led some commentators to draw a comparison between the two, suggesting that both incidents constituted an attack on freedom of expression. Those who complain week after week that “you can’t say anything these days” have been having a field day conflating a man waving his willy in public with someone who has been stabbed ten times by a religious fanatic.

The comparison is as crass as it is misguided. (You are as crass as you are misguided, Billy)

In my online search for the content of Jerry Sadowitz’ performance on Friday at the Pleasance, I came across an undated interview on fellow comedian Richard Herring’s website in which he talks at length about Sadowitz and how he operates. Herring was one of a number of stand up comedians who came to the defence of Sadowitz over the weekend. It’s an interesting read as he seeks to analyse where the outrageous comedian is coming from and why he does what he does.

However, one assertion struck me as ill-judged. Herring claimed that

“It's not bad to be offended by someone who knows what they are doing.”

That might be fine if the comedian is taking the piss out of your opinions/haircut/football team. Great humour often messes with our perceptions. But what if that offence is directed at a minority who are widely discriminated against by society? Did Bernard Manning ‘know what he was doing’ when he used the P word prodigiously (you betcha he did, but not in the way Herring means)? Is it okay for Frankie Boyle to use the word ‘spastic’ to get a laugh?

The fact Herring says that Boyle doing just that makes him annoyed is revealing. Does Sadowitz work under rules that apply only to him and no one else? In his response to the cancellation, he complained that he’s not Jim Davidson, implying he exists in a more rarified space above the coarse material of the likes of Davidson. Is that special pleading?

At this point, I have to cite Bragg’s Law, initially framed to warn the unwary of the pitfalls of speaking your mind on Twitter, but increasingly relevant in real life: Perception Always Trumps Intention. Thus we must all think carefully of how others might view our opinions before we press ‘post’ on our latest hot take.

This doesn’t mean that jokes about race or disability can no longer be made, just that the material has to be treated with a degree of sensitivity. This is not only to protect the victims of discrimination themselves. Audiences are less sympathetic these days to people in positions of power - be they onstage or online - punching down.

Salman Rushdie wasn’t punching down when he wrote The Satanic Verses. He was literally putting his neck on the line by criticising a religion that he knew to be distorted by fundamentalist extremism of a most murderous kind. His bravery and commitment to freedom of expression is to be greatly admired.

Jerry Sadowitz on the other hand was taking the stage with the stated intention to be highly offensive, an aim in which he seems to have succeeded. But in looking at the reaction his performance provoked, you have to recognise that the audience are exercising their freedom of expression by complaining about the content of his act and so are the Pleasance in cancelling his show.

Their right to express their criticisms and act on them are just as valid as Jerry’s right to offend. Orwell’s maxim that ‘if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’ cuts both ways.

Too often, we see free speech evoked as a form of licence, a shield against any form of accountability. In order to be able to conduct a discourse without abuse and bullying, we need to strike a balance between free speech and accountability. In the case of Salman Rushdie, the accountability is so extreme as to be off the scale and totally unacceptable. I would add any threat of violence or death - online or irl - to that category.

With regard to Jerry Sadowitz, I’d say the balance is about right. Members of the audience and the management at the Pleasance have held him to account for what he said and did at that event. I don’t doubt that there are other venues with stronger stomachs that will be happy to host his show and plenty of people willing to go along to see what the fuss is about.

Free speech is not under threat as a result of the Sadowitz cancellation. Even in a democratic society, freedom of expression has its limits. On Monday, a man was fined and given a suspended prison sentence after sending a “hateful and racist” post aimed at the black footballers who missed penalties in England’s Euro 2020 final defeat.

Those who claim that free speech gives you the right to say whatever you want would have let him go unpunished.

Billy Bragg.