One of the first and best albums in the genre that is now known as “world music” is certainly Paul Simons Graceland. But when it came out in 1986, it was a scandal, especially among progressives. Naively or systematically, the pop star defied the cultural boycott against South Africa when he toured the country in 1985 and recorded songs with black acts. Although certainly not a racist, Paul Simon was targeted by the African National Congress. There were rallies against concerts, and in this country there was even a bomb threat. Attempts to reach an understanding were rejected by the ANC. The movement saw an affront in the fact that a white man wanted to know better how to resist.
The situation in South Africa in the 1980s cannot easily be equated with that in Israel’s occupied territories; The dynamic of the conflict was also different: the regime in the Cape was weakened and isolated, which can hardly be said about Israel’s occupation. And that cultural boycott was not just imposed by the ANC, but by the United Nations. Nevertheless, those who remember felt reminded of Paul Simon by the “Sally Rooney case”. Apparently, the author has just decided to do what the pop star refused at the time: to express her protest against the situation exactly as a local movement demands. And that backfired a lot.
Probably especially, but not only in Germany, people are now discussing Sally Rooney instead of Gaza and the West Bank: Is she an anti-Semite? Does it make the people of Israel responsible for the government across the board? Does she avoid Hebrew because she does not want “Jews to read their books”? She “betrays”, so he Spiegel, “Her integrity as a writer”? Doesn’t Nora Bossong hit a point when she’s im Germany radio freight, why Rooney is so campaigning for human rights in Palestine, while she has no problem with Iran or China?
The latter can be countered by the fact that a military occupation in the case of social subordination to a group that is also religiously marked is likely to hit an Irish woman particularly hard. Nor does she refuse to translate Beautiful World, Where Are You, but wants a publisher that distances itself from the occupation. This should be noted so that no false images arise, for example when Israel’s Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai spreads this lopsided spin instead of taking note of Rooney’s declaration Guardian documented.
Nevertheless, something remains weird here. Why suddenly, after your first books were published in Israel by the now disdained major publisher? Rooney’s statement, which among other things emphasizes the “guidelines of the BDS movement for institutional boycott”, sounds strangely formal at times. A little as if she had let herself be put under pressure: “I am following an appeal from Palestinian civil society.” One almost waits for contrite self-criticism about her first two books.
The author does not explain why she has now rethought. The unfounded notification of execution is a reminder of that pervasive style of thinking that always understands solidarity as subordination to the authority of the person concerned. But what is often the simplest thing for individuals and is somehow also politically correct, does not always have a really political effect: As was the case with the music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo or Ray Phiri Graceland was probably more important for the liberation than South Africa’s exclusion from the Olympics, Rooney, as a popular author in Israel today, could probably cause more irritation than now as an enemy figure. In the end, boycott never leads to dialogue, but is always a barrier.
Read Yael Lerner’s reply to this article here
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