Your Silence Sounds Like Imperialism To Me

If you feel called out by anything I write today, that is both my intention and not my intention. No one will ever be the perfect activist – no one should know how to ‘act perfectly’ in a world that is being ravaged by genocide and climate disaster (all in the holy name of fascism). If I call you out, just know I’m also calling out myself. But maybe sometimes it’s good to be called out and feel uncomfortable, it might mean there’s a gap there – and more importantly, room to grow.

I’ve been collating numerous thoughts about Irish artists being rocketed to the world stage (and world agenda) due to their continuing support for Palestine. Kneecap has become a household name across the globe at this point – all because they denounce a genocide. It’s been interesting to see how UK audiences in particular respond to Kneecap. I’ve noticed a suprising amount of my UK peers be explicit in their support of the band – ‘give Anna the aux so she can play ‘Get Your Brits Out’’ – but their explicitness about the genocide has remained pretty consistent – consistently quiet.

Now, this is not to say I don’t notice this with some of my Irish peers as well. And this is also not to denounce anyone from listening to Kneecap and their music being the gateway drug into a more fully-fleshed politics (I will forever dedicate a large part of my radicalisation to listening to the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘One Tribe’ on my The E.N.D. CD when I was like 7 – even if it is a bit dated now!). But at some point, I think the leeway must end, and the line between being ignorant because you don’t know and ignorant because you don’t want to know has to be drawn.

July 12^th, or simply The Twelfth, the Orangemen up North ‘march’. Of course, under the Good Friday Agreement, both Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Unionists, are allowed to celebrate their cultures and heritage. But with the bonfires year after year plastering signs reading ‘Stop The Boats’ and ‘Kill All Taigs’ (Taig is Unionist slang for an Irish person – so the sign says ‘Kill all Irish people’), we seem to be pretty far away from ‘celebration of culture’. My UK peers in no way have engaged with this history. And to be honest, I don’t expect them to. No one, even the saintliest of activists, will understand all the nuances of every nation or liberation movement. But for people to hail their support of Kneecap as a sign of their politics is boring to me at best, destructive at worst. The group has consistently retained the message of ‘Kneecap is not the story. Genocide in Gaza is’. They themselves have noted the hypocrisy of the UK government being so terrified and concerned by their artistry, while they continue to fund and support the genocide. Essentially, what I’m saying is: If your politics has started at Kneecap, great! If your politics has ended at Kneecap, not great!

My thinking about Kneecap and people’s silence over the past few weeks has expanded to thinking about silence in general. I watched this video by Mordecai Ogada this evening, and he translated my thoughts succintly – ‘That silence is imperialism’. His video was focused on the Kenyan experience of imperialism, but there were many parallels I could draw to the current broader global context (and indeed more locally to the Irish context). Imperialism has seeped into every crevice of our lives, and silence is one of the signs of this. That is due to historical experiences of our ancestors – the previously colonised often stay silent about the legacy left behind by imperialism, as silence was what was instilled in and imposed upon them, while the previous colonisers remain silent because to talk about past atrocities is to admit to these atrocities.

And this enforcement of silence remains today in our fascist world. The crackdown on peaceful protest in the UK has been truly terrifying to watch. I sit here scared to mention explicitly the specific recent events, as I do not want to go to prison for 14 years. That is a crazy thought to be crossing my mind!!!

I actually have many other thoughts about this idea of being silenced, but I want to finish off today by posing the question of what happens when you break that silence. Kneecap is the perfect example. They refuse to stay silent. Instead, they are loud. They are in your face and they are messy and they are eloquent, and they are swearing all over the place. But most importantly, they are loud. And this has completely destabilised the systems and powers that be. The government has a feckin’ clue what to do with itself – what should the imperial power that is England do when its loyal subjects start to revolt? Our noise is powerful, and it is working.

So if you can, be loud. I recognise that for many people, silence is a means of self-protection and self-preservation. But the likelihood is, if you are reading this, you are not in that scenario. If you can speak up, do so and continue to do so. Our noise will break through the slyness and backstabbing of the structures that feel so out of our control. Don’t join the UK government (and the Irish government to a certain extent) in their silence and complicity. Your silence sounds like imperialism to me, and it’s louder than you think!