Cultural boycott is not uncommon in the subcontinent. From cricket to Bollywood, there have been plenty of examples of such boycotts over the years. Most of these cases, however, are not purely cultural —they contain significant economic components. And, that may seriously hit the parties at the receiving end.
Such cultural boycott, however, is not exclusive to this part of the world. Well, China’s hysteria over the US-South Korea missile defence deal got weird in 2017 as China was not happy about Washington’s agreement with Seoul to build a missile shield system, known as THAAD, in South Korea to protect the close US ally from possible North Korean attacks. Korean TV shows and Korean pop music are extremely popular among young people in China, which is one of its biggest and most lucrative markets. China responded by blocking Korean TV shows and K-pop music videos from streaming in China.
While US President Joe Biden and other world leaders are now busy imposing economic sanctions on Russia, Russia’s Ukraine invasion has triggered some interesting boycotts though. Other than the oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, many Russians had their businesses boycotted. Musicians and artists such as Green Day, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Killers, Louis Tomlinson, and Bjork have dropped Russia from their list of performance venues. International sports federations have imposed bans on Russian and Belarusian sports bodies and athletes and cancelled sports events in the two countries. All of them have been made to pay the price of Mr Putin’s actions.
A French organisation, Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), which considers itself ‘the United Nations of Cat Federations’, said that it “cannot just witness these atrocities and do nothing,” and has banned Russian felines from participating in its events for three months. “No cat bred in Russia may be imported and registered in any FIFe pedigree book outside Russia, regardless of which organisation issued its pedigree.”
Then, amid the global backlash against Russia’s Ukraine invasion, “to avoid any controversy, especially internally, during a time of strong tensions,” the University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan, Italy, postponed a four-session course of Italian writer Paolo Nori on the great Russian novelist and cultural icon Fyodor Dostoevsky. Nori, who is prominent in Russia due to his translation of Russian literature into Italian, was understandably unhappy.
“Today in Italy, not only being a living Russian is already a reason to be guilty. Now, it is dangerous to even be a dead Russian writer,” he emphasised. There has been widespread criticism in Italian society. “In this time, we need to study more, not less: in the university, we need teachers, not incapable bureaucrats,” tweeted Matteo Renzi, Italy’s former prime minister. Writer Alessandro Robecchi criticised harshly: “Censoring a writer who is 150 years dead and censoring a living writer who tells us about him is an incredible shame that will forever remain in the history of the university.”
Maybe, next time, Paolo Nori would reiterate by quoting Dostoevsky from his book The Idiot: “You can be sincere and still be stupid.” Incidentally, it was quite interesting as the censoring happened to none other than Dostoevsky! In 1849, at the age of 27, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death in tsarist Russia for reading banned books and for his activities with a “radical intellectual discussion group”. Although his execution was stayed at the last minute, he had to serve four years in a Siberian labour camp, followed by several years of compulsory military service in the Tsar’s armed forces, in exile. He was nearly 40 before he could resume his literary works.
Well, it’s not only Europe that is going crazy. America is not far behind. Legendary Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who had created history by becoming the first human to journey into outer space in 1961 and died 54 years ago, is now at the receiving end. Space Foundation, an American nonprofit advocate organisation, has been organising a fundraiser since 2000, annually, to commemorate milestones in space exploration.
“In light of current world events”, it now changed the fundraiser’s name from “Yuri’s Night” to “A Celebration of Space: Discover What’s Next” at its Space Symposium conference. Isn’t it censoring history? Is it sensible at all? Are we not allowed to remember the great things many Russians did because of Mr Putin?
The cultural blackout would continue though, in some form or the other, although these would lie on the wrong side of history. Who would be the next Russians to be banned now, in some part of the world? Will it be Tchaikovsky, Anton Chekhov, or Leo Tolstoy? And, next time when America or NATO would attack a country like Vietnam or Iraq, would Russia and its allies get busy taking revenge by banning Victor Hugo or Honore de Balzac, or blocking Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo from art classes, or deleting Neil Armstrong’s name from a space program? Hope they won't.
The writer is professor of Statistics at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
