Are
these informal sanctions of Russian culture and business justified, and
can they alter the course of the war? Or are these histrionic gestures
that risk stigmatizing an entire population for the crimes of one
autocrat? And what does the invocation of “cancel culture” — as both a
rhetorical cliché and a material phenomenon — reveal about the way the
war is being metabolized through social media? Here’s what people are
saying. The case for cancellationAbout a century ago, sanctions emerged on the world stage as an alternative to conventional warfare, an “economic weapon”
intended to impose such a high burden on a country’s political elite
that it would be forced to change its behavior. While conceived as a
tool to be wielded by nation-states against other nation-states, they
can also be levied — however haphazardly — by nonstate actors against
other nonstate actors, as we’re now seeing. |
In the arts, Javier C. Hernández reports for The Times, organizations
are facing pressure from donors, board members, audiences and social
media users to fire Russian artists who do not distance themselves from
Putin or fail to speak out with sufficient fervor against the war. Such
campaigns are not unprecedented, as some commentators have pointed out. |
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But vetting artists for their political beliefs and ties raises difficult questions.
“What is the point at which cultural exchange — always a blur between
being a humanizing balm and a tool of propaganda, a co-opting of music’s
supposed neutrality — becomes unbearable?” asks
Zachary Woolfe, The Times’s classical music editor. “What is sufficient
distance from authoritarian leadership? And what is sufficient
disavowal, particularly in a context when speaking up could threaten the
safety of artists or their families?” For
the Russian-born pianist Igor Levit, the issue isn’t so complicated.
“Being a musician does not free you from being a citizen, from taking
responsibility,” he commented
on his Instagram account, adding the #StandWithUkraine hashtag.
“Remaining vague when one man, especially the man who is the leader of
your home country, starts a war against another country and by doing so
also causes greatest suffering to your home country and your people is
unacceptable.” Others have argued that athletics are the better cultural theater in which to wage war against Putin. “Sanctions
against Putin in the sphere of games have a reach unlike any other
because they leave him sweatingly exposed to the only audience he really
fears or courts: the Russians in the street,” Sally Jenkins argues
in The Washington Post. “His brand of shirtless belligerent patriotism —
his macho nationalism — has been a long con, and it’s no small thing to
knock him off medal podiums and expose the lifts in his shoes, or to rip off his judo belt and show the softening of his belly and, in turn, weaken his influence.” |
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So
far, the cultural backlash doesn’t seem to have done much to get Putin
to change course — and may even be playing into his preferred narrative
of Russia being victimized by the West. Yet
the longer the country’s cultural isolation persists, “the more chance
such measures have of breaking through the state’s narrative,” Yasmeen
Serhan writes
for The Atlantic. “If ordinary Russians can no longer enjoy many of the
activities they love, including things as quotidian as watching their
soccer teams play in international matches, seeing the latest films, and
enjoying live concerts, their tolerance for their government’s isolationist policies will diminish.” The risk of a new Russophobia |
When
holding a country’s people responsible for the transgressions of its
political system, how do you decide whom it’s fair to punish? In
Russia’s case, the economist Tyler Cowen argues that you can’t. |
“It is simply not possible to draw fair or accurate lines of demarcation,” he writes
in Bloomberg. “What about performers who may have favored Putin in the
more benign times of 2003 and now are skeptical, but have family members
still living in Russia? Do they have to speak out?” |
Another
question: “Who exactly counts as Russian? Ethnic Russians? Russian
citizens? Former citizens? Ethnic Russians born in Ukraine?” |
Tricky moral calculus aside, the utility of these informal sanctions is still very much in doubt. “None of these measures will reduce the Ukraine war’s life span by a minute, let alone a day,” Jack Schafer argues
in Politico. “It would be a mistake to even proclaim these gestures
symbolic because they don’t really symbolize anything meaningful about
the war,” he adds, noting that only about 1.5 percent of all vodka consumed in the United States comes from Russia. |
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At worst, critics warn that these cancellation campaigns directed at ordinary Russians could backfire. “Contrary to expectations, making life harder for the population can bind them to the rulers who blame outside interference,” writes Samuel Goldman, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University. “Even when sanctions succeed in destabilizing the regimes they target, new dictators may come to power under conditions of economic collapse and social disorder.” |
A potential rise in anti-Russian bigotry is another concern. Already in the West, The Washington Post reports,
people of Russian descent or association are reporting a rise in
discriminatory attacks, comments and refusals of service from local
businesses. In New York City, some Russian restaurants have seen a decline in customers. |
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What might a more targeted informal sanctions regime look like? In
Mondoweiss, Jonathan Ofir, an Israeli-born musician, suggests looking
to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls —
controversially, to be sure — for an end to the Israeli government’s
occupation of Palestinian land captured in 1967, among other demands.
The B.D.S. movement claims to reject on principle boycotts based on
individuals’ identities, opinions or mere affiliation with Israeli
cultural institutions. Rather, only those who represent the State of
Israel or participate in Israel’s efforts to “rebrand” its occupation
are targeted for sanctions. |
Insofar
as measures are being taken against Russians with no apparent ties to
their leader, “the B.D.S. movement takes a softer boycott than what was
applied to apartheid South Africa, and than the one now readily applied
to Russia,” Ofir says. |
When
it comes to Russian goods, though, the biggest pressure point is fossil
fuels, which are not within the average person’s ability to boycott. President Biden did take the striking step on
Tuesday of banning imports of Russian oil and natural gas. But Europe,
which is much more dependent on Russian energy, has not yet demonstrated
the same resolve, and continues to pay Russia hundreds of millions of
dollars every day for fuel. |
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From culture war to actual war |
As Kyle Chayka writes
for The New Yorker, the invasion of Ukraine is by no means the first
conflict to play out over social media. But it is perhaps the first war
to be mediated primarily by content creators and live-streamers rather than by traditional news organizations. |
The
cancellation of Russian cultural figures and products can be understood
as a successive step in this familiar choreography. “This is the
globalization of moral outrage,” the Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes.
“It goes from watching a short video online showing Russian soldiers
firing on a Ukrainian nuclear energy facility to an employee posting
that video on his or her Facebook page to a group of employees emailing
their bosses or going on Slack — not to ask their C.E.O.s to do
something but to tell them they have to do something or they will lose workers and customers.” |
This decentralized response — “a kind of global ad hoc pro-Ukraine-resistance-solidarity-movement,”
as Friedman calls it — is arguably quite inspiring. But there’s a
danger to it too, Friedman warns: While nation-states may choose to lift
their sanctions at some point for realpolitik reasons, everyone else
may not. |
“When Anonymous, the global hacker consortium, announced
that it was attempting to take down Russian websites, that was not by
government order; it just acted on its own,” he writes. “Who does Russia
call to get Anonymous to accept a cease-fire?” READ MORE“To Boycott Russians, or Not? In Film and Beyond, That’s the Question.” [The New York Times] Related Debates:
- War/03.03.2022
- War on the horizon???/04.02.2022 #PutinsWar |
