My first experience with the politics of “Ready, fire, aim…” happened long ago at Queen’s Park in Toronto, the heartbeat of Ontario’s government.
The province’s farmers were protesting some new policy that would hurt the agricultural sector. So they drove hundreds of tractors up University Avenue and parked them in the middle of the circular road that rings the Provincial Legislature.
Chaos. Huge, instant traffic jams. Many thousands of people were inconvenienced by this. Thousands more were very annoyed. Politicians were enraged.
The farmers? They were positively righteous in their anger. “All Ontarians need to know just how badly they’re treating their farmers.”
I thought, “Why would you protest in a way that will get your allies and curious bystanders really mad at you?” One answer of course was to force the other side, in this case, the province, to back down. That’s the purpose of all strikes everywhere.
But with Palestinian protesters against Israel, the collateral damage to Canada’s writing community is deadly.
The Giller Prize is the bright shining star of Canadian writing. Their big sponsor is Scotiabank. Like all of Canada’s banks, and most organizations that manage money, some of their investments are in Israeli companies, specifically in its defense sector. If this was a secret, it was the kind that could be exposed in 60 seconds of online sleuthing by your 10-year-old.
Last November, protesters broke into the live CBC broadcast of the Giller, and afterwards, a number of Canadian authors, including previous Giller awardees and nominees for this year’s prize, refused to have anything to do with Canada’s most prestigious literary award and catalyst for many thousands of books sold.
Unless, of course, the Giller cuts all ties with Scotiabank which they were loathe to do because, well, sponsor money is not only vital to keep the arts and its awards alive, it’s very hard to come by at the best of times. And these are not those.
So a uniquely Canadian compromise was worked out. Scotiabank would continue to be the Giller’s main sponsor, but remove its name from the sponsorship. (I expect this situation will last for at least another 10 minutes, until a Scotiabanker somewhere says: “Don’t we sponsor things in order to get our name on them?”)
This has already happened in the very big world beyond Toronto.
Baillie Gifford is a Scottish asset manager that manages half a trillion dollars of other people’s money. A tiny part of that is invested in Israel’s defense sector. But Baillie Gifford is a big player in the literary award and festival sectors worldwide.
It sponsors the Baillie Gifford Prize for the best non-fiction book in the English language (won in 2023 by the way by John Vaillant of Vancouver for Fire Weather, about the colossal wildfire that destroyed Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016).
Baillie Gifford also sponsors the Hay Festival, Britain’s biggest literary festival and a series of spin-off festivals in fifteen other countries, as well as nine other literary festivals in Britain, including the Edinburgh Literary Festival.
Even after being publicly horse-whipped for supporting “Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide,” Baillie Gifford hung in with Hay and Edinburgh. But faced with a boycott from some of their authors, within one week in May, Hay suspended its sponsorship deal, with Edinburgh following suit.
Did Baillie Gifford beg to stay, pleading: “Take our money but please don’t say it’s ours?”
They did not. They withdrew their support from nine British literary festivals, saying in effect: “We’re sure there are other charities that will take our money.”
And now these iconic festivals are in big financial trouble.
Last month Hay Festival’s chief executive Julie Finch predicted the “possible decimation of the festival, a wasteland of a site empty of audiences” as the event hemorrhaged half a million pounds.
The irresistible inference here is that a similar fate will meet the Giller and, down the road, any literary festival impure enough to seek sponsorship money from Canadian banks.
The problem here is not so much that he who has the money makes the rules, but she who has the money can always decide to give it to someone else. Just like you and me.
The Palestinian activists (plus their fossil fuel activist cousins) have succeeded in reducing funding for Israeli arms companies…by…not…a…single…dollar. The odd fund manager has reduced their investment in Israeli’s defense, but their sale has been picked up by another’s purchase.
In other words, all the activists’ pressure hasn’t worked at all.
The one thing they have succeeded in doing is to severely reduce funding for literary festivals and awards in Britain and elsewhere, threatening an already fragile arts sector.
It reminds me of those farmers and their tractors ringing Queen’s Park.
Meanwhile…
1. Life is rich, which makes it dangerous. Winning a Michelin star could make your restaurant go broke sooner. Plus, how five luxe cars evolved. Plus, Simon Kuper on how ‘good chaps’ broke Britain’s institutions.
2. How popular is that word? The word “woke” awoke late in my brain. It was around in 2020, slowed no doubt by my denial that it should have been ‘awakened’ at all, as in ‘to a higher and more righteous state of being.’ But if I’d used the app Google Books Ngram Viewer sooner, I would have learned much sooner how late I’d woken to its use. The Ngram Viewer measures the relative frequency with which a word or phrase appears in the vast corpus of books and periodicals digitized by Google Books. Try it for your favourite word, and your unfavourite one, too.
Plus how British English is invading North America.
3. The good in the bad and ugly. First, why cynicism is bad for you. Next, is bad service a sign of a better world? Plus, why touch screens don’t always cost service jobs; they create them.
And the straight-up bad and ugly. A small Alabama gun maker is selling a Donald Trump-themed “MAGA Patriot” AR-15. This is the same rifle used to shoot the ex-president himself two months ago. The gun maker is selling the first batch of 20 limited-edition rifles for $2,997 each.
4. Maggie Smith was an old actor. Here are some tributes you may not have seen.Plus the defining moment of her most memorable film. Here also are some other old actors. And a new work by a very old composer.
5. Where to write. In the shack with Robert Caro. How to write: Sam Altman takes notes, on paper. How not to write: Back in June, Birju Dattani was appointed head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. He resigned before he started the job in August when he failed to disclose his anti-Israel tweets when he was a graduate student. He’s now a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, and is listed as the “former Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission,” even though he never actually did a day of work there. As The National Post noted: “It does raise an eyebrow.”
6. New York’s very strange Mayor. Eric Adams may or may not be guilty of taking illegal campaign contributions, but it’s certain he’s…strange. In 2011, while a state senator, he made a video to help parents search for guns and drugs their kids hid around the house.
New York’s last strange mayor was Rudy Giuliani whose retirement project was to support Donald Trump. His clownish performance finally turned his daughter last week to plead“Trump took my dad from me. Please don’t let him take our country too.”
7. To your health. Last week, a Ukrainian drone first tried to kill, then helped save, a Russian soldier.
What’s the deadliest thing in the office? The office. Does healthcare really need reform? 90% of Canadians think so. Finally, does a quick drink lead to a short life?
8. Surprising charts. What country owns the most U.S. land? Canada, by far. Plus, who in the world uses contraception?
9. Awash in a sea of art. Van Gogh tosses and turns. There’s a reason for that: a tossing, turning state of mind.
Plus more awashness in Manhattan and at the bottom of the sea.
10. Greenpeace meets Grammys. It’s the ultimate crossover concert as Jacob Collier and AURORA perform on an ice floe in Svalbard to support the climate protest group’s work.
11. What I’m liking. I’ve written before about the sleeper streaming series on Crave called Industry, a terrible title for a delicious drama about life at the bottom and top of London’s financial industry. But Season 3 is gripping. You don’t even need to know the arcane patois the characters use to buy, sell and suck the life out of each other. As The Guardian said: “TV’s wildest drama is more thrilling than ever.”
_________________
ON OCTOBER 15, HEAR MSNBC’S ALI VELSHI
LIVE FROM KOERNER HALL
ON THE U.S. ELECTION.
Every day from his anchor desk in New York, Ali Velshi analyses not just the race, but the consequences of whether Harris or Trump will win on November 5.
So please join us on October 15 as MSNBC’s Chief Correspondent offers his take on the most important election for Canada in decades – and discusses his new book, Small Acts of Courage, his own Indian-Kenyan-Canadian-American family’s story.
Ali will also be interviewed by Susan Ormiston, CBC senior correspondent
and former Washington correspondent. Here he is now about this event.
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.) ET
Place: Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. West, Toronto, just west of the ROM.
Tickets: $55, $65, $75, or $90 (Premium*) and includes your copy of Small Acts of Courage. * Limited quantities of Premium tickets include an exclusive pre-event reception with the author and a signed copy of Small Acts of Courage, along with a complimentary drink.
TICKETS HERE
Please pass this invitation on to like-minded friends and family.
Cheers,
Bob Ramsay
In partnership with
