Séamas O'Reilly: Criticisms of environmentalist arts movements are unconvincing at best

Séamas O'Reilly. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

This week, the commentariat has expounded at length on the campaign against Baillie Gifford, an Edinburgh-based investment management firm, and sponsor of many UK book festivals.

This was spurred by Fossil Free Books, a group which seeks the divestment of literary events from money related to fossil fuels and the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza.

This they pursued by asking authors to either withdraw from Baillie Gifford-sponsored festivals, or else attend as planned and use their appearance to speak on these issues from the stage.

Many authors did just that, leading to enough of a hubbub that Baillie Gifford pulled out of all their literary funding last week.

There has, understandably, been profound dismay over what the future holds for these events now this funding looks to be gone, and many full-throated defences have been mounted of literary festivals, accurately describing their profound wonders. 

I have been to, and spoken at, many such festivals and can only repeat what many others have said: they are a truly wonderful thing that deserves protecting. 

It’s just that I don’t believe that people should be forced to speak at them if they have a moral objection to where their money comes from.

The vast majority of the coverage has been critical, not of Baillie Gifford for pulling out of all of their cultural sponsorships, but of Fossil Free Books themselves. 

The key charge is that their campaign amounts to a misguided punishment of good people (book festivals and the people who run, staff, and attend them) because of their tertiary connection to some bad people (the fossil fuel extractors and military contractors which make up “a small proportion” of Baillie Gifford’s investment portfolio — which includes $5bn in fossil fuels alone). 

This is an overreaction, it is argued, especially when one considers the long list of benevolent things Baillie Gifford also do, and now won’t be doing any longer.

To me, this seems unconvincing. If you support fossil fuel extraction, or Israel’s military conduct, then such points are moot and, well, fair enough. 

But if your funding partner has $5bn invested in fossil fuels, and you are morally opposed to such things, then the fact they have $100bn invested in other, nicer things is surely irrelevant.

If your funding partner is financially invested in the targeting systems currently razing the youth of Gaza to the ground, this is not mitigated by their generous and worthwhile funding of children’s outreach programmes at book festivals.

It is, I feel, astounding to see so many people openly arguing the opposite; to consider the evils of sportswashing and greenwashing self-evident, and then tilt your head and break out the abacus when it comes to bookwashing; to say, correctly, that acts of evil cannot be mitigated by cleansing acts of good when it comes to football, boxing, or music festivals, but still argue the self-same moral mathematics does add up the second it’s taking place at an event you might actually want to attend yourself. 

“Your honour,” as the old joke goes, “you’re ignoring all the banks my client hasn’t robbed.”

The other charge being levelled against these campaigners is that their actions equate to extortion. Many have railed against their tactics as insidious blackmail by anonymous wreckers. This doesn’t seem to tally with reality.

As for being anonymous, Fossil Free Books’s representatives routinely, and openly, speak to the media.

More than 800 members of the literary community have signed up to the pledges of Fossil Free Books and their names are published online. 

They cover a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and many, if not most, depend on these very same festivals for much-needed income. Even if they did not, they all love book festivals as much as their detractors do.

No evidence has been presented of any coercion or threat of retaliatory action on the part of anyone connected to the campaign toward these authors — a campaign which, we should remember, also suggested that authors might attend said festivals and use their appearance to draw attention to their aims. 

Many authors did just this and, of the authors who did not sign up at all, there hasn’t been a single reported instance of them being adversely targeted for that reason.

The idea that this constitutes a chilling effect on free speech appears fatuous on its face, before we even address the removal of any agency from these authors themselves.

The argument, after all, is that we must protect at all costs these melting pots of language and learning, these banquets of the brain which open minds and deliver insight.

But also, that the writers who populate their talks, whose ideas and insights we must cherish, are little more than cowering automatons with no convictions of their own, mere wind puppets swayed by the prevailing gales of social media.

We are being asked to believe that these authors withdrew, not because they found the arguments persuasive or in line with their own ethical positions, but because they fear the ire of a steadfastly polite activist group, or have been hoodwinked by their childish moral yarn, which ignores the cold hard reality that all proper grown-ups know: where the money comes from doesn’t bear thinking about, and raising the issue is either foolish or gauche.

It seems clear to me that these authors each made a small stand at their own cost in the face of financial conglomerates seeking to wreath immoral wealth with the fig leaf of cultural philanthropy.

In so doing, they have exposed — to a wider audience than could ever possibly be imagined — the inequities of arts funding within the only ecosystem they themselves can earn a living.

It is an act of gymnastic contortion to cast them as the bad guys in this sad story, and I feel pity for the massed ranks of critics who consider such a stand unimaginable, if not for blackmail or brainwashing.

One wonders if all their time at literary festivals, absorbing the wonder, philosophy, and insight of those very authors, was particularly well spent.