Suzanne Harrington: 'Terrorist-adjacent', hilarious, galvanising, inspirational Kneecap
Kneecap member Liam Og O hAnnaidh outside the 100 Club in Oxford Street. Liam who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the name Liam O'Hanna over the displaying of a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, on November 21 last year
At a moment where that Chinese curse — may you live in interesting times — is taking itself far too literally, we could all do with a fat slap of levity.
I’m pinning my hopes on Kneecap’s Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh when he shows up at Westminster magistrates court this Wednesday on terror charges.
I’m hoping he’ll ask for a translator, like he did while playing a version of himself in the Kneecap film.
That life will imitate art, and he will not speak a single word of English during this nonsensical waste of Liam’s time and taxpayers’ cash.
Because really... terror charges?
A surreal idea, like something dreamed up by Flann O’Brien and Franz Kafka after sharing a pot of peyote tea.
These charges do not include any actual terrorism — no bombing of schools and hospitals, vaporising ambulances, starving and murdering tens of thousands of civilians — but centre on the alleged handling of a banned flag indoors last November.
Touching a rectangle of fabric. Briefly.
Kneecap, who have asked supporters to gather outside the London court building on the day, describe this moment of British power-flexing theatrics as “political policing”, a “carnival of distraction”.
Goliath, as ever, punching down; Daithí readying his sling. Because if the British government wants a carnival, it could not have cast better players.
Kneecap know all about performance, situationism, absurdism. They themselves are fearless theatre.
Imagine then this life-imitating-art scenario, where Liam Óg speaks only Irish in court. Imagine how funny that would be, how utterly, brilliantly comedic, how richly satisfying.
The spluttering, the outrage, the apoplexy. The hilarity. The glee.
And yes, it’s a lot to ask a 27-year-old facing the wrath of the British establishment doing their best to intimidate, to derail his career, but .
(And yes, of course I had to google that. I can’t speak Irish; unlike Peig Sayers, Kneecap are the first people who have ever inspired me to look up any Irish words. Don’t hate me if it reads like a badly translated menu).
That’s why the establishment wants to squash Kneecap, cancel them, restrict their movement — because they inspire. They galvanise.
Like those enormous peaceful marches for Palestine that regularly bring central London to a halt but are never reported by the BBC or other major British media (turnout for the last one on May 17 was 500,000-600,000) — Kneecap, along with a handful of other vocal critics, are doing what the British government is not: loudly calling out atrocities.
They’re being labelled as terrorist-adjacent for their trouble, as they provide a focus for people appalled at the genocide, appalled at the complicity of the US and Britain.
Along with the marches, along with other musicians such as Fontaines and Macklemore, they are providing an unofficial form of anger management.
It must be infuriating therefore for those keen to shut them up to see how the more Kneecap hold their nerve, hold their principles (“If it comes down to awards or breaking America by sacrificing what you believe in, then America can go fuck itself”) the bigger they get.
Cancelled from a Scottish festival that caved to ‘safety concerns’, they sold out an alternative venue in seconds. Glastonbury refused to cancel them. And in September, they play their biggest venue to date — Wembley Arena. The cancelling is not going well.
I’m off to google the Irish for ‘fight the power’.
