The inexhaustible debate on the cancellation

Days before the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) began, the Siglo XXI publishing house announced on Twitter that it was suspending the presentation of the book

because its author, Laura Lecuona, had received "threats."

The Mexican writer let it be understood on the social network that she had felt cancelled.

Once the fair had started, the journalist Láurel Miranda, who had urged the publisher not to be "an accomplice of discriminatory speeches", responded from the stage to a person from the audience who asked her if "she considers it appropriate to silence the voices of women": "Freedom of expression is not absolute, it has a limit and this limit has to do with the moment in which human rights are violated."

The debate on cancellation – in literature, cinema, theater, art in general – is open and does not have easy answers.

EL PAÍS has brought together three authors to reflect on a topic that is not exhausted in the 30 minutes that the conversation lasted: the Argentine narrator Clara Obligado, 72, who has lived in Spain since she went into exile in the 1970s and introduced the country the first creative writing workshops –his most recent book is the essay

, published by Páginas de espuma–;

the Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, 45, who in her book

(Anagrama, 2019) gives voice to a feminicidal pedophile sitting in the dock, and the essayist María Galindo, 58, an anarcho-feminist and self-managed writer who this year published

with Mantis and Canal Press publishers.

Ariana Harwicz, María Galindo and Clara Obligado during the dialogue.

Roberto Antillon

The conversation organized by this newspaper took place on Friday at noon.

Galindo had already presented

an anthology of “Latin American sex-dissident writings”;

Harwicz had spoken to readers about his novel

, which along with

and

they make up a trilogy on mother-child relationships;

Forced to participate the next day, this Saturday, in the international meeting of storytellers.

The conversation was tense and uncomfortable for the authors, who disagreed on almost everything and agreed, if anything, on one thing: the cancellation debate is difficult and requires depth.

Harwicz made a public statement on Twitter after the interview: "They wanted to educate me, they explained to me that I think badly, they left without saying hello and they canceled me for not speaking the only possible language, theirs."

Ask.

What does each understand by cancellation?

Ariana Harwicz.

I am not an expert, but I am simply seeing, especially in Europe, how the figure of the author is changing.

What I see in the cinema and in literature is a kind of complacency and servile attitude or, as Houellebecq is fashionable, absolute submission to the

of the moment, to the official language.

It is easier to attack an official language in a dictatorship than to say that there is an official fascist language today because we are in a democracy in Western countries.

Every time I said this they insulted me and told me that we are not with [Augusto] Pinochet, that [Jorge Rafael] Videla left, that I exaggerate, that I say it from the

of my bourgeois armchair in my house (I don't have an armchair bourgeois, but they presuppose that).

And it is not that easy.

They tell me: “But what?

Does your editor come and tell you not to say that the mother is incestuous or a prostitute?

No, those obvious and rustic mechanisms do not exist.

It is much more subtle, it is a flirtation between the authors and what is sold in the market, it is accepting proposals to write books that are pleasant and seductive for the conformation of catalogues.

It's a kind of mutual seduction.

That is what impresses me the most, the docility that artists adopt.

That the market asks us to do that doesn't surprise me, it's the market, nobody ever liked art.

That the artist has changed, that twist, seems traumatic to me.

Clear Forced.

I have a less extensive speech probably.

I see the culture of cancellation from Spain, which is where I live.

I think it's important where we see things from.

It seems to me that it is a word that has appeared on the scene with great power.

I think of it more within feminism and within the social.

I think it touches literature, obviously, but I am more interested in the debate on feminism.

I see it as one of the many debates and our ambiguities, which are deeply creative from my point of view.

I do not agree with the culture of cancellation, nor do I agree that anything can be said.

With which I am in a very intermediate point.

I think it's an interesting debate, but neither can we deny a culture that we have inscribed on our bodies.

Maria Galindo and Ariana Harwicz. Roberto Antillón

Maria Galindo.

Me

I'm cancelled.

I'm here by absolute chance.

Cancellation can be understood in many ways.

I believe that cancellation, as it is only being understood, is a kind of minor child of the Facebook culture, which is not a social network, but a transnational business network that manages social relations.

Now in the world of publishing and culture, what's up?

There is censorship, there is racism, there is transphobia, there is exclusion, there is omission, there is erasure.

And I think that's important to say.

Whose Wednesday are we reading?

Whose Wednesday are we posting?

It is a vicious circle that has dislodged the place of the, in quotes, the

and creative from a

role to a bourgeois role.

Whether you have the couch or not.

Where are we in Guadalajara?

We're at the fucking Hilton!

Why are we at the Hilton hotel?

Because there is a kind of egocentric and bourgeois humiliation of the cultural elite.

Q.

In practice, who cancels and who is cancelled?

Clear Forced.

I find what she [María Galindo] says interesting, that beyond the culture of cancellation, cancellation is and is inserted in society.

When talking about the culture of cancellation, it seems that there were a lot of crazy women, in general, who are the ones who are dedicated to canceling those who cancel us.

Then the speech is reversed and it is very difficult to speak like that.

What I don't like, personally, is placing myself in a place where I know I'm going to be attacked and not understood in any way, and that's why I opt for attitudes that I would call debate, attitudes that allow us to meet.

That is why I am less exhaustive.

A decided speech would be easier for me, it seems easier to say too.

Maria Galindo.

I fully agree: where there is no debate and where there is no pluralism, that place is dead.

Now, are we going to accept racism as debatable?

Are we going to accept transphobia as debatable?

Are we going to accept death threats as debatable?

We must differentiate the fundamental need for a very plural place to debate what is this phenomenon of racism, classicism, colonialism, transphobia, homophobia and misogyny on stage.

Ariana Harwicz.

[When she talks about] transphobia, are you referring to the political field, to life, to society or in literary texts?

Maria Galindo.

I refer to any of these phenomena in terms of canon to establish the defining frameworks where we are going to debate or where we are going to create.

I am not going to the text, I am not doing a moral police... I am not going to take a text and say "here is a racist character" [because] probably that racist character is essential to generate any discourse.

Another thing is to define the scenarios under a racist or classist or transphobic canon.

That is happening to us every day, now they say there is a cancellation.

These forms of erasure are very long-standing forms.

Ariana Harwicz.

Yes, there is a huge genesis.

I have only been in the literary field for 10 years.

In 10 years, I observe that this cancellation has grown as a daily

, almost banal.

At the beginning –I'm talking about the works– the Mexican, Colombian, Argentine, Chilean or Swedish author who was canceled aroused indignation.

Out there it was an imposture, but it happened.

Now it's a banality... One disappears, two disappear, three disappear.

Who can be cancelled?

Any.

In that sense, I say it a bit cynically, he is democratic.

I don't know if they're going to cancel the one that sells the most.

Clara Obligado during the chat together.

Roberto Antillon

Maria Galindo.

To Vargas Llosa, for example.

Ariana Harwicz.

I have seen authors canceled that I would never have imagined.

They were very heteronormative, white, heteropatriarchal…

Clear Forced.

In Spain there is now a case of recent cancellation in the theater [a play about Teresa de Jesús, by Paco Bezerra, vetoed by the Community of Madrid].

We must not forget that there is clearly a cancellation of those who are neither touchable nor who never question their ideology.

Then the cancellation is applied in reverse.

Ariana Harwicz.

But not only.

Clear Forced.

No, but she has been banned from her play.

That is censorship.

Maria Galindo.

It is very important to return to the word censorship.

Ariana Harwicz.

Then we are all afraid.

Because they told me: "Don't take a picture with such an author from Bogotá because they say he's transphobic, or hates women, or hates men" or "Don't get together with such an author from France because she's being canceled by the comment you made regarding trans women or trans men.”

So there is a logic...

Maria Galindo.

There I strongly disagree.

I do not want transphobia or homophobia or racism to be trivialized.

It's not nonsense.

It's not like it's in all directions.

In the presentation of

among the

there was a lot of fear that people would want to make any kind of demonstration against it.

Ariana Harwicz.

They didn't cancel it?

Maria Galindo.

No. But there was a lot of fear beforehand.

The transphobic act is not the same as the anti-transphobic act...

Clear Forced.

As machismo and feminism are not opposites.

Exactly.

Ariana Harwicz.

The case in France was the other way around.

A book came out,

, or something like that, and they wanted to do a whole series of conferences about their position on trans politics.

They were threatened and all the conferences were lifted.

In other words, there is a kind of censorship on both sides regarding totally different positions.

It happened with Carolina Sanín in Colombia, the crack that occurred was terrible.

It exists, it's real.

There are cancellations in all directions.

Then each one thinks which is fairer.

Maria Galindo.

If you want there are two sides.

But they cannot be compared because they are not the same.

Why aren't they the same?

Because a position of hatred, exclusion, segregation, racism, misogyny is not equivalent to a feminist or

position .

P.

María Galindo proposed to return to the word censorship.

What difference do you see between criticism, cancellation and censorship?

Clear Forced.

Words are emptied of meaning very quickly.

So when we say cancellation, deep down we don't know what we're saying.

I like to use the word censorship, it seems to me that it is more direct.

Now: I do not deny the idea of ​​cancellation because it seems to me that it is a new concept and that it works for us.

But it would be necessary to think that the cancellation could be in one sense or in the other.

Do I agree with those

in a society?

Personally, I do not agree that in a capricious way on the networks I can express an opinion and massacre a person without any kind of foundation.

With the same criteria, the witches were burned.

But I do totally agree that some things cannot be compared.

Some things are on the side of human rights and others are not, they are the opposite.

So the debate must be deeper, it cannot be maintained at that level.

Ariana Harwicz.

I insist on docility because I agree with the reference to the witch hunt, which seems like something from another time and yet it is there.

I live near the medieval towns and villages where they were specifically burned.

The story is there and the one who doesn't want to see it is because he likes to deny the story.

When one says cancel it seems like a very algorithmic thing, but no: it ruins lives.

You are not going to crush ice in Siberia, but there are people who commit suicide, and they stop publishing... In other words, cancellations are acts that disturb and ruin lives.

What impresses me is that many people accept that logic and agree not to say such a thing so as not to disturb such a group or such a movement or such a person or such a human right.

You agree not to write such a thing, not to publish such a thing, not to republish...

Maria Galindo.

I return to the theme of racism, classicism, colonialism, homophobia, misogyny.

We are talking about that, because cancellation is a very laundered term, which ends up, as some people do, relativizing.

That is to say, when you, as a lesbian, as a fag, as a woman from the South, rebel against a racist canon, you are defending yourself against censorship, against historical erasure.

And they will tell you: "No, it's that you want to come and impose."

We do not want to teach anything, but I think it is very important to debate.

A text to exclude and demonize sex workers is not the same as a text by sex workers who claim their claim and, for example, question that someone talks about them without them.

Here we are in neoliberal relativism, but let's call it by its name.

Clear Forced.

That's the danger of the word cancellation, you don't know what the hell it is.

Q.

What is the place of publishers?

Can a publisher stop publishing an author because of his positions or because of political comments that are outside his work?

Clear Forced.

In general, publishers will cancel an author who is not going to sell well.

In other words, if we remove the economic issue from that question, it cannot be analyzed.

The real politics is who is chosen to publish and how much that publication is worth, and that is where things are at stake in literature.

I work in small groups, with which I have another battle, I don't want that battle.

But let's not confuse ideology with money.

Maria Galindo.

In addition there are publishers and publishers.

Something is emerging that has been a very interesting rebellion for many years, the self-management book;

the cardboard publishing house is emerging (if we go to Buenos Aires, Uruguay, even Brazil);

The small independent publishing house that needs to go against the big monsters is emerging with great force, starting at Planeta, going through Anagrama and of course Penguin Random House, which are in a current of capitalist, colonial, class-oriented mercantile management of the book.

The logic of what is published and what is not published is not a quality classification.

Ariana Harwicz.

Obviously we don't agree on anything.

There is a lot of cynicism in editorials, a lot, but we are not discovering anything.

We are not going to discover gunpowder now or America twice.

Maria Galindo.

America was not discovered.

Ariana Harwicz.

That's why it was the joke.

They infantilize us all the time, they correct us in the manner, there are words that can be said, words that cannot... McCarthyism, right?

The official language, I began by saying.

But what I wanted to say is that I know the publishers from the inside, the cardboard ones and the big ones, and it is true that there is a lot of cynicism.

I have heard

a lot of editors saying “we are going to publish women because they sell”.

What I want to say with it?

Do I want women not to be published because they sell?

No, I want them to publish women and all those who were invisible, but you don't have to be innocent.

It is a business and there is an instrumentalization.

There is also an instrumentalization of the speeches in defense of the marginal.

It's normal, it's the market.

Not being the useful idiot is not going into that too.

It is very difficult.

This note, if it's worth anything, is to show how difficult it is.

Q.

Do you want to add anything else?

Ariana Harwicz.

That art is not an NGO;

that I agree with social justice – I have been a militant all my life for social justice – and that I agree that we must have a social conscience, that we are bourgeois, and that neoliberalism is a catastrophe.

I just don't grant art the power to do justice or have humanitarian missions.

Not just art, everything else yes.

It doesn't now, it never did.

Clear Forced.

I find all the topics that we have dealt with in such a simple way super difficult.

It seems impossible to seriously agree because we don't quite know what we're talking about.

I think that I am close to a small personal opinion, not much more.

Maria Galindo.

I would invite [Pier Paolo] Pasolini to read.

I think he placed things very well, why write, why write.

Furthermore, in a field that reissues several of the conflicts we are in, which is the field of fascism, because he was assassinated by fascism.

Ariana Harwicz.

And they tried to censor him several times, the Church, and he did not give in.

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