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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   227 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 22, 2026

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You may be familiar with the Irish Millennial novelist Sally Rooney. Her second novel Normal People was adapted into a TV miniseries which launched the careers of Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. I've never read any of her novels, but based on the excerpts I've read, they really do not sound like my cup of tea. I've heard multiple critics independently compare her novels (at least, the first two or three) to Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, arguing that, while they're marketed as sophisticated, class-conscious chronicles of Millennial Irish angst, they're ultimately just sadomasochistic romantic fantasies for women with NPR tote bags.

Being both Irish and painfully leftist (she routinely characterises herself as a Marxist), of course Rooney has a bee in her bonnet about Israel, refusing for many years to allow her novels to be translated into Hebrew and occasionally going on (in my opinion) deranged rants about how freeing Palestine means freeing the entire world or something. She recently announced her intention to donate the royalties of sales of her novels within the UK to Palestine Action, which would constitute a criminal offense, as Palestine Action is a proscribed terrorist organisation. And with good reason: several of their members broke into a British arms facility with the intent of smashing up the place and, when confronted by police officers, struck a female officer with a sledgehammer hard enough to break her spine. In their spare time, they also go around London under cover of darkness smearing red paint on businesses owned by Jews Zionists. As distributing royalties to her knowing that she intends to donate them to a proscribed organisation would put them in breach of the law, her UK publisher Faber & Faber have announced their decision (with Rooney's blessing) to withdraw her novels from publication within the UK. Naturally, this has resulted in a massive spike in sales before the withdrawal comes into effect, along with an open letter making some very idiotic comparisons between Rooney and Salman Rushdie. Voluntarily withdrawing your books from publication is not censorship (as Brendan O'Neill notes, if Rooney really wanted to funnel her money into Palestine Action's coffers, I'm sure she could do so under the table – no need to make such a big song and dance out of it). No one has issued a fatwa on Rooney's head, nor will they ever.

The whole thing is very dumb and retarded, and reading about it is making me depressed.

I have mixed feelings about this. On principle, I am opposed to any speech restrictions outside of very narrow "clear and present danger" boundaries. 99.99% of what is published is garbage anyway, so if somebody wants that garbage, let them have it. However, since we live in a clown world, and UK is one of the most retarded clownships in existence, beaten only by its Anglosphere satellites (Ireland, Australia, Canada - all in a race to out-clown each other), I can't but feel some pleasure when something bad happens to very bad and extremely retarded people. There's no chance UK anytime soon becomes anything resembling a proper country, so at least once in a while people who deserve it suffer from it.

You may be familiar with the Irish Millennial novelist Sally Rooney.

Now that hurt....

I'm as opposed to the UK's absurd restrictions on freedom of expression as anyone else. But, to be clear, Rooney has not fallen afoul of British laws penalising certain kinds of speech. It is simply against the law to provide financial aid to a proscribed organisation. One might disagree with Palestine Action being so designated, but this case really has nothing to do with freedom of expression or censorship so far as I can see.

Its especially not a free speech issue since presumably there are plenty of other organizations she could have given the money to. UNRWA, for instance, hasn't been designated a terrorist organization (that I know of), and they're kind of the official Palestinian-helping org.

UNRWA, for instance, hasn't been designated a terrorist organization

Although perhaps they should have been.

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