I've Been Canceled in Ireland

Another day, another conversation silenced.

It doesn’t seem to be stopping.

Late on a Tuesday night in London two weeks ago, I was packing my bag for the following morning’s flight to Dublin. I was scheduled to deliver the prizegiving speech at the High School, having accepted an invitation six months before. But then an email pinged into my inbox. Upon opening it, I discovered a message from the headmaster notifying me that he had been “instructed” to cancel my visit. The instructor was Dr Duncan Cole, the Citibank chair of the school’s board of management, who had acted after consulting Ian Byrne, chair of the governors. No explanation was given me then, and none has been offered since.

So, I cannot be sure of what had happened. I can, however, make a guess informed by previous experience. I suspect that, when the programme for the prizegiving was published earlier this week, someone with influence—and maybe money—had seen my name and took indignant exception. They objected fiercely to my being given a platform, because of my outrageous views of the British Empire and slavery-reparations. Or rather, they objected because of what they imagine those views to be, since most of my critics lazily depend on second-hand reports that pleasure their prejudices, rather than rouse themselves to read (and think about) what I’ve actually written. The outraged then applied pressure to Dr Cole, who quickly folded.

So, what are my outrageous views? In my 2023 book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, I am explicit in displaying the evils and injustices that the British Empire presided over, listing them on page 276. No whitewashing there, then. Yet, I challenge anyone to name me a four-hundred-year-long state, anywhere, that didn’t involve similar wrongs.