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J K Rowling slams Putin for dragging her into ‘cancel culture’ rant against West
Putin accused West of trying to cancel Russia’s rich musical and literary culture in the same way it had cancelled author JK Rowling over her views on transgender issues.
British author J K Rowling has pushed backed after Russian President Vladimir Putin dragged her in his critique of Western “cancel culture”.
“Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics,” Rowling wrote on Twitter while sharing a link to an article about jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny.
On Friday, Putin accused West of trying to cancel Russia’s rich musical and literary culture in the same way it had cancelled Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, over her views on transgender issues, Rowling has been criticised for her alleged binary views on sex and gender, especially after a series of tweets in which she said people who menstruate are explicitly women.
She had received huge backlash on social media as her critics argued that transgenders, non-binary people and gender-nonconforming people can also menstruate. The author, however, stood her ground and said that biological sex is real and can not be erased.
“The notorious cancel culture has become a cancellation of culture. Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov are excluded from concert posters, and Russian writers and their books are also banned," Putin said during a videoconference with cultural figures, comparing it to actions taken by Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
The Russian President added that "not so long ago, the children's writer J.K. Rowling was also cancelled because she ... did not please the fans of so-called gender freedoms."
"Today they are trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people," he said. "I am talking about the gradual discrimination against everything linked to Russia."
