TfL: ‘Normal People’ boycott posters are acts of vandalism
TFL HAS instructed staff to remove from its network posters celebrating author Sally Rooney’s boycott of Israel, calling them an “act of vandalism”.
Posters parodying the cover of the author’s bestseller Normal People were spotted across London over the weekend with many people on social media calling on TfL to remove them. The posters read: “Normal People Boycott Israel.”
Last week, Rooney blocked an Israeli publisher from releasing her latest novel in Hebrew to protest against “Israel’s system of racial domination and segregation against Palestinians”.
Several sightings of the artwork were reported across London with one prominent display at Vauxhall station.
The group Protest Stencil, which has a history of anti-Israel public artwork, is believed to be behind the posters, posting a picture on Twitter with the caption: “You can tell a lot about a person from whether their solidarity is with the coloniser or the colonised. Respect to Sally Rooney for her principled stand in support of Palestinians.
“Those with a colonial mindset…dismiss Palestinians and other racialised people as lesser, uncultured, incapable of rational political thought. They argue against BDS on that shaky basis, ‘We know better than you how you should challenge your oppression.’”
Advertising company JCDecaux, which owns the advertising locations, originally said on social media that
it believed the images to be photoshopped.
After more tweets from concerned members of the community, it later said: “We remain ready to remove any flyposted posters and our teams will check any sites posted on social as having these posters.”
A TfL spokesperson said: “These adverts are not authorised by TfL or our advertising partner JCDecaux. It is flyposting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously.
“We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network immediately.”
Protest Stencil has been approached for comment.